Yoga Samachar FW2010

VOL.13 NO. 2

FALL 2009 / WINTER 2010

ArT OF YOgA THE

Yoga and the Arts

IN THIS

ISSUe

Excerpts from The Art of Yoga, by B.K.S. Iyengar The Art and Science of Yoga, by Siegfried Bleher

Yoga Yantra, by Bobby Clennell Filmmaker Mira Nair on Iyengar Yoga, a Cornerstone of Her Craft Yoga and the Twelve Steps: One Truth, Parallel Paths, by Richard Jonas Scientific Evidence of the Therapeutic Efficacy of Iyengar Yoga, by Lisa Walford IYNAUS Archives: Preserving the Past for Generations to Come, by Kim Kolibri Puja Ceremonies for our Communities Book Review, and the IYNAUS Store News

Yoga Yantra, see page 9

CONTeNTS

IYNAUS OFFICERS AND STANDING COMMITTEES

Letter from the President – Chris Beach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Excerpts from The Art Of Yoga – B.K.S. Iyengar, introduced by Constance Braden . . . . . . 3 The Art and Science of Yoga – Siegfried Bleher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

president: Chris beach Vice president: richard Jonas Secretary: pat Musburger Treasurer: Kathleen Quinn

Yoga Yantra – Bobby Clennell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 You Won’t Believe Where Yoga Gets Us!, Filmmaker Mira Nair – Richard Jonas . . . . . . 11

Archives Chris beach, Chair eddy Marks, Archives Coordinator Kim Kolibri, Archives Assistant Francois St. Laurent, Marie Giroux, Archives Advisors

Yoga and the Twelve Steps: One Truth, Parallel Paths – Richard Jonas . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Scientific Evidence of the Therapeutic Efficacy of Iyengar Yoga – Lisa Walford . . . . . . . 19

by-Laws patrina Dobish, Chair Liza Amtmanis, Debbie Lancaster, David Larsen, Janet Lilly, Garth Mclean, Pat Musburger

IYNAUS Archives: Preserving the Past for Generations to Come – Kim Kolibri . . . . . . . 20 Puja Ceremonies for Our Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Certification Committee Kathleen pringle, Coordinator Colleen gallagher, Board Liaison Marla Apt, Kristin Chirhart, Dean Lerner, Mary Reilly

IYNAUS New General Manager – Pat Musburger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 IYNAUS Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Communications Committee richard Jonas, Chair Constance braden, Editor Yoga Samachar Alexandra Anderson, Leslie Freyberg, Gloria Goldberg, Don Gura, Sally Hess, Gina Russell King, James Murphy, Pat Musburger, Christine Nounou, Sue Salaniuk, Joan White

Book Review – The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with Commentary by Edwin F. Bryant. Reviewed by Sharon Conroy . . . . . . . . . . . 26 IYNAUS Membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 An article on yoga and American literature, “America‘s Sadana,” by Barbara Yates, will be posted soon on the IYNAUS website, iynaus.org.

ethics Committee Colleen gallagher, Chair Judi Rice, Joan White

YOGA SAMACHAR’S MISSION

events Committee patrina Dobish, Chair Marla Apt, Linda DiCarlo, Gloria Goldberg, Julie Lawrence, Patricia Walden

Yoga Samachar, the newsletter of the Iyengar Yoga community in the United States and beyond, is published twice a year by the Communications Committee of the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States (IYNAUS). The word samachar means “news” in Sanskrit. Along with the website, iynaus.org, Yoga Samachar is designed to provide interesting and useful information to the IYNAUS membership to:

Finance Committee Kathleen Quinn, Chair Chris Beach, Carolyn Matsuda, Jean Smith, Jackie Schiavo Membership Committee elizabeth hynes, Chair IMIYA–Jeanne Ann Walter; IYAGNY–Elisabeth Pintos; IYAMN–Liz McMann; IYAMW–Jennie Williford; IYANC–Brian Vazquez; IYASC-LA–Ed Horneij; IYASC-SD–Jessica Brinkman; IYASCUS–Marj Rash; IYASE–Alex Cleveland; IYASN–Aileen Epstein-Ignadiou; IYANW–Paul Cheek

1. Promote the dissemination of the art and science of yoga as taught by B.K.S. Iyengar, Geeta Iyengar, and Prashant Iyengar.

2. Communicate information regarding the standards and training of certified teachers.

3. Report on studies regarding the practice of Iyengar Yoga.

4. Provide information on products that IYNAUS imports from India.

5. Review and present recent articles and books written by the Iyengars.

6. Report on recent events regarding Iyengar Yoga in Pune and worldwide.

7. Be a platform for the expression of experiences and thoughts from members, both students and teachers, about how the practice of yoga affects their lives.

8. Present ideas to stimulate every aspect of the reader’s practice.

Nominating Committee patrina Dobish, Chair Linda DiCarlo, Gloria Goldberg, Dean Lerner, Manouso Manos, Chris Saudek regional Support Committee Leslie Freyberg, Chair Joe Adlesic, Chris Beach, Paul Cheek, Elizabeth Cowan, Linda DiCarlo, Colleen Gallagher, Tonya Garreaud, Edwin Horneij, Aileen Epstien Ignadiou, Randy Just, Pat Musburger, Pauline Pierrot, Nancy Turnquist, Bryan Vasquez, Janice Vien, Holly Walck, Jeanne Ann Walter

Yoga Samachar is produced by the IYNAUS Communications Committee, which consists of interested volunteers from the community. This issue was edited by Constance Braden, copyedited by Alexandra Anderson, and designed by Don Gura. Cover photo of Bobby Clennell by Jake Clennell.

Scholarship Committee Leslie Freyberg, Chair Chris Beach, Linda DiCarlo, Lisa Jo Landsberg, Mary Reilly, John Schumacher Service Mark & royalty Committee gloria goldberg, Attorney in Fact for B.K.S. Iyengar Kathleen Quinn, Board Liaison Marla Apt

Members may submit an article or a practice sequence for consideration for inclusion in future issues. Articles should be well written and submitted electronically.

Store Committee Kathleen Quinn, Chair Bobby Fultz, Store Manager Chris Beach, Richard Jonas

Articles must include author’s full name, certification level, and the year the author began studying Iyengar Yoga, along with contact information: email, mailing address, and phone number.

Systems and Technology Committee Chris Nounou, Chair Ed Horneij, David Weiner Yoga research Committee pat Musburger, Chair Julie Gudmestad, Jacqueline Kittel, Linda Lutz, Beth Sternlieb, Lisa Walford, Kimberly Williams

Ads and articles for the Spring/Summer issue must be submitted by March 1.

Ads and articles for the Fall/Winter issue must be submitted by September 1.

Please send articles to constancebraden@mac.com. Please send ads and announcements to Sharon Cowdery at srvcowdery@hotmail.com.

IYNAUS Senior Council Manouso Manos, Chris Saudek, John Schumacher, Patricia Walden

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IYNAUS BOARD MEMBER CONTACT LIST FALL 2009 / WINTER 2010 Chris beach 21 Harvey Ct. Irvine CA 92617 Sharon Cowdery 1300 Clay St. Suite 600 Oakland CA 94612 patrina Dobish 2650 W Belden #313 Chicago, IL 60647 Leslie Freyberg 31 Topstone Road Redding, CT 06896 elizabeth hynes 4228 Huntsfield Road Fayetteville, NC 28314

pat Musburger Tree House Iyengar Yoga 18021 15th Ave NE Shoreline, WA 98119 Suzie Muchnick Postures 461 Carica Road Naples, FL 34108-2632 Christine Nounou McKinsey & Company 875 Third Avenue, 534 New York, NY 10022 Kathleen Quinn 246 Richmar Ave San Marcos, CA 92069

richard Jonas 299 W. 12th St Apt. 5-F New York, NY 10014 please contact your board Members at: www.iynaus.org/contact

REGIONAL ASSOCIATION CONTACTS Inter-Mountain (Colorado): IMIYA Jeanne Ann Walter imiya@iynaus.org • www.csyoga.com/imiya Minnesota: IYAMN Elizabeth Cowan iyamn@iynaus.org • www.iyamn.org Northern California: IYANC Angela Lan angela@iyisf.org • www.iyisf.org Southern California, San Diego: IYASC-SD Lynn Patton iyengarsd@sbcglobal.net • www.iyasc.org Southeast: IYASe Alex Cleveland president@iyase.org • www.iyase.org Northwest: IYANW Paul Cheek iyanw@iynaus.org • www.iyanw.org greater New York: IYAgNY Elizabeth Pintos Pintos@iyengarnyc.org • www.iyengarnyc.org Midwest: IYAMW Jennie Williford iyamw@iynaus.org Southern California, Los Angeles: IYASC-LA Kat Lee iyascla@iynaus.org • www.iyasc.org South Central US: IYASCUS Michelle Mock m.m.mock@sbcglobal.net • iyascus@iynaus.org

LeTTer FrOM The preSIDeNT Dear Fellow IYNAUS Members, In the last issue of Yoga Samachar, I focused my letter on our ongoing efforts to serve our members better. I am pleased to say that we are on target to accomplish most of the goals we set as a new board of directors nearly a year ago. One of the things we have come to realize is that some housekeeping was needed in terms of the structures and procedures of IYNAUS. We therefore have engaged legal and financial advisors to assist us with applying best business practices throughout our organization. This process, led by Treasurer Kathleen Quinn and the Finance Committee, will allow us to improve accounting and business standards throughout all facets of our association and to ensure the long-term health of IYNAUS as a nonprofit (501c3) corporation.

In this letter, I highlight recent developments in three areas: the IYNAUS Store, the website, and the Yoga Research Committee. As was announced in the July IYNAUS bulletin, we have now completed the move of the store to Seattle, where General Manager Sharon Cowdery will be able to take a more active role in its management. We thank outgoing store manager Bobbie Fultz for her work with the store and for her many years of service to the Iyengar Yoga community both on the regional and national levels. We are now in the process of recruiting and hiring a new manager in the Seattle area.

At the same time, we are increasing offerings that will benefit both students and teachers. If there are specific items you would like to see offered by the store, please let us know by emailing Sharon at generalmanager@iynaus.org. Also, look for our upcoming sale of many items from the store that need to be sold to make room for new merchandise. The details of the sale will be posted on the website. We hope to make this sale event enjoyable as well as a source of revenue for IYNAUS. The IYNAUS website is moving ahead with its goal of adding new content to the site (thanks to Richard Jonas and the Creative Circle), adding important new sections to the site, and generally continuing to make the site fresher and more user friendly. One of the most important new sections of the website is the Research page, which is devoted to making available research findings on a variety of yoga-related issues. One of our goals is to use the website as a clearinghouse of the most current information on yoga-related research, as well as a forum for exchanges between those conducting research projects and studios or students wanting to participate. Yoga Research Chair Pat Musburger and her committee have been working to collate information on the internet and to link the most relevant information through the website. Some of the research projects on the website’s Research page include a study by certified teacher Kimberly Williams on the effect of Iyengar Yoga on chronic lower back pain, as well as studies on aging, arthritis, anxiety and depression, carpal tunnel syndrome, and multiple sclerosis. We are always looking for contributions to the Research page: if you are doing a study involving yoga and health-related issues, please send it to the Yoga Research Committee at pmusburger@comcast.net. We also ask that those conducting studies that require volunteers send their requests to us.

The Systems and Technology Committee, led by Chair Christine Nounou, has been able to shift from firefighting mode in its work with the website—addressing coding bugs, fixing development mistakes, and responding to individual issues—to a more steady state of content maintenance and forward-looking development.

The first in what will be a series of new development projects for the IYNAUS website will be the automation of the assessment application. This process is expected to be completed by late November 2009. Exciting new projects on the docket for 2010 include: making association membership information available to the regions online and putting additional information about certified teachers on My Page.

Southern Nevada: IYASN Aileen Epstein-Ignadiou iyasn@iynaus.org • www.iyclv.com

As always, I encourage IYNAUS members to give us feedback on our programs and on our overall effectiveness as an organization.

For more information visit: www.iynaus.org/regions

Namaste, Chris Beach, President Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States

Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

Please visit the IYNAUS website: www.iynaus.org 1300 Clay Street, Suite 600, Oakland, CA 94612 • 888-344-0434

eXCerpTS FrOM THE ART OF YOGA, bY b.K.S. IYeNgAr Introduced by Constance Braden

Chandru Melwani

A beginner who comes to Iyengar Yoga expecting an exercise class learns immediately that instead she is to learn an art.

She finds out that it makes a difference how a pose is done.

