Here’s one man who has impressed me so much. Nobody knows who he was or much details about him. His work is compiled under a pseudonym. His work on Yoga is what I consider the best and many others do. When there is a such brilliant piece of work written by someone, the natural tendency for people many centuries ago was to associate this person with some divine powers. Hence Patañjali was known as reincarnation of Adisesa, the serpent used by Vishnu during meditation. Adisesa provides sthiram and sukham. Vishnu also has Garuda the eagle to take him anywhere he wants. The serpent and the eagle are such opposite forces, but they coexist here for Vishnu. The reasoning why Adisesa was chosen for Vishnu’s support for meditation was that Adisesa was associated with a mature personality who has gone through a lot in life. Adisesa is also supporting the Earth on his head and taking care of Vishnu, who has an important job to perform as the Preserver of the Universe. Vishnu  needs a strong support and wisdom as a guide in Adisesa. A lot of stories are symbolic in Hinduism. Kausthub Desikachar writes Patañjali Unplugged, an interesting article on Patañjali .

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This is not about the yoga push up or push down. This is a film that I watched at VIFF and is one of the very few Indian films. The film is based on Rabindranath Tagore’s book. I am not sure if the book also goes by the same title, it was not mentioned. This is an interesting and complex film with many questions for Patanjali. What is spirituality and what really does it lead to? Or is it just escapism from the real world? Is it for the weak who cannot handle the real world? The film deals with these questions and more through the various characters, which are four and hence the title chaturanga, four chapters.

The main character in the film is one confused person. He confidently jumps from one set of ideals to the other one. While he is at it, he strongly believes in it and then leaves it for something else when he reaches the end of the line. The other characters around him question his behavior. Is he really so shallow that he leaves one for the other?

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Astanga according to The Yoga man Patanjali, is the eight parts that need to be followed to reach yoga. Asana or the hatha yoga is just one small component of the entire picture. For whatever reason, Pattabhi Jois (PJ) has redefined the word astanga to mean his vigorous athletic style of Yoga. So, I get into this confusion with all astanga yogis (ayogis), the pretty pale young things, who I come across in Mysore.

I was always aware that this word has been misused. Then it slowly dawns on me that another important word in Yoga has also been redefined. Either by PJ himself or his followers. I keep hearing conversations like, “I practice hatha yoga, not astanga” or the other way around. I ask the ayogis what is the difference. They tell me astanga is where one moves from one asana to the other with a vinyasa thrown in. Hatha is where one stays in a pose longer. Ok, Patanjali would be quite unhappy to hear the ayogis speak like this. Any physical yoga practice is hatha yoga, as far as I know. Flow, astanga, power, bikram, sivananda, Krishnamacharya KYM style, you name it. All of them are hatha yoga. So, astanga is nothing but a “style” of hatha yoga.

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Can a yoga teacher be fat? I could not help thinking about this, when a fat teacher, sort of obese, taught a class at a yoga ashram in India. He was supposedly the guru and the face of the ashram. The class was okay, but I was not used to this style. He was mostly seated on a chair and he walked around once or twice. Before he taught this class, I was told many times that this guru was going to teach on this particular day and the energy of the class was going to explode. We were primed up to this class. I felt no explosion of any sorts.

I wouldn’t ask for my money back for the class, that’s just about how much I liked the class. I like my teachers lean and inspiring. That way, I know they are practicing their yoga, they are grounded and in touch with yoga and are not just talk. Isn’t the body a telltale of one’s yoga practice? (more…)

When I decided to take a break from work, I thought that I could do Yoga 24×7, buzzing with om all the time. I have definitely studied a lot of yogic texts and have improved my home practice significantly. When I was working full time and living in SF, I would attend a yoga class almost everyday. I was quite regular even when I was working. I would so look forward to finish my work and get to the mat.

Now that I am not working, I have all the time at my disposal. I am not sure if that  is  such a good thing. Having so much free unstructured time does not mean that I am ‘doing’ more yoga. I think I am doing just as much when I was working full time.

