Full Moon in June--Levitating with Iyengar

Full Moon in June

Levitating with Iyengar—“By mastery of udana vayu, the yogi can walk over water, swamps and thorns without touching them. S/he can also levitate.” Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras III.40, Iyengar translation

Sometimes I wonder how it felt for BKS Iyengar to put himself on a plane and travel for the first time out of India. It’s been mentioned to me that devout Brahmins (he was of that tribe) do not allow their kin to travel out of the motherland. Krishnamacharya, BKS’s guru, never went abroad, though his son, Desikachar did. There is a fine new biography of BKS Iyengar by Rashmi Palkhivala, called “A Life of Light.”

The story of Guruji’s first trip overseas is told in Chapter Eleven, “The Flight of the Yogl.”  The Brahmin prohibition against crossing the seas is based on the belief that the ocean is a resting place for gods and they should never be disturbed. Iyengar did check with his mother, who gave her blessing for his trip, though his uncles vowed that their nephew would never enter their homes again.

The year was 1954. Iyengar had an invitation from Menuhin, who called him “my best violin teacher”, because after working with Iyengar, Menuhin could play again as his serious back pain resolved. Iyengar’s destination was Gstaad, Switzerland. The entire family and some faithful students came to the airport in Mumbai to see him off. This was the fateful journey that opened so many doors for him and for his teaching, and for yoga in the west. Palkhivala’s biography tells the sad story of how emaciated Iyengar was after returning home, since at that time there was little understanding of the vegetarian diet. The story is sadder still, because the hotel administration at the Gstaad establishment where he stayed insisted that he stay in his room so as not to disturb other guests, who were not used to seeing people of color there. Staying in his room was even a compromise, because at first, the staff would not even let him enter. Only pressure from Menuhin led to the “solution.”

Now I’m circling back to the Yoga Sutras and Iyengar’s commentary on Patanjali’s work.  In the second chapter, which is entitled the chapter “on practice”, there is a sutra (33) which describes what is to be done in the face of principles which run contrary to Yama and Niyama, the great moral and ethical vows of yoga. Iyengar’s translation: “Principles which run contrary to Yama and Niyama are to be countered with the knowledge of discrimination.” I think Bryant’s rendering is also helpful here: “Upon being harassed by negative thoughts, one should cultivate contracting thoughts.” Iyengar’s commentary on the sutra includes a discussion of the measuring process we call “paksha pratipaksha”—applying counteracting thoughts. He says “This is in some respects the key to why yoga practice actually works, why it has mechanical power to revolutionize our whole being. It is why asana is not gymnastics, why pranayama is not deep breathing, why dhyana is not self-induced trance, why Yama is not just morality…. We are taught nowadays that the miracle of the world’s ecosystem is its balance, a balance which modern man is fast destroying by deforestation, pollution, over-consumption. This is because when man becomes unbalanced, he seeks to change not himself but his environment, in order to create the illusion that he is enjoying health and harmony. In winter he overheats his house, in summer he freezes it with air-conditioning. This is not stability but arrogance.”

We all realize how many times after 1954 Iyengar crossed the oceans of the world. He did, however, realize that though his Brahmin tribe believed that the gods in the ocean must not be disturbed, with his mother’s permission, he travelled to share the art and science of yoga with the rest of the world. His last airplane journey may have been to China, where he taught at a convention in 2011. 

Now the world faces a tipping point in so many ways. All my reading and research in the last almost five years (since my granddaughter was born) indicates that yesterday was the time to take action on our global climate crisis. In our yoga community, we have a system that depends on people flying around the country for assessments. Surely we can by now find a better way to assess that will bring less harm to the atmosphere. There is a movement afoot to encourage academics to travel less to conferences. With all our technologies available for video conferencing, we should be able to solve this puzzle of feeling as though we need to fly people or fly ourselves around the globe many times a year. A statistic I saw recently said that every roundtrip ticket from New York to London melts three cubic meters of Arctic Ice.

Countries with smaller economies than ours are at greater risk as we go through this transition to carbon neutrality (I hope and pray we are on the way). All this is on my mind as I go through June remembering how last year we were preparing for a journey to Pune, and prepare myself to fly to teach in Costa Rica. This will, at least, be the last time I teach there, and though it is an inspiring country to visit (they plan to be carbon neutral amazingly soon—maybe by 2025, if I remember correctly), I can live comfortably in Austin, or wherever I have to be.

May all beings flourish!