Philosophers From India

"I first met Mr Iyengar in London in the summer of 1971. That’s what we all called him then, before the name "Guruji" became fashionable. I had been learning Iyengar yoga for nearly a year, and practising every day, but when I met him that was it. I realised he was a spiritual teacher as well as a physical one."

"He has by far had the most profound impact on the global spread of yoga. Light on Yoga is the yoga canon of this century. It is the most detailed, systematic and precise book out there about yoga [poses and techniques]."

"I thought my heart was going to explode. I was just overjoyed. A guru puts you in a moment of happiness. There is no love like that. It is just electric."

"B.K.S Iyengar is considered the world's greatest living yoga master. He refined and perfected the technique of doing yoga poses that is most widely taught in the United States. He began life as a frail and sickly child — but at the ripe age of 87, the yoga master can still stand on his head and hold a conversation at the same time."

"Born Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar in Karnataka’s Kolar district in 1918 and debilitated by illnesses since his childhood, he codified Patanjali’s yoga sutras in an innovatively dynamic yoga style which came to be known as Iyengar Yoga, winning millions of followers in more than 70 countries of the globe in the process. He set forth its principles in Light on Yoga (1966), which has since been regarded as the bible of yoga. The book has been translated into 19 languages and has sold more than three million copies. Most importantly, he opened the doors for his discipline, making it accessible to all regardless of class, caste and religion."

"Physical health is not a commodity to be bargained for. … Nor can it be swallowed in the form of drugs and pills — it has to be earned through sweat. It is something that we must build up."

"The practice of yogasana for the sake of health, to keep fit, or to maintain flexibility is the external practice of yoga. … While this is a legitimate place to begin, it is not the end ... Even in simple asanas, one is experiencing the three levels of quest: the external quest, which brings firmness of the body; the internal quest, which brings steadiness of intelligence; and the innermost quest, which brings benevolence of spirit."

"I set off in yoga seventy years ago when ridicule, rejection and outright condemnation were the lot of a seeker through yoga even in its native land of India. Indeed, if I had become a sadhu, a mendicant holy man, wandering the great trunk roads of British India, begging bowl in hand, I would have met with less derision and won more respect. At one time I was asked to become a sannyasin and renounce the world, but I declined. I wanted to live as an ordinary householder with all the trials and tribulations of life and to take my yoga practice r to average people who share my life with me the common life of work, marriage and children. I was blessed with all three…"

"Often, we hear people saying they remain active and light when they do just a little bit of asana practice. When a raw beginner experiences this state of well-being, it is not merely the external or anatomical effects of yoga. It is also about the internal physiological and psychological effects of the practice."

"He, who was awarded the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan, gritted his teeth to master English and exposed yoga to the West, teaching such luminaries like violin maestro Yehudi Menuhin and author Aldous Huxley."

"It took me decades to appreciate the depth and true value of Yoga. Sacred texts supported my discoveries, but it was not that signposted the way. What I learned through yoga, I found out through yoga. I am not however, a " self made man". I am only what seventy-two years of devoted yoga sadhana has created out of me. Any contribution I have made to the world has been the fruit of my sadhana."

"Yoga ferried me across the great river from the bank of ignorance to the shore of knowledge and wisdom."

"Do not aim low, you will miss the mark. Aim high and you will be on a threshold of bliss."

"I can remain thoughtfully thoughtless. It is not an empty mind."

"The art of teaching is also to know when to stop. It is good when people want to be better, physically, morally, spiritually, intellectually. But a fashion? No! Yoga is a painful art. It’s not like dance or music, where the person watching gets pleasure. Only the person doing it finds joy. It has nothing to do with externals."

"Because I want to make a good death."

"When I stretch, I stretch in such a way that my awareness moves, and a gate of awareness finally opens. … When I still find some parts of my body that I have not found before, I tell myself, yes I am progressing scientifically... I don't stretch my body as if it is an object. I do yoga from the self towards the body, not the other way around."

"When you inhale, you are taking the strength from God. When you exhale, it represents the service you are giving to the world."

"You do not need to seek freedom in some distant land, for it exists within your own body, heart, mind, and soul. Illuminated emancipation, freedom, unalloyed and untainted bliss await you, but you must choose to embark on the Inward Journey to discover it."

"Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one's being, from bodily health to self-realization. Yoga means union — the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions."

"I have lived a majestic life."

"Asanas keep the body healthy and strong and in harmony with nature."

"When the yoga teacher B.K.S Iyengar (2001(2): 47) writes, “The consciousness is like a chariot yoked to a team of powerful horses. One of them is breath (prånå), the other is desire (våsanå),” he simply builds on the same tradition."

"My poor health was matched, as it often is when one is sick, by my poor mood. A deep melancholy often overtook me, and at times I asked myself whether life was worth the trouble of living. … Seeing that the general state of my health was so poor, my brother-in-law recommended a stiff regime of yoga practice to knock me into shape and strengthen me up to face life's trials and challenges as I approached adulthood"

"Yoga transformed my life from a parasitic one to a life of purpose. Later yoga inspired me to partake in the joy and nobility of life, which I carried to many thousands of people without consideration of religion, caste, gender, or nationality."

