Demonstrations & Classes

Yoga St. Louis recommends the following collection of online Iyengar Yoga videos. We’ve done the search work for you!

1938 Practice Film [Mysore, 1938] (4)

Featuring B.K.S. Iyengar as the twenty year old star pupil of his guru brother-in-law, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, along with performances of teacher, other students, and Krishnamacharya’s young daughters.

Although the original film was silent, the Yoga Sutras of Patanajali are chanted in Sanskrit by Kausthub Desikachar, grandson of Krishnamacharya, and son of T.K.V. Desikachar.

Yoga Sutras of Patanajali (Chapter 1)  | Part 1 of 4

Yoga Sutras of Patanajali (Chapter 2) | Part 2 of 4

Yoga Sutras of Patanajali (Chapter 3) | Part 3 of 4

Yoga Sutras of Patanajali (Chapter 4.1-16) | Part 4 of 4

 

B.K.S. Iyengar: Yoga training, 1968 Bombay (Louis Malle: L’inde Fantôme, 1969)

B.K.S. Iyengar teaches standing yoga asanas and Ujjayi pranayama. [Subsequent inversions shown with pranayama instruction voice-over will be confusing for yoga students.]

During inhalation retention in pranayama, Guruji elucidates,

“The Lord rests within its abode in the body. Look at the Lord. Let the eyes penetrate the immeasurable within this measurable body,”

illustrating his unique devotional approach that is often forsaken in favor of his technical instruction.

He sees “jnana (knowledge) earned through the practices of asana, pranayama, and pratyahara, along with yama and niyama… leads towards the path of bhakti (devotion)” in dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. [Foreword, Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary with Insights from the Traditional Commentators, 2009.]

 

The Ultimate Freedom, Yoga with B.K.S. Iyengar [Ann Arbor, 1976]

In his preamble to this formal studio presentation made on his third trip to the U.S., Guruji explains that yoga was introduced by the sages to bring complete freedom in body, mind, and self, to live in a state of peace and poise.

Only when the thought waves have been completely stilled, does the mind becomes silent and serene, like a waveless ocean. Then the yogin can experience the Self, without color, shape, or form…. We have been given the capital of the body only to realize the true Self.

But as long as ethical discipline is not maintained, freedom cannot be experienced: the end of discipline is the beginning of freedom. If the body, which is the temple of the Self, is not kept clean, healthy, pure, and holy through asana, pranayama, and meditation, the mind cannot be released from its bondage. Unless freedom is attained in the body, freedom of the mind is a far cry. When body and mind are released from tension, and live eternally in the present, it is the Ultimate Freedom.

He demonstrates 90 postures:

• +7:45: Standings and Surya Namaskar to float the brain exactly in the center.
• +14:50: Jumping through forward bends, sitting and abdominal poses to allow the intellect to penetrate without obstruction.
• +24:45: Sirsasana Cycle to irrigate the brain
• +30:10: Kurmasana to go within and Ekapada Sirsasana variations
• +33:55: Twists
• +37:00: Sarvangasana Cycle to exercise the whole body, and plow the nerves and organs to produce a better life.
• +44:30: Supta Padangusthasana  to help sciatica.
• +46:00: Hand balances to lighten the body.
• +50:20: Backbends to move from the known to the unknown.
• +54:00: Kandasana to salute with the feet.

The yogin uses his own body to refine the inner intelligence. When the body is released from the shackles of disease, the mind is freed from the shackles of fear, and the intellect becomes clear, stable, and active. Perfection of asana leads to subtle truth. Wisdom cannot be shaken in the ultimate truth.

In closing, he remarked, “The ultimate truth is completely naked… I have shown active, concrete meditation, the integration of the tamasic body and the rajasic mind with the ever-pure, -silent, and -poised Self. The Self experiences neither pleasure nor pain; only the mind can experience bliss.”

Samadhi [Pune, 1977] (2) 

B.K.S. Iyengar’s award-winning film displayed a grace and beauty in his hand balance sequence that defied gravity.

Samadhi [Pune, 1977]

B.K.S. Iyengar teaching jumpings.

 

B.K.S. Iyengar – Yoga Demonstration [Sydney, 1983]

Asana expresses the vertical, horizontal, and circular movements of energy. When consciousness, intelligence, and energy move together, it results in intellectual clarity, emotional stability, and freedom in the body so that the mind can go towards the soul.

