Impressions of India: Day 6 -Happy Birthday Geeta Iyengar

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Saturday December 6, 2014 Geeta Iyengar turned seventy years old. She chose to celebrate her seven decades on this earth by sharing a bit of the legacy of wisdom her father left to his children. Geeta knew her father like no one else. Her 10-day Birthday Intensive is proof of that. However, we all know our parents, but few of us have honored their gifts with the earnest commitment that she has.

Walking onto the stage with thousands singing Happy Birthday was our humble way of honoring her personal life’s work, which is in and of itself an incredible gift to us.

The other way, of course, is to honor and respect the integrity of Iyengar Yoga. There is also a moral imperative associated with this style of yoga. The Yamas and Niyamas are not taken lightly.

While Mr. Iyengar in the recent documentary film Light on Sadhana, he talks about learning from the drinkers and partiers. He would sip his lemon water and watch what happens as young men drank their beer or whatever.  Geeta said on one of the days of the Intensive that he never judged drinkers or smokers or those who got off track in addictive behaviors. He let the yoga do the yoga. He let the yoga purify them.

There is a saying that Geeta used and I am not going to give it justice here, so forgive me, I believe it is called, Rasa Mat Jnana. Rasa is like squeezing the juice from a lemon. Jnana means knowledge. What Geeta wanted to convey throughout the day had to do with this idea of getting everything you can out of our Yoga – everything out of our poses, our learning, our body and our mind -skin to soul. 

If you wanted to make orange juice or lemonade or the wonderful lime soda they make here in India, then you wouldn’t just squeeze half of the fruit?  You would want one of those juicing devices with ribbed rounded top to turn each half sliced piece of fruit left and right, right and left to get as much juice out of it as you could.

That is what we need to do with Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharna, Dhyana, and even Samadhi, if by some miracle we get there in this lifetime. It is what her father did.  He didn't have Light on Yoga as a guidebook. His body was his guidebook. He tirelessly explored what taking his arm this way or that would teach him about a pose. He asked, what do I discover if I overdo something or under do it? If I move fast or slow?  

It is what Geeta wants teachers to encourage in students. What more beautiful way to emphasize the squeezing of a lemon action than through Parvrtta Shiti, seated lateral extensions or twists. 

In our seated twists, we worked several different ways to gain more rotation in the abdomen. Here she emphasized that Iyengar Yoga is not to be thought of as a “technique” or series of exercises.  What happens in Iyengar Yoga happens in the moment.  Atha Yoganusasanam, the first Sutra of Patanjali:  NOW, begins our yoga. Observe, study, experience what needs to happen now.

It is not about a list of procedures to go through. It is about being curious, exploring, experimenting and extending our efforts to understand our own bodies in asana at a deep level. There are thousands of different articulations and adjustments that can be done in asana. Only through our personal experience can we know what needs to be “adjusted” in ourselves or on a student and the best way to go about it.

Geeta brought an older student having trouble in the seated twists onto the stage. It took two assistants and Geeta to push, pull, and press her body to break through the fear complexes and tamasic (inert, unmoving) parts so the student could feel where her body can go.  Yes, touching a student is very much part of this style of yoga. The mind doesn't know what it doesn't know - to learn a physical shift we have to feel it. The student was able to go much deeper into the pose than I'm sure she ever thought possible.

 

Once again, another miracle witnessed on stage. Needless to say, by the time we finished our seated twists, I had also experienced a significant rotation I didn’t know I had. I feel as if I’m at a revival of some kind here. “You are healed!”  But there are no shenanigans going on behind the curtain –it’s simply Iyengar Yoga.

Thank you for your birthday present, Geeta

  

Namaste