She discovers the expressiveness of the asanas right away, in Virabhadrasana II. For example, she explores the difference between the tentativeness of a too-short stance and the power of a more correct one, coming closer to expressing “Virabhadra.” Soon, she, too, may find herself deep in what b.K.S. Iyengar calls the “divine discontent” (p. xiv) of the artist, the desire to get it “right,” so that the pose is balanced, beautiful, and expressive, as well as beneficial to perform. Over long practice, an artist develops artistic judgment, so that he knows when something is not yet “right.” he may rewrite his novel seven times, or spend a year on a small painting, getting it “right,” bringing all its elements properly together until the viewer stands in front of it unable to turn away, utterly seduced, because the painting is alive. In Iyengar Yoga, we, too, are encouraged in the “painstaking, diligent and delicate labour” of making our “practices into a work of art” (p. xiv), in making our asanas come alive from toe tips and fingertips deep into the heart. A few of us from time to time may practice the art of yoga demonstration, understanding that performance for others is not the main point. Yet we do have an audience: within ourselves. patanjali calls the audience for whom we zealously work the “Seer.”

Thus I laboured hard to synchronize the movements of limbs, carefully feeling the extension, expansion and creation of space for the intelligence to pervade the entire body and allow the energy to flow freely and rhythmically. Through my own thinking, assiduous practice and selfcontrol, I analyzed every movement and adjusted every fibre and muscle of my body… There came an uninterrupted flow of devotion, attention, contemplation, beauty and grace, culminating in a radiant light of yogic knowledge… This light penetrated my being and awakened in me the vision of the artistic expression of each asana whether I was awake, dreaming or asleep. (p. 5)

b.K.S. Iyengar is certainly the world’s supreme artist of yoga. We asked him for an interview on yoga as art, and he suggested, having written extensively on the subject, that we instead publish excerpts from The Art of Yoga (London: Unwin paperbacks, 1985). We’re pleased to offer the following selections from this beautiful and poetic work. —Constance braden, Samachar editor Any action done with beauty and purity, and in complete harmony of body, mind and soul, is art. In this way art elevates the artist. As Yoga fulfils the essential need of art, it is an art. (p. xiii) I had no artist for a mentor; therefore, I had to pave my own way by learning to develop original thinking, by creating new ideas, and by studying as much as possible the movements, anatomical structure and shape of each asana. I visited temples and caves to study the carvings, paintings and sculptures. I observed the various postures of the body conceived and depicted by different artists at different times. I watched the creeping gait of vegetation, amphibians and reptiles, the flight of birds, the majestic movements of animals and the behavior of men, and I learnt from all these. Looking at God’s creation as well as man’s, I began to perform the asanas to the fullest possible extent, notwithstanding my limited abilities. I looked into Patanjali’s sutras and found his words enchanting. He says that one should become immersed and apply oneself with devotion and dedication to gain direct perception of the essence which emanates from yogic practices. This became my first guiding principle in developing sensitivity in the art of yoga. (p. 4)

An idea, a word, a shape, a vision or a symbol may grip the imagination of an artist and the interest in it is then cultivated so that the full fragrance is felt and experienced. He has to practice with the trinity of body, mind and soul until his genius bursts forth in the form of revelation. This is art. (p. 7) Art in yoga is skill in action wherein all opposing forces are moulded towards oneness so that each and every movement expresses grace and balance, elegance and beauty, effortlessly and in unison. (p. 7) 3

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By nature, the art of creativity is a painful process. Each act of creation has its own pangs. It requires preparation, mental flexibility, sometimes hard diligent labour.

Phases of fear, discomfort, tension, frustration and dejection invade the mind of the artist and kill his interest. These have to be accepted as unavoidable accompaniments on the hazardous and arduous journey of artistic creation.

Unshaken, the artist must continually labour long (nirantarabhyasa), and use his own ethical code (yama and niyama), sensitive intellect (buddhi), right reasoning and judgement (savicara and vivecana) to reach the desired goal. Then his intuitive intelligence (sahaja jnana) and inner vision (antardrsti) attain the highest order of clear perception. In the words of Patanjali, when memory is ripe the mind becomes pure and actions are perfect; the impressions take firm root, and preconceived notions stop intervening; experimentation comes to an end and experiences become distinct and crystal clear. The mind has four levels of consciousness, namely the subconscious, the unconscious, the conscious and the superconscious. In the creative artist, all these merge into one profound superconscious meditative state which is nothing but the yogic state of samadhi.

Then whatever has been created stands as a work of art for posterity. (p. 9)

geometrical designs, lines, architectural shapes and the like which are beautiful to behold. It is essentially a useful art for the doer and is presented as a performing art for the viewer. (p. 14) The difference between the art of yoga and other arts is that in yoga the practitioner lives in deep silence and turns inwards to behold and experience the inner hidden light and beauty wherein unalloyed truth and wisdom dwell. His work is his own art of life.

Other artists follow the example of the inner light, beauty and wisdom of the yogis.

They portray externally the radiant mien, exalted demeanour and deep serenity of the yogi as expressions of their art. Thus the yogi is an example to others as he conquers the body, the senses and the mind and integrates them with the soul. He lives in total

The difference between the art of yoga and other arts is that in yoga the practitioner lives in deep silence and turns inwards to behold and experience the inner hidden light… freedom, develops insight (antar drsti) and acquires illuminating knowledge which he uses for creating new dimensions to his expressions. When this is accomplished, he moves from the known to the unknown, from the apparent to the real, until at last the body (ksetra) is welded with the knower of the body—the soul (ksetrajnan)—in divine union. This divine union comes only by practice and by the grace of the Radiant Light of God… So, through the faculty of insight, the creative power of the yogi-artist goes on springing from the inner well until he reaches the culmination of true and pure art. (p. 20).

In beauty there is balance, order, form, symmetry and design. Through lifelong loving effort, new ideas of harmony and balance spring forth from the soul for perfect execution, expressing at once serenity and divinity. The artist loses his personal identity and becomes a universal entity. This is ‘beauty in action’. Art glows from the immortal flame of the artist’s soul, expressing itself through his body, senses and mind. (p. 10) Yoga is an art in all its aspects, from the most practical to the highest. It is a spiritual art, in the sense that it transforms the seer and brings him into contact with his inner soul. It is a fine art, since it is aesthetic, expressive, representative and imitative. It is a visual art, since the body is made to form

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

4

The ArT AND SCIeNCe OF YOgA

by Siegfried bleher If you are called outside by a friend to see the sunset, do you immediately run out in anticipation of the awe or happiness you may feel when you see the beautiful combination of colors? Or do you half-heartedly answer “Coming…,” while staring intently at your computer screen, wondering how you’ll deal with your invincibly overflowing e-mail inbox? Do you eagerly leave what you are doing, not so much in anticipation of anything in particular, except perhaps the opportunity to be entertained for a few moments, or maybe the opportunity to share a special experience with a friend? And when you do see the sunset, with what eyes do you look? Do you look with eyes that see beauty, eyes that see structure and pattern, those that see meaning and purpose, eyes that see connection and wholeness, or eyes that see divinity? Do you see something new and unique in the moment you look, or only what you have seen so many times in the past, or maybe what you expect to see? And what would that experience mean to you? There are so many layers to our being, and so many ways we can perceive our world and interact in it. We can live our lives knowing about this richness intuitively, without inquiring into its nature, or we can reflect on its movements, maybe adding to our appreciation. If we are fortunate enough to encounter yoga, then yoga itself can become a part of the richness of our lives. And there are so many ways we can approach, interact with, and experience yoga. We can come to yoga initially for help with a physical ailment, or with hope for mental tranquility. Or we may follow someone’s recommendation with mostly a sense of curiosity and trust that something good will come from our participation. But, in the same way that life is always changing, our relationship with yoga also tends to change with time. And yoga can become a multilayered and integral part of our lives. In this article, I present two views of yoga, two ways to relate to our practice: yoga as art, and yoga as science.

with my mind (really about all five kosas and their interactions), and I experience over time the changes that are intended by the method. What are the principles of Iyengar Yoga? There are two aspects to this question: there is the technique, or the method of practice, and there is the underlying theory. The method of practice of Iyengar Yoga includes at least the following elements: linking, sequencing, timing, alignment, and the iterative nature of refining a pose, as mentioned above. All of these elements are well developed and defined within the method, as is the philosophical foundation of the method within Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (see, for example, “The Hidden Importance of Linking,” Yoga Rahasya, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2009).

Information I generate as a practitioner, which is mostly subjective, may or may not satisfy the needs of an empirical study of the benefits of yoga. And, although empirical studies generate valid and reproducible information about the benefits of yoga for various conditions (for example, anxiety and depression, lower back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome), they do not address the interactive role that kosas play in the outcome of such studies (for example, the role that manomaya kosa—layer of the perceptual mind—plays in lower back pain) nor, at an even deeper level, the role that particular samskaras (subliminal impulses) play. Such studies can be designed, given a proper understanding of kosas, samskaras, and klesas. The notion of kosas leads to a subtle aspect of sequencing: proper sequencing of actions within poses, and from pose to pose, progressively takes the awareness deeper into the layers of the being called kosas.

And this leads to a discussion of the art of yoga. But first, consider art as ‘depth.’

If I meet both requirements, then I generate scientifically valid information about my own body and its interaction with my mind (really about all five kosas and their interactions), and I experience over time the changes that are intended by the method.

YOGA AS SCIENCE Suppose I am a practitioner, eager to implement Guruji’s three steps for exploring asana (pose, reflect, repose), and I want to know if what I am doing is ‘scientific.’ All science can be said to follow three steps: 1. Perform an experiment to test an hypothesis.

2. Gather the data, in accordance to the principles underlying the domain of study.

3. Compare this data with others who have completed the same experiment. This gives consensual validation or rejection by a community of qualified individuals, which in turn allows us to confirm, refine, or replace our initial hypothesis.

ART AS DEPTH The world of art has evolved through many views of just what is art. Although we normally may think of art as what the artist creates, we also have heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Through the last several hundred years or

I can be confident I have followed these steps if (1) my ‘experiments’ are validated by a community of qualified individuals (certified teachers), and (2) I perform my experiments according to the principles of the method. If I meet both requirements, then I generate scientifically valid information about my own body and its interaction 5

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so, the answer to “What is art?” has varied immensely. That is, when we experience or interpret art, do we consider the intention of the artist, or do we just go by what feelings the art inspires in us? Do we consider the elements in the artwork that are unconsciously included by the artist, some of which represent his or her cultural roots, some of them developmental? Do we consider our own cultural or developmental influences as the viewer? Or, do we look only at the structural elements of the art alone? The answer to each of these questions can lead to a greater understanding of art.

Now, the same steps described above for scientific studies can be followed for studying art. But there is a fundamental difference between art and science that I propose to describe as follows: good art inspires, whereas good science illuminates.

The response we feel when we see art—the emotional response of appreciation or inspiration—is characterized by mathematician Ron Atkin as its multidimensionality in Multidimensional Man (Penguin Books, 1981), or its depth. Atkin develops a way to quantify the multiple levels and depth on which we exist. Each level is assigned a dimensionality, such as N, a number. The self, for example, exists at the level of the individual ego (say, N – 1); the family-self, or the self in relationship with loved ones and friends (dimension N); the level of the workplace-self (dimension N + 1); the level of the region-self or specific culture-self (N + 2); the nation-self or large-scale cultureself (N + 3); and the multinational-self or self that identifies with humanity as a whole (N + 4). The meaning of dimensionality is found in how Atkin interprets the limits and tensions we feel when we experience changes in dimensionality, how those changes affect us emotionally, and the meaning such changes have in our lives. When we unite with another in a bond of love, our sense of self expands to form what Atkin calls a super-self. Clubs and societies, through the links between collections of super-selves, form a larger entity than that of the family-group or circle of friends. At each level in this hierarchy, there is an emotional attachment and identification that either comes with joy when there is an increase in dimensionality, or pain when there is a decrease.

“How much more joyful (full of laughter) is the experience of jumping upwards from being an (N – 1)-self to being and N-self? What is ‘falling in love’ if it is not that?” asks Atkin. Higher than the multinational-self is the Ultimate Self, which “unites all the lower ones.” Atkin compares the ultimate level with Buddhist nirvana, and we can compare it as yoga practitioners with nirodha, or samadhi. At this level, according to Atkin, deep inspirations arise and our devotional nature emerges.

