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Light on life
This, he does in a simple evocative style giving examples from his personal life as also invoking Patanjali the author of the Yoga Sutras and the father of yoga as also among others Descartes, Christ and Laotze It is a reader-friendly style and seeks to simplify what would other be a complex subject, as one has to grapple with such metaphysical concepts as consciousness and the soul. The book actually begins with his own yogic journey after his birth, in 1918, as a sickly child, to his learning yoga under his guru the formidable Shriman Krishnamacharya. This journey is described all too briefly and one gets the clear impression that he is a lot keener that one embarks on an individual yoga journey rather than describing his own yoga journey which he described to me at some length when I interviewed him (see accompanying article). And it is a truly remarkable journey from humble beginnings to pre-eminence against great odds. As his largest and most enthusiastic audience is in the West, one gets the feeling while reading the book that he has an eye on that audience. As a 11-year-old in 1974, I started my brief tryst with yoga as a student of BKS Iyengar. Every Sunday morning I would attend classes at 7.30 at the Champion School for three hours. I vividly remember Guruji, as he was affectionately called, walking up and down among the students lecturing about the correct way to do a posture, invoking Patanjali and other ancient gurus. He never hesitated in slapping the thigh of a student if a particular asana was not being properly executed. At a moment’s notice, he demonstrated an asana perfectly, occasionally cracking a joke or telling an anecdote to lighten the mood. Often while reading this book I got the feeling that I was back to one of those classes and that Guruji was speaking directly to me. Towards the end of the book, he describes the savasana which is the corpse pose as being one of the most difficult poses if done as it ought to be done because it involves the momentary shedding of the personality. But he says at the same time that in many of his students fall asleep at the end of a hard class while doing the savasana and you can hear them snoring. As a rule, he never disturbs them. This is typical of Guruji, talking about the most difficult pose with humour and insight. It is a tough journey from
asana to samadhi actually it is a journey encompassing the
human condition. It is Guruji’s skill that he makes the journey look
possible, if not exactly simple. |
FROM
his bestselling yoga book of all time, Light on Yoga, published
for the first time in 1966, after many rejections, to 18 books later his
new book Light on Life it has been a long journey for one of our
most prominent yoga gurus B.K.S. Iyengar. A journey which has not only
been fulfilling in that it has made yoga a household name in the West
and popular in India. Whereas the Light on Yoga concentrated an asanas
this book is broader in outlook and takes us through the ‘yogic
journey’ which guides us from our periphery, the body, to the centre
of our being, the soul. The aim is to integrate the various layers so
that the inner divinity shines out as though clear glass.’ This he
does by identifying the various layers of our body which are like an
onion or a Russian doll where one is nested in another and include our
energetic body (the prananamaya kosa) our mortal body (the Vijramaya
kosa) and our blissful or soul body (the anandmaya kosa).