Your Practice Brings the Secrets to You: Reflections on Geetaji’s Shraddhanjali Amita Bhagat

Your Practice Brings the Secrets to You

REFLECTIONS ON GEETAJI’S SHRADDHANJALI

BY AMITA BHAGAT

The manner in which they integrated us, their students, into the family life was generous and deeply meaningful to us all.

The platform at the front of the main practice hall

On the day of Geetaji’s Shraddhanjali, Dec. 28, 2018, the Iyengar family kindly opened the Institute for practice to those students who were in Pune. There was a puja going on inside the house, and the sounds of the mantras being chanted floated up to the main practice hall, which was being adorned with flowers for the function to be held that evening. We were invited for lunch on behalf of the Iyengar family, and so we went into the house where the puja—which Prashantji had sat for—had just finished. We bowed down and paid our respects to Geetaji’s picture and also to Prashantji.

Lunch included different types of rice, curd, vegetable dishes, papad, sweets—all the six tastes—and was served on giant leaves. We were given prasad, blessed food, and also a 10-rupee note and were told that a guest could not leave empty-handed. The hospitality of the Iyengar family throughout this time after Geetaji passed away was abundant: from the invitation to come into their family home and go to the cremation grounds on the day she passed, to opening the Institute for practice during the 13th-day mourning period to speaking to every single person at the lunch. The manner in which they integrated us, their students, into the family life was generous and deeply meaningful to us all. That evening, we gathered for Geetaji’s Shraddhanjali, which is a tribute to someone who has passed, a memorial service remembering them and their life. This ceremony is held after a 13-day mourning period, which all Hindus follow when someone dies. A few of us were still in Pune following the December celebrations, and more people flew in from other cities in India and abroad. Geetaji’s picture was set against Patanjali with flowers adorning her photo and a small diya (oil lamp). Another picture was up on the platform with the quote, “It is your practice that brings the secrets to you. No teacher can give you the secrets.” Sunita Iyengar explained to us that today Geetaji had reached Vaikuntha, the abode of Vishnu, and the suffering she had to go through to get to the doors of Vaikuntha were over.

Abhijata opened the evening by leading us in chanting the invocation to Patanjali. Prashantji, now the senior-most Iyengar Yoga teacher, presided first, telling us stories from Geetaji’s childhood and how her life had been laid out on the path of yoga. He recounted her life from childhood and told us how, in the 1960s, she became a yoga teacher when Guruji started going abroad. He left her in charge of teaching at the Gujurati school where there was a public class.

Others contributed to the evening with stories, reflections, and memories of Geetaji as well.

Nawaz Kamdin, a senior teacher at RIMYI and lifelong student and friend of Guruji and Geetaji, shared how life was not easy for the Iyengar family in the beginning. Geetaji, she said, had to travel around by bicycle to people’s houses to promote her lessons and propagate yoga. “[Geeta’s] perseverance as a teacher could be experienced in the medical classes, where she left no stone unturned.”

Nawaz remarked on Geeta’s innovation, how she was truly devoted to her work in the medical classes, and how she had this expert eye for diagnosing the patient even before seeing the medical reports. But, said Nawaz, she had her own health problems: weakness, a connective tissue disorder, circulatory problems, gangrene, weak eyesight. Yet she worked tirelessly in medical class, Nawaz said, as if some divine source was moving through her. In the last weeks before her death, Geetaji repeatedly reminded her assistants that she was staying alive for the centenary celebrations and then she was done: She wanted to give all that she had to celebrate the 100th birth anniversary of her father.

On the morning of Nawaz’s birthday, Dec. 16, she awoke to a call from Abhijata saying that Periamma (aunt)—Geetaji—was gone. Life and death is not in our hands, Nawaz said, and she let go, satisfied that she had completed her responsibility.

Next, Patxi Lizardi, a senior teacher from Spain who was appointed by Guruji to translate all of Guruji’s works into Spanish, recounted how he told his wife that “commitment” was the word he felt described Geetaji’s life. His wife said, “You are using the wrong word, the more accurate one is ‘sacrifice.’” Geetaji sacrificed her own life for Guruji’s work. Patxi told his wife that we are all orphans now, without our father (Guruji) and our mother (Geetaji).

Rajvi Mehta then spoke about how Geetaji reached out to many levels of students at the intensive. She told the assistants that time was short and, as such, she didn’t want to take any breaks during the convention. Abhijata concluded the tributes by telling us that Geeta made her honest. She told us we are exposed now and compared it with a chilly winter morning. When our quilts and warm blankets are removed, Abhijata said, it can be a bone-chilling experience, just like death. “It is palpable that the whole community is numb and everything stands still. Guruji was the soul and Geetaji was the heart of Iyengar Yoga.”

Abhijata told us she saw Geetaji from different angles, both as her teacher, who was a strict disciplinarian, and as her aunt, who was so loving. One word Abhijata used to describe Geetaji’s life was “purposeful.” Her life from childhood until Dec. 16 was connected by a single thread, a single purpose: yoga, Iyengar Yoga, and Guruji. For her these three things were synonymous; they were one. All her life moved on this single track, Abhijata said.

As we left, we paid our respects to Geetaji and went downstairs for dinner, which was provided by the family. As we descended the stairs, volunteers passed out bookmarks with a small picture of Geetaji, which is also up on the house and now greets everyone as they exit the Institute building, along with the quote, “It is your practice that brings the secrets to you. No teacher can give you the secrets.”

This is her message to us; it’s up to us to practice and realize the truth.

Amita Bhagat (CIYT) has been making annual trips to RIMYI since 2012 and recently returned from a four-month-long study there. She is the former director of Sadhanaa Yoga.

“The children stand the tallest in this world.”

—Geetaji, Yoganusasanam