Thursday, February 18, 2016

B.K.S. Iyengar's Birthday Celebration, Pune, India 2015

Guruji Iyengar’s 97th Birthday, 14 December 2015

We gathered at Govinda Gardens at 6 pm. The open-air theatre was beautifully decorated with malas of marigolds surrounding images of gods at the back of the stage, and then around busts of Rama\amani and B.K.S. Iyengar toward the front. A podium was to stage right, the family was seated in the front rows, along with the almost one dozen speakers from all over the world who had prepared speeches about their experiences with Guruji.

Rajvi Mehta was mistress of ceremonies, and gracefully introduced the many speakers one by one. Some obviously had significant time to prepare their talk, others (like Maria below) only a very short time. All, however, spoke absolutely from the heart, or so it seemed to this listener.

Leslie Hogya from Victoria, Canada, spoke first. She gave a careful summary of Iyengar’s visits to Canada, once to Vancouver and Victoria and once to Edmonton and Toronto., She had a wonderful story of Iyengar and his Canadian friends crossing the Georgia Straight (the body of water west of Vancouver between the mainland and Vancouver Island). Apparently at one point the owner of the boat commented that it was too bad that one could not practice yoga asana on a boat. “Nonsense,” declared Iyengar. He soon had everyone on board hanging from bunkbeds, standing with support of various available solid objects, and understanding that yes, indeed, yoga asana IS possible on a boat!

Leslie also recounted a serious shoulder injury which she suffered three or so years ago. She wrote to Iyengar to ask if she should bring herself to the medical classes with her problem. He answered yes, IF she was willing to put up with “almost unbearable pain.” She was, and attended the medical classes two years ago to receive his help. She demonstrated to all of us present the great range of motion she now has in her injured shoulder after Iyengar yoga therapy.

Next up was Faeq Biria, one of Iyengar’s longest standing students. Guruji stayed often with Faeq and travelled with him all around Europe. Apparently in the 70’s, even before Faeq had married his wife Corine, Iyengar stayed with him in his apartment for the long span of two and a half months. He had told Faeq that they would live together as two bachelors. Iyengar, after his morning practices, would walk the neighborhood, making friends everywhere. Even the baker obliged his dietary requirements, preparing breads and pastries without eggs for him to eat. Faeq was the first of many speakers who told of Iyengar’s love of speed. Many times he had his student/hosts in Europe and elsewhere take the speed of their cars way beyond the legal limit. Thank goodness the authorities were not around to make arrests, and thank goodness the hosts were good drivers!

My memory may not be serving me well to recount the exact order of speakers, but I am fairly certain that Xavi (pronounced “Chavi”) from Alicante, Spain was next. His strong Spanish accent made it a little difficult to make out every single word he said. However, it was clear again that Iyengar wanted to go faster when Xavi was driving him from one place to another, and once they even ran out of gas! Iyengar’s amazing calm became evident at this point. For an hour they had to wait on a deserted road for help to come, but Guruji had no anxieties. Xavi also mentioned that he had shown photographs of Iyengar in various postures to other spiritual masters, and all had verified that Iyengar was obviously deeply in touch with his inner/pranic body, and in fact, was a siddha (one who has mastered the powers—siddhis—mentioned in chapter three of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali).

In contrast, when Maria Flores spoke, she mentioned that she  and her husband John had taken Iyengar in their camper bus with their children to visit various places around Holland. The camper bus was, of course, very slow, and since it had a couple of bunks, Guruji was able to have a nice savasana on a bunk during one of  their journeys. In this case, understanding that the van was naturally slow, he did not request to be driven faster. Maria spoke of her studentship from the perspective of being a mother. Her sister Annemieke and her husband John were both devotees of Iyengar. Maria did what yoga practice she could while still looking after the kids.