• +16:22: How the intelligence must feel the touch of the inner skin in the standings to maintain symmetry, and the physiological value of the forward bends and sitting poses.
• +28:55: Sirsasana and variations including Padmasana
• +34:40: Sarvangasana and variations
• +42:00: Bakasana and variations
• + 44:00: Kandasana and Mulabandhasana
• + 45:50: Revolving around the soul in Mandalasana

 

B.K.S. Iyengar‬: Mountaintop Parivrittaikapada‬ Sirsasana [Utah, 1984]

 

B.K.S. Iyengar in Los Angeles [1984, 1990, 2005]

2014 documentary highlighting the growth of the L.A. Institute.

Teacher assessment, 1984:

• To Scott Hobbs: +1:35 Virabhadrasana II throat sweats when a hard tongue creates thirst.
• To Francie Ricks: +2:15 Slowly link asana instruction; yoga action takes time.
• To Scott Hobbs: Arms down when coming up from Uttanasana, else creates tension.

2005 Address:

•  +10:00 Watch the present to improve action. Having aligned bones and muscles, now align mind with movement.

 

Sri B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Mala Demo [London, 1984]

May 21, 1984 Barbican Centre, London.

Demo start +22:00: standings, forward bends, hand balances, inversions, backbends.

 

B.K.S. Iyengar; BBC Interview [London, 1984]

Clips of B.K.S Iyengar 1966 silent standing asana and Sirsasana demo (2:50). Followed by 1984 live Sirsasana demo and teaching ‘elderly’ reporter Sirsasana. +6:48

 

Master Class with B.K.S. Iyengar [London, 1985] | Part 1 of 2

 

Master Class with B.K.S. Iyengar [London, 1985]  | Part 2 of 2

In this edited video, Guruji teaches the poses in detail to nine senior teachers from the U.K. including Shyam and Mira Mehta from London, Jeanne Maslen from Manchester and Kofi Busia from Oxford.

• +3:00: “Strengths and weaknesses in practice”
• Tadasana, Utthita Trikonasana, Utthita Parsvakonasana, & Virabhadrasana I
• +16:00: “Teaching yoga to children”
• +18:40: Virabhadrasana II
• + 27:30: “Fatigue, blackout, shaking, nausea during standings”
• +28:50: “Practice and aging”
• +29:40: Prasarita Padottanasana & Ardha Chandrasana
• +50:00: “Practice during convalescence”
• +54:40: Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana, Parivrtta Trikonasana, Virabhadrasana III, Parivrtta Parsvakonasana, & Parsvottanasana
• +1:44:20: Salamba Sirsasana I & “Breathing in Sirsasana”
• +1:56:30: Salamba Sarvangasana I, Halasana II – VI, Ekapada Sarvangasana
• +2:09:25: Adho Mukha Svanasana
• +2:13:00: “Yoga beyond health and wellness”

Intermediate students can practice with the class; Guruji also demonstrates corrections for more advanced students and instructors.

 

B.K.S. Iyengar: Backbend Intensive [Pune, 1991] (3)

Part 1: B.K.S. Iyengar Backbend Practice: [hands at wall, on bricks:] Viparita Dandasana, Viparita Salabhasana prep (pl. 583), Urdhva Dhanurasana, Ekapada Viparita Dandasana I, Viparita Salabhasana prep (pl. 583), Urdhva Dhanurasana, [freestanding:] Viparita Dandasana I, Mandalasana, Viparita Dandasana I, Urdhva Dhanurasana, Ekapada Viparita Dandasana II, Cakra Bandhasana, Kapotasana, Urdhva Mukha Kapotasana (on knees, pelvis at wall), Vrchikasana I, Tiriang Mukhottanasana, Bhujangasana II (chest at wall), Rajakapotasana (chest at wall), Bhujangasana II (feet at wall), Padangusthasana Dhanurasana, [roll into:] Ganda Bherundasana, Ekapada Rajakapotasana to Valakhilyasana, Natarajasana (chest at Rope wall).

Intensive Class Practice Sequence, Part 1: +16:20 Trikonasana (buttock, tailbone, and spine in backbend), Parsvakonasana, Ardha Chandrasana Demo, Parsvakonasana, Ardha Chandrasana, Trikonasana (Utthita Hasta arms parallel to floor), Parsvakonasana (Utthita Hasta arms), Adho Mukha Vrksasana, Vrchikasana II (toes at wall), Urdhva Dhanurasana II (take weight at head of calf; lift upper quad to drop), Viparita Dandasana, Urdhva Dhanurasana, Kapotasana (Urdhva Hasta arms, pl. 504) End 57:09.

Intensive Class – Part 2 (12-6-91): Kapotasana, +3:10 Ekapada Rajakapotasana, +16:20 Bakasana, +17:40 Paschimottanasana.

+18:20 12-10-91: Adho Mukha Svanasana (palms turned in 90°), +18:50 Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (palms turned 180°), +19:35 Adho Mukha Vrksasana, +20:20 Viparita Cakrasana in Urdhva Dhanurasana (first stage), +22:30 Urdhva Dhanurasana II, +30:00 Viparita Dandasana (shoulders), +38:00 Viparita Cakrasana in Urdhva Dhanurasana (first stage), +39:00 Urdhva Dhanurasana (shoulder blades), +40:00 Ganda Bherundasana (lift sacral muscles with pelvis on wall, pl. 572), +42:40 Urdhva Dhanurasana, +43:00 Ganda Bherundasana (lift sacral muscles with pelvis on wall, pl. 572), +43:30 Ganda Bherundasana (pelvis on wall, bend knees, pl. 573-7), (Urdhva Dhanurasana), +45:10 Viparita Dandasana (elbow at wall, pelvic head up) to Ekapada Viparita Dandasana I, +48:10 Viparita Dandasana (angular feet at wall) to Ekapada Viparita Dandasana I, +50:10 Viparita Dandasana (elbow at wall) to Ekapada Viparita Dandasana I, +50:10 Viparita Dandasana (toes at wall) to Ekapada Viparita Dandasana I, +53:00 Viparita Dandasana (elbow at wall) to Ekapada Viparita Dandasana I, +53:50 Urdhva Dhanurasana, +54:40 Urdhva Dhanurasana (toes at wall), +55:30 Mandalasana, +56:30 Viparita Dandasana (elbow at wall), +57:30 Ekapada Viparita Dandasana (hold rope around foot). End 57:41.

Intensive Class – Part 3: Ekapada Viparita Dandasana (hold rope around foot), (Chakra Bandhasana holding rope), Kapotasana, +5:39 Urdhva Mukha Kapotasana (on knees, pelvis at wall: top of back thigh in), +7:54 Vrchikasana I, +10:30 Ekapada Rajakapotasana, +12:50 Adho Mukha Svanasana, Adho Mukha Vrksasana, +14;30 Vrchikasana at Wall, +19:50 +22:40 Urdhva Dhanurasana I, +26:50 Viparita Dandasana, +29:30 Urdhva Dhanurasana II, assisting drop backs, Mandalasana, +51:00 Viparita Dandasana.

 

B.K.S. Iyengar: Medical Yoga Class [Australia, 1992]

B.K.S. Iyengar demonstrates medical yoga for heart, kidneys, lower back, shoulder. He explained his method of diagnosis:

“I don’t take an x-ray. The x-ray has come to me already. If you see the neck, one side is longer and one side is shorter. So all the cervical spine will follow according to this drop of the skin…. I don’t look at the x-ray. The outside neck alone tells me. One is longer and one is shorter.

Now you can see the [lack of] parallelity of the spine. There is no parallelity at all. One shoulder blade is up and one shoulder blade is down. I’ve taken the X-ray of her completely now.

So we work to bring her shoulder blades parallel. From the spine what is the distance of the blades. We observe all those things.”

+1:35:11

 

B.K.S Iyengar Intensive; Introduction & Invocation [Estes Park, 2005] (4)

Start +3:02: This 9-26-05 Intensive intended to develop “educative sequencing.” Each pose has a base to develop step-by-step, and then, how to come back.

 

B.K.S Iyengar: “Inner Mind Receives the Vibration” [Estes Park, 2005]

There is no Iyengar Yoga at all. I don’t know why people call it this. I learned from Krishnamacharya.

There is no division in yoga. I took one path, Pattabhi Jois [another student of Krishnamacharya took] another path. No division! Pattabhi Jois teaches Vinyasana, yoga of motion. Iyengar teaches yoga of action. It’s all the same yoga, just different branches. We all have the same roots.… Don’t think of [separate] branches. Think of where the branches meet!

Students are excited by motion because it vibrates the external mind. I want the inner mind to get the vibration. I left Astanga Yoga because after forty years of age people cannot do Astanga Yoga. I came to the concept of alignment.

+4:50: In Utthita Trikonasana, exhale and go down. People exhale, mistakenly hold the breath and go down. What is the length of exhalation? What is the length of inhalation. This is known as “adjusting the breath with the asana.”

 

Q&A During the Estes Park Convention 2005

Table of Contents:

Symmetry in Asana

Cooperation in marriage

+28:30 Improvised household props

+36:15 Flexibility of the spine

+50:30 Santosa

+52: Memory for evolution

+56:15Depression

Anxiety

Sweating in pranayama

Jet Lag Sequence

+1:34:48 Does Viparita Karani Conquer Death?

+1:45:00 Discipline and Freedom

Spirituality in practice

When returning?

Hip replacement

Kidney Cancer

Concluding Remarks by BKS Iyengar

 

B.K.S. Iyengar & Manouso Manos; Master Class [Estes Park, 2005]

Advanced class with no intermediate poses and no repetitions, as specified by B.K.S. Iyengar:

• +3:00: Tadasana
• +1:15: Parivrtta Trikonasana
• +11:30: Parivrtta Trikonasana
• +18:00: Tadasana
• +18:30: Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana
• +22:15: Parsva Uttanasana
• +32:00: Parsva Sirsasana / Parivrttaikapada Sirsasana
• +41:30: Parsva Virasana Legs in Sirsasana
• +44:00: Coming down from Sirsasana
• +45:20: Parsva Virasana
• +48:00: Bharadvajasana I
• +53:30: Marichyasana I
• +56:30: Marichyasana III
• +1:07:00: Ardha Matsyendrasana I
• +1:14:30:  Pasasana
• +1:18:30:  Salamba Sarvangasana, Parsva Halasana & Parsva Sarvangasana
• +1:33:10: Dandasana / Paschimottanasana
• +1:38:00: Dandasana / Paschimottanasana
• +1:40:30: Parivrtta Paschimottanasana
• +1:47:20: Parivrtta Janu Sirsasana
• +1:55:00: Adho Mukha Svanasana
• +1:57:00: Uttanasana: sobriety in the brain due to the twists.
• [No Savasana]

 

Genius In Action: B.K.S. Iyengar [Boston, 2005]

An excerpt from a biopic tribute with clips explaining how his practice and teaching have evolved through the years. Exhibited during Yogacharya Sri B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light On Life tour of the United States. Narrator: Patricia Walden.

 

The Body Is My Temple, Asanas Are My Prayers [Boston, 2005]

An inspiring film montage of yoga demonstrations from 1938 (Mysore), 1961 (Gstaad), 1975 (Pune), 1976 (Ann Arbor), 1987 (Boston), and 1991 (Pune) by B.K.S. Iyengar.

Earlier performances are artfully segued into subsequent ones showing both his continuity and evolution in the art of his asana practice.

Musicians: Cecily Palzewicz (voice), Mihal Palzewicz (cello), Jarvis Chen (piano). Words: Traditional Mere Gurudev; Music: Krishna Das; Arrangement: Jarvis Chen and Michal Palzewicz

 

B.K.S. Iyengar DVD Yoga Journal (Teaches Trikonasana) [Russia, 2009]

With Manuso Manos

 

B.K.S. Iyengar: Comparative Length in Yoga [Pune, 2009]

B.K.S. Iyengar explains how to maintain evenness on both sides of the body from the midline to the sides, illustrating “comparative length,” or “parallelity”. Demonstration by Eddie Marks.

Maintaining that equidistance brings a single state of mind, union in  asana, which takes you towards the higher aspect of life. Citing Patanjali [PYS II.47], the yogin can feel the infinite life force spread evenly all over from the core of being.

 

Trikonasana with Dr. Geeta Iyengar [Pune, 2009]

Stabilize body and mind, and bring one-pointedness in yoga by learning the correct buttock, hip, thigh, and abdominal actions. Geetaji also explains how it helps osteoporosis, and the function of pain.

 

Dr. Geeta S. Iyengar on Yoga Kurunta (use of wall ropes) [Pune, 2009]

How Yoga Kurunta (using the wall ropes; a Kurunta is a puppet in South Indian theater) to learn backbends leads to freedom from bondage.

 

China-India Yoga Summit: B.K.S. Iyengar teaches Virasana [China, 2011]

B.K.S. Iyengar teaches how to position the legs in Virasana to balance the five elements.  Recorded during his historic trip to China in 2011.

 

China-India Yoga Summit: Asana Review In the Afternoon [China, 2011]

How to position the abdomen in Marichyasana III.

 

Yogic Buddhist Paths To Happiness [New Delhi, 2011]

His Holiness The Dalai Lama and B.K.S. Iyengar discuss elimination of duhkha (pain) in November, 2010.

+30:40 – 43:30: Guruji B.K.S. Iyengar explains how the ethical precepts of yama and the disciplines of niyama can be expressed in Utthita Hasta Padasana and Utthita Trikonasana. Demonstrators: Raya Uma Datta and Abhijata Sridhar (granddaughter of BKS Iyengar).

 

B.K.S. Iyengar Interviews

B.K.S. Iyengar Interview (mid-2000s)

In this biopic B.K.S. Iyengar succinctly explains his motives and goals, and describes how he came to teach in the US, as the guest of the late Mary Palmer, mother of Mary Dunn, in 1973.

Includes video clips from the 1938 film commissioned by the Maharaja of Mysore, medical class stills, and interviews with Mary Palmer and Patricia Walden.

He describes the disparities he found between words and actions that led him to clarify his approach, and subsequently write Light on Yoga. +8:23

 

B.K.S. Iyengar: Enlighten Up! Interview [Pune, 2007]

+3:00-4:50 Training at the Maharaja‘s Palace in Mysore was physical because warrior caste rulers preferred the martial culture of jumpings [fast movements] to further their own vanity.

Youth enjoy jumpings because they are attracted to kshatriya-dharma, the martial quality that appeals to their need to show off. Until the age of forty you can practice jumpings; beyond that age, jumpings may cause tachycardia, excessive sweating, and detached retinas in older practitioners. +18:33

 

BKS Iyengar: NDTV Interview [New Delhi, 2008]

+6:33 I got the word “alignment” from the Bhagavad Gita: “saman kaya shiras grivam dharayan achalam sthirah.” [BG VI.13] Lord Krishna says, “saman kaya” — the right side of the body and the left side of the body should be exactly [equidistant] about the centerline, from the crown of the head to the perineum, through the center of the throat. This gave me an idea to align each and every part of the body….

+7:30 If you have been practicing 75 years and still have not reached some parts, what hope do we have?

I am exploring the body, the temple of the soul. Until it is clean, no one wants to enter. I want my consciousness to exist in each and every part. By analogy, the thread of the mind dissolves when threaded into eye of needle, the intelligence. Then you can reap the benefit of the intelligence that is sown throughout the body.

What about Westernization of yoga?

Art cannot be Easternized or Westernized. It is an ancient Oriental art, but I don’t think it has been Westernized…. Although I was considered a slave in the West in 1952, and because more Westerners than Indians practice yoga, art has no color, caste, or gender….

+11:50 How can students who are under academic and peer pressure take up yoga if it requires concentration?

Yoga goes towards concentration. Yogic mastery differs from academic mastery because the nerves are completely cleansed…. Yoga takes the strain off of the nerves. There is no contraction. The supply of blood increases and oxygenates the brain. How can you become fatigued? Else stress waits outside the skin to enter at any moment.

 

B.K.S Iyengar “Le Souffle des Dieux” (The Breath of the Gods): [Pune, 2009]

+2:00-3.45 Today I practice more qualitatively, less quantitatively. As you churn milk to make butter, so must you churn your body in yoga to keep the blood healthy.

When every part of my body is active, I have diffused and expanded my intelligence from the bottom of the feet upward. If the length of the stretch of the upper leg is not equal to that of the lower leg, it is immature practice. With the life force, can I create the same space in one leg as the other?

Although it appears as if I am stretching, it is the distribution of the intelligence that makes my body expand.

Different English film trailer: http://www.breathofthegods.com/

 

In Conversation – B.K.S. Iyengar: Rajiv Mehrotra Interview [New Delhi, 2011]

This “must watch” interview explains Iyengar yoga.

 +1:20 What has yoga done for you personally?

From physical health, which was of major importance in the early days, it has now made me experience my own absolute consciousness. I remain active but maintain that passivity, whether I’m teaching, practicing, writing, or talking, I’m close to my consciousness. Yoga has given me that.

