Being BKS Iyengar: The enlightened yogi of yoga

THE ART OF GOOD LIVING: Iyengar says he's responsible for promoting vegetarianism in the West.

        

Featured Blog

Suhasini Haidar

This Too Shall Not Pass

Featured Slideshows

Anuradha SenGupta: You spend four hours daily on yoga, three hours on asanas and one hour on pranayam?

BKS Iyengar: At this age too I do not stop. Sometimes I do pranayam in the evenings as well. Deliberate pranayam is for one hour and non deliberate pranayam goes on.

Anuradha SenGupta: Would you advise people to study on their own or you think teacher is important. You studied on your own.

BKS Iyengar: That was one rare case. A teacher is needed. But teachers are rare today. That’s why I found a lot of props.

Anuradha SenGupta: When you first thought of these props, was it instrinctive or did you think of culture, sex etc?

BKS Iyengar: It was instinctive. When I had an accident, my spine got tilted. But I can show in pranayam how my spine is tilted. No one else can understand it. Normally, my spine is straight, alert and active. But in pranayam you can’t see that division. I became a beginner after my accident. I had to remodel my props to be able to practice and not stop yoga at all. Suppose I lose my limbs, should I stop or should I use some methodology to continue practicing? So I created all this. Now I can even teach an amputated person because I have done it on my own.

Anuradha SenGupta: There are no references of this in old scriptures and sculptures?

BKS Iyengar: There are references. Take Narsimha, for instance. He was tied with a cloth. That’s enough for me that if Lord Narsimha crosses his legs in his dhyana (meditation), why should I not find means. Yogis were doing asanas on trees. How do they do it? I started using ropes for them to do sheershasana. If you see a banyan tree, there are roots that are tied in loops. So I told my students they could practice sheershasan there. That’s how I found out how yogis were doing.

Anuradha SenGupta: Is there a right way and a wrong way of doing yoga?

BKS Iyengar: There’s a right way. There can’t be a wrong way of doing yoga.

Anuradha SenGupta: As a novice, how do I decide whether to buy a CD of Baba Ramdev or go to the Iyengar institute near my house?

BKS Iyengar: General practice is needed. God has given us discriminatory powers. Through that, you have to think for yourself. If there’s no feedback, try finding you from presentations what is wrong. And then decide what is better.

Anuradha SenGupta: With the kind of respect, recognition, fame, affection and love you have got from people, how do you ensure your ego doesn’t get into your way?

BKS Iyengar: I am thankful to God and yoga that they punish me. I keep getting injuries and become quiet. I am happy that something comes to me so I can devote more time to my practice and be free from these egoistic issues.

Anuradha SenGupta: I normally don’t ask this question because it’s the simplest question. But what is it being BKS Iyengar? With yoga you have seen inside yourself. What have you seen of yourself. Who are you?

BKS Iyengar: ‘I’ is the soul. I can live in that ‘I’ without any movement in my mind. But that’s not my aim in life. My aim is that I have suffered and I have to share my knowledge with others. So I know what freedom is but somehow my mind tells me to share whatever I have. So I come back to my life. And if you leave me, I go back to my original ‘I’. My life is about giving the world something they can live happily with.

Anuradha SenGupta: Thank you for sharing so much of your time with us.