In the word illuminate there is the implication of breadth, whereas in the word inspire, there is an underlying meaning of depth. Science elicits principles and links at a given level or dimension, the breadth of a particular domain, whereas art helps us touch multiple dimensions or levels. As author Ken Wilber says, “Great art grabs you, against your will, and then suspends your will. You are ushered into a quiet clearing, free of desire, free of grasping, free of ego, free of self-contraction. And through that opening or clearing in your own awareness may come flashing higher truths, subtler revelations, profound connections. For a moment you might even touch eternity…” (Wilber, The Eye of Spirit, p. 135). In YS II.19, Patanjali lists the levels of the gunas, which implies that they have depth: visesa avisesa linga matra alingani guna parvani (“The levels or stages of the primary constituents are specific, universal, differentiated, and undifferentiated”).1 Through discernment, we are told we can discover that depth, until we reach the most subtle (deepest) layer of nature that covers the soul (YS II.26, II.52, III.49). Consider the following contemporary approach to an understanding of art, and how this understanding echoes ancient yogic principles.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

“Great art grabs you, against your will, and then suspends your will.“ YOGA AS ART Atkin develops a mathematical way of conceptualizing our multidimensional nature: artwork that has a greater dimensionality tends to appeal to more aspects of the self than artwork that has lower dimensionality. But we can see in yoga philosophy something similar to dimensionality in the notion of kosa, or layer. What is important about the idea of dimensionality is that what has a lower dimension is contained in what has a higher dimension. Each kosa, or layer of the being, has its own reality and independence, or dimensionality, but each is contained within the layer that has a greater dimensionality and subtlety. Annamaya kosa appears to encase pranamaya kosa, but is actually contained within the higher dimensional space of pranamaya kosa.

Similarly, pranamaya kosa appears physically to encase manomaya kosa, but is actually contained within the higher dimensional space of manomaya kosa, and so on. It is in the higher dimensional spaces that lower dimensional conundrums are resolved. Albert Einstein has been quoted as saying that problems cannot be solved from within the mindset they arose in. And the dimensionality we identify with, or the kosa, is also the ‘eyes’ through which we see the world. We can see through physical eyes that give significance to tangible things, we can see through intellectual eyes that see meaning in every event, and we can see through spiritual eyes that see divine purpose and presence in each living moment. Indeed, according to Ken Wilber, none of the eyes are of lesser value than others, but they are all complementary aspects of our makeup.

I heard an instruction recently in a workshop—in Utthita Parsva Hasta Padangusthasana, to take the outer thigh of the raised leg in towards the outer hip and the outer thigh out towards outer edge of foot, at the same time. Now, this may seem impossible to do. I may get stuck in the habitual mind that only can take the outer thigh to the hip. But if I quiet my mind, I may discover I can do both of these actions at once. If I practice in this way with alertness and persistence, then I may come to a place where I no longer 6

identify with the dual actions of taking the thigh in and out, but instead with the single action that does both. In that moment, I have moved my consciousness to a higher dimension.

Note 1. The levels of the gunas can be compared with the levels in which nature organizes itself: for example, the characteristics of a particular sunset that you observe (visesa), the characteristics that are true of all sunsets in general (avisesa), the underlying cause and meaning of sunsets (linga matra), what is common about sunsets and all other events of nature (alinga). But the gunas themselves refer to the following three characteristics or qualities of nature—luminosity (sattva), movement (rajas), and inertia (tamas)—not the levels in which nature organizes itself. The luminosity of a sunset at the visesa stage is the light given off by the sun in that particular sunset and that reflects off all the objects around it. At the avisesa stage, the luminosity of the sunset is the universal redness of the light that is common to all sunsets. At the linga matra stage, luminosity of the sunset is the light that reverberates in my consciousness and is distinguished by the ‘mark’ of that reverberation. At the most subtle stage, the alinga stage, luminosity is the fine tendril of intuition that tells me with certainty that the light of the sun and the light in my consciousness are both pale reflections of their divine roots.

Events that occur at lower dimensions find their deeper meaning in higher dimensions: it is only when I practice Visvamitrasana that I understand the deeper value of Utthita Parsvakonasana. Utthita Parsvakonasana is not only a pose in itself, with the opening in the hips and the extension in the ribs that we achieve from practicing this pose, but it is also preparation for deeper poses. And Utthita Parsvakonasana is not only a structural pose that organizes the limbs of annamaya kosa, but also an organic pose that touches pranamaya kosa and, if we practice with reflection, cultures our manomaya kosa and vijnanamaya kosa.

Events that occur at lower dimensions find their deeper meaning in higher dimensions…

B.K.S. Iyengar has said, “The aim and culmination of yoga is the sight of the soul, but it has a lot of side effects which are health, happiness, peace and poise.” At the highest attainment on the yogic path, we find side effects in each kosa. Patanjali might agree with Ron Atkin, for he defines in sutra II.19 the levels of the primary constituents of nature, the gunas. The artistic nature and depth of yoga then is reflected in the depth of the layer from which we practice, or in the dimensionality of the space we are tapping into when we practice. A pose that is done well physically, from annamaya kosa, is certainly beautiful to look at and to appreciate. But how much more inspiring it is to see an asana that has been practiced for decades, one that clearly aligns and consciously touches the organic body, quiets the senses, and gives tranquility to the mind of the practitioner? Often we have seen Guruji’s youthful practice compared with his practice in his seventies—the same pose in his later years embodies the same artistry that is present in his earlier years. But at the same time, it radiates a depth that speaks of a more subtle layer of the being. And there is a part of the viewer that responds to that depth as it is projected outward for us to see, no matter how deep or nascent our own practice may be. There is a universal element in art that is also within yoga, and that we can touch no matter who we are. Of course, the deeper our practice, the more we can see and appreciate in another’s practice—the more dimensions in their practice we can touch in ourselves. But in either case, we can be inspired to reach for the same place in ourselves that we can feel projected in another’s presentation.

In a way, we can see that art and science represent, at their core, fundamental human capacities. Art represents our adaptive capacity, our ability to surrender to change and the unknown, and our devotional nature (pranidhana), whereas science represents our agency, our capacity to investigate, to explore and discover, to create change and to quantify or to give conceptual structure, to illuminate the unknown. Each informs the other and cannot function by itself, in the same way that one cannot progress in yoga without an equal amount of abhyasa (practice) and vairagya (detachment; YS I.12).

Abhyasa makes use of our native ability to investigate the unknown (science), whereas vairagya asks us to surrender to the vastness of the unknown (art). It is only through the balanced interplay of these two aspects of our being that we can come to appreciate the relevance of each of the eyes with which we can gaze at the sunset. And it is only through an embracing of each of our dimensions that we can unfold our being to the vision of the soul, and to the unspeakable joy and gratitude that follows such a vision.

Siegfried Bleher holds a PhD in physics from the University of Maryland and is a certified Intermediate Junior II Iyengar Yoga instructor. He lives in Morgantown, West Virginia, with his wife and daughter, and he and his wife run Inner Life Yoga Studio.

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I do meditation in each asana as in each asana I see God who is infinite and beyond measure. —B.K.S. Iyengar, Yoga Rahasya, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2009

Women Painter

ila, Bobby Clennell

Women Painter of Mith

Mithila art, Bobby Clennell

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

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y Clennell

of Mithila, Bobb

YOGA YANTRA

by Bobby Clennell

I embarked on Yoga Yantra in the late 1980s. From film footage of Guruji’s yoga performances, I traced his image over and over again. The figures were repeated and laid out to form patterns and then combined with yantras, some of which were classical and some that I made up. When an artist makes an image of yoga, they are doing more than just making an image. Yoga art is sacred and seeks more than to entertain, educate, or illuminate.

Its function is also to connect the viewer to the Divine. It is also a devotional activity on the part of the artist.

Jake Clennell

The study of yoga opened a window for me into the golden age of an ancient society that was the wellspring of great art, literature, and poetry. The holy art of India, in particular the sacred symbolism of the Yantra, an (often complex) geometric design traditionally used as a tool to increase awareness, inspired me to make an animated film.

by the fluidity of his presentation and how effortlessly he moved from pose to pose. His jump from arm balance through a back bend into Hanumanasana is nothing short of miraculous.

Yantra, which leads us away from and back toward the center in stages, is a symbol of unfolding and gathering energy. Yantra stimulates us to explore and reveal the center, which in turn, links us to the cosmos. When we practice yoga, the body itself becomes a yantra.

Yoga Yantra, which was made over a five-year period, was the bridge that took me from my previous life in England to my new life in America. Moving from one continent to another and letting go of my long career in the animation business for a somewhat hazy future was scary. Although I had received my certification from B.K.S. Iyengar in 1977, I hadn’t yet fully immersed myself into a life of full-time yoga teaching. Yoga Yantra, as well as my practice, was my life raft.

The yoga drawings and yantra designs were arranged to make moving patterns, and then were synchronized to the music.

More than 3000 drawings went into the making of this film.

When making an animated film, the soundtrack—be it music or dialog—is always laid down first. Warren Senders, an East/West jazz fusionist and student of Indian classical singing whom I met in Pune, wrote the music for me, and he also produced and recorded it with an ensemble of Indian classical musicians.

Guruji took great interest in the making of Yoga Yantra and viewed its progress as I returned several times to Pune during its making. He also gave it its title.

I have never minded that this film was never taken to its finished, polished colored state. In fact, I prefer it at this raw, pure stage. The pencil drawings flicker, evidence of my manually removing each piece of paper from the registration pegs and replacing each one with the next drawing. I shot the film on a special camera (known as a line test machine) used by animators to see how the flow and movement of a piece of animation is coming.

Yantra, which leads us away from and back toward the center in stages, is a symbol of unfolding and gathering energy.

I then set about looking for some suitable film footage of Guruji in practice. Much of the material was generated from a video made by Victor Van Koutan shot on the roof of the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune. It was a wonderful experience to be immersed in the movements and rhythms of Guruji practicing his yoga. As I worked, I became very familiar with the profundity and beauty of his poses. His arms really straighten in the balancing poses. His backbends are a perfect combination of strength and flexibility. I was particularly struck

Shown here is one of the color setups from Yoga Yantra. (Another is reproduced on the inside cover of this magazine.)

Had the film been completed, one of the scenes in the film would have looked like this.

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Yantra Parsvottanasana, Bobby Clennell

or simply to honor the phases of the moon. Often vividly colored, the work varies in style, depending on the caste of the artist and the village she comes from. The confidence the women display when painting indicates a long inheritance, but the freedom of line and the composition of the work are instinctive.

The design (on the inside front cover) for the Sarvangasana/Setubandasana sequence was inspired by Indian folk art. The Women Painters of Mithila have passed their art down from mother to daughter for thousands of years. I was so intrigued by these women that I made a pilgrimage to Madhubani, a district that fairly represents the center of the ancient kingdom of Mithila and that nestles in the foothills of the Himalayas. A unique and conservative culture of women folk artists flourishes there to this day.

Traditionally, this art is painted on the inside walls of the houses. Each painting is a prayer and an accompaniment to meditation. The women paint to invoke the gods and goddesses who influence the growth of crops, rainfall, and fertility.

They paint to celebrate a son’s sacred thread ceremony or a daughter’s wedding.

Sometimes, they paint to tell the mythological stories from the Vedic texts

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

Mithila art was quite unknown to outsiders until, in 1934, an English Army officer who was investigating recent earthquake damage noticed it. In fact, because of the poverty and the overwhelming struggles of survival that these women were facing, the practice of painting on the inside walls of their houses was beginning to die out. Mithila art was resurrected in the 1960s when, to find some funding for flood victims, the older women who still remembered the art form were asked to draw on paper. And so the women began to paint again. Painting is a part of the women’s daily routine: cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, painting on the walls (and now, on paper). I was entranced by this custom. The image of them painting, their faces peaceful and totally absorbed in their artistic activity, has remained with me to this day.

To view Yoga Yantra, go to www.bobbyclennell.com, or search for Yoga Yantra on YouTube.com.

Bobby Clennell is the author and illustrator of The Women’s Yoga Book: Asana and Pranayama for All Phases of the Menstrual Cycle. She is currently working on two projects: a children’s book about yoga and a reworking of her yoga notebook, Props and Ailments.

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YOU WON’T beLIeVe Where YOgA geTS US! FILMMAKer MIrA NAIr ON IYeNgAr YOgA, A COrNerSTONe OF her CrAFT

by Richard Jonas For acclaimed director Mira Nair, Iyengar Yoga is more than a personal practice. “It’s a cornerstone of my professional life,” she declares.

Creator of such lush, evocative films as Salaam Bombay!, Monsoon Wedding, and The Namesake, Nair credits Iyengar Yoga as a font of her creativity.

“The practice teaches you the art of resistance and the art of surrender,” she says. “If you can’t approach an asana in one way, Mira Nair you try to approach it in another. Every time you get a new teacher and every time you hear a new direction—even with a pose as common as Trikonasana, something you think you know—suddenly an instruction opens a new door and the pose comes in a different way. Yoga quietly reminds you that learning never ceases.

Later still, she moved to Cape Town, South Africa. “I was being a good wife to my husband, who was director of African Studies at the University of Cape Town,” she remembers. “I had heard of a great [Iyengar Yoga] teacher called David Jacobs. He was slightly mythic: he was supposed to be really rigorous and strict.

