Sparks of Divinity: A Tribute to B.K.S. Iyengar

Posted on December 9, 2014 by admin

In honor of what would be B.K. S. Iyengar’s 96th birthday this coming Sunday, I decided to reprint the mini biography I wrote for the souvenir program for the attendees of the 1984 International Yoga Convention held in San Francisco. He was 65 that summer, just about my age now. He had already accomplished so much, and yet, from our perspective in 2014, we can see he was just getting started.

It is impossible to overstate the effects that this one man has had on the planetary and cosmic levels of consciousness emerging in the human in the early years on the millennium. Great achievements generate admiration and respect, but Guruji’s life evokes unfathomable awe. He was certainly very human. He had insecurities and emotional confusion like all of us. But when he was grounded in the cosmic field, his genius knew no boundaries, and he kept on channeling somatic brilliance right up to the end. May we all find the inner light of yoga, and all those ‘clues’ he left us, that will guide our own continuous pursuit of the ever elusive excellence he so embodied.

The Genius of B.K.S. Iyengar can scarcely be appreciated by even his most senior students. For over fifty years Mr. Iyengar has been applying his incredible strength of will, his keen penetrating mind and brilliant intuitive perceptions to the exploration of the art of yoga. The subtlety of his insight has enabled him to refine this ancient practice to a degree of scientific precision that is awe-inspiring in its simplicity and completeness. The artistic beauty of his asanas reflect an inner harmony with the universe that is breath-taking to behold. His therapeutic applications of asana and pranayama to treat a whole spectrum of ailments have astounded medical practitioners from all over the globe. His ability to infuse his students with the fiery discipline of tapas has generated a renaissance in the study of yoga that has spread to six continents. We are greatly honored to have Mr. Iyengar with us in the United States this summer and are especially privileged to have him honor us with a lecture demonstration on the art and practice of yoga.

Bellur Krishnamachar Sundara Iyengar was born on December 14, 1918, in what is now part of the Karntaka state in India. As the 11th of 13 children, ten of whom survived, young sundara had numerous brothers, sisters and in-laws. One of his brothers-in-law, Professor T. Krishnamachar, a great scholar, student and teacher of yoga, became Sundara’s Guruji in 1935, initiating him with the Gayatri Mantra, and teaching him a few asanas. The early years of practice were extremely difficult for Sundara, whose weak constitution and stiff body made the practice of he asanas quite painful. Guruji was a kind-hearted but hot tempered man and his young student was too timid to complain. But Iyengar was a fast learner. Within a few months he gave his first public performance and soon after that was asked to train other students.

The next several years saw him traveling about the region, demonstrating the asanas to the Maharajahs, doctors, professors and others. In 1937, his Guruji asked him to travel to Poona to start a yoga program at one of the colleges, and Poona has remained Iyengar’s home to this day. For the next nine years he persevered in his practice and teaching, in spite of serious financial difficulties. Students interests waxed and waned and income was non-existent for long periods of time. Many a day was spent without solid food. Physical exhaustion and emotional depression were constant companions. In 1943, through the arrangements of his family, Iyengar married a 16 year old girl, Ramamani. She became his life long friend, “guardian angel”, and source of tremendous emotional support during the difficult years. Their first daughter, Geeta, was born in 1944 and the family later grew to include five daughters and a son, Prashant.

By 1946 the fortunes had begun to turn for the better. More people were becoming interested in Mr. Iyengar’s teachings and he was having success in treating various maladies with the yoga asanas. The next few years saw his fame and reputation grow. In 1948, Shri J. Krishnamurti, the well known philosopher, visited him in Poona and Mr. Iyengar helped him with his asana and pranayama practice. This began a relationship that would continue for another twenty years. The West became aware of Mr. Iyengar’s work in the early 1950’s, with Yehudi Menuhin playing an instrumental role. Mr. Iyengar accompanied him to Switzerland in 1954 and returned again in 1956. By the early 1960’s he was regularly conducting workshops in Europe, training western students in the art of yoga. “Light on Yoga was published in 1964 and soon the entire world became aware of Mr. Iyengar’s genius.

