On International Yoga Day last year, I happened to be in the Himalayas, doing sun salutations in a mountaintop spa overlooking the Ganga. This year too, I will be in the Himalayas, though I am not sure if I will be on a yoga mat. But I am glad that we now have a Yoga Day — June 21, in case you weren’t aware — a day when we can look back, look ahead, reflect on life, make resolutions.
My formal initiation into yoga began 13 years ago, in a yoga studio located in an upscale neighbourhood of Chennai. While the few months I spent there worked wonders for me, I realised that I was only helping the high-flying guru get richer while I learned nothing. It was as good as going to an aerobics class five times a week. And so I headed for the Sivananda Ashram in Kerala, set in the forest near Neyyar Dam, spending two weeks there — for as little as Rs. 300 a day. The journey that began there continues. Today, I can call myself a serious student of yoga — though not a serious practitioner, because that requires you to get onto the mat every single day come what may — and know the subject sufficiently well to share a few thoughts:
One, I laugh at people who laugh at yoga — and I know many people who do that. They think yoga is for soft people, not challenging enough. To them I would only recommend one class of the Mysore-style ashtanga yoga. Either they will never go back to the class again — or never go to a gym again.
Two, there is only one yoga — and that is yoga. Business-minded teachers usually pick up certain postures and create a sequence and give it a fancy name, but that does not mean the teacher is offering you anything new or special. It’s the same old elixir packed in a new bottle.
Three, we tend to trust business-minded teachers more than the ones who might teach us for free. If you open a humble yoga shala and charge Rs. 100 a month, no one will come to you. But open a yoga studio and charge Rs. 5,000 a month, and the fashionable in the city will flock to you.
Four, you are never too old or too ill to start practising yoga. Yoga is all about breathing with awareness, therefore as long as you are breathing, you are fit for yoga. Seven years ago, I happened to be at an event presided over by B.K.S. Iyengar, and he mentioned how he fell from a scooter at the age of 80 and hurt himself so badly that his disciples thought that was the end of his life. He said, “That was when I thought, ‘Should I continue or not?’ Had I stopped, it would have meant that I had surrendered and lost faith in myself. But I combated my fears. How could I give up something that I had been practising for 70 years?” So, he resumed his practice and went on to live till the age of 95.
Five, practice of yoga teaches you the importance of practice. Even the most difficult of poses can be achieved — through practice. It may be frustrating at first, to try and fail, but if you keep at it, the pose comes to you one fine day. Having said that, difficult poses are easy to achieve; it is the simplest of poses that are difficult to perfect. Just the way it is in life: always so difficult to be simple.