It took me six months to get up the nerve to go.

“That is a big lesson in any creative work, but especially in making films. You have to really glean and get from your actors and your crews the best they can do, the work that suits your vision. You can’t demand, you can’t holler, you can’t force. Every single person is a finely tuned instrument, and you have to find the way to make that instrument play for you. Yoga has taught me: if you don’t find one way, you find another.”

“Once I found David, I just felt that the rigor of Iyengar Yoga was the thing for me. That pretty much changed my life.

Since then [1996], I’ve been singularly devoted to Iyengar Yoga, and have made it a part of my professional life as well.”

“Every single person is a finely tuned instrument, and you have to find the way to make that instrument play for you. Yoga has taught me: if you don’t find one way, you find another.”

In fact, Nair has had Iyengar Yoga teachers conduct classes on the sets of each of her films since Monsoon Wedding.

The teachers’ names appear in the final credits, along with hairdressers, accountants, and location managers.

Yoga has even influenced the rhythm of her films, Nair says.

“Once I am keyed into the rigor of yoga, to the spine and core of it, it allows me a much greater looseness in other ways—but without the rigor, the looseness is nothing. And that interrelation between rigor and looseness is what creates rhythm.

From the beginning, her teacher from Bombay, Ashwini Parulkar, taught on Nair’s sets, and continues to do so. Others who have worked on Nair’s sets include Jacobs, Intermediate Junior III; Megan Inglesent, Intermediate Junior II, of the United Kingdom; Yvonne De Kock, Intermediate Junior III, of New York City and South Africa; and James Murphy, Intermediate Senior I, Director of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York.

“I think my films are very economical and visual,” she says. “But I am always working to find the balance, paring down something so that it can then be further amplified.

Iyengar Yoga is a lot like that. It’s so much about the foundation. When you are at home with the foundation, you can experience the ecstasy.”

Her discovery of Iyengar Yoga was a transformative moment, Nair remembers. In her native India, she practiced yoga irregularly from the age of seventeen. “I first taught myself through a book of 24 positions,” she explains. Later, she practiced the Sivananda method.

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Cast and crew complete a full hour-long practice before the morning call to begin shooting. “Obviously it’s voluntary,” Nair says. “But 15 or 20 diehard people come every day. Often they’re the same people from film to film; people love to work on my films because they know they’ll get the yoga.

United States in 2005], we joked about having people doing Sirsasana and Sarvangasana on the wings of a plane.

“I flew up to the set in Toronto for auditions. I saw hundreds of talented girls, but no one had the Iyengar training required to hold the inversions for the hours it took to film. We had a very tight schedule—one day to rehearse and one day to shoot! It became a yoga practice for me: I had to focus, concentrate, and solve the problems in front of me. I also had to practice nonattachment as I knew most of what I came up with would probably not be used.” Still the montage came together. “Mira’s vision was captured and made it into the final film. It’s a wonderfully lively, bubbly moment,” Murphy says.

“Many of them are transformed by the practice, and they continue with yoga after the shoot is over.”

“Mira wanted to convey that idea in a quick ‘snapshot.’ Inspired by what we’d done for the yoga presentation during Guruji’s visit [to the United States in 2005] we joked about having people doing Sirsasana and Sarvangasana on the wings of a plane.”

The group practice creates a special bond between the cast and crew, according to Nair. “It removes ego. You get a sense of working as a real unit. When the movie star’s bum is up in the air in front of you, you realize: It doesn’t matter who you are.

“It’s the same energy you get from the group in a yoga class. There’s no hierarchy in a yoga class, and that’s very beautiful. That’s the atmosphere I like to create on a movie set.”

“Like Amelia,” he recounts, “Mira is an incredibly independent and strong woman, pushing forward to achieve her goals no matter what obstacles lie in her path. Working around her has always been an inspiration, and this time I had the privilege of being part of the creative process.”

Nair recalls being on the English set of Vanity Fair: “We were shooting for weeks and weeks in a mansion, and we converted what had been Lady’s Windemere’s bedroom into the yoga room.” Some crew members were too busy readying the elaborate period costumes and hairstyles to attend the early-morning yoga sessions, so “after James [Murphy] would teach us in the morning, he would teach again during lunch and throughout the day, so the people from the departments that couldn’t make it in the morning could get in a practice. And the main crew would come back for restorative yoga almost every night.”

On the wintry Brooklyn set of The Namesake, the cast shot in a bar location; bar and barstools became makeshift props. “One day the guy who was supposed to unlock the yoga room didn’t show up,” Murphy remembers, “so we did yoga on the street, with our shoes and coats on.”

He went in front of the camera himself as an extra in Vanity Fair. “Mira put me in a wig and costume to play a gambler in a scene in a seedy casino. I was in the background, behind Reese [Witherspoon]. Mira said, ‘Camp it up,’ so I started camping it up, but I was moving so much it was distracting from Reese, so Mira said, ‘Tone it down!’ It was a real privilege, being right next to her director’s chair, seeing how it all came together,” he recalls. Later, the film had one of its premieres as a benefit for the New York Iyengar Yoga association. “Mira has shown her generosity of spirit again and again in supporting our mission,” Murphy says. “We’re so grateful.”

On the recent set of Amelia, starring Hilary Swank as the aviatrix Amelia Earhart, Nair called on Murphy’s skills as a choreographer. “Mira was filming what she called the ‘commodification montage,’” he recalls. “Amelia Earhart was one of the first celebrities to endorse all sorts of products—Kodak, a line of luggage, clothing, even a waffle iron—to fund her flights. Mira wanted to convey that idea in a quick ‘snapshot.’ Inspired by what we’d done for the yoga presentation during Guruji’s visit [to the

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

“Mira always manages to make time for yoga,” says De Kock, another of the on-set teachers, “and does not have the expectation that yoga will make time for her!” During her time on the set of Hysterical Blindness, De Kock remembers, “We did yoga in some very strange locations”—one was a church—“but to Mira, yoga is an integrated life practice, and she just gets on with it.”

The director has “an inner glow that touches everything around her,” De Kock says. “It’s beautiful to watch how, when she is in Sirsasana, she becomes a still point which is very settling to all around her. Even her sense of humor is creative, out of the ordinary.”

The independent filmmaker earned acclaim with her first feature, Salaam Bombay!, nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film of 1989. Subsequent films include Mississippi Masala with Denzel Washington, The Perez Family, Kama Sutra, 12

“I think it was our beloved Mary Dunn’s idea,” Nair recalls, “that it would be a great opportunity to have all 3000 of us taught by Guruji, even for just the Om.” At her request, Guruji instructed the audience in sitting and chanting, and hundreds who would never have had the chance to study with B.K.S. Iyengar shared an unforgettable moment.

Hysterical Blindness, Monsoon Wedding, one of the top-grossing foreign films of all time, and The Namesake. Her latest film, Amelia, co-starring Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor, was released in October 2009.

Although she describes her home practice as “a bit undisciplined”—“I’m spoiled by all you teachers! I only like to come to class,” she says—her yoga is not. When in New York, Nair attends class three times a week at the Iyengar Yoga Institute, “Monday, Thursday, and Saturday with James. And on the road, I have Iyengar Yoga teachers everywhere! In every major country I have identified and created friendships with Iyengar teachers. Never a week goes by without my practicing, but I am not good at doing it alone. I do it, but not deeply, not regularly enough.”

Recently, Nair had a reminder of just how remarkable the evening was, and how much it meant to Iyengar Yoga devotees.

Nair made a brief visit to RIMYI in Pune, taking a class with Prashant Iyengar and visiting with Guruji.

“It was the funniest thing,” she remembers. “I was in London last week, and some friend of mine walked me into a really fancy, overcrowded restaurant.

They showed us to a terrible table and my friend took the maitre d’ aside. I could see them talking, my friend was trying to convince him. The maitre d’ turned around and asked, ‘Is that Mira Nair? I saw her interview B.K.S. Iyengar in New York!’

Earlier, in 2005, she interviewed Guruji during one of his triumphal Light on Life appearances. “That was one of greatest honors I have ever received, to be asked to converse with Guruji,” she says of the event at New York’s City Centre. “I remember feeling like I had to be deeply prepared. I read Light on Life, of course, very very carefully. I met with him the night before for dinner. I told him, ‘Guruji, one condition only, that you won’t make me demonstrate anything in front of 3000 people.’ Then he laughed his beautiful cascade of laughter.

“Forget my movies! It was because of that interview that he gave us the best table in the place. We had the best meal and he kept sending special dishes over to our table from the chef all night!

“I was just telling James [Murphy], ‘You won’t believe where yoga gets us!’”

Nair is the founder of the Salaam Baalak Trust (baalak means “child”), a foundation with 25 centers providing a safe and nurturing environment for street children all over India. Funded with profits from Salaam Bombay!, her first film, the organization (www.salaambaalaktrust. com) is led by chairperson Praveen Nair, a social worker and Nair’s mother.

Nair also founded Maisha, an annual filmmakers’ laboratory based in Kampala, Uganda, which supports emerging filmmakers in East Africa.

Richard Jonas, certified at the Introductory level, is a faculty member at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Greater New York. He is also a writer and Vice President of the IYNAUS Board of Directors.

Pictures of Guruji and of the late Senior Teacher Mary Dunn flank the statue of Patanjali, decorated with flowers during the Puja ceremony at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York July 24. See story on page 23.

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YOgA AND The TWeLVe STepS: ONe TrUTh, pArALLeL pAThS

The 12 STepS… STEP 1:

We admitted we were powerless over our addiction—that our lives had become unmanageable.

STEP 2:

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

STEP 3:

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

STEP 5:

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

STEP 6:

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

STEP 7:

Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

STEP 8:

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

STEP 9:

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

STEP 10:

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

STEP 12:

Consider the path outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Then think about a twelve-step program for recovery from addition.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

STEP 4:

STEP 11:

by Richard Jonas

When you come right down to it, says Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher and filmmaker Lindsey Clennell, they’re quite similar.

Modern twelve-step programs, says Clennell, director of the film Addiction, Recovery and Yoga, “present many ideas which are basic yoga principles.” The new film is a fascinating look at the intersections between twelve-step programs and yoga, mostly Iyengar Yoga, in the lives of seven practitioners, including three Iyengar Yoga teachers, who talk on camera about their experiences in in-depth interviews that are funny, moving, provocative, and heartbreaking. The 85-minute movie can be viewed or downloaded free at www. adyo.org. To download, click on the Google logo. The film is also on Google Video, Veoh, and Yahoo Video.

The new film is a fascinating look at the intersections between twelve-step programs and yoga, mostly Iyengar Yoga, in the lives of six practitioners, including three Iyengar Yoga teachers.

“When you talk to someone who’s done twelve step and yoga, you see how yoga principles have come alive to them through the window of twelve step,” Clennell says.

“They see the possibility of freedom from affliction. The program said to them, ‘Admit you can’t control your behavior and acknowledge that the only way to overcome your difficulties is by surrendering to a higher power.’ Yoga addresses the same subject in a different way.”

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.

The interviewees discuss their own histories of addiction and the way yoga and twelvestep programs together led them to recovery. In the film, each is identified only by their first name, in the tradition of twelve-step programs.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

They include three Iyengar Yoga teachers: Father Joe Peirera, the distinguished Senior Teacher from Mumbai who has achieved near-miraculous results treating HIV-positive and drug- and alcohol-dependent students with yoga via the Kripa Foundation; Kevin Gardiner, Intermediate Junior III, of Budapest, Hungary, and the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York; and Tori Milner, Intermediate Junior I, also of the New York Institute.

Since being interviewed for the film, which had a premiere this fall at a New York Institute event she hosted with Clennell, Milner has begun teaching a regular monthly series at the Institute entitled “Happy, Joyous and Free: Yoga for People with Addictions.”

This version of the twelve steps is an adaptation from the original 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous developed in the 1930s. The twelvestep approach has grown since to be the most widely used approach in dealing with alcoholism, drug abuse, and other addictive or dysfunctional behaviors. See 12steps.org for more information.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

Several students, most from the New York Institute, also tell their stories.

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…AND SOMe SUTrAS

Besides discussing their problems with addiction and the steps to recovery, each participant is also shown performing part of a yoga practice.

1:

The movie came about “by accident,” says Clennell, Intermediate Senior III, also a teacher at the New York Institute. “I went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting because a number of my students were in recovery and I thought I should find out what AA was. I was very impressed: the atmosphere and the way people were conducting themselves was exemplary in terms of community action. I mentioned it in my class at the Institute.”