If I maintained that absolute state of consciousness, I could not do anything in this world…. So I had to come out from that. I said, “No. I have experienced that, so let me not live in that elixir of quietness. Let me help people… also reach the level of what I reached through the honest, sincere, devoted, dedicated practice of yoga.”

+4:30  You had said that there was still parts of your body that your consciousness had not reached.

The way in which I practice is not the same as when I used to practice in the early days…. I can stay one hour in Sirsasana and for one half hour in Sarvangasana…. But when you see me doing, you never see that I’m existing because there is absolutely no external movement.

And now I’m studying the presence of mind, the freshness of the mind that I feel when I start any asana. I work to maintain and keep that same quality of freshness….

So conscientiously I maintain the quietness and the stability… and that freshness. Even the cells of my body do not show signs of fatigue. They say, “As you like, I stay.” That is the wisdom of today’s practice: That my Self is doing, and not at all my body.

In my early days my body was the instrument in order to reach the soul. Today the soul is acting as an instrument for me to cover the entire body in a split second, so that it exists everywhere.

+7:40  What is your impulse to altruism?

+15:05  What are the qualities that we should look for in a teacher?

There are three qualities according to Patanjali [PYS II.1]:[1] First is shakti [power]. There should be a tremendous inner physical prowess. That comes under tapas [zeal].

Then comes svadhyaya. Everybody says svadhyaya is study of the Self. I don’t want to use that definition; you should have skillfulness. Skillful attention in sadhana [spiritual practice], so that the physical strength is properly, skillfully used to proceed further, so the shakti and yukti [skillfulness], together, makes an individual reach a state of bhakti [devotion], Ishvara pranidhana [surrender to God].

+16:30  Is yoga purely an instrument of physical health?

Patanjali has used seven states of awareness. Out of the seven states of awareness, saptadha pranta-bhumih prajna [PYS II.27], the first one is physical awareness. Do you mean that there are no other kinds of health?

So there is physical health, there is moral health, there is mental health, there is ethical health, there is intellectual health, there is conscious health, there is conscientious health, and divine health. Unless and until all these seven states of health are achieved, man is not perfect. One has to reach these seven states of health, from the physical to the divine.[2]

+22:10  Can yoga be patented?

Any yogi in the world today is a carbon copy. The rishis [patriarchal sages] have given this knowledge to us, so the copyright is theirs and not ours. We are just following them.

The breath belongs to the cosmic world. The blood circulation… in the body is a cosmic force existing in everyone.

So how can it be possible to patent a subject, which has been given by our great sages? It belongs to them. We are just copying them. And what right do we have to patent it…? It is a pure imitation of our rishis. Therefore, no one has the right to patent a subject that has existed from time immemorial and given by God.

+25:00  In what way does yoga lead to devotion to God?

Although I am a devotee of Hanuman, I honestly am a bhaktan of the asana. God exists everywhere. If God exists everywhere, he should be existing even on the corner of my finger nail. Therefore, when I am practicing, I have to pay respect to whether God, the universal force in the form of the individual force, has reached that area….

I work in such a way that I expand my Self, from the source to the extremities of the skin. For an individual this [Guruji gestures to the space outside of his body] is the cosmic consciousness. Inside [Guruji points to his heart] is the individual consciousness.

When I’m practicing, although the skin is considered one of the evolutes of prakrti, for me outside of the skin [Guruji gestures to the space adjacent to his arm] is the brahmanda [macrocosm]. So skin is the medium between the brahmanda, external macrocosm, and the microcosm [pindanda beneath] the skin.[3] I try my level best when practicing to connect the brahmanda with pindanda, the macrocosm with microcosm, so that there is absolutely no division, even as an individual.

+30:00  Is morality essential to climbing the ladder of yoga?

Today everybody’s jumping to meditation for peace of mind. Actually meditation is not for peace of mind, but peace of mind is needed for meditation.

It is quite the opposite, and without naitika dharma [moral righteousness], without ahimsa satya asteya brahmacarya aparigrahah [PYS II.30: non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, non-possessiveness], how can an immoral, sensually involved, person experience spirituality without morality…? A yogi cannot climb the hierarchy of yoga, from yama to samadhi, without naitika dharma….

