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we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

I just read Guy Donahaye's latest blog post, in which he discusses what he knows of Guruji as a person, and also says a few things about the infamous "No coffee, no prana" mantra that is so often attributed to Guruji. Guy begins by making some general observations about Guruji:

"...we have to recognize that Guruji was not a renunciate yogi sitting in a cave but a family man with his likes and dislikes and even pleasures. Guruji loved coffee as well as chocolate, gold, gems and many other material things. That is not to say he was overly attached, but though an extraordinary human being he was also an ordinary one.


I think this is one of the reasons we were attracted to him. He lived life and experienced pleasures and pain, ups and downs, but in all this he generally displayed equanimity...." 

Guy then says the following about the relationship between Guruji, coffee, and prana/apana:

"So Guruji did have some attachments and one of these was coffee, Sharath also loves coffee (and so do I). But if we look at what is designated as yogic food, coffee is definitely not considered to be sattvic - rather, we have to say coffee is rajasic in nature. It is completely antagonistic to meditation and the limbs of yoga and stimulates extroverted rather than introspective activity.

The word rajasic is often used pejoratively to describe someone who is unstable, passionate and unsavory in some way, but the word rajas simply means movement or action. To understand the meaning of yoga, some familiarity with the Gunas is required. The three Gunas are principally the qualities of mind, whereas the three doshas are the qualities of the body. Rajas, tamas and sattva - these are the qualities of mind - rajas means activity or disturbance, tamas means inertia or ignorance and sattva means tranquility and intelligence...

No coffee no Prana?

This was one of Gurui's humorous quips. It is a joke and not meaningful, but unfortunately has been taken up as one of his catch phrases.

There is a common misconception about Prana. Prana is not energy as we usually think about it. We do not absorb Prana from food or respiration as is commonly stated. In fact Prana is not even equated with inhalation, but rather governs exhalation. Physical energy absorbed from food is not Prana. Prana subsists on a different plane. Prana is the vehicle through which Purusa (spirit) animates the mental and bodily functions - it is the life force.

Prana enters the physical body at conception and leaves at death. It does not increase or decrease with respiration, eating or physical activity. It's actions in the body are facilitated by the qualities of the foods we eat or the actions we take but its quantity is not changed by or equivalent to the amount of food we eat or the air we breathe. Prana is subdivided according to its functions in the body and mind. The undifferentiated Prana can be equated to sattva - it's inclination is to move up or remain in the head region, whereas, when we are inclined towards extroverted activity it moves down, as does tamas - as it moves down it is called apana. Apana governs inhalation (which is a downward movement in the body) as well as elimination of waste products through urination, excretion and menstruation. For most yoga practitioners, coffee is used for the impact it has on going to the bathroom before practice. Hence rather that stimulating Prana, coffee changes Prana into apana."

I have to admit that I am one of those people who have the kind of misconception about prana that Guy mentions above. I've always thought of prana rather simplistically as life energy, and coffee as a substance that somehow creates more prana in the system.

But if Guy is correct (and if I understand him correctly), then each of us is born with a fixed amount of prana in this life. The difference lies in what we do with ourselves to facilitate its actions in the body and mind in a productive manner. When we move around and do things--as we surely must do in order to function in this world-- prana becomes apana, and apana is manifested, in turn, either as activity (rajas) or as inactivity (tamas). The key, as I understand it, is to find ways and means to move apana in such a way as to facilitate lightness and intelligence (sattva) in our being rather than ignorance and inertia (tamas).

I'm honestly not entirely sure that I really get all this: I'm still kind of thinking things through and trying to process stuff as I am writing all this (you could also say that I am trying to move whatever apana that is in my head in the direction of light and intelligence rather than in the direction of ignorance and inertia!). But I think at least one thing remains clear: Even if Guruji did not literally mean that coffee is prana, it may still be a good idea to drink it before practice, if doing so will help you to achieve lightness of bowel and body before you start practice :-) Perhaps in this way, coffee can literally help move apana in the direction of lightness, by helping you to overcome whatever inertia might be in the bowels and achieving that much-desired pre-practice bowel movement. Now, doesn't this give new meaning to Light On Yoga? :-)

P.S. Note to Iyengar practitioners: Please do not be offended by my rather , uh, light treatment of this classic by Mr. Iyengar. I'd be happy to issue an apology and perhaps even remove that last line, if you so desire. But why take things more heavily than we need to? 