Yoga Sutras that suggest surrender to a higher power: I.23: Isvara pranidhanat va Or, the citta [consciousness] may be restrained by profound meditation upon God and total surrender to Him. II.45: Samadhisiddhih Isvarapranidhanat Surrender to God brings perfection in samadhi [profound meditation].

Three months later, a regular student approached Clennell, saying, “Thank you for saying that about AA. I am now 63 days sober.”

2:

The afflictions: II.3: Avidya asmita raga dvesa abhinivesah klesah The five afflictions which disturb the equilibrium of consciousness are: ignorance or lack of wisdom, ego, pride of the ego or the sense of ‘I,’ attachment to pleasure, aversion to pain, fear of death, and clinging to life.

“It was clear to me that this was a turning point in her life,” he remembers. “It was a poignant moment, and it made me think it might be possible to help more people by making the connection between twelve step and yoga.”

Clennell’s own first step was to interview Father Joe, then in New York teaching a workshop at the Institute and staying at the apartment where Clennell lives with his wife, Bobby, also a Senior Teacher. “Father Joe is an expert on this subject,” Clennell says. “He further inspired me, and I realized that the combination of yoga and twelve step was unique and effective.”

3:

The three-fold remedy: II.1: Tapah svadhyaya Isvarapranidhanani kriyayogah Burning zeal in practice, self-study and study of scriptures, and surrender to God are the acts of yoga.

“Most of our afflictions are too obscure.

We can’t quite see when we’re acting them out or when we’re engulfed in our negative characteristics.“

4:

On friendliness: I.33: Maitri karuna mudita upeksanam sukha duhkha punya apunya visayanam bhavanatah cittaprasadanam Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice, respectively, the consciousness becomes favorably disposed, serene and benevolent.

A writer and filmmaker in his native England, with documentaries featuring Muhammad Ali and Mikhail Gorbachev and more than 200 music videos and concert films to his credit, Clennell “didn’t see it as a commercial project. I saw it as something to distribute for free, to people who might be helped by it.”

Clennell produced the film, which was shot over a year’s time by his son, director and cinematographer Jake Clennell, a longtime Iyengar Yoga practitioner who is currently filming a documentary about Guruji in India. The movie was edited by Hisayo Kushida, another New York Iyengar Yoga practitioner.

5:

Clennell consulted with Mary Dunn, Senior Teacher at the New York Institute, not long before her death, and received her enthusiastic support. “I am glad it has been finished successfully,” he says, “but sorry she is not here to see it.”

In Patanjali’s list of the five fluctuations of consciousness are two which account for denial, viparyaya and vikalpa. Both involve a distorted view of reality: I.8: Viparyayah mithyajnanam atadrupa pratistham Illusory or erroneous knowledge is based on non-fact or the non-real.

“In some ways the film is quite entertaining,” Clennell told me before we watched it together a second time. “If you don’t know anything about the psychology of addiction it’s very revealing.”

I.9: Sabdajnana anupati vastusunyah vikalpah Verbal knowledge devoid of substance is fancy or imagination.

Addiction, Recovery and Yoga is “completely about subjective psychology, not action,” he says, “and subjective psychology as articulated by people who have had extreme experiences.” The film, though, avoids sensationalism. “That’s how addiction problems are usually treated on TV and in films. So in a way, our film is attempting to break new ground. It’s not exploiting the interviewee by getting them to reveal something Continued on page 18

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Louise, practitioner

Tori, teacher

Robert, teacher

IN TheIr OWN WOrDS Louise: I don’t have a problem with answering questions about alcoholism.

There might be someone out there struggling who will think, “My God, that girl’s an alcoholic, perhaps she can help me.”

Brad: I always had a Valium or something.

To just have nothing in terms of a substance was such an uncomfortable feeling. I probably went to three meetings a day, I probably made 300 meetings in my first 90 days. It was the only place where I felt safe.

Tori: It’s turned out to be such a source of strength for me, to know that I had this problem and I could overcome it.

Louise: AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] was an amazing experience. From that day on, for the next three and a half years, I went every day.

Father Joe: Rock bottom is a basic realization that I don’t have to deny who I am. I am who I am, and it’s beautiful.

Brad: I thought I could do it on my own.

That’s a big part of most addicts: they want to do it on their own or just can’t ask for help.

Jack: [On the way] to my first meeting, I was trying to convince myself to turn around and go home. And then suddenly I realized how many hundreds of times I had tried to approach this problem through my own efforts, and I said, “Jack, you’re not going to recover by yourself.”

Jack: The program is a stopping ground for someone who is running. It’s the place to stop and say, “Wait a minute, my life is unmanageable.”

Tori: I was incredulous at the deep honesty, that people were baring their souls in a roomful of strangers, that people would feel that trusting and comfortable to describe really intense feelings.

Tori: That first step was the one that they told me I had to do perfectly. You have to get this first one, you have to really admit you’re powerless over alcohol, you have to really know it and feel it.

Louise: The stories can be so amazing and so magical. I’ve heard people making the most amazing amends. You are filled with admiration for their bravery, and then you see the sparkle in their eye from having a completely free conscience.

Brad: As an addict, I always thought I had it completely under control. Denial really means you don’t even know you’re lying.

Robert: That’s really what twelve step is about: it’s enunciating your own experiences and letting others take what they will and leave the rest.

Kevin: I felt at home. I felt, “We’re all on the same page here, and it’s not about the externals.” I identified, and that opened

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Robert: Treating other people better, being compassionate, is an important thing to learn how to practice.

Kevin: When a person comes into the program they’re not receptive to complex ideas. You have to keep it simple.

Lindsey, Senior Teacher and yoga therapist

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

something in me that gave me a little bit of hope.

Father Joe: In the very first step, yoga helps. We have a set of restorative postures which calms down the person and leads that person to say, “I am all right. Deep down, I am all right.” … Hope comes in the second step when faith is expressed.

Father Joe: Recovery people, before they came into this practice, were soaked in lies. And a human being is made for the truth.

Father Joe, Senior Teacher and Founder, Kripa Foundation

Kevin, teacher

Jack, practitioner

Brad, practitioner

“Recovery people, before they came into this practice, were soaked in lies. And a human being is made for the truth.”

Tori: Going to meetings, working the steps with the sponsor, and then eventually you become a sponsor and you work with other people who are new and guide them through the steps. And through this process, you can’t help but be confronted with yourself.

Louise: [Step 3] is my favorite, because I am a control freak. Step 3 completely let me off the hook. Somebody else is in control.

Jack: I realized right away I was going to have a problem with “God.” [But] there I was on my knees, with my head on the floor, prostrated. Suddenly I realized, I can pray here [in Adho Mukha Virasana]. Yoga enabled me to approach “higher power.”

Robert: One of the things that helps to see one’s true self is surrender to a higher power, Isvara Pranidhana. Your whole being is absorbed in the experience.

Father Joe: The first thing that hits a human being in any recovery program is the truth about themselves. Humility, for me, is truth. You can’t see the truth if you are filled with egoism.

Robert: The first three steps really connected to yoga in a strong way. I was fascinated.

Lindsey: When people do yoga poses they have to know whether they’re doing them accurately. They have to know, “Is it true I’m straightening my leg? Is it true I’m

Jack: Yoga changed my mind, changed my thinking. I became more self-accepting. As I did asanas, there were days when I would feel very elegant and graceful.

Other days I was stiff and sore. Selfacceptance is one of the primary components of recovery. You really have to accept that you’re not perfect.

straightening my arm?” That constant selfassessment and self-observation develops someone’s ability to adhere to the truth.

Yoga gives someone a very practical way to keep their feet firmly on the ground.

Father Joe: The final step is a psychosocial step that says, “Having had this spiritual awakening, we practice these principles in all the affairs of our life.” Now that is very true about yoga. Because when you practice yoga, you take that calmness, that serenity, into every event of your life.

Jack: It clicked that yoga was the way I was going to move through my recovery.

Louise: Step 11 is my yoga step. It’s about coming back into myself and my body.

When I’m doing my yoga, my breathing slows down, I’m completely in the moment, feet on the ground, in the universe, right now.

Kevin: [Now] there’s distance between what’s coming at me and how I react, and I’ve learned that in my body, I’ve learned that from the practice.

Kevin: What keeps me practicing? Simply put, it makes me feel good. It calms me, it allows me to focus, it gives me energy, it seems to fulfill a relationship with my body that seems eternal.

Tori: Yoga offers a sobriety of mind and spirit that is really beyond satisfying.

Relying on a crutch like alcohol or drugs to give me some altered state of consciousness—for me, that’s not even interesting.

Brad: Every time I would finish a class, I felt better. Feeling physically stronger helps me deal with life stress. My yoga practice helps me stay sober.

Lindsey: People ask, “Is yoga going to help?” My answer is, “Yes, yoga helps in conjunction with a twelve-step program.

The chances are you can be successful with this, put your life together and come away with a tool that will help you develop yourself further, beyond recovery.”

Lindsey: Yoga brings emotional stability.

One of the things that drives people to addiction is emotional disturbance.

Father Joe: As soon as you get into a practice like yoga, you start seeing the glimpse of where you’re going to be. Those few moments lift you up from darkness into light, from a deathlike situation to life, from a total denial to a truth that sets you free.

NOTE: Some quotes from the film Addiction, Recovery and Yoga have been slightly condensed and edited for length

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Twelve Steps continued from page 15

sensational. There were actually things people revealed which I didn’t use in the film. I was very careful not to exploit peoples’ experiences.”

Clennell has for many years encouraged his students to cultivate a personal meditative practice based on the three-fold remedy of Patanjali’s yoga, by being friendly and not being driven to perceive only others’ negative characteristics. “You can say, ‘I’m not violent, I’m not eating hamburgers,’” he jokes. “But it’s not about your external condition; it’s about your internal demeanor to other people. I tell my students, ‘Be friendly. Don’t withdraw affection from people.’

Instead, he “tried to make a film which engages the viewer purely through subjective psychology. For yoga students, this is something of interest. A person in a twelve-step program or a person doing yoga—both get a practical understanding of their mental processes.”

“This is a real practice that is one way of understanding Bhakti Yoga, or devotion to God, or surrender, or a sense of connection,” Clennell says. “God isn’t an abstraction; as they say in Jamaica, ‘Jah Liv.’ We can really bring the element of Bhakti into our practice with something within our immediate range of perception. Interestingly, in twelve step, surrender to a higher power comes right at the beginning of the program.”

Addiction is clearly an affliction, Clennell points out: “In the Yoga Sutras, afflictions are illustrated so clearly.”

The way addictive behavior controls us is not always obvious, Clennell says, “even when you’re doing something that’s crazy and self-destructive. Think of an alcoholic crashing around. He’s lost his job, his marriage is in trouble; but only when he finds himself in the hospital does he realize what’s happened. Finally he realizes, ‘I’m an alcoholic.’ You hear stories like that all the time at meetings. Only after years do people come to terms with their addiction because denial is so powerful.”

However, he continues: “Most of our afflictions are too obscure. We can’t quite see when we’re acting them out or when we’re engulfed in our negative characteristics. With addiction, the person knows: ‘I’m drinking.’ Or, ‘I’m not drinking.’ Watching this film, the nonaddictive person starts to see how his behaviors might be similar. From that point of view, it’s an education in selfawareness, in affliction, and in the difficulties in achieving freedom from affliction.

Even for nonaddicts, though, “it’s easy to acquire and maintain negative mental patterns—and to be unaware, in continual denial about them.”

Even for nonaddicts, though, “it’s easy to acquire and maintain negative mental patterns—and to be unaware, in continual denial about them. When a nonaddictive person realizes that denial is part of all of us—and how strong it is—you start to look at what’s really going on, and self-study takes on an additional dimension.

“Looking at the way interviewees have tackled something as difficult as addiction opens up a set of possibilities about self-study. You could look at something in your life as an affliction and, like people in twelve-step programs, work systematically, one day at a time, to overcome it.

“You have a choice of how you perceive others,” Clennell continues. “Often our reactions are hostile, because of status anxiety, jealousy, because we’re conditioned to look for what is threatening, to look for some aspect of the other person which reduces them in our view. That’s what makes it possible to do all the terrible things we do to each other.”

By contrast, he notes, “The twelve-step maxim of ‘Happy, Joyous and Free’ seems a pretty good state of mind to work towards.”

“The mechanics of denial which underpin addiction are also very much part of our behavior as nonaddicts. The line between someone who has an addiction problem and someone who thinks they don’t gets a little blurred,” says Clennell, who has no firsthand experience with twelve-step programs. “That’s why I don’t call myself an expert. The process of twelve step is a unique experience, and that comes across in the film. Those are the people who can help others, especially yoga teachers who have gone through the process. This makes the film especially useful for yoga teachers who have students with addictions.”

