MyLifeYoga

The story of modern day hatha-yoga (the yoga of postures) is a story of personal sacrifice. It starts with Krishnamacharya’s guru. It is not everyday that you get a student of the caliber of Krishnamacharya. Especially when you are living in a cave in remote Tibet! Then after having devoted seven years of your life to this exceptional student you finally have your chance to ask a price for your effort. What would you ask for? Would you ask for an expensive gift? Or would you have asked for an expensive education for your children? Krishnamacharya’s guru asked nothing for himself. Instead he asked that Krishnamacharya get married and devote his life to spread hatha-yoga.

On the same lines Krishnamacharya had a lucrative career ahead of him. He was widely recognized as brilliant and rising star. He could have easily accepted any one of the many offers to become a head of a religious order and could have paid lip service to his guru’s wishes. He would have had a easy life with social prestige and a life-long assured line of devotees. He chose instead to tread the difficult path of popularizing hatha-yoga, something that nobody was interested in at that time.

The tradition of service and sacrifice continued with Krishnamacharya’s students. Both B.K.S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois went through extremely difficult times but never wavered in their commitment to yoga. Indra Devi gave up her high-flying social life and a career in movies to become a yoga teacher. Both Desikachar and A. G. Mohan gave up lucrative careers to become yoga teachers.

This tradition of sacrifice and service continues till today. Thousands of yoga teachers have given up moneymaking careers elsewhere to become yoga teachers with very little remuneration and even loss of social standing. When any of us goes to a yoga class or benefit from doing yoga at home, let us take a moment to acknowledge the long chain of sacrifices that has bought yoga to our door step.

Krishnamacharya was struggling. With a steadily dwindling number of students, his campaign to promote yoga was going nowhere. He had a family to support and his only source of steady income was now under a threat. Krishnamacharya faced a critical decision. Should he compromise and secure his income or should he stick to his values and all that he stood for?

In many ways a guru is different from a teacher. A teacher’s personal life is divorced from what she teaches. A history teacher need not worry that her personal decisions have any bearing on what she teaches. A guru on the other hand has no such luxury. A guru is a guide that shines light on the path to God. A guru’s life is an example and what he/she says has to reflect in his or her actions.

In the early 1900’s hatha-yoga (the yoga of postures) was on the decline. Krishnamacharya’s guru had asked that he make it his life’s mission to promote and popularize yoga. Krishnamacharya had accepted this challenge and had plunged head long into this task. But this was an uphill battle to wage for a single man of limited means living in a remote corner of the world. Krishnamacharya’s brilliance lay in the fact that he understood that his battle was not external but internal. His struggle was not in trying to make others follow what he wanted, but in mastering himself so that his life would be an example for others. He had to become a guru.

Let us jump back to Krishnamacharya’s story taken from A. G. Mohan’s wonderful book. In the 1950’s Krishnamacharya was teaching yoga in a college in Chennai. At this point in his life the income he earned from this was vital for him. However there was a difference of opinion with the management of the college on how he should be conducting the class. The management told him that he should change how and what he was teaching, and if he did not comply his service would be terminated. Rather than compromise Krishnamacharya responded, “Very well then. I will have more time for my own practice!”

This is a small incident but illustrates what goes into the making of a guru. Most of us at this point are thinking, “The burden of being a guru is too big to bear. Thank God I do not have to carry this burden!” Unfortunately for those of us who are parents or guardians, we cannot wish away this burden. A child’s first gurus are always its parents.

A quote by Robert Fulghum is appropriate to end this post. “Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.”

Related: The Story Of Yoga

Yoga is practiced by millions today. But in the early 1900s yoga was unknown and on the decline. What happened that led to this tranformation? This story tells you how yoga moved from the obscurity of the caves in the himalayas and into our everyday lives. The story of yoga is the story of extraordinary sacrifice and extraordinary people. Now in about 5 minutes you will get this story that has never been told in this way before!

You may also like: “Who Am I?“

1888: Born. First learns yoga and pranayama from his father.

His father dies at an early age but has planted the seeds of yoga in young Krishnamacharya. When the young boy asks his dad a difficult spiritual question he replies that he should study Patanjali’s yoga sutra. His father also lets the young boy know that Nathamuni was their ancestor. Nathamuni lived in about 900 AD, was a poet-saint, and a practitioner of all the 8 limbs of yoga.

1904: Age 16 Krishnamacharya has a deep mystical experience.

At the age of sixteen, Krishnamacharya was visited in his dream by the saint Nathamuni who directed him to go to the town of Alvar. Krishnamacharya travels to Alvar as instructed . Once he reached there he falls in a trance like state. He found himself in the presence of three sages; one of them was Nathamuni himself. Nathamuni began to recite from the long lost text called Yoga Rahasya (Secrets of Yoga). When he awoke from the trance he found that the sages were gone but he remembered every single verse of the text! This experience was the foundation that set Krishnamacharya on his epic quest into yoga. About 30 years later Krishnamacharya authored the book Yoga Rahasya but he never claimed to be the original author.

1904-1906: Joins Mysore University and also learns from local religious order.
1906: At the age of 18 leaves Mysore for Benares.

A monk observing him practice yoga, saw his proficiency, and directed him to the yoga master Babu Bhagvan Das. On completing his study with him he earned the degree in yoga and Samkhya philosophy.

Krishnamacharya felt he needed to go deeper into yoga and made inquiries. The principal of the college in Benares then recommended him to go to Tibet and study with one of the last remaining masters of yoga: Ramamohan Brahmachari.

1911: Aged 23 travels to Tibet.

Stays for 7.5 years till 1918 with Ramamohan Brahmachari who teaches him yoga.

1924: Age 36, stay in Benares ends and he moves back to Mysore.

Maharaja of Mysore eventually opens a yoga school for him to teach at.

1925: At the age of 37 gets married to Namagiriammal.
1927: Meets Pattabhi Jois (age 12) and accepts him as student for 2 years.
1932: reunited with Pattabhi Jois (age 17) who studies with him till about 1945.
1934: Teaches BKS Iyengar, his wife’s younger brother, for two years.
1937: Meets Indra Devi (Eugenie Peterson) and cures her in a few months.

Indra Devi stays with him another year and learns yoga.

1947: Yoga patronage ends as the powers of Maharajas is curtailed

India gets freedom from the British in 1947

1953: Now 65 years old, moves to Chennai.
1955 meets Srivatsa Ramaswami.
1961: TKV Desikachar, his son, has change of heart.

Desikachar gives up his lucrative career and begins study of yoga with his father.

1971: meets AG Mohan.
1984: At the age of 95 suffers fall but refuses surgery.
1989: Age 100 dies.

Related: His story in a short video: The Story Of Yoga

Some of the time-lines differ from wikepedia, these are taken from A. G. Mohan book which we deem more authentic.