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Or more precisely, did Guruji say this because of the historical fact that his English was limited, and he couldn't verbally convey the full breadth of the yogic teachings to his western students? Guy Donahaye seems to think so. In an interview with Elise Espat, he says:

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

Claudia has recently posted the latest conference notes with Sharath from Mysore, as complied by Megan Riley. They are very compelling to read, providing a wealth of invaluable insights for a home practitioner like me. In what follows, I will reproduce his words (as transcripted by Megan) in bold, followed by some neither-here-nor-there comments from me.

As always, Sharath covers a range of topics. In particular, he talks about the bandhas at some length during this conference, starting with an overview of the bandhas and their significance:

Why are bandhas important?  Sharath explained that many manuscripts refer to the bandhas and he himself refers to what Shankaracharya has written based upon experience and what he learned from his guru.  They are important techniques to keep longevity of life.  Sharath said, though there is not documentation linking bandhas to the phenomena of saints and yogis living much longer than we do today, he would figure that their ability to live for well over 100 years (1,000 years!) was due to their use of these techniques.  Though there are many bandhas, we use three regularly.  Jalandhara Bandha (demonstrated by dropping his chin) is used mostly for Pranayama.  In Mula Bandha we contract the anus and lift up.  Uddiyana Bandha is activated below the navel in the lower abdomen.

Very interesting. I think what Sharath says here speaks to my own experience of the practice thus far. When I first started doing primary series a few years ago, I would feel rather tired after practice, and my energy level tended to be low for the rest of the day. But now, I feel that practice actually helps me to maintain a constant level of energy throughout the day, so that I experience spikes and dips in energy levels less frequently, and when they do occur, they also tend not to be so pronounced. 

I have no way of proving this, but I have a feeling that the relationship between the practice and my energy level started to change when I ceased to see doing the practice as merely physical exercise, and more as a breathing/energetic practice. My personal theory is that when I became more aware of the practice as an exercise in breathing and moving energy through the system, I also began to engage the bandhas more without being fully conscious of it. And bandhas, as we know, are locks which serve to "lock" in our energy, preventing energy leakage. Hence the improvement in my energy levels. And if Sharath is right, I might just live to be a hundred (maybe even a thousand? Hahaha...) if I keep on with my practice. At any rate, I can hope ;-) Damn! Can you imagine people reading Yoga in the Dragon's Den a thousand years from now? Mind-blowing.... 

Anyway, Sharath has more to say about the breath and the bandhas: 

Who is the source for this breath?  God is the source.  Therefore, the supreme energy is the source of our bandhas.  Mula Bandha should be done sitting, walking, all of the time.  Sharath paused to add that it is done all of the time except a few times.  He said “I don’t have to explain this” and laughed.  Bandhas take time—there is no quick one month certificate for Mula Bandha.  Bandhas will help the asanas to develop energy inside us and bring stability to the body and mind.  Some asanas are also good for developing the bandhas.  Navasana, Utpluthih, and lifting up in our jumpbacks help us to strengthen the bandhas.  This is why he makes us do them longer in led practices.  Also, he added, it is fun for him.  He goes on to demonstrate other places where we can work the bandhas properly.  He demoed the jumpback from Utkatasana (not a half handstand but more of a lift of the lower body) and from Virabhadrasana I (same but with one leg behind).  These were not high lifts but very controlled.  Sharath attempted an advanced posture but said he should wait because he had breakfast already.  Finally, he got into Padmasana and showed us how to draw in the lower belly.  He said he sees many students allowing the lower belly to move quite a bit while breathing.  The breath should be free, without struggle, breathing only with the lungs.