"Deeply religious, he always kept yoga and religion separate."

"Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured."

"Patanjali is considered the father of the yoga. On reality as far as we know, he was a yogi and polymath living around the fifth century BC, India, who collated and elaborated knowledge of the yogis’ life and practices. He wrote the Yoga Sutras, lierally a thread of aphorisms about yoga, consciousness and the human condition. Patanjali also explained the relationship between the natural world and the innermost and transcendent soul....What Patanjali said applies to me and will apply to you."

"Yoga was my Destiny, and for the past seventy years, yoga has been my life, a life fused with the practice, philosophy, and teaching of the art of yoga. Like all destinies, like all great adventures, I have gone to places I have imagined before I set out. For me It has been a journey of discovery."

"Guru Purnimma is also called Vyasa Purnimna. On this day Bhagavan Veda Vyasa was born to sage Parashara and a fisherwoman. On this day Bhagavan Vedavyasa is said to have commenced the great work Brahma Sutra. Hence this day is also dedicated to the study of Brahma Sutra. He represents the entire Guru Parampara and he is worshipped very well."

"Passionless is the consciousness of being Master on the part of one who has rid himself of thirst for either seen or revealed objects."

"The mind stuff (chitta) -- if it be rid of thirst for objects that are seen, such as women, or food or drink or power, if it be rid of thirst for the object revealed (in the vedas) such as the attainment of Heaven or the discarnate state or of resolution into primary matter -- if even when in contact with objects either supernormal or not it be, by virtue of elevation, aware of the inadequateness of objects - will have a consciousness of being Master..."

"Mother and father abandoned me at birth and the author of my life also did not write any worth or merit on the page of destiny."

"The world knows that to quell the belly-fire, I ate crumbs and morsels given by men of caste, high-caste, low-caste or no cast."

"What did I not do, where did I not go, to whom did I not bow."

"[I] begged for crumbs and morsels door to door...Plodding and dawdling around lanes."

"Mine is no caste or cult, what care I for one or the other... No one is of any use to me, nor am I of any use to anyone. Don’t have a son to need, someone’s daughter to wed. Tulsi is the slave of Rama, whoever may say whatever he likes. Begged for food, slept in a mosque, have nothing to take and nothing to give, call me a swindler or a saint, call me a Rajput or a Julaha."

"Am a servant of Rama, Accredited to His Court, What for should I Be a Courier of man?"

"He walks without legs, hears without ears, does all the deeds without hands. He enjoys all the juices without a mouth, spells all the truth without a voice, touches everything without hands. He see very object without eyes and inhales all the scents without a breath."

"The story of Ramachandra, as narrated in the Valmiki Ramayan and the Adhyatma Ramayan, after reinforcing and revitalizing it with the essence of whatever the Puranas, the Vedas, and other scriptures could give, I, Tulsidas, am writing for the delight of my own soul."

"Ramacharitamanasa, the poet's magnum opus is an epic. Kavitavali (in spite of gaps here and there), Janaki Mangala, and Parvati Mangala, as also the other two smaller poems Barve Ramayana and Ramalala Nahchhoo are narrative."

"The book is in everyone's hands, from the court to the cottage, and is read, or heard, and appreciated alike by every class of the Hindu community, whether high or low, rich or poor, young or old."

"FS Growse, in 1883, in Meenakshi Jain, The Battle for Rama: Case of the Temple at Ayodhya (2017)(p.87"

"The Ramacharitamanas undoubtedly is the great poem worthy to rank among the great classical masterpieces of world literature."

"Tulsidas is the highest tree in the garden of Hindu poetry, though his name does not appear in Aeen-i-Akbari or any book of Muslim historians or even narratives of European writers who worked on information taken from Persian historians. Yet, Tuslidas was the greatest man of India of his time. In fact he can be called greater than Akbar because the victory that the poet registered in the hearts of thousands of millions of people was greater and more lasting than all the imperious victories put together...the Ramacharritamanas is such an enormous epic that its English adaptation by Growse is of 362 pages. The declinations in this epic are so similar to Christianity that on numerous spots, if Rama is replaced by Christ, there can be no question."

"In the whole of Indian literature, Tulsidas is supreme....The devotion in his poetry is of the same order as of philosophy. And from the beginning to the end, not a word or an idea, can be spotted which is not perfectly neat and pious."

"No poet in England has ever been in the masses what Tulsidas has been to the people of this land."

"The fact of its universal acceptance by all classes... is surely worthy of note."

"Tulsidas alone, though the most famous of them all has no disciples that are called after his name."

"Tuslidas’s attitude toward life and literature was distinctly more objective. Quite naturally, therefore, he has used the objective forms–the epic and the narrative- besides of course, the lyric as vehicles of his devotional poetry."