In 1973, Ramamani died quite suddenly at an untimely age. This came as quite a shock to family and friends alike as she was beloved by all. It was at this time that plans were being drawn for a new yoga institute in Poona, and in January of 1975, The Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute was inaugurated. Thousands of yoga students from India and all over the world have traveled to Poona to study there. Today much of the teaching is done by Geeta and Prashant, Two of Iyengar’s children and excellent yogis in their own right. The classic treatise, ‘Light on Pranayama, Iyengar’s most recent book, was published in 1981. This all encompassing guide to that powerful yet infinitely subtle art stands, in the words of Sri Krishnamacharya, as “a precious gem in the firmament of yoga.”

B.K.S. Iyengar has dedicated his life to passing along the knowledge and wisdom that he has learned. That so many of us are slow to catch on to what he is saying must be extremely frustrating to him. There is so much that he ca teach us, if we can only accelerate the learning process. But he always maintains his sense of humor in the face of our human frailty. As he often says with a mischievous look in his eyes, “I have given you the clue.” The seeds of his wisdom will continue to sprout in our consciousness for any years to come. With unswerving faith and dedication to the art of yoga, Mr. Iyengar has proven that one person can have a tremendous effect in the world. May we all be so inspired in our own lives so that our practice may help bring peace and sanity to the planet.

Editor’s Note: Bibliographical information was taken from “Body the Shrine, Yoga the Light“, published by the B.K.S. Iyengar 60th Birthday Celebration Committee, 1978.

Detroit Notes: September, 2014

Posted on September 24, 2014 by admin

Yoga: Resting in Stillness
While Awakening to our Innate Biological/Animal Intelligence
with
Caryn McHose and Arthur Kilmurray
September 19 – 21, Detroit, MI

Some random notes and observations: Probably more to come.

1. The stillness in the center of the heart is the ultimate resource. It is ever-present, unbounded, luminous and free.

2. Out of the stillness flows the entire universe, moment to moment, at every level, from sub atomic to galactic. Our own personal karmic flow includes: cosmic energy; skills, talents and creativity to be developed and expressed in this lifetime; and karmic challenges and debts to be healed and transformed. We are all given a unique piece of the cosmic puzzle that needs to be unfolded for all. Yoga is the exploration of this amazing process.

3. Imagination aids in awakening of subtle perceptions that begin to allow effortless movement, ease of posture and equanimity of mind that is the foundation of yoga.

4. The innate biological intelligence that organizes posture and movement is continuously asking the question ‘where am I?‘. This process, also known as orientation, is organized by the ‘movement brain’ aka the gravity response system. This process requires: a continuous flow of information from ‘ground’ and the felt sense of weight in the body; a continuous flow of information from the surrounding space/sky; and a continuous flow of energy and information from the movement brain to the whole body. All Posture, gesture and movement, ideally, flow from this integration. Patanjali describes this integration in sutra II-46: sthira sukham asanam; yogic posture (asana) is the integration of heaven and earth in the human body.

5. For a more expansive description of the gravity response system, imagination, perception, orientation and much much more, please read Caryn’s husband Kevin Frank’s articles at ResourcesinMovement.com.

6. Energy flows we experience in postural integration can take many shapes and patterns.

The most important of these patterns for our practices are radial, axial, bilateral, spiralic and tubular.

7. Radial is the basic energy pattern of the cell and the heart. Radial expansion is omni-directional from a center, like the rays of the sun. Radial condensing flows from the perimeter, omni radially, back to the center. When healthy, the heart and cells can both give out and receive in.

8. Because as humans we have a spine with a head and tail, we also have axial energy. Axial energy ascends and descends along the axis of the body, aka the median line or the chakra line. When the root chakra, heart chakra and crown chakra are open, energy flows freely between heaven and earth and vice versa. The human heart is the place where balance is seen and known.

9. In the human upright posture, the descending energy or the ‘down question’, (aka where is down?) is answered by the receptivity of the 52 bones of the feet, 26 for each, to the felt sense of weight and the yielding/surrendering to gravity that creates the ‘splat’ and squirt’ sensations.

10. The heel vector (the line of energy passing through the heel bone) should have a backwards as well as a downward direction in grounding, so the feet lengthen in two directions as the bones drop.