Very interesting. I think what he says here about the bandhas helping the asanas to develop energy inside us confirms my personal theory above about the relationship between seeing the practice as a breathing/energetic practice and engaging the bandhas. If you treat asana practice as a purely physical set of exercises, then its benefits for you will be limited to the level of the physical. In order to draw upon the energetic benefits of the practice, one has to shift the way one approaches the practice, because what happens on the level of our minds affects what happens (or does not happen) on the energetic level. At any rate, this is my theory. 

I like what he says about Navasana and Utplutih helping to strengthen the bandhas. I've noticed over the years that quite a few senior teachers like to make people hold these postures for longer in led practices. Well, now I know they are not doing this just because they like to see the suffering expressions on our faces :-) 

And one more thing: All this talk of bandhas is making me curious about what Sharath would have to say about using the image of breathing through the anus as a way of engaging the bandhas. Somebody in Mysore right now should seriously ask him this question... but maybe this is asking too much of folks in Mysore. After all, I don't know if I would be able to muster the courage to ask this question without coming across as being mischievous or even downright disrespectful, if I were in Mysore myself. Well, I guess there's only one way to find out, right?... But anyway, if any of you people who are in Mysore right now are reading this, maybe you can see if you can find a way to ask this question in a respectful way during the next conference? I'm really curious as to what he would say about this...

Earlier today, I watched the above video of a speech that Guruji gave in Lille, France in October 1991. Many thanks to Grimmly for posting it on his blog. Having never met Guruji myself, this is actually the longest speech by him that I have heard. I tend to have little patience for watching lengthly videos of people talking on Youtube; which is why I never saw any previous videos of his speeches that are out there in cyberspace. I know, very unbecoming behavior for an Ashtanga Fundamentalist, right? :-) 

Guruji has a certain compelling presence. He is not fiery or verbally eloquent in the way in which Mr. Iyengar is, but he does have a way of getting your attention, even though his English is rather halting. He talks at great length in this video about yoga practice as a method of curing diseases of the mind and body. In particular, somewhere between the fourteenth and nineteenth minutes of the video, he goes into great length about how the practice is beneficial for people with diabetes. I'm not sure I got everything (I'll probably watch this again soon), but I understand him to be saying that particular postures in primary series such as the Janu Sirsasanas (A, B, and C) and the Marichyasanas, as well as Baddha Konasana, are good for treating diabetes, especially if one does the practice daily for at least six months. At least, that's what I understood him to be saying. But maybe if you have some time, you can watch this video too, and tell me if I am understanding him correctly. Thanks in advance!      

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

I just watched the above video by David Garrigues celebrating Guru Purnima (which is either today or tomorrow, July 3rd, depending on when you take the full moon to be). I really like his analogy (at around 5:20 to 5:40) about the guru being the container that contains our shakti or, perhaps more generally, all the various formative influences in our lives. The idea, as I understand it, is that it is not enough simply to learn something from somebody, as one would do if one were learning a trade; but one needs to integrate what is being taught with one's entire personality, so that it becomes an organic part of oneself. And a guru helps one to do just that.


In other news: If you read Claudia's most recent Sunday Yoga Blog Times, you will know that yesterday (July 1st) was the first day the KPJAYI opened its doors for students this year. According to my "original" plan, I was supposed to be there yesterday! Which meant I would have been there the first time the shala opened its doors so early in the year in recent memory, and I would be observing Guru Purnima in Mysore! Think about that...

But as some wise guy* once said, "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas." Or, in this case, a merry Guru Purnima. So rather than go on and on about what could, would, or should have happened, I'll just say that I'll do my best to enjoy my practice in my little corner of the planet and share it with whoever cares to learn about it, until I get to Mysore one day. And then what? And then I go back to whatever little corner of the planet I happen to be living in at that time, and do my best to enjoy my practice and share it with whoever cares to learn about it ("Before Mysore, roll out mat, take practice; In Mysore, roll out mat, take practice; after Mysore, roll out mat, take practice..."). Go figure.       

*A little online research reveals that the wise guy in question happens to be former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith. Not that you'd care, necessarily...

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities