Reflections from Pune

REFLECTIONS FROM PUNE AUG. 20–SEPT. 4, 2014

Compiled by Janet Lilly

The days following Guruji’s passing on Aug. 20, 2014,

were emotional for his dedicated students around the world. Most of us took solace in the reflections that we received from fellow practitioners who were in Pune. Here, we have gathered some of these reflections to chronicle Guruji’s cremation, memorial tributes, and life at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute through Sept. 4, 2014.

AUG. 20, 2014

Cathy Rogers Evans, Intermediate Senior III Teacher “It was truly an amazing occasion in Pune today. I feel exceptionally fortunate to have been here at this time. After a couple of weeks of uncertainty realizing Guruji was near his end, the feeling here among people who I have spoken with today is one of release and fullness.

Photo: Roberta M. DellAnno

“The morning was time for us to pay our respects to Guruji in his own room at home. We had plenty of time for this prior to the afternoon cremation. Everything included prayers and chanting; we could all take part in everything. Women were also permitted to attend Guruji’s rites and cremation. The Institute is closed for two weeks now.”

John Hayden, Intermediate Junior II Teacher and Executive Director of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco “This morning there was darshan at the Institute from about 8:30 a.m. onward to 2 p.m. I arrived at the Institute at about 9 a.m., and the Iyengar family was allowing people to pass through the house and view Guruji in his passing. He was beautiful and powerful. Geetaji and Prashantji were both strongly present, Prashant sitting on the floor in the room with Guruji for the entire time. There was a steady stream of

students, locals, and teachers throughout the morning and into the afternoon… By 12:30 p.m. today, they closed the road to the Institute as there were, by some reports, a thousand people in the vicinity.”

Victoria Austin, Intermediate Senior I Teacher “The family opened the house to hundreds or even thousands of people one by one. The women were sitting in the living room, mostly in white, and Guruji’s body had been laid out in the smaller, ground-floor room, lavishly covered with flower garlands. Prashant was sitting at his feet; wearing lungi and thread, a symbol painted in white on his forehead. One by one we came in and did our pranams, then sat or stood quietly in the garden. While we were there, TV reporters spoke with Geetaji. Pandu pulled me aside to speak with some other media representatives, along with other people who had been coming for many years. Mostly they wanted to hear about Guruji’s impact on practitioners in our home countries. All of this took about three hours, and then there was Vedic chanting for an hour, finally a last quick look with bigger crowds this time. The men bore Guruji’s body to a stretcher that had been made of freshly cut bamboo, lashed together, padded with straw, and covered with a sheet. Everyone chanted mantras as the pallbearers made their way to an ambulance.”

John Hayden “At about 2:30 p.m. Pune time today, Guruji’s body was taken to the cremation facility. There was a beautiful ceremony, ritual, and chanting, and Guruji’s body was cremated. I observed the entire ceremony.”

Victoria Austin “We reconvened at the cremation grounds, where they had set up an open pit with stacks of sandalwood and cow patties as kindling. The kindling and wood, along with the flowers from the garlands, were passed around so that people could touch them and hand them back with good wishes to go into the pit. Chanting, lighting, ‘everyone back!’ while the flames got bigger. Someone loaded Prashant up with a large water vessel that had holes drilled into it, and he circled the pit, with the water pouring over him and the edges of the pit. Then with a very final sounding clunk they broke the pot.”

John Hayden “The Institute has posted a notice that they will remain closed through Sept. 2. I understand that this coincides with a Vedic ritual of 13 days of mourning.”

AUG. 21, 2014

Cathy Rogers Evans “Today everything feels quiet on Hare Krishna Mandir Road. There are beautiful posters of Guruji at prominent positions around the city. The India Times has some wonderful reports and photos of Guruji. As Geetaji said, ‘He was very precious to us.’ In another interview at the last rites, she said, ‘Like rain, he touched all of us equally.’”

AUG. 30, 2014

John Hayden “Abhijata Sridhar Iyengar said at the end of the evening, which concluded with everyone standing for two minutes of silence: ‘Whenever and wherever there is yoga, Guruji is going to be there.’”

SEPT. 1, 2014

Janet MacLeod, Intermediate Junior III Teacher “The atmosphere at the Institute is very serene. This is a bit surprising to me but after attending the Shraddhanjali event on Aug. 30, 2014, I understand why. Guruji’s granddaughter, Abhijata, was the Master of Ceremonies, and there were four other speakers: Prashantji, Birjoo Mehta, Patxi Lizardi, and Patricia Walden. All four recounted meaningful stories from their close and long-term relationships with Guruji. In between these speakers, Abhijata shared some information about the time leading up to Guriji’s admittance into the hospital and his brief stay there. She made it very clear that he was not afraid of dying and approached it in a comfortable way. From what she said, it really sounded as if he were ready. I have been around individuals who come to this point just before death. Because of their level of ease with the transition, it spreads to those close to them. I feel that although his devotees were sad, there was acceptance and, beyond that, gratitude. This made for a very peaceful gathering despite the large numbers in the hall.”

Michael Lucey, Intermediate Junior III Teacher and, at the Time, IYNAUS Vice-President “The Vaikunta Samaradhana ceremony took place on Monday, Sept. 1, in the morning. The ceremony marks the end of the formal mourning period, and the ritual performed celebrates the arrival of the departed soul into the abode of Vishnu. Prasad, a holy meal, was then served to hundreds of visitors. In the evening, a group of priests chanted from The Upanishads and also the 1,008 names of Vishnu, after which Prasad was again served to those in attendance.”

SEPT. 3, 2104

Michael Lucey “The normal schedule of classes began again at the Institute. Student volunteers had been asked to come in the late afternoon on Tuesday to help rearrange the halls for classes. A group of about 40 students from China have come for intensive study for part of the month of September, and they helped make quick work of readying the two halls for the resumption of classes. Abhijata taught the 9:30 a.m. ladies class on Wednesday morning, a translator at her side, and the group from China set up together on one side of the hall. There will be translators for Prashant’s classes as well while the delegation from China is here. Abhijata, aided by a familiar team of the

“ Only his body has ended. One person’s efforts from inside out, changed the acceptance of yoga throughout the world. Nothing was hidden, from the time he began to practice, to his illness and death. Even last night he was telling Abhijata,

‘I have shown you all these things, now realize them for yourself.’ What he has given cannot be encompassed by words. If a disciple is more developed, then that person will understand. What can be said in words, is that he was precious to us.” —Geeta Iyengar, upon her father’s death

other RIMYI teachers, taught standing poses and inversions, building carefully from action to action, from asana to asana. At one point during the class, she paused for a moment that felt deeply moving to me, and reminded us that first, as she was demonstrating through her teaching, we start with actions in an asana, then we coordinate different actions together, then we integrate, then comes absorption, and only after that, yoga.

“Throughout these first few days of September, there will surely be many moments when Guruji’s absence will be felt ever so acutely. I have many memories of observing Wednesday morning ladies classes where he was practicing in his corner, and simultaneously directing the teaching that was going on.

“Abhijata supervised the 6 p.m. medical class, another moment when I think it sunk in once again for many people in the room that Guruji would not be appearing to energize, direct, and intervene as he had so often in the past. And yet the class went on.

“On Wednesdays, there is an open practice period in the hall from 4 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. Guruji was not usually present for that practice session during recent visits I’ve made to Pune, so I wasn’t missing his presence in the way I expected I would during practice sessions the next few mornings. Then at a certain point as I was practicing, some words Abhijata had said during the Shradhanjali meeting a few days before came into my mind: ‘Our dear Guruji is now within us, unlimited by constraints of form, space, and time… He has touched each one of us so deeply that we are going to somatically and cellularly remember him for a long, long time to come.’

“I wondered if I could find him in my cells as I continued to work on some Salamba Sarvangasana variations in my practice. Then I remembered something he said on his 95th birthday: ‘Today I request you to practice that when you are practicing, you should not think of the extension or expansion of the body, but the extension and the expansion of the intelligence and your consciousness, which should make your body to spread more than it is spreading now. So use your consciousness, use your intelligence as a thorn, and see that these two inner vehicles of the soul make the fibers, the cells in the body, to feel the existence—to link intellectually, consciously, conscientiously in the cells of the body. And I am sure that if you use your intelligence as an instrument to make the body to spread, you are one with God, you are one with your soul, you are one with your body.’ I felt new inspiration for my practice thanks to the memory of those words.”

SEPT. 4, 2014

Michael Lucey “Thursday, at 7 a.m., Prashant taught one of his remarkable beginning-of-the-month standing pose classes to a packed hall. I missed being able to look out the window across the courtyard and see Guruji at his desk, reading the morning papers or writing letters. At a certain moment in the class, Prashant was driving home a point regarding why we practice asana—not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end—and he made a distinction between what he called photasana (asanas done for photos) and yogasana. Gesturing at all the pictures of his father around the room doing the remarkable asanas for which he is famous, Prashant pointed out that if photasana had been the point, there would have been no reason for his father to have gone on practicing into his nineties, when so many of the poses were no longer in his repertory. Why, Prashant asked us to consider, would he have insisted that it was in those late years of his life that he was moving ever deeper and deeper into his practice of yoga? And what lesson could we take from that for our own practice? It was a wonderful, powerful, moment in a class that Prashant taught with vigor and with joy.

“At 9 a.m. after Prashant’s class, there is a practice session. In the past, Guruji would have been there, practicing, and often stopping to teach his granddaughter or others around him. Abhijata was there today, using the horse and grill in the corner where her grandfather practiced. The other teachers from the Institute also came and practiced together as usual, helping each other, and occasionally helping some of the students from around the world who are here at the moment. ‘Life moves,’ we know Guruji said. ‘There’s no death. There’s no birth. Life is like a river, moving without any stop.’”

Janet Lilly (Intermediate Junior I) is outgoing president of the IYNAUS Board of Directors.