11. ‘Loading’ the feet and legs with weight, that is, to ground the leg energy completely, allows the pelvic bones to move freely over the femur heads. This is what is meant by ‘opening the hips’. Space is felt in the hip joints, the hip muscles melt and the spinal muscles are no longer needed to stabilize the body. The spine is free to dance.

12. To more fully realize this experientially, grow yourself an imaginary tail that is at least as long as your human spine. Then the human coccyx becomes the midpoint of your energetic spine.You now have a ‘trifurcated mula’, two legs and a tail, for support. Feel the sacrum as large and full.

13. To come into a forward bend, whether legs together in uttanasana, legs apart in prasarita padottanasana, or somewhere in between, (and all positions are interesting to us) ground the leg energy, release the pelvis and lift and lengthen the tail out the root chakra gate. There are now three energy vectors from the muladhara, leg leg and tail; two gounding, one lengthening. Feel the spine is also lengthening out the head/crown chakra even as the head comes toward the floor. Then reverse to come out, beginning again by grounding the leg energy, lengthening the spine and then dropping the tail back to the floor. Repeat slowly until this movement feels free and relatively effortless. This mammalian flexion and extension motion can be carried over into deeper back bends than tadasana, but it will take a bit more time to develop that.

14. The inner line of the leg is the primary weight bearing line. The outer line is for stabilizing/balancing. (The tibia and big toe are structurally much larger than the fibula and little toe). This continues up into the pelvis along the adductors into the ilio-psoas muscles and diaphragm along the Anatomy Trains ‘Deep Front Line’. This becomes crucial in understanding the flow lines of trikonasana and parsva konasana and half moon pose.

15. Differentiating the inner and outer legs is the beginning of awakening the bilateral energy field pattern. Abduction along the entire body allows the opening of this perception, but it is easier to feel in arms and legs. This is also the beginning of ‘fish body‘ consciousness.

16. Trikonasana requires a continuous elongation of the inner leg energy line of the back leg, like a skater pushing her blade into the ice, or a skier holding an edge while turning. this creates an arc like a half pipe in skiing or skateboarding which opens the front leg hip joint. The back leg, inviting the tail to join in the arc, lifts the front leg pelvic bone up away from the femur to release the front hip. The front foot has to ground down and out through the big toe, while the back leg carries the arc through the inner back heel. Let the back heel move a tiny bit to get the feel of the line, but do not sickle the foot. That is when the ankle bows out and leaves the heel behind, destabilizing the grounding energy and sending confusion through the body. Stabilize the ankle and extend through the inner heel.

17. This becomes a bit more challenging in parsvakonasana, as the bending of the front leg will break the back leg flow unless you are very attentive and patient. Slow down, don’t be in a hurry to get into ‘the pose’. Same energy as trikonasana with the addition of an elongation out the inner front knee and front big toe line. Still in the inner energy lines of both legs. Move in and out slowly, and only go as deeply as comfortable. The movement in and out is crucial. Yoga is about freeing up movement.

18. Half moon,or ardha chandrasana, can be practiced against the wall to learn and stabilize the energy lines. This is the best pose to open the hips as only you can really zero in on the standing leg hip joint when the other leg is free to move in space. The wall provides security while learning. Keep the standing foot/leg loaded. Do not ‘lock’ the knee, but feel an elongation up the dfl from foot through groin to ceiling. This will free up the torso and back leg to lengthen further.

19. To carry the standing pose understanding of flexion/extension and fish body to the next level, we use dog pose and variations, especially the one legged dog and flipping the dog. Follow the energy vectors through all limbs, including head and tail. In flipping the dog, we add the spiralic energy pattern.

20. The dog pose explorations are preparation for the more challenging hand stand and head balance. In all hand grounding positions we can find all 27 bones of the hands and learn to differentiate radius and ulna to open inter-osseous membrane. 1’s’ first phalanges; 2’s 2nd phalanges; 3’s 3rd phalanges (thumb only has 2 phalanges); 4’s metacarpals; 5’s first carpals; 6’s second carpals; 7 radius; 8 ulna. Find them. Slight abduction of elbow to help differentiate radius (into hands) and ulna (away from hands) and stretch/awaken membrane between the two. Like with the feet, feel the ‘squirting’ through the bones.