Sometimes, when I get on the mat in the mornings, I get this feeling that I should read Sri Krishnamcharya’s books for the thousandth time to see how his practice was in Tibet. I need to figure out the specifics of a Kalari pose, was it 75 degrees or 90 degrees between the spine and the legs? Or how can I get the special powers as described by Patañjali. I think I should learn to levitate. (more…)

Until a few months back, I had come across the word Sraddha only in books. The first time I heard someone actually use it was in a Kalari class. My Gurukkal would whack the kids and say, sraddhikanum kutti. He would say this so many times in the class and I heard it every day. It is an interesting word and it defines my journey through India. I heard it everywhere since then and have come across it in Buddhist texts, Bhagavad Gita and in newspapers.

Sraddha means a deep faith. I heard a different meaning this morning, bull headed determination. (more…)

A Raksasa is a demon. A very cruel person is also referred to as a Raksasa. Little did I know that a Raksasa is also a person who accumulates wealth but gives away little. Brahma Raksasa is one that accumulates knowledge but who does not share it with anyone. I read this new meaning of Raksasa in a book related to Yoga. (more…)

Patanjali’s Yoga Darshanam aka Yoga Sutras is the first authoritative work on Yoga. Patanjali (Puh-th-anjali) is not the author or the originator of Yoga. He is the one that compiled it in writing for the first time. He assembled the vast knowledge of Yoga from the Vedas, Upanishads and from the teachings of his guru. (more…)

Breathing is an involuntary action for all humans and the animals. The human body is able to breathe on its own to take care of its functioning. That does not mean it works at its optimum. We may need to learn a thing or two from the animals. I read this passage in one of my favorite books, A Search In Secret India, by Paul Brunton.

This is the conversation between the author and a Yogi that he meets in Chennai. The Yogi says

an elephant breathes much more slowly than a monkey, yet it lives much longer. Some of the large serpents breathe far more slowly than a dog, yet they live longer. Thus creatures exist which show that slowness of breathing may possibly prolong age. These animals use their organs less, so the wear and tear is less which helps them to live longer.

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Time to change how I spell some words. I need to write colour instead of color. I have to say queue and not line. Say brinjal instead of eggplant. I have to switch to left hand side driving from right. I don’t have to say, water no ice, anymore. There will be no need to calculate 15% gratuity in a restaurant. These are things I know I should expect, when I move to India from San Francisco. Of course, these were the adopted new habits that I had changed many years back when I moved from India. Now, it is time to change them back.

Then there will be many things I cannot anticipate. The places go through so much change that I may not even be able to recognize them. We change so much too. I remember having a discussion with a teacher that teaches Pre natal yoga classes. We were talking about if the women after pregnancy will ever go back to the physical state that they were in before having the child. She said that people who come in for a yoga class will leave the class a changed person. We are constantly changing minute to minute. We will not be the same person, but a changed person, one hour from now. Our thought processes go through changes, our body is changing constantly.

Not all changes are pleasant. Some are good, some are not so good and you wish they didn’t happen at all. How can yoga help understand change that we go through? Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra can be of some help here.

Yoga Sutra talks about Avidya which means incorrect comprehension. Avidya can be understood as the accumulated result of our many unconscious actions without clarity. It is the root cause of the obstacles that prevent us from recognizing things as they really are. The purpose of yoga is to reduce the Avidya. When we learn to observe ourselves (yoga can be very useful here), we can explain why things are turning out certain ways and accept responsibility for the results. When we understand the cause and the effect, it gets easier to accept change.

This post will be incomplete without mentioning Shiva the destroyer, when a topic of change is discussed. The cosmic dance of Shiva has such a beautiful meaning. Shiva’s upper right hand has a drum that symbolizes creation. At the same time his upper left hand has agni or fire which stands for destruction. It does not have to mean destruction; it can also mean change that enables new things to happen, transformation. The dance can also be seen as a balancer of cosmos. Balance is a good thing.

As Thoreau said ‘all change is a miracle to contemplate’. Nataraja’s balance of the cosmic dance and the clarity which Yoga Sutra prescribes come in handy to deal with change.