When he uses the terms ahimsa satya asteya brahmacarya aparigraha, it addresses… the defective intellectual, instinctive qualities of a human being. He is born with himsa. He is born with asatya. He is born with steya, with abrahmacharya, with parigraha. These qualities are hidden, latent…. It is a samskara in the mind. So, in order to break that…. he used the word yama. It is a very interesting word: …[Patanjali] says that if you go against the qualities of ahimsa satya asteya, then… you are murdering your own self.

+37:00  What is pranayama?

When you inhale… you start with an empty space — let me say atman, the core of the being, just flashes. Then, when you go on inhaling, — you are not taking a breath — the soul gives room for the breath to occupy the place inside the body. So pranayama is a bhakti marga because… as the breath goes in, the atma expands and comes out.

When you are exhaling, the prana comes out and the atma goes in. If we pay careful attention to this, pranayama has a wonderful effect of taking a person directly to bhakti marga. That is why pranayama is called “the hub of yoga.” It is exactly in the middle, in between bahya sadhana [external practice] and antaratma sadhana [innermost practice]… according to the Yoga Sutras.

+50:00  Would Patanjali have approved of your introduction of props in yoga?

Sir, have you seen Yoga Narasimha in a temple?[4] He has his knees tied with a cloth [belt] around them… in order to keep his spine erect…. So why shouldn’t we use it? Even Ramanuja said, “Take a support if you cannot sit erect….” Nothing is new.

I will give an example: Lord Krishna says, “saman kaya shiras grivam dharayan achalam sthirah.” [BG VI.13: equally balanced body head neck holding motionless] Saman kaya: he gives the center the body, head; griva, throat; and the perineum. These are the center parts of the body. So he says, “saman kaya,” given the center line, the right and the left of the body should be evenly balanced from the… crown of the head to the bottom of the perineum….

Although saman kaya shiras grivam is a simple phrase, how much attention does one have to pay to bring the right side of the body and the left side of the body in line, or on par, with the center?

+52:00  What part of the journey remains for you?

I had a motive in the early days. I have fulfilled that motive. What is now left is taking that knowledge that I have experienced to others: Let me give to others to let them also experience it so that there will be a world where one can experience… that Golden Age, where peace and poise are more widely spread… than today.

Today we are all… focused on making money…, but yoga makes one grow more vastly. After experiencing the vastness, this makes one want to share this knowledge with others.

 

[1] Guruji Iyengar interprets the mastery of tapas, svadhyaya, and Ishvara pranidhana as the powers of shakti, yukti, and bhakti, the qualities “to look for in a teacher.” He subsequently continues to answer the question in his criticism of Ramdev: a teacher’s “duty is to build up the student” [+20:06], share discernment and wisdom with his students [+21:12], and “emphasize righteousness and virtue…, not name and fame.” [+21:50]. In addition, the teacher must take care of the pupil’s body, as if it were his own. [+27:25] “Fear is bound to come” without shakti and yukti. [+34:30] He concludes with the desire to share his experience of vastness with others instead of merely acquiring it for his own satisfaction. [+52:45]

[2] seven states of health: See Table 10: Seven State of Consciousness, B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. P. 131

[3] skin is the medium between the brahmanda external macrocosm, and the microcosm [beneath] the skin: brahmanda, literally the “egg of Brahma,” signifying the macrocosm of the universe in heaven and earth, is part of the creation myth in Agni Purana 3.2. Pindana, the human being, is the microcosmic counterpart. The fire of digestion is an example of the macrocosm represented within the microcosm of the individual.

[4] Yoga Narasimha in a temple: Lord Narasimha, a half-man and half-lion incarnation of Lord Vishnu, represents the universality of God in everything. His killing of a demon-king, who had declared himself God, is celebrated throughout India on Holi, the celebration of colors. A twenty-two foot high image of Narasimha, hewn from a granite boulder in-situ in 1528 CE, resides at the ancient Vijayanagar capital of Hampi in Karnataka. The statue portrays him wearing a yoga pattaka (belt).

 

B.K.S. Iyengar Interview [Bellur, 2014]

+15:30 Yoga teacher must understand student’s emotional failings to help him learn.

+16:30 In 1954 Iyengar had only two yoga students in London. Later classes grew to four students.

+22:00 Spiritual means divine health. Even the Self must say, “I am healthy.”

 

B.K.S. Iyengar Interview [Pune, 2014]

Yoga asana and pranayama compulsory in ancient times prior to Mughals.