Key to this practice of internal nonviolence and friendliness, says Clennell, is “noticing when you’re taken over by an afflictive emotion like anger or fear. But much better, noticing when you’re taken over by a positive emotion, which we’re even less used to noticing. At the point when you feel elated or affectionate, when you admire somebody or feel attracted to them or like them, you should allow that feeling. We don’t trust that feeling; we trust anger or fear more.

“When you feel affectionate to someone, allow yourself to feel it. It may not be appropriate to act on it or make a remark. But to feel affectionate to other people is not a dangerous event,” he laughs.

“People spend a lot of time in a state of isolation and withdrawal,” Clennell says. “With yoga, people can move forward to new behaviors and new ways of being.”

Even for those seemingly lost in their addictions, yoga and twelve-step programs beckon a way back.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

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SCIeNTIFIC eVIDeNCe OF The TherApeUTIC eFFICACY OF IYeNgAr YOgA

by Lisa Walford Last October in Mumbai, India, The Light on Yoga Research Trust, in collaboration with the Bombay Hospital Trust, the Indian Medical Association, the General Practitioner’s Association, and the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder Society, sponsored a conference entitled “Scientific Evidence of the Therapeutic Efficacy of Iyengar Yoga.”

Rajvi Metha, senior Iyengar Yoga teacher and the driving force behind the Light on Yoga Research Trust, which publishes Yoga Rahasya, organized the conference to introduce Iyengar Yoga to medical professionals. More than 300 participants joined the presenters at the Bombay Hospital to attend the full-day conference.

corroborated the beneficial results of the pilot study and compared the efficacy between biweekly yoga sessions, one session weekly, and a waiting list control.

The later study assessed the benefit to patients at risk for cardiovascular disease.

Within a short period, these studies all recorded significant improvements in stress-related outcomes for the participants. Depression, anxiety, anger, and insomnia decreased, and participants’ overall health improved. Cortisol (a stress hormone) levels decreased significantly after the 90-minute classes. There was no marked difference between those practicing twice weekly versus once weekly, except that those partaking in the once-weekly program began practicing at home. Blood pressure and heart rate decreased significantly for the at-risk cardiovascular participants, whereas blood lipid levels remained unchanged.

Researchers from Germany, the United States, and India reviewed studies in cardiovascular disease, pediatric pain management, depression, low back care, Parkinson’s disease, and stress management.

“You operate from the inside; I operate from the outside to reach the inside.”

Guruji presided over the event and stated, “Our life force is like a river which moves from the mountain to the sea, never going backwards. We have to make sure it does not stagnate.” Most importantly, he noted that we are all psychosomatic animals, and that the psyche and the soma always move together: “We must work with the nature and adjust to what we see, find out how to give the exact amount of support to the individual.”

Addressing the doctors, Guruji noted, “You operate from the inside; I operate from the outside to reach the inside.” Dr. Naik, a regular assistant to Guruji, contributed to the discussion. He is currently collaborating with Guruji to decipher the operative biological mechanisms in the therapeutic process that make Iyengar Yoga so effective.

Dr. Michalsen noted that the patients continue to practice after they are discharged. He is currently opening a second such clinic in Berlin.

In her introductory remarks, Metha said, “Beyond the armament of drugs, we have nothing. Yoga can help.” She stressed that evidence-based research is needed to corroborate the therapeutic benefits that Guruji has demonstrated so consistently in his medical classes at the Institute in Pune. Through research, the mechanisms at work in the therapeutic applications of yoga and the most advantageous applications for particular conditions can be recorded and reviewed.

UNITED STATES: An exemplary randomized control study on the use of Iyengar Yoga for chronic low back pain was funded by the National Institutes of Health and was published in the peerreviewed journal Pain (Vol. 115, 2005).

Kimberly Williams, key researcher and certified Iyengar Yoga instructor, reviewed her protocol and proposed that addressing imbalances in the musculoskeletal body that affect spinal alignment and posture would affect functional disability and would decrease clinical pain in the subjects. She reminded us that chronic low back pain is the most expensive musculoskeletal disorder to treat and accounts for the greatest percentage of absenteeism and disability in the workforce. For more information on Kimberly’s study, go to the Research link on the IYNAUS website.

Statistics worldwide indicate that people with many health conditions—diabetes, depression, low back care, and headaches, to name but a few—benefit with complimentary medical therapies. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health established the Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine to apply the rigor of science to assess the efficacy of more than 23 healing practices, including yoga. We expect to see more statistical evidence of yoga’s benefits as these studies progress.

The following are synopses of the studies presented in Mumbai.

GERMANY: The University Hospital of Duisberg-Essen in Germany champions a department of integrative and internal medicine with 60 beds, an outpatient clinic, and a fully equipped Iyengar Yoga studio with three on-site certified Iyengar Yoga instructors. The department chair, Dr. Andreas Michalsen, supervised several studies on patients with stress-related disorders who also were at risk for cardiovascular disease.

After the remarkable results of a pilot study assessing quality-of-life improvements to stress-related disorders, Dr. Michalsen designed two randomized trials. The first 19

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The University of California, Los Angles, sponsors a pediatric pain clinic where a multidisciplinary team meets weekly to address their patients’ problems. Children with chronic pain become marginalized as they slip academically, have problems socially, and experience depression, anxiety, and insomnia. The clinic treats children reporting abdominal pain, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, and rheumatoid arthritis, among other symptoms. Current research will pursue irritable bowel syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis.

and which parts of the body were targeted. Because this was a double-blind study, instructors did not know their students’ histories. Those completing the study had fewer symptoms, a healthier outlook on life, and beneficial physiological changes.

Statistically, the remission rate for those with depression who are participating in yoga is 65% higher than for any other complimentary or alternative medical therapy, 45% higher than for those using other forms of exercise, and 31% higher than the effect of using a placebo. The attrition rate is also lower than in other forms of exercise. Yoga promises to be a cost-effective complementary treatment to manage psychological disorders.

INDIA: Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system. The Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder Society, along with Rajvi Mehta and the Bombay Hospital, conducted a study that greatly benefited participants.

“Beyond the armament of drugs, we have nothing. Yoga can help.”

Serious depression affects more than 10% of the American population older than 18 years, and it is estimated that by 2020, it will be the second leading cause of death worldwide. Dr. David Shapiro has conducted several studies on anxiety and mood disorders and on subjects with major clinical depression who have limited relief from antidepressant medication. He examined individual psychological and physiological characteristics related to the effects of yoga to see what practice would work best for particular personality types and conditions.

Patients were instructed daily for ten days, with a weekly follow-up class over two months. All patients practiced regularly and kept a journal of their progress. Their mental state and social and motor skills improved significantly when compared with those of the control group, and the nature of the study encouraged patients to integrate yoga into their daily lives.

Each of the studies noted above incorporated basic asanas familiar to every yoga student.

Whether the ailment is physical, emotional, or physiological, the basic tenets to generate life energy, to placate a restless mind, and to cultivate a calm, sober, and generous attitude in life apply. Rajvi noted, “When the structural body loses its alignment, the organic body loses its vitality, and even the cellular body is impacted.” Through the judicious and practical application of the yoga asanas, one’s breath and life energy is encouraged to flow freely, promoting an internal stability that leads to dynamic health and a rich, fulfilling life.

Participants took three weekly classes for two months. In a therapeutics session, the condition dictated the sequence, as well as what was emphasized in the asana

Lisa Walford has been teaching in the Los Angeles area for more than 25 years and holds a Senior Intermediate I certificate. She is on the advisory council for the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

IYNAUS ArChIVeS: preSerVINg The pAST FOr geNerATIONS TO COMe

by Kim Kolibri The IYNAUS archives play an essential role in our mission of disseminating the teachings of the Iyengars. Ongoing preservation efforts, including the rescue of print, audio, and video materials that would be lost to decay or would become unusable because of obsolete technologies, was given new impetus last year with a $10,000 grant from IYNAUS. The archives also bring the Iyengar Yoga community exciting new material, including, most recently, DVDs of the teachings of Geetaji last year at Yasodhara in Canada, which are now available for purchase at the IYNAUS Store (www. iynaus.org/store).

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

The purpose of this article is to inform the IYNAUS membership about the IYNAUS archive and the work being done by the Archive Committee. In companionship with this article, a video interview with the Archive Director, Eddy Marks, can be seen by visiting the Yoga Samachar page via the IYNAUS website.

The IYNAUS archive was officially formed shortly after the formation of IYNAUS, in 1990. Initially, the archive consisted of materials that were owned by Eddy Marks, an Intermediate Senior I teacher practicing in San Diego, California. As a devoted student and teacher of Iyengar Yoga, Eddy started collecting materials related to the teachings of Guruji, Geetaji, and Prashantji, as well as of Iyengar Yoga in general. After the formation of the archive, many others began donating similarly significant items. Over time, the archive has became a safe repository for multimedia items such as film, videos, written materials, audio tapes, photographs, and slides. Many of these items are one of a kind and therefore add another level of importance to the mission of the IYNAUS archive.

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The primary purpose of the IYNAUS archive is to insure the preservation of materials and content directly related to the teachings and historical documentation of Guruji and all things Iyengar Yoga. Beyond that, the goal of the archive is to assist in making the past, present, and future teachings available in a usable and secure format, not only for current practitioners, but for generations to come. With these purposes in mind, much has been done, but there is still much more to do.

clip of one of these films can be seen in one of the video interviews.

Besides the preservation of old materials, the IYNAUS Archive Committee is actively involved in the production and distribution of new materials. Recently, a DVD version of the Yasodhara Canadian Intensive with Geetaji was released and is now available for purchase. The archive committee was fundamentally responsible for that footage being converted into a common and usable digital format and also for the timely release of these priceless teachings.

What has the archives project accomplished to date and how does the IYNAUS archive currently serve the members of IYNAUS? In preparation for the Odyssey 2001 convention, a request for a display of archived materials was put forth by IYNAUS. That was the beginning of the IYNAUS archive project. The initial idea was to present a visual display at the convention. The project turned out to be a significant undertaking and required the volunteer efforts of many members of the San Diego Iyengar Yoga community. A seven-person ad hoc committee was formed and work got underway. In many ways, these were exciting times. There was very little funding, and the work was time and labor intensive. That said, the committee members enjoyed the process of organizing, investigating, and preparing the material.

It was the first time that all the archived materials were reviewed. A functional database was developed, and it felt like we were doing important work. The first display and archive project book was completed and presented to Geetaji at the Odyssey 2001 convention.

As you can see, the IYNAUS archive and its committee members continue to secure content and produce items that will assist in the preservation and posterity of Iyengar Yoga for generations to come. It is our dearest hope that any and all of these precious resources will become available to students of yoga everywhere. However at this time, the primary goal of preservation is paramount. As soon as that work is completed and all necessary business tended to, we will continue—with Guruji’s blessings—to strive to make available, in a universal digital format, any and all recorded and documented teachings of Guruji, Geetaji, Prashantji, and Iyengar Yoga.

After the convention, some of the volunteers turned to other archive projects. The conversion of the original analog audio recording of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras into digital CD format was achieved and has proved to be a valuable contribution to the students of yoga. A revised printed version of the sutras accompanied the CDs, and both were released at the Iyengar Yoga convention in Minnesota in 2004. The display made in 2001 was shipped to Minnesota and, with additional content, again was available for viewing. The film Atma Darshana, which was prepared specifically for the 2004 convention, almost entirely comprised video footage that is stored in the archive collection.

In preparation for and during Guruji’s Light on Life tour in 2006, the archive and its volunteers were able to fulfill needs and uphold duties that only it could. The archive continued to be an essential and effective resource for the containment and distribution of priceless materials.

The IYNAUS archive always welcomes donations of materials related to Iyengar Yoga, in particular, any older and one-ofa-kind items. The archive also is happy to receive financial and volunteer assistance.

Volunteer efforts by those with knowledge and ability is how this work is accomplished. Contact Chris Beach, Archives Committee Chair of the IYNAUS Board, at beach59@hotmail.com to offer your support in whatever way you are inspired.

For the 2007 Las Vegas convention, the same volunteer committee went back to work and a new and improved version of the archive display was produced. A refined hardcover version of the Archive Project Book also was completed and presented to Geetaji at the convention. Convention participants also were able to sit and watch video footage such as Guruji practicing in Switzerland in the 1950s and a BBC interview.

The primary goal of the IYNAUS archive is to preserve materials and their content; thus, it has become necessary, almost urgently so, to convert the various media formats into a secure and universally acceptable digital format. This is true for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, the older materials, in particular the film and video, have a questionable shelf life at best. It is of the utmost importance to copy the content before it is lost. There is also a large variety of film and video formats in the archive. The machines needed to run these old formats are becoming less available and quiet costly.

