John's Letter Archives

FALL 2005

NAMASTE,

As the senior teacher in one of the host cities for Mr. Iyengar’s tour of the United States this fall, I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of Mr.Iyengar’s new book, Light On Life. I have just finished reading it, and although I am, of course, completely biased, nonetheless, I can say without reservation that I think it is brilliant.

The brilliance of Light On Life lies in the scope of its vision and the articulateness with which it presents the underlying philosophy of B.K.S. Iyengar. This is not a book about technique. That has already been done definitively in Light On Yoga and Light On Pranayama. And it is not simply a book about classical yoga philosophy. That was examined in depth in Light On The Yoga Sutras. Light On Life is instead the culmination of the Light On... series, and in it Mr. Iyengar shares in clear language and accessible analogies, examples, and metaphors, the wisdom he has gained from his seventy years of intense yoga practice and teaching and his eighty-six years as a thoughtful, vibrant human being living a householder’s life of home and family in the world. Because the observations and ideas he expresses are obviously the product of prolonged practice and deep contemplation, there are an honesty and immediacy to them that convey a sense of comfortable confidence devoid of arrogance. One recognizes by his words that Mr. Iyengar knows what he knows and that he knows who he is, and the absence of pretense is inviting and refreshing.

The framework for the book is based on the classical Yoga philosophy of the five sheaths or bodies (kosas) and the seeker’s inward journey to the core of being. But the creativity and originality of Mr. Iyengar’s own mind and his perceptive, often humorous use of familiar everyday life situations turn what could be a tedious slog in less skilled hands into a penetrating examination of how ordinary life provides the serious practitioner with opportunities to progress toward the ultimate goal of yoga: freedom.

My experience is that Iyengar Yoga is often misunderstood. This is, in part, due to the inadequacies of those of us who teach the Iyengar method. None of us, truth be told, does justice to the depth and range of the Iyengars’ teachings. We do our best, but the fact of the matter is that there are only three true Iyengar teachers in the world: B.KS., Geeta, and Prashant Iyengar. The rest of us take what we can from their teachings, distill it in the vat of our own practice, and then offer our understanding of Iyengar Yoga to our students as honestly and accurately as we can. Light On Life gives people who will never have the chance to study with B.K.S. Iyengar an opportunity to encounter the essence of his teaching in his own words.

For me, as a longtime student of Mr. Iyengar and a fervent advocate of his teachings, the book contains a tremendous amount of material that is tremendously valuable to me. One small section near the end of the book, however, spoke to me in a very particular way at this point in my life. This December will mark my 60th birthday. Of course, the birthdays ending in zeroes are always milestones of sorts, and although each of them is really just another day, most of us are inclined to give them special significance, to use them to measure the passage of our lives and/or to contemplate avenues taken, not taken, or about to be taken.

The section of the book that caught my attention was titled "The Four Stages of Human Life" (ashrama)", particularly Mr. Iyengar’s discussion of the third stage. In it he says, "The performance of duty becomes instinctive. Detachment is always a struggle. That is why the third stage of life is one of progressive letting go. It is called vanaprastharama, which means the beginnings of non-attachment while continuing to live in the bosom of one’s family. To a businessman it might imply turning over the reins of his business to his sons and daughters so that they can fully enter into the householder stage. It is a letting go of control, not of oneself, far from it, but from the minute control of one’s immediate environment, of all that one believes one has built up in the world….After all, the clock is ticking and old age will not be delayed for long, and death will one day come knocking at your door. Best to prepare oneself in time. Yet unlike retirement in the West, which is just an end to productive work, this is a spiritual stage filled with growth and learning."

In India, age 60 is the classical time at which one begins the process of leaving the world of the world and moving into the world of the spirit. Since the shortness of life and the preciousness of time have been becoming more and more apparent to me, I have decided to use the occasion of my 60th birthday to start to scale back my teaching schedule both at home and on the road. As of the fall session, I am reducing my classes at Unity Woods from seven a week to five a week. I am turning my Tuesday Level II class over to Suzanne Sigüenza’s capable hands, and I am giving up my Level IV on Thursday. This is tough for me because these are my most dedicated and accomplished pupils, but the only way to find more time is to find more time. These students are devoted enough to the practice to maintain their high level without a weekly class, and I will from time to time offer Level IV workshops to share what I can with them and others who are ready. I am expanding the Tuesday night Level III class, which is a strong class, to two hours so that we will have time to go into the practice more deeply. Pranayama will move from Tuesday to Thursday, and except for Wednesday night, all my class times will change. Please check the schedule for these changes.

As Mr. Iyengar said, "Detachment is always a struggle." But it is inevitable one way or another. "Best to prepare oneself in time." So I enter what feels like the beginning of a new chapter, interesting (as they all are) and full of promise and possibility. And I look forward to dancing with the damsel of time in a new and different way, a way as yet unknown to me, but a way that swirls and slides to a slower beat.