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Fall 1998

NAMASTE,

As the leaves change their colors, signaling the passage from one season to another, this autumn also heralds the arrival of a couple of milestones. The 80th birthday of my teacher, B.K.S. Iyengar, which takes place on Dec. 14, is one of them. To honor the occasion and the man, his daughter, Geeta, and son, Prashant, both of whom teach with him at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, have joined with the rest of his family, friends and students to plan two weeks of festivities (Dec 1-14). Some two thousand students from all over the world are expected to attend. During that time a variety of ceremonies and events will take place, among them classes in a local stadium for all two thousand students at once(!). These are rumored to be the last classes Mr. Iyengar will give before retiring from teaching altogether. (Also the largest, no doubt.)

Several of the Unity Woods faculty—Joe, Giulia, Mary, Colleen and I—are planning to make the journey to participate in the festivities. This will be Colleen’s and Giulia’s first trip to Pune; the rest of us have been before. (There will be substitutes teaching these teachers’ classes the last three weeks of the session. Check with your teacher or with the office if you want more information.) We all look forward to the opportunity to show our appreciation to the man who has given so much, directly and indirectly, to us all.

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It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Iyengar has had a profound impact on the way yoga, especially Hatha Yoga, is taught and practiced in the world today. Although there are numerous traditions and systems of yoga, many have been influenced by the methods he has developed in his sixty years of teaching. Some imitate his use of detailed anatomical descriptions in teaching the movements and actions of the asanas, pranayamas, bandhas and mudras. Others now employ props, a practice which Mr. Iyengar pioneered, to assist practitioners in attaining and refining poses which otherwise would have been unavailable to them and whose benefits they would have missed. His emphasis on precision in the poses, alignment, and balance have influenced not only yoga but other movement disciplines as well. And his efforts and the methods he has developed have been instrumental in the rapidly growing Western acceptance of yoga. These are only a few of the reasons that we are pleased and honored to be able to go to his birthday celebration in Pune and offer our feelings of gratitude and respect.

The second milestone revolves around the fact that in September of 1973, I taught my first yoga classes. That means that as of the beginning of the fall session, I have been teaching yoga for twenty-five years. As I allow this realization to sink in, a variety of emotions arise, among them, amazement, pride, humility, joy, and gratitude.

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Amazement, first, that so much time has gone by. Whereditgo? Amazement also at what has transpired in my teaching career and in the world of yoga in that time. Yoga has gone from being on the fringes of society, a haven for weirdos, hippies and little old ladies, to the center of the mainstream. You hear and see it mentioned everywhere nowadays. I have gone from conducting a class for a handful of students in the basement of Herbert Hoover Junior High to teaching at and directing a yoga center with three studios, sixteen teachers, and fifteen hundred students. I have also traveled all over the world to teach, having conducted classes in twenty-three states and five foreign countries.

I feel pride in these accomplishments, and in the fact that I have had articles published in magazines, books and newsletters; been featured in newspaper and magazine stories; appeared on radio and television and as a model in the Yoga Journal calendar; and produced two best-selling audio cassette tapes. I am, perhaps, most proud of the teachers at Unity Woods and the part I have played in helping them to become such fine practitioners and instructors.

Humility arises each and every day in my classes and in my practice. In spite of everything I have mentioned being proud of, I see that I have barely scratched the surface of this limitless subject, this art of such infinite scope, this science of life and spirit. Every day, on the mat and in the classroom, I confront how little I know and understand how far there is to go.

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Joy comes for many of the same reasons as humility: that there is so much more to see, touch, and taste in exploring the subtleties and intricacies of yoga, and that the journey has just begun. Joy also comes in seeing the light of yoga shine in the eyes of the students, in helping them to touch the joy of yoga within themselves. And joy comes in tasting the sweetness of my own breath and hearing, even briefly, the sound of silence in myself.

Gratitude is, I suppose, what I feel most strongly. To have been given so much, to be able to spend my days doing something I so love to do, to earn a living at something I’d gladly do for free, to be able to offer a gift of such exquisite value to others, to receive so much from my colleagues and students, and to participate in the vast, inexorable flow toward awakening and wholeness of which we are all, consciously or unconsciously, a part, for this I am deeply thankful. And for one more thing, as well: for the instruction and inspiration that I have received from my teacher for the past twenty-three of these twenty-five years, B.K.S. Iyengar – first in the form of his incomparable book, Light On Yoga, which helped mold my practice for nearly six years, and then in the form of his own incomparable person and teaching, which has guided me for the past eighteen of these wonderful twenty-five years. This is why I’m going to India.

Because I’ll be away for all of December, I’ll miss the holiday party this year for the first time since we began holding them, so I take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy holiday season.

       

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