21. Rolling and Pouring allow the gravity response system to directly connect with the water element of the body, close to 70% of our weight. Become a water balloon and feel the innate fluidity of the human body. Roll around, pouring yourself into various positions.

22. Use ‘vessel breath’ to activate gut body awareness. Here we take on the shape of the sea squirt and become an open tube.

23. A ‘Dive’ is an extended internal exploration of the inner world of organs, chi/prana, breath, motility, habits, weight and lightness, and more. Often 20 minutes to 40 minutes or more in length, these can be done lying down or supported, but can also involve movement.

24. The ‘Long Walk’ involves using our hands to follow the shape of the pelvic bone form the sitting bones to the pubis. This ‘bridge’ of bone links back and front bodies, is a dynamic place to organize sitting, (we do not just sit on the sitting bones!), and offers a place to find lift and support when standing on one leg.

25. Flight of the eagle: Watch Caryn demonstrate here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbRxgIOQ2wE

26. Bridge Pose on a block. Grounding through the feet and feeling the pelvic bones firmly in contact with the block, begin to roll the inside of the pelvis in an arc toward the feet. Follow the lift as it moves through kidneys, liver, heart, and finally throat. Let shoulders come off the floor as the head pivots away from the sternum, like in fish pose. Then drop kidneys, open back lungs and let head roll back to the first position, withoput losing the openness of the throat. This will help shoulderstand and variations.

27. Embryology 101: front body / back body and the emergence of the median plane: Standing near to and facing a wall, imagine the wall becoming part of you, supporting the front body to open forward and out to the sides. Use your hand on the wall if necessary to reinforce sense of wall as part of you – your front field, your endoderm. Now feel the room behind you and allow your back body, the ectoderm, to open to include the center of the room. Expand yourself. Feel from the middle of your body an emerging of energy that becomes arms, legs, head and tail, the mesoderm.
Now turn around and repeat, this time with the wall as your back field and the center of the room as your front. Feel open, expansive, and allow the middle to emerge to birth arms, legs, head and tail. Now lie on floor. Floor becomes your backfield, the ceiling your front field and again, allow the emergence of the middle to grow your limbs. Find this is all poses.

28: Cosmic Body Meditation. The stellated octahedron. Visualize the points of light that create this sacred geometrical structure. Triangles within triangles in the two triangular based pyramids that create a three dimensional star of David.

The survivors on Sunday!

2014 YLT 5th Weekend Summary

Posted on June 26, 2014 by admin

Theme of Weekend 5: Emotions and Yoga: What are emotions and how can we use yoga to work with them intelligently and compassionately? What is the attachment process that we all experience as infants and throughout our relational lives and hoe does this relate to our emotions? (This is a year long course compressed into a weekend!)

Meditation: “Resting in the Open Heart”: Find the balance of weight and lightness, release the breath, and visualize a sphere of light centered in the heart and radiating into the space around you. Wait, rest here. Now visualize your center channel opening from the heart up through the crown chakra into the heavens, and down through the root chakra into the earth. Allow the energies of heaven and earth to pour in to your heart center and receive this as divine love. Let that love spread throughout your cellular body. With your heart energized, allow your own love to flow up and out into the heavens and down into mother earth. Then rest in place of balance with your open heart, earth and the heavens connected and clear. (This is an evolving process that may take a while…be patient! Remember, light is more powerful and accurate than energy: energy more powerful and accurate than structure; structure more powerful and accurate than thought.)

Mantra Practice: Learn Om Purnamdah…, Om Saha na vavatu…., and Om namaste astu Bhagavan, so we can go further.

Sutras Discussion: There are not many sutras dealing directly with emotions, but many imply them. And sometimes Patanjali refers to thought, but really means the underlying emotional energies that enliven the thoughts. (If you are finding the sutras to be a bit dry, please immerse yourself in the Katha Upanishad. It is a bit ‘juicier’!)