Jawahar Bangera was the only one of Guruji’s senior Indian students to speak. He told of being literally dragged to a yoga class by his parents when he was a teenager. Everyone knows how much teenagers like to sleep in the morning, and it was an early morning class. I can only imagine how resentful he might have felt. But the yoga began to catch his interest, and today he is one of the most senior teachers and one of the longest-time students. He commented that many of the early students of Iyengar yoga in Mumbai were Parsee, for example Sam and Freny Motivala. Today of course, Iyengar students come in all shapes and sizes, are of all ages and stages, and live in almost every country in the world. 

Jawahar also mentioned that Guruji would sometimes get impatient with his students. At times like that, he would say, “I have taken the poison and the nectar from these asanas. I am giving you the nectar and you are only taking the poison.”  To me, this speaks to Iyengar’s generosity, and also to the fact that as teachers, we sometimes struggle to find the right words to convey the action in an asana, or the fine points of a philosophical principle.

Gabriella Giubilaro from Florence, Italy, spoke about her early classes in Pune with Iyengar. She apparently had some fear of him, for she described hiding behind any pillar or post that she could find so that he would not see her. Of course he had an eagle eye and saw everyone, hiding or not!  Apparently he had friends in Florence, so he visited her there. She, like many others, described driving him within Italy, I think to Rome, and being asked to go faster, faster!!!

Pixie Lillas from Australia described the early, much smaller classes at RIMYI in the seventies. She told us how intensely Iyengar would teach his students then, and how, just when they thought they were spent, he would come up with another asana or two to do. Even exhausted, they found that with his fire and encouragement, they COULD do more.

Stephanie Quirk spoke next. She has lived in Pune for twenty years, and helped Iyengar often with his writings (he would always write long hand, she said, so much transcribing needed to be done to bring out the 25 books he wrote in his lifetime!).  Among others, she mentioned how Guruji would study and meet with people downstairs in the library, and how much she learned about him as she watched him interact with students, teachers, journalists, other yogis, and famous people from all over. She described Iyengar as “an ordinary man, BUT…..”  He was one who understood the link between shraddha (faith) and virya (strength) so completely that he was liberated by that faith in his relations with all different kinds of people. Iyengar showed friendliness (maitri) to all. Established in his faith and strength, he never covered anything or held himself back. He was a man, she said at the end of her talk, who “held his ground.” He always impressed me in the same way in the few meetings I had with him, so much so that I think of his signature pose as tadasana, rather than natarajasana or hanumanasana.

Patricia Walden spoke about Guruji’s message about love. Many times she was asked to come to a platform at a mega class or at RIMYI to demonstrate a pose. One time she was asked to demonstrate paschimottanasana. He gave adjustments and verbal hints and then asked her what she felt. Thinking of the adjustments and words, she said, something like “I felt my thoracic spine move in and the sternum move forward.” Iyengar was not pleased with her answer. When the opportunity came up to demonstrate the same pose soon after, she reported that when he asked her again what she felt in the pose, her answer at that moment “bypassed her brain.”  She was able to answer that she felt “silence and space.” or words close to those. He responded that yes, that was what he wanted her to notice in the pose. She described how luminously he transmitted love, space, and silence, She said that Iyengar always maintained that love “cannot be taught, but only transmitted.”  Patricia declared that for her, his main message was about love.

Prashantji took the stage at the very last, and we were regaled with a glimpse of his new book, “Discourses on Yog.” already sold out at the RIMYI bookstore, by the way. He spoke of his father as both teacher and parent. I’m not sure whether it was Prashant or another speaker, but someone who spoke pointed out that Iyengar himself was a bhaktin of yoga, Geeta a karmin, and Prashant a jnanin. B.K.S. Iyengar played many roles in his life—father, husband, teacher, philsopher, author, artist. Clearly he is remembered in different ways by different people, and though he may from the outside sometimes have seemed sometimes ferocious, sometimes  ordinary, he was, in the end, truly an extraordinary, loving human being.

May we long live in his light, and may we share this light with generations to come!!!