Recalling Iyengar and his wisdom
Watching India’s batting (barring Cheteshwar Pujara) crumble against Australia on Thursday, I wondered what Yogacharya B K S Iyengar would have made of this shabby performance.
He’d have probably put the travails of the Indian batsmen to a duality in team mindset: or “chaos of conflicting impulses” as he mentions in his books and lectures, which according to him ,yoga tries to calm. A palpably overt desire in India’s batsmen to dominate Aussie bowlers, accompanied by a cockiness that disregarded the crucial aspect of time in a five-day game, led to the mess as we know.
Befuddled readers at this stage might justifiably ask why Guruji is the subject of this column, and why should this in any way be connected?
This week saw the start of his centenary celebrations (he died in 2014 aged 96) in Pune. More than 1,200 delegates have assembled from all over the world to participate in the celebrations which includes yoga classes, lectures. Regrettably I’ve had to skip this (the first week at least) because of professional commitments pertaining to the ongoing cricket, but Guruji has remained top of mind. As also his love for the game. For a Yogacharya to be interested in sport might seem a conundrum, but Iyengar’s passion for cricket was undisguised. He was a keen student of the game, and also helped out with therapy and treatment for those who came to him. Former wicket-keeper Kiran More was his ardent follower, through whom Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble (among others), consulted him to address niggles or even something more serious.
I prodded him once to name his favourite. He said he liked all of them, though I detected a soft corner for Tendulkar (who he cited most often as example), because of the balance, poise and technical certitude, which he valued most in yoga, in the latter’s batting. Not many may know that Guruji’s passion for cricket – in fact, sport overall – resulted in a book, Yoga For Sport which elaborates on over 100 asanas to help improve flexibility, stamina, agility, concentration and focus, apart from coping with injuries. But this was only one aspect of his persona. He was a genius in his field, of course, and a fount of wisdom in several others making him, apart from a yoga teacher, also physician, surgeon, counselor, compassionate friend, philosopher all rolled into one.
I met him the first time shortly after his teachers at the Piramal Institute in Parel, where he had his classes, had helped me cope and recover from a bad attack of vertigo in 1994. Stout of build, long hair running like a lion’s mane, with twinkling eyes and a hearty laugh, Guruji was unforgettable once you met him. In further encounters, what came through was his humane understanding of life. He was without hubris of any kind: fame, money, titles. He made yoga universally known much before it became the big thing it is today. There are some fine yoga teachers, but unfortunately also charlatans who are milking it for power and pelf. B K S Iyengar’s abiding interest was to provide relief to the human race and his philosophy is best encapsulated in this succinct passage from his bestseller, Light On Yoga:
“Love begets courage. Moderation creates abundance and humility generates power. Courage without love is brutish. Abundance without moderation leads to overindulgence and decay. Power without humility breeds arrogance and tyranny.” A lesson there for ordinary individual as well as superstars and prima donnas in various fields, and those who occupy the highest seats of power.