Philosophers From India

"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."

"I have lived a majestic life."

"Mr. Iyengar’s practice is characterized by long asanas, or postures, that require extraordinary will and discipline. A reporter who watched daily practice in 2002, when Mr. Iyengar was 83, said that he held one headstand for six minutes, swiveling his legs to the right and the left, and that when he finished, "his shoulder-length hair was awry, he seemed physically depleted," but he wore the smile of a gleeful child."

"Ms. Sridhar-Iyengar said her grandfather recognized early on that yoga, up until then viewed as a mystical pursuit, "had something for everybody, not just the intellectually or spiritually inclined." "He felt satisfied," she said. "Even at the end, even a few weeks before, he said, 'I’m satisfied with what I’ve done.' He took yoga to the world. He knew that.""

"His first teacher was his brother-in-law, a Brahmin scholar who had set up a school of yoga at the Jaganmohan Palace, and who sometimes denied his student food if his performance was deemed inadequate. He then a teenager, was the youngest member of the Maharaja of Mysore’s entourage, and was asked to demonstrate his ability to stretch and bend his body for visiting dignitaries and guests. Menuhin, who visited India in 1952, heard of his practice and penciled him in for a five-minute meeting, and was so instantly impressed that the session went on for more than three hours. He [Iyengar] recalled, in an interview with CNN, that "the moment I adjusted him and took him, he said, I’ve never felt this sense of joy, elation.""

"Guruji did warn me: "Relaxation doesn't mean yoga is a soft option. It's a disciplined subject — a casual attempt only gains casual results.""

"Mr Iyengar was credited with his own brand of yoga, and taught author Aldous Huxley and violinist Yehudi Menuhin, among other celebrities. … One of yoga's finest teachers, he practised what he called an "art and science" for more than eight decades and ran one of India's top yoga schools in Pune. He continued to practise — "practice is my feast", he once told a correspondent — in his old age and could still do the sirsasana — or the headstand — for half an hour until last year."

"We were just coming out of the ’60s change-your-consciousness thing, and many of us were in our heads, and wanting to meditate, and reach Samadhi, or enlightenment. He was, like, ‘Stand on your feet. Feel your feet.’ He was so practical. His famous quote was, ‘How can you know God if you don’t know your big toe?’"

"Great lion of Indian yoga."

"He was credited with bringing the 3,000-year-old oral tradition and physical practice of yoga to the West; he promoted a system, notable for its use of props and its step-by-step approach to the "asanas" (yoga positions), which is now the most widely practised form of the discipline in the world."

"Menuhin became his fervent disciple, describing him as "my best violin teacher". As well as using his new discipline on one famous occasion to conduct the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with his feet while standing on his head, he [Menuhin] invited him to teach in Switzerland, and introduced him to his students in London, to other artists, and to royalty."

"Generations will remember him as a fine Guru, scholar and a stalwart who brought Yoga into the lives of many across the world."

"He was the first to introduce simple props such as ropes, belts, wooden blocks and bolsters to enable the elderly and less fit to maintain classical postures correctly and safely. The Iyengar form of yoga is now often employed by physiotherapists treating people with spinal injuries and back problems to recover full movement."

"At the end of a session in 2002, he lay on his back, knees bent so that his calves were beneath his thighs, arms out to either side, weights holding him down. He lay still for 12 minutes, perfectly immobile except for the twitch of a pinkie. Asked what he was thinking, he replied, "Nothing.""

"He was well known as one of the foremost yoga teachers in the world. He is credited with establishing and popularising modern yoga first in India and then across the world. He created a unique school of yoga popularly known as ‘Iyengar Yoga’ and authored several books on yoga practice and philosophy which are considered authoritative texts used by practitioners, young and old."

"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."

"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."

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

"In the west, where supplication to gurus is not the cultural norm, he elicits such a response from a cadre of longtime yoga practitioners. They credit him with changing their lives — and the face of yoga in the United States. In 1966, he published a landmark book explaining 216 yoga postures called "Light on Yoga" which has sold nearly 3 million copies and has been translated into 17 languages. His technique was physically challenging, unusual for Americans practicing yoga, but what truly set it apart was his therapeutic approach to the poses. He devised specific prescriptions, or sequences of poses, to help people with ailments such as backache, headaches, high blood pressure, diabetes and many more."

"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."

"I didn’t find him intimidating. Some people did, but I found him inspiring. There’s a clip in a forthcoming film about him in which he says, "See how many students I have in spite of my wild nature?" He did have a wild nature; he was quick, and could be sharp, but I never felt it was a personal thing — it was always so you could understand better what you were doing."

"He was extraordinary, a genius; there’s no doubt about it. But his teaching was not for everyone. Different students need different teachers and different teachers find different students. It’s very strange and fascinating."

"He was a phenomenal person, compassionate, sensitive, caring and broad-minded. He was instrumental in revitalizing an ancient art and taking it to an international level."

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

"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."

"The mind and the breath are the king and queen of human consciousness."

"He was a one-person movement...we will strive to keep his Sadhana (legacy) alive. He has achieved eternal peace. He was open to everyone even till his last breath."

"Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit. When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the gates of the soul open."

"You exist without the feeling of existence, existence has no meaning."

"Yoga is like music: the rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create the symphony of life/"

"Of the two aspects of asana exertion of our body and penetration of our mind is our goal, but in the beginning to set things in motion, there is no substitute for sweat"

"Health is not to be mistaken for mere existence. It is the balance of the body, mind and self... there rests the mind. If the breath scatters, the mind wanders. If mind wanders, the breath scatters. So still the breath to still the mind. Mind is the king."

"We think of intelligence and perception as taking place exclusively in our brains, but yoga teaches us that awareness and intelligence must permeate the body. Each part of the body literally has to engulfed by the intelligence. We must create a marriage between the awareness of the body and that of the mind. When two parties do not cooperate, there is unhappiness on both sides."

"You must purge yourself before finding faults in others. When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake. This is the way to take judgment and to turn it into improvement. Do not look at others' bodies with envy or with superiority. All people are born with different constitutions.Never compare with others. Each one's capacities are a function of his or her internal strength.Know your capacities and continually improve upon them."

"The head is the seat of intelligence. The heart is the seat of emotion. Both have to work in cooperation with the body."

"Spirituality is not some external goal that one must seek, but a part of the divine core of each of us, which we must reveal… For the yogi, spirit is not separate from body. Spirituality is not ethereal and outside nature but accessible and palpable in our bodies"

"The physical body is not only a temple for our soul, but the means by which we embark on the inward journey toward the core."

"True concentration is an unbroken thread of awareness."

"We often fool ourselves that we are concentrating because we fix our attention on wavering objects"

"When we free ourselves from physical disabilities, emotional disturbances, and mental distractions, we open the gates to our soul."

"The hardness of a diamond is part of its usefulness, but its true value is in the light that shines through it."

"Yoga is about the will, working with intelligence and self-reflexive consciousness, can free us from the inevitability of the wavering mind and outwardly directed senses."

"Yoga does not just change the way we see things, it transforms the person who sees."

"Demonstration of one's spiritual realization lies in none other than how one walks among and interacts with one's fellow beings."

"Nothing can be forced, receptivity is everything."

"Breath is the vehicle of consciousness and so, by its slow measured observation and distribution, we learn to tug our attention away from external desires toward a judicious, intelligent awareness."

"The union of nature and soul removes the veil of ignorance that covers our intelligence."