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From Subhamoy Das, April 26th 2004. Renowned yoga teacher and
founder of the popular Iyengar yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar was recently
selected as one of the Top 100 People by Time Magazine in
the Hero's and Icons category.
The term "Iyengar" yoga has also made its way to the lexicon.
The latest edition of Oxford Dictionary of
English defines "Iyengar" "a type of hatha yoga focusing on
the correct alignment of the body, making use of straps, wooden
blocks and other objects as aids to achieving correct postures.-
ORIGIN named after B.K.S. Iyengar (born 1918), the Indian yoga
teacher who devised this method."
Here is an excerpt from his entry in Time Top 100 People,
written by one of his students:
"Our bodies are great. They carry our brains around wherever we
want to go, sit us down with a friend for a good meal or make us
feel invigorated after a run or a swim. Yoga may have origins
outside our culture, but its benefits are felt within it. The
beauty of Iyengar yoga in particular is the revelation that
there is a living architecture hidden in all of us that only
needs unveiling. Like any architecture, it demands diamond like
precision. In fact B.K.S. Iyengar teaches that the body should
flow into a yoga posture the way light fills a well cut diamond.
Iyengar is 85 now, and he still teaches at the institute in
Pune, India that he founded in 1973. He taught his first class
in 1936, but it wasn't until he struck up a life long friendship
with violinist Yehudhi Menuhin that Iyengar brought his
teachings to the West. His 1966 book "Light on Yoga"- with 300
pages of instruction and photographs of postures, or asanas -
introduced yoga to people around the globe. Aficionados founded
Iyengar groups in the U.S. as early as 1974 and slowly fed what
has become mainstream Western acceptance of a 3,000 - year - old
Indian tradition. Iyengar teaches practitioners to lavish
attention on the body. The goal is to tie the mind to the breath
and the body, not an idea. His philosophy is Eastern, but his
vision is universalist. You can incorporate Iyengar into your
life and yoga....Iyengar knows what the body needs, and he's
introduced to the West the Easterner's best path to health and
well-being." (Time, April 26, 2004)
Iyengar's yoga disciples include author Aldous Huxley,
cricketers Martin Crowe and Sachin Tendulkar, film personalities
Naseerudin Shah and Meera Nair, politician Murli Manohar Joshi,
and the Queen mother of Belgium, among other celebrities.
Bellur Krishnamacher Sundararaja (BKS) Iyengar was born on
December 14, 1918. He was a victim of malaria, typhoid and
tuberculosis in his childhood. At the age of 16, his Guru Sri T.
Krishnamacharya introduced him to the physical discipline of
yoga. Gradually he mastered the art and science of yoga and took
it to a higher level.
Iyengar's practice and teachings were well appreciated by
India's first President Dr. Rajendra Prasad, and Pope Paul VI,
among other eminent personalities from different countries. A
fortuitous meeting with Yehudi Menuhin in 1952 was the beginning
of Iyengar's foray into the Western world. In 1975, he
inaugurated the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute (RIMYI)
in Pune, named after his wife. Hie teachings were first
published in 1966 as Light on Yoga, which was translated
into 18 languages. Today, he is the author of 14 books.
Iyengar was the first person to teach large groups of students.
Even at the age of 85, he continues to practice and is always at
ease in any posture he performs.
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B.K.S. Iyengar - hailed as "the
Michelangelo of yoga" (BBC) and considered by many to
be the most important living yoga master - has spent much of
his life introducing the modern world to the ancient practice
of yoga. Yoga's popularity is soaring, but its widespread acceptance
as an exercise for physical fitness and the recognition of
its health benefits have not been matched by an understanding
of the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual development that
the yogic tradition can also offer. In Light on Life, B.K.S.
Iyengar brings readers this new and more complete understanding
of the yogic journey.
Here Iyengar explores the yogic goal to integrate the different parts of the
self (body, emotions, mind, and soul), the role that the yoga postures and breathing
techniques play in our search for wholeness, the external and internal obstacles
that keep us from progressing along the path, and how yoga can transform our
lives and help us to live in harmony with the world around us. For the first
time, Iyengar uses stories from his own life, humor, and examples from modern
culture to illustrate the profound gifts that yoga offers. Written with the depth
of this sage's great wisdom, Light on Life is the culmination of a master's spiritual
genius, a treasured companion to his seminal Light on Yoga. |