That said, access to technology that digitizes content from the old formats has become much more available. Thanks to funding from IYNAUS, equipment has been purchased, and this next task is well underway. To date, thanks to the expertise and volunteered time of committee members as well as the advisors, Francois St. Laurent and Marie Giroux, the archive now has more than 300 hours of moving picture content that has been converted from analog to digital format. This is a significant accomplishment that insures the preservation of many of the teachings of our beloved teachers. In addition, some previously unknown jewels have been revealed. For example, at least two films containing footage of Prashantji practicing have been discovered and preserved. A brief

Kim Kolibri is a certified Introductory level Iyengar Yoga instructor who has been teaching for eight years. She began practicing Iyengar Yoga in 1997 and has studied at RIMYI twice in the last four years.

Kim is a Southern California native and currently manages the B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Centers of San Diego. She is also the IYNAUS archives assistant.

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IYeNgAr YOgA eVeNTS 2009 / 2010 Each “per workshop date” listing, for Certified Teachers and IYNAUS member sponsors only, costs $25.00 and includes listing on the IYNAUS website. (For example, Teacher Trainings that meet more than one time must pay $25.00 per date listed.) Please submit your listings with payment (check made to IYNAUS) to Newsletter c/o Sharon Cowdery, 1300 Clay Street, Suite 600, Oakland, CA 94612. Deadline for Spring/ Summer 2010 issue is March 1, 2010.

Elise Miller and Zoreh Afsar February 27-March 6, 2010 Mexico www.ebmyoga.com www.yogaforscoliosis.com

Dean & Rebecca Lerner Teacher Training for Intermediate Junior I-III February 18-21, 2010 Lemont, PA 814.234.9776 fdlerner@comcast.net

Elise Miller and Dean Lerner March 6-14, 2010 Mexico www.ebmyoga.com www.yogaforscoliosis.com

Dean & Rebecca Lerner Teacher Training for Teacher in TrainingIntro Levels February 25-28, 2010 Lemont, PA 814.234.9776 fdlerner@comcast.net

Elise Miller and Zoreh Afsar May 20-June 1, 2010 Peru www.ebmyoga.com www.yogaforscoliosis.com

Advanced Studies/Teacher Training Extended Weekend classes begin: January 8, 2010 200-hr, 16-month & 500-hr 24-month programs Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco San Francisco, CA Sarah Harvey at 415.753.0909 sarah@iyisf.org www.iyisf.org

Kofi Busia/Festival: The Sacred Thread of Yoga October 11-15, 2010 San Francisco, California 987.290.1558 kim@sacredthread.net www.sacredthread.net Kofi Busia/Festival: The Sacred Thread of Yoga October 15-17, 2010 San Francisco, California 987.290.1558 kim@sacredthread.net www.sacredthread.net

Dean Lerner March 26-28, 2010 Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco San Francisco, CA Alexis Monson at 415.753.0909 alexis@iyisf.org www.iyisf.org

Patricia Walden: Gather at the River February 12-19, 2010 Intermediate Retreat for Men & Women St. Joseph’s Abbey St. Benedict, LA sharon@greatwhiteheron.net

Marla Apt April 30-May 2, 2010 Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco San Francisco, CA 415.753.0909 alexis@iyisf.org www.iyisf.org

Patricia Walden: Gather at the River April 9-14, 2010 Advanced Retreat for Men & Women St. Joseph’s Abbey St Benedict, LA sharon@greatwhiteheron.net

Advanced Studies/Teacher Training Evening Weekly classes begin: Sept 10, 2010 200-hr, 16-month & 500-hr 24-month programs Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco San Francisco, CA 415.753.0909 sarah@iyisf.org www.iyisf.org

Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

Stephanie Quirk Asana and Therapeutics Part I: April 12-15, 2011 B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Institiute of Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 310.558.8212 www.iyila.org

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Stephanie Quirk Asana and Therapeutics Part II: September 13-16, 2011 B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Institiute of Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 310.558.8212 www.iyila.org Stephanie Quirk Asana and Therapeutics Part III: May 29-June 1, 2012 B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Institiute of Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 310.558.8212 www.iyila.org Stephanie Quirk Asana and Therapeutics Part IV: September 11-14, 2012 B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Institiute of Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 310.558.8212 www.iyila.org Stephanie Quirk Asana and Therapeutics Part V: October 15-18, 2013 B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Institiute of Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 310.558.8212 www.iyila.org Stephanie Quirk Asana and Therapeutics Part VI: TBD, 2014 B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Institiute of Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 310.558.8212 www.iyila.org John Schumacher and Patricia Walden July 24-31, 2010 Feathered Pipe Ranch Helena, MT www.featheredpipe.com Dean and Rebecca Lerner Iyengar Intensive and Teacher Training August 14-21, 2010 Feathered Pipe Ranch Helena, MT www.featheredpipe.com

pUJA CereMONIeS FOr OUr COMMUNITIeS

The upadhyaya is a Brahmin priest who conducts all the religious rituals for a family, including pujas, marriages, funerals, and housewarming, thread, and annual death ceremonies, as Geetaji wrote in a letter advising of Nataraj Shastri’s visit. Acquainted with Guruji since childhood, Nataraja Shastri was trained by Sri Radha Krishna Shastri, Guruji’s previous upadhyaya. Nataraja Shastri, one of the most highly regarded Vedic scholars in Pune, has been providing Vedic ritual services for 40 years. He is the patron of many temples and has officiated at all the major Vedic rituals conducted at the Iyengar Institute in Pune since 1975. He is perhaps best known to the worldwide Iyengar community for his recording of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, available from RIMYI.

James Murphy

Iyengar Yoga communities in the United States were blessed this summer with puja ceremonies performed by V. S. Nataraja Shastrigal, Upadhyaya to Guruji’s family.

V. S. Nataraja Shastrigal, Upadhyaya to Guruji’s family, conducts the puja July 24 in New York.

Nataraj Shastri also conducted a puja on Guru Purnima day at the home of Patricia Walden in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He chanted the Ganapati Puja, Vishnu Sahasranamam (1008 names of Lord Vishnu), Sri Rudram Chamakam (to Rudra, an aspect of Lord Shiva), Purusasuktam, Sri-suktam, Devi-suktam, and Shanti Panchakam.

The timing of Nataraja Shastri’s visit coincided with the installation of a newly arrived Patanjali statue at the Iyengar Yoga Institute in Los Angeles. The auspicious timing of the puja, beginning at 5:30 AM July 12, coincided with a workshop held by Manouso Manos; the prior evening marked the Institute’s annual benefit and summer celebration, which this year honored the memory of Mary Dunn. “Word of the puja ceremony spread,” remembers Garth McLean of the Los Angeles association, “drawing people from far and wide—men, women, and children, including one still in the womb, whose parents came for the special vibrational blessings. Their bouncing baby boy was born the first week of August.” The event, “a harmonic merging of cultures,” says McLean, created “a new beginning, a fresh energy” for the entire local Iyengar Yoga community.

On July 24, Nataraja Shastri performed a puja at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York. Geetaji wrote about this program: “Shastri will start with Punyah Vacanam.

He will sanctify the water, and this consecrated water will be sprinkled everywhere. Then he will do Ganapati Puja. After Puja he does samkalpam.

Samkalpam means the auspicious decision to be taken with oath.” Samkalpam was given in honor of the memory of Senior Teacher Mary Dunn and on behalf of all the Institute teachers.

“Although the mantras are difficult to understand, if one gives ears to them, listens with attention wholeheartedly, they bring the citta prasadanam.“ Nataraj Shastri performed rites of purification and sanctification, reciting the mantras of Navagraha Shanti, Purusa-suktam, Sri-suktam, Dhanvantari mantram, Sudarshana mantram, and Shanti mantram. For those who gathered to listen, the continuous chanting of these sacred mantras was a rare opportunity to be immersed in the ancient yogic wisdom of the Vedic sages.

Geetaji’s explanation continued: “After Samkalpam he will do Navagraha Shanti and Nakshatra Shanti. The nine planets and 27 stars will be prayed to and pacified so that their blessings will shower on all present there, whose names will be uttered in Samkalpam. The planets and stars are far from us, yet the cosmic energy that has to flow without any obstacle can be obstructed by the planets and stars. Therefore, such pacifying and peace-establishing mantras are uttered

Geetaji, in her letter to the Iyengar Yoga communities where the pujas were held, wrote: “Although the mantras are difficult to understand, if one gives ears to them, listens with attention wholeheartedly, they bring the citta prasadanam.1 They lead one to establish calmness, quietness and peace. It is a kind witnessing of the Vedas and is agama pramana.2 “The jnana comes gradually by listening to them often. As a practitioner or sadhaka of yoga, it is the duty of every student to listen to them patiently, through which manana, chintana, jnana and dhyana become possible… Sravanam (hearing) will lead towards mananam and nidhi dhyasanam.” 3 23

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and grains and cloths are offered. Each planet has its specific liking regarding particular grain and colour of cloth. The offering is done accordingly.

form of triguna, tridosha, sapta dhatu, trimala, nadi, sira and dhamani.5 She exists in everyone leading and granting varana-dharma, such as brahma tejas, kshatriya tejas, vaishya tejas and shudra-tejas,6 as well as ashrama dharma as brahmacharya, grhastha, vanaprastha and sannyasa, yielding the tejas required in the ashrama to follow the duty.7 She is the One who awakens kundalini shakti in the chakras as physical, physiological, biological, moral, psychological, mental intellectual, sensual, sexual, spiritual and divine energy.”

“Next will be the Ekadasha-Rudra. The Rudra-mantras are very powerful. No creature is free from fear of death. The attachment to life is ever-strong, which we call abhinivesa.4 Shastri is going to recite 11 cycles of Rudraikadashi Mantram in order to eradicate the fear of death, which includes fear of diseases, sufferings and ill experiences of life.” Each cycle was accompanied by offerings of water, milk, honey, yogurt, and fruits.

Samkalpam was given in honor of the memory of Senior Teacher Mary Dunn and on behalf of all the Institute teachers.

Because of time limits, Nataraja Shastri did not chant the Lalita Sahasranamam, instead chanting the Durga-suktam and Sri-suktam, which are also dedicated to the female goddesses that are the embodiment of prakrti-shakti. Geetaji wrote, “Suktam is short but potential flow of prose-form sentences, which are further powerful compared to the names in which the nature of the all pervading yet root-cause of this creation (prakrti) is narrated.”

The Rudraikadashi Mantram was followed by chanting of the Purusha-suktam, which has its origins in the Vedas. This was followed by a short break.

After the break, Nataraj Shastri led those assembled in the chanting of the Patanjali Ashtottara Shata Namavalih (108 names of Lord Patanjali). As he explained, Lord Patanjali is considered an avatar of Lord Vishnu. Accordingly, following the calland-response chanting of the 108 names of Patanjali, Nataraja Shastri chanted the Vishnu Sahasranamam, 1008 names of Lord Vishnu, who represents the allpervading Supreme, Universal Soul (purusha).

Nataraja Shastri concluded with Shanti Panchakam—the five shanti mantras to establish “peace, peace, peace.”

We are grateful to Nataraja Shastri for sharing this Vedic wisdom with us, and for gracing the American community of Iyengar Yoga practitioners with his presence. May the awesome and auspicious vibration of these sacred mantras continue to resonate in the walls of our centers and in our hearts for many years to come.

By Richard Jonas with Patricia Walden and Garth McLean. We gratefully acknowledge the generous help of Jarvis Chen in preparing this article for publication.

Notes: 1. citta prasadanam = benevolence of consciousness (see Yoga Sutra I.33: Maitri karuna muditopekshanam sukha duhkha punyapunya vishayanam bhavanatashchitta prasadanam).

Originally scheduled to follow the Vishnu Sahasranamam was the chanting of the Lalita Sahasranamam (1008 names of the goddess Lalita). Geetaji explained, “Lord Vishnu is the symbol of purusha-shakti and Goddess Mother Lalita is considered as prakrti-shakti. The shakti is energy. In Lalita Sahasranamam 1008 names of goddess Lalita are recited, which consist of the prakriti-shakti which flows in this universe outside as well as in every creature from the small insect to human beings. She is the form of potential power and strength that exists in mountains, trees, oceans, rivers, earth and other planets deciding their orbits in the several known and unknown solar systems.

2. agama pramana = right knowledge derived from the testimony of the sacred texts (see Yoga Sutra I.7: Pratyaksha anumana agamah pramanani).

3. manana = meditation; chintana = reflection; jnana = spiritual knowledge; dhyana = meditation; sravanam = hearing; nidhi dhyasanam = profound meditation (See Light on Pranayama, glossary).

4. abhinivesha = fear of death; clinging to life. See Yoga Sutra II.9: Svarasa-vahi vidusho’pi tatharudho’bhiniveshah.

5. triguna = three gunas (qualities of nature): sattva (clarity, illumination), rajas (activity), tamas (inertia); tridosha = from Ayurveda: vata, pitta, kapha; sapta dhatu = seven constituents of the body, i.e., rasa (chyle), rakta (blood), mamsa (muscle), meda (fat), asthi (bone), majja (bone marrow), shukra (reproductive fluid); trimala = from Ayurveda: feces, urine, sweat; nadi = subtle energetic channels in the body; sira = from Ayurveda: veins; dhamani = from Ayurveda: arteries.

6. varna-dharma = caste, role in life (see Astadala Yogamala Vol. 1, p. 160); brahmin = priestly class; kshatriya = martial class; vaishya = merchant class; shudra = working class; tejas = fire.

7. ashrama dharma = stages of life (see Astadala Yogamala Vol. 3, pp. 276–279); brahmacharin = student; grhasthin = householder; vanaprasthin = forest dweller; sannyasin = renunciate.

“Friday is considered a very auspicious day. Especially the female goddesses are invoked on this day. In the yogic point of view she [Lalita] exists in everyone in the Yoga Samachar Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

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IYNAUS NeW geNerAL MANAger by pat Musburger In mid November 2008, Sharon Cowdery joined IYNAUS as General Manager. Her work behind the scenes over the last 10 months has proved to be invaluable to the IYNAUS Board.

Family business took her to New York City in 2004, where she continued her study at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York and began volunteering her time. Eventually, she became the manager, coordinating the day-to-day running of the institute for two years.

Sharon comes from the Washington, DC, area. After college, she visited Seattle to begin a cross-country bicycle ride.

Smitten with the beauty and friendliness of the area, she returned to the Pacific Northwest after the ride and settled in Bellingham, Washington, for the next 15 years. It was there that Iyengar Yoga entered her life when she began studying at Yoga Northwest.

Sharon Cowdery

Sharon says that one of the most gratifying experiences of that job was being involved in the grant writing that resulted in the Institute receiving their first two grants from the Disney Foundation.

YOGA AS AN ART 1

An opportunity to be the Development Director for the American Lung Association in Seattle brought her back to the Pacific Northwest. Her job used not only her skills coordinating events and managing volunteers, but also her interest in health and exercise.

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Sharon now resides in Seattle with her knee-high brown dog, Bandit, and continues to study yoga at Tree House Iyengar Yoga. She sees her job as primarily helping to facilitate the initiatives of the IYNAUS Board. Her immediate focus is on creating a flow and efficient functionality of the website and store. These priorities will allow IYNAUS to communicate with and serve better the needs of its members and to help the community grow.

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When asked how she feels about working for IYNAUS, Sharon replied, “I have experienced tremendous personal growth as a direct result of studying and practicing Iyengar Yoga, and it’s truly an honor and delight to earn my living supporting this community and helping spread the word about Iyengar Yoga to the world.”

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Copyright © 2009 Nancy L. Roberts, yogawordpuzzles.com

ACROSS

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Lord Siva's dance of destruction The founder of yoga From sutra 1:33, it means friendliness Auspicious Art for pleasure The art of auspiciousness Art for sensual gratification Yoga is the perfect art in _____ Considered to be an incarnation of Adisesa Beautiful From sutra 1:33, it means gladness, joy The outward path of creation

DOWN 2 3 4 6 9 11 13 14

The inward path of renunciation Dance is a perfect art in______ From sutra 1:33, it means compassion The great commentary on grammar A path of love From sutra 1;33, it means indifference A path of knowledge True

As IYNAUS moves forward to better serve the community, our new General Manager is here to support the Board of Directors and provided continuity from one board to the next. We welcome Sharon and know that we made a great choice.

Pat Musburger is certified at the Intermediate Junior I level and is Director of Tree House Iyengar Yoga in the Seattle area. She serves as Secretary, By-Laws, and Yoga Research Chair for IYNAUS.

For more puzzles, go to yogawordpuzzles.com Answers: iynaus.org

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Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

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The IYNAUS STOre

bOOK reVIeW

We’re pleased to announce that the successful completion of the IYNAUS store move from Denver to Seattle, Washington. Customers can contact the store via the toll free number, 888-344-0434, option 2, or by calling the local number, 206-623-3562.

The YOgA SUTrAS OF pATANJALI A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary, with Insights from the Traditional Commentators. Written by edwin F. bryant. New York: North point press, 2009. ISbN 978-0865477-360. 672 pages. $35.00.

Please visit the store page on the website to see the latest specials, including 50% off all VHS tapes and audio cassette tapes; 20% off Atma Darsana, Atmajyana, and Yoga Sadhana DVDs; 2 for 1 on back issues of Yoga Rahasya.

A SChOLAr’S INVALUAbLe NeW COMMeNTArY WrITTeN IN A CLeAr AND eNgAgINg STYLe

The 2009 Certification Manual is sold out. We anticipate the newly revised 2010 edition will be available by January.

Sharon Conroy In the late 1980s, I began to work with Senior Teachers Patricia Walden and John Schumacher, both of whom studied the Yoga Sutras and integrated them into asana class.

Patricia became my mentor. In 1990, following her suggestion, I took up Patanjali’s work, reading one sutra a day and, as she had advised, letting it wash over me like water. This turned out to be excellent advice as it allowed me to approach this important text with a more quiet, less grasping mind.

We are anticipating a large order from Pune to arrive in October including blankets, Leap of Faith DVDs, and many other popular items that have been out of stock. Thank you for your patience during our transition period.

I started with two commentaries my teachers recommended, How to Know God, by Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda, and The Science of Yoga, by I. K. Taimni. When B.K.S. Iyengar’s commentary was published in 1993, I began to work with it almost exclusively. While I’ve often told myself that I would benefit from reading the classical commentaries, I have not done so. Now, Edwin Bryant's new translation and commentary, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, makes the perspectives and insights of six commentators readily available to us all.

If there are items that you would like to see available through the IYNAUS Store, please email your suggestions to generalmanager@iynaus.org.

Edwin Bryant holds a PhD in Indology from Columbia University and has taught at both Columbia and Harvard. Since 2001, he has been a professor of Hindu religion and philosophy at Rutgers University. While Edwin may be known in the academic world primarily for his work on Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita, over the past ten years, he has devoted increasingly more time to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. He was teaching this text to students at Harvard in 1997 when he first met Patricia Walden and began to work with her community of students.

In the late 1990s, having studied Patanjali’s work for many years, Patricia began to search for a scholar who could help deepen her own and her students’ understanding.

Once she learned that Edwin was teaching at Harvard and they had made one another’s acquaintance, Patricia invited him to teach at her center. He began by offering free Friday afternoon discussions on the Bhagavad Gita. Of these first classes she says, “One of the things I valued in Edwin from the start is that he’s not only a scholar, but he’s also a practitioner. He is deeply committed to his own practices and has been for over 30 years. Also, he lived in India for many years and is steeped in that culture.”

The Friday afternoons evolved over time into weekend workshops on the Bhagavad Gita. Then, Edwin began to give workshops on the Yoga Sutras, a text he also highly appreciated. Soon, teachers from other Iyengar communities were traveling to Cambridge to attend these workshops as well as inviting Edwin to work with their own communities around the country.

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Before long, Patricia began to ask Edwin to join her in teaching week-long retreats that combined the study of asana and philosophy. She explains why she did so in this way: “One of the primary reasons I chose to work with Edwin is that he is able to talk about difficult philosophical concepts in ways that students understand. And, he's also wonderfully patient with those who don't immediately follow what he's saying.” Student interest in the material was encouraging to both Patricia and Edwin. And, it has certainly been to our entire community’s benefit that their paths crossed.

In addition to the points of view of the commentators, there are quotes from the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita as well as stories from the Purana texts to elaborate on and illustrate whatever is under discussion. This variety of sources enriches the text and makes reading it an intellectually enlightening adventure.

Inspired by his teaching of the Yoga Sutras to practitioners, Edwin eventually decided to undertake his own translation and commentary. Regarding this decision, he says, “I recall this inspiration coming out of my interest in the text and my perception that a rigorous commentary faithful to the tradition, but user friendly, was needed on the Western landscape.” I have been working with his new commentary since November, and it is a pleasure to recommend it wholeheartedly to the Iyengar community.

In addition to the many treasures found in the commentary, Edwin also includes other material in this book that readers will find useful: a Sanskrit pronunciation guide; a thorough and very readable history of yoga; an essay on the subject matter of the yoga sutras including the dualism of yoga, the sankhya metaphysics of the text, the goals of yoga, and the eight limbs of yoga; an overview of this translation and commentary; summaries of each pada organized according to what topics are covered in various groups of sutras; an appendix with all the sutras in devanagari, transliteration, and English translation; an essay of concluding reflections; and extensive footnotes that should not be overlooked.

Having studied with Edwin on a number of occasions over the past ten years, I know first hand what an extremely skilled teacher he is. He has a very engaging manner and his enthusiasm for the material, whether it’s the Bhagavad Gita or the Yoga Sutras, is contagious.

It’s a delight to hear Edwin's clear, engaged teaching voice in this new book. His commentary has received high praise from both academics and practitioners, and, it is certainly significant that B.K.S. Iyengar has written its foreword.

Regarding his new commentary and how it differs from others, Edwin says, “There are dozens of modern translations of the sutras, which have been marketed to the yoga community or nonspecialized reading public interested in esoteric Eastern practices.

There are also a number of outstanding scholarly editions marketed to an academic audience, which typically include elaborate and highly specialized translations of one of the traditional Sanskrit commentaries on the text. Much of the traditional intellectual background is understandably often bypassed or watered down, in an effort to make the material accessible to a modern, primarily Western, nonspecialized audience. On the other hand, much of the scholarly translations are not very accessible to the nonspecialized reader with little or no background in ancient Indian philosophical thought. The present translation attempts to bridge these two worlds of discourse. It attempts to ground the text in its traditional intellectual context but to articulate the subject matter in a way that is accessible to the educated nonspecialist as well as to scholars and students of Indic philosophy.” (page lix)

Finally, at the end of the book, in his acknowledgments, Edwin begins by thanking Patricia and describing how he began to work with her community. Later he says, “This edition is especially dedicated to Patricia and the entire Iyengar community, particularly to Guruji Iyengar himself for his enormous contribution to the well-being of humanity and for his foreword to this volume.”

The first extant commentary on Patanjali’s work was done by Vyasa. As Edwin states, “It is Vyasa who determined what Patanjali's abstruse sutras meant, and all subsequent commentators elaborated on Vyasa.” (page xl)

© September, 2009 Sharon Conroy is an Intermediate Junior III teacher who has been practicing since 1986. She founded the Iyengar community in New Orleans 20 years ago and taught there until Katrina. She now has a center in Grayton Beach, Florida. Her email is Sharon@GreatWhiteHeron.Net.

Edwin’s commentary quotes extensively from five classical, meaning precolonial, commentators, Vyasa (fourth or fifth century), Sankara (eighth century), Vacaspati Misra (eighth to ninth centuries), Bhoja Raja (eleventh century), and Vijnanabhiksu (fifteenth century), as well as from one modern commentator, Hariharananda Aranya (nineteenth to twentieth centuries), a Sankhya master who lived a very traditional lifestyle. Regarding this approach, Edwin says, “The goal of this commentary is to present the traditional Yogic worldview not as an imagined monolith but through some of the permutations and configurations it has taken in the hands of the commentators over the centuries.” (page lxii) In the foreword, Guruji, who is himself a master of simple and direct language and understands its power, describes Edwin’s commentary as “lucid” and “presented in simple and fluent language.” As Patricia has already noted, Edwin has the gift of being able to synthesize and articulate complex concepts without compromising complexity.

Thus, we are given access to many other commentaries in an extraordinarily readerfriendly manner.

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IYNAUS Membership Membership is open to all persons who study the art, science, and philosophy of yoga according to the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar.

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Old Woman in a Chaos of Wings This sky pours out dark gold drama.

It pours out Japanese moon-god-mouth.

It’s pouring light & it cannot stop.

It blatantly harbors the arms of trees sagging with entrailed birds Bearing signal & message without end.

I shudder to remember how often I forget.

Look up old woman I remind myself.

Old woman I say Look up.

Look up.

Lindsey Clennell

—Stella Brice

Stella Brice is the author of two chapbooks— the latest a collection of dark fairy tale poems called Outgrow. She is a Pushcart prize nominee and a winner of the John Z. Bennet Prize, and her poems have been featured in many journals and anthologies. Stella lives with her family in a 102-year-old house in Houston.

ce Pla icia Ind ere H IYNAUS 1952 First Ave South, Suite 1B Seattle, WA 98134

Return Service Requested

The Women Painters of Mithila, Bobby Clennell Yoga Yantra, see page 9

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