longest day and yoga

June 21st just whizzed past. Longest day and all that.But in Bangalore with an overcast sky, longest day does not look too long. It was a theoretical thing, really for me this time.

But next day I saw that New yorkers welcomed the longest day with a unique demonstration. They did yoga in Times Square! Enjoying the sun and doing surya namaskar naturally!

B K S Iyengar was overwhelmed with the kind of response he got in a remote province in China, when he went there recently. He never knew there was such great following of his school of yoga in China. A few of his students, have started yoga schools there and they seem to be getting very good response.One of the students is supposed to have said that to learn yoga is now a 'fashion statement'.

Fashion and healthy living rarely go hand in hand, but then 'all truisms including this one is not valid all the time'!

Pyramid valley

We made a trip to Pyramid valley. Our ladies club planned this trip as a picnic for members and guests. This place is about 25 kilometres from the city on the Kanakapura road. It is set in a beautiful scenic environment with a small pond and rocky hillocks surrounding it. The pyramid as such is a huge structure rises high above the ground.
As soon as we landed, we were shown into a reception area. One volunteer was assigned to show us a video of what is meditation and how it is beneficial to mankind. The video was very well taken and was instructive. At the end of the session we were taken to the library which also had pyramid hats for sale! It was said, that if we wear those hats, then the power of meditation is enhanced. Of course we still have to meditate wearing those hats!
The pyramid valley hosted and just concluded a three day world peace conference. Of course Pandit Sri Sri Ravishankar and other dignitaries were the star speakers. They firmly believe that the route to world peace is through meditation. When you meditate, you are looking inward at the 'god' within.This is an omnipresent God residing in us.Hence there are no differences between people and hence there are no divisions among the world populace.
We then were taken on a guided tour of the place and we practiced meditation for 30 minutes. We then went into the pyramid structure. It is a huge hall and spiral a staircase leads you near the centre of the pyramid. When you meditate in that area, the power of the meditation is enhanced three fold we were told. I did not practice there, as I was having a mild headache due to the heat.
The volunteer who took us around was very passionate about meditation. He told us that he was happy that all of us were here and getting a feel of meditation and some of us already practising meditation. He appealed to us to pass on this knowledge to our children. He said it is very very useful for them to be initiated to meditation at an young age. Then they will realise the oneness of human race and it really would make a wonderful world. He said, as parents we are committed to giving our children good education and good savings/property. But these cannot be taken to the next world. Whereas if we gift them the power of meditation, they can not only lead very pure and purposeful and peaceful life here on earth, but this is one wealth that the 'atma' can take with it to the next 'janma'. He said when we see great seers in the world surely they would have been practitioners of yoga in their previous birth!
Leap of faith this!
But, yes I do grant that it is a most precious gift that one can pass on to one's children.I share with them this belief.

Krishnamacharya

The founder of Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai, began his yoga classes in the royal school of Mysore Maharaja. Krishnamacharya had every qualification to become an academic and also to take up the post as pontiff of Parakalamutt. But he declined all these avenues and took to teaching and propagating yoga as a 'gurudakshina' to his teacher. He learnt yoga under his guru in a remote cave in Tibet for seven years.At the end of which, the guru asked him as gurudakshina, that he should get married and leading the life of a 'gruhasta' and also take it as a life mission to spread the teachings and practises of yoga across the length and breadth of the country.
He took this mission very seriously, so much so that he was actively teaching yoga even into his ninetieth year. He took on a pupil aged 23 when he was past 80. Not for him mass yoga classes and counting numbers. He believed in individual attention to every pupil and tailored the classes to each student. NO wonder that several of his students have turned out to be teachers and pioneers in setting up yoga institutes throughout India and abroad.
There was an interesting anecdote about practise of yoga in Sweden. One of his students had learnt yoga and was practising the same when she got back to her place in Sweden. After a few days, she called back and said, while the practises were solving her physical ailments when she was in Chennai, they were not doing so in Sweden. Krishnamacharya asked her if it was very cold in Sweden. She said no, it is summer and it is quite warm with loong days and short nights. Krishnamacharya thought for a few minutes and realised the problem here. Her asanas had to be done before sunrise and just after sunset. During summer the days were long and it was very late by the time the sunset and then she did her asanas. Within a couple of hours, the sun rose again and she had to wake up and do her exercises before sunrise. While days and nights are fairly equal in Chennai, this practise was perfect, it got skewed in Sweden. He had to tweak the treatment to suit the peculiar conditions there and then she was in comfort!
Great man. Yes, I think he single handedly revived the practise and teachings of yoga and got it a respectable and desirable status that it enjoys today.