I-33: maitri karuna mudita upeksha… is used by the Buddhists as well as the yogis and gives instructions on how to counter the negative emotions of envy or jealousy, disgust, the desire to inflict harm and intolerance, by cultivating the positive ones of loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. This process, called pratypaksha bhavana in sutra II-33 is described in contemporary neuroscience as a re-wiring of the circuits that run from the amygdala to the pre-frontal cortex. The hard wired tendency to fear and anxiety, coming from the organism’s innate desire to survive, can be over-ridden with practice and patience. (See Rick Hanson’s note below.) In sutra II-34, Patanjali describes in even more detail the action of negative emotions and actually repeats ‘pratipaksha bhavanam from I-33, cultivating the opposite feelings/thought/emotions.

In II-7 and II-8, as part of the discussion of the impediments to practice, the kleshas, Patanjali introduces attraction and aversion, raga and dvesa. I desperately want/need this. I equally, absolutely have to eliminate this. These are fun to work with. Emotions move us. That is what emotions are, from the Latin e – motere, to be moved. But what truly moves us? Love, compassion, altruism, the desire to improve the world? Sometimes. But also the relentless ‘what about me’ voices that can also shape and direct how we utilize our life force, our prana. Meditation practice cultivates the ability to differentiate and discriminate the inner voices, to help restrain impulsiveness, and to choose more carefully how we act and what we say. Next weekend we will take up the yamas and niyamas, II-30 – II-45, with more unfolding of the emotional challenges of life.

Question: What about attachment. Doesn’t vairagyam promote non-attachment? This brings us to the attachment process, a result of our mammalian brain/limbic system. Young mammals, and especially humans, need to have an intimate relationship with a more mature mammal, to ensure the growth and development of a healthy nervous system. The attachment profile describes the ways in which we enter into and sustain relationships with others (and aspects of ourselves!). (Here is a web site with some basic information on this.)

What we discover is that the fundamental attachment energy is love. In fact one can argue that love is the only emotion and all other emotions are variations on healthy and unhealthy expressions of love. This refers, of course, to unconditional love. No limits, no boundaries, no exclusions, the feminine side of an awakened mind. Of course, there are unhealthy expressions of attachment/bonding and for these we again need discrimination to be able to recognize these and ‘nirodh‘, or transform the energies carried in these behavioral patterns. Non-attachment means not being attached to the habits that keep reeking emotional havoc in your own mind, your loved ones and the world. It does not mean to be emotionally detached and passionless, but to live with a passion based on love.

This is what Patanjali is describing in I-2, yogash citta vrtti nirodha; yoga is the dissolution of the dysfunctional emotional patterns of the mind-field into the vast infinite present. But because of habits, priming and conditioning, collectively known as samskaras in Sanskrit, patterns that seem to have dissolved can reappear at any time. Which is why persistence in stabilizing the healthy emotions, abhyasa, is stressed early on in the sutras.

(Rick Hanson, co-author of Buddha’s Brain has a weekly letter with insights on integrating neuroscience and spiritual practice. His latest is perfectly timed to help in our discussion.

Hello,

It’s wonderful and also kind of crazy: right now, whatever you experience is slowly changing your brain.

Most of the good stuff we all want inside – the gratitude, kindness, grit, self-worth, confidence, feeling loved, resilience, compassion, insight, happiness, and inner peace – comes from turning passing experiences of these good qualities of mind and heart into lasting inner strengths woven into the fabric of the brain.

Unfortunately, there’s a bottleneck built into the brain: its evolved negativity bias that makes it like Velcro for bad experiences but Teflon for good ones – which makes it harder to turn beneficial experiences into inner strengths.

Meanwhile, feelings of stress, frustration, irritation disappointment, hurt, worry, and pain are being rapidly and efficiently coded into neural structure . . . relentlessly tilting the mind toward pessimism, anxiety, reactivity, contraction, drivenness, craving and clinging, weariness, and a blah blue mood.

Happily, you can use the power of mindfulness in everyday life to recognize and tune into wholesome experiences and then sustain present moment awareness of them. Since “neurons that fire together, wire together,” this mindful cultivation of beneficial thoughts, feelings, sensations, desires, and skills in your mind will naturally grow resources in your brain.

This week’s practice – be mind full of good – is a profoundly effective (and enjoyable!) path to psychological healing, well-being and effectiveness, sense of fulfillment, and the upper reaches of human potential.

