A long time practitioner of Yoga, I have recently started studying Yoga as taught by B.K.S. Iyengar. I am in heaven. Not only do I love the way my body is responding but I love the notion of intentionality and the call to monitor, measure and manage – in life as in Yoga. When I got home I found Light on Yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar’s classic text. What follows is a part of the introduction written by Yehudi Menuhin, a long-time student of Iyengar’s and one of the finest violinists of the 20th century.
“The practice of Yoga induces a primary sense of measure and proportion. Reduced to our own body, our first instrument, we learn to play it, drawing from it maximum resonance and harmony. With unflagging patience, we refine and animate every cell as we return daily to the attack, unlocking and liberating capacities otherwise condemned to frustration and death….
The practice of Yoga over the past fifteen years has convinced me that most of our fundamental attitudes to life have their physical counterparts in the body. Thus comparison and criticism must begin with the alignment of our own left and right sides to a degree at which even finer adjustments are feasible; or strength of will will cause us to start by stretching the body from the toes to the top of the head in defiance of gravity. Impetus and ambition might begin with the sense of weight and speed that comes with free-swinging limbs, instead of with the control of prolonged balance on foot, feet or hands, which gives poise. Tenacity is gained by stretching in various Yoga postures for minutes at a time, while calmness comes with quiet, consistent breathing and the expansion of the lungs. Continuity and a sense of the universal come with the knowledge of the inevitable alternation of tension and relaxation in eternal rhythms of which each inhalation and exhalation constitutes one cycle, wave or vibration among the countless myriads which are the universe.”
Namaste
Breathing
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