Warmly,

Rick

Breathing Practice: Differentiating Ribs and Diaphragm through Viloma I and II

The heart or 4th chakra is the center of centers in the body/mind, but the 3rd chakra plays a key role in balancing emotional energies. By learning to feel our way around the mid body and deepen our perceptions of the breathing process, we can liberate a lot of bound up emotional energy. (As a response to danger the organism mobilizes its emotional energies to prepare for movement. It can flee (run using legs/ lower chakras), fight (using arms if human, claws and jaws for most, upper chakras), or freeze. The freeze response goes right to the diaphragm needs to be released.)

Using folded blankets or a small bolster to support the spine and chest, let the body relax and feel your breath. Notice the in breath, the out breath, and the natural pauses between. Soften more and more. When the time is right, begin to allow the expanding ribs to be the main component of the inhalation, and the squeezing of the lower body pushing the diaphragm up into the chest be the primary component of the exhalation. Allow the ribs to stay a little more open as you exhale, allow the diaphragm to wait a bit on the inhale. Learn to differentiate between the ribs and diaphragm.

The following is one of many variations of viloma pranayama.

Viloma I. From the ribs, inhale part way and pause. Holding the chest open release the sides of the diaphragm where they might be confused with the ribs, without releasing the breath. Repeat: using the ribs, inhale further, pause. During the pause, release the perimeter of the diaphragm and feel a subtle squeezing of the inner abdominal wall without releasing the breath. Repeat a third time and then release the breath slowly and evenly. During the pauses keep eyes, ears, throat and brain passive. That completes one cycle. Fee free to take a few normal breaths before beginning the next cycle if necessary. Also, the cycle given here has three steps. Feel free to do two, or many (like sipping the breath) if that feels better. When the last cycle is completed, relax and observe the breath.

Viloma II: Take a short but full inhalation and divide the exhalation into stages. Exhale part way, releasing the diaphragm but not dropping the chest. Pause and recharge the ribs so they stay open. Exhale step two, releasing diaphragm but slowing down the ribs;pause and recharge the ribs. Final stage of exhalation, natural pause, recharge the ribs softly. This completes one cycle. Rest and repeat cycles to one’s capacity. At the end, feel the changes inside that arise from the practice.

Anatomy/Kinesiology: In flipping the dog, the supporting shoulder is vulnerable to injury. How do we train the arms to be strong and flexible simultaneously?

Shoulder problems arise here because the gleno-humeral (aka shoulder) joint tends to be hyper mobile and the shoulder blade/scapula hypo mobile. Thus it is easy to partially ‘dislocate’ the humerus bone when weight bearing in odd positions like this. The clue is to mobilize the shoulder blade and collar bone so they acts as a bridge connecting core-spine-ribs to the arm. If the scapula tracks accurately, there is no strain on the shoulder joint. The achromio-clavicular or ‘ac’ joint and sterno-clavicular joint also help stabilize the shoulder by bringing support from the sternum front/chest through the collar bone.

On the muscular side, the posterior rotator cuff can be over-active, especially in the arms to the side position. Stand with your arms extending forward, like a standing plank position. Feel how the humerus bone is stable in the joint in this position by following the line of energy from the spine and ribs through the shoulder girdle into the arms and out the hands .

Our quadripedal friends live here. To deepen the sensation, remember that the arms are made for hugging. To bring your arms out to the side, just opne the hug wider and wider, but keep the slight curve in the energy field. Notice when and if there is a break in the energy.

Most students eventually, unconsciously, move the arms and leave the shoulder girdle behind, mis-aligning the shoulder joint. Then they try to ‘stretch’ to open the chest. From the perspective of the energy body, this break is obvious, but you have to be there in the sensation to feel it. Try stopping before you get to 180 degrees, or imagine that you are just hugging an elephant. Explore one arm at a time by imagining that your are throwing a frisbee. The feeling is that of uncoiling the inner line of the body/arm, not contracting the outer shoulder, as the energy continues in a line out through the fingers and into space.

Asana Practice: Track action of third chakra/solar plexus/samana vayu energy and distribute it evenly into upper limbs and head / and lowers limbs and tail. Begin with standing poses, through dog and variations to inversions, backbends, (Saturday), forward bends (Sunday), then sarvangasana, variations as inspired, savasana.