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IYENGAR YOGAASSOCIATION (UK)President: Yogacharya Sri B.K5. Iyengarwww.iyengaryoga.org.ukIYENGAR YOGA NEWS - Issue No.4 - Winter 2003ContentsEditorial Board:Kirsten Agar WardRos BellAlan BrownJoe BumJudith JonesPhilippe HarariDesign: Philippe Harari.Rachel LovegrovePrinted by: Red FlagPress, CambridgeThe photograph onthe cover is ofparticipants at theManchesterConvention in June2003, with JawaharBangera.IEditorialInterview with Geetaji by Judith JonesAn Explanation of the Invocations by Dr Geeta S. IyengarPuja - Some Reflections by Kirsten Agar WardThe Science of Life by Dale RathboneInterview with JawaharManchester Convention - June 2003 by Betty CrostonYorkshire Convention - August 2003 by Myka RansomJune 2004 Convention - application form and detailsReflections by Shirley Daventry FrenchGeetaji in South Mrica by Sallie SullivanInstitute listingsSeeing and Believing: A Diary of Guruji's Practice by Kay ParryYoga Books - ] 950 to the Present by Joe BurnReaders' LettersIYA (UK) Interim Executive CouncilReport from the Chairs of the IYA (UK) by Philippe Harari & Judith JonesNominations for the IYA (UK) Executive CouncilRIMYI Archive Project by Judith JonesReport from Sheffield and District IYI by Dominic BattenAugust 2004 ConventionCertification Mark Income by Ros BellGood News from the Treasurer by Judith RichardsIyengar Jubilee 2002 - closing accounts by Paul WalkerProfessional Development Days by Judi SweetingIntroductory AssessorsTeacher Trainers and CoursesAssessment CongratulationsApplication for classes at the RIMY!, PuneYoga Rahasya - Sll bscription detailsIyengar books/videos for saleWebsite informationAdvertisementsIyengar Yoga News 95152535557575858Winter 2003
EditorialMessage from Gu ruji:For me it is g r e at satisfa c t o r y j oythae at ast th e BKSIYTA and LO At last, complete unification! Although there is lit have combe d al l differences andtle change in the format of the magazine and doubes an d ar e fo rming i nto a s i nglenone in the make-up of the editorial team, this is the . united organisat o n as Iye nga r Yogafirst edition of IYN to be produced by the new Asso cia tion o f Unit e d KingdomIyengar Yoga Association (UK). With that in mindcould we draw your attention to page 45 where there May this un i on buil d - up strongaffecc i ons with o ne another and ma yis information about how to get on the Executive t his ne w asso c iation grow f r omCo uncil and help us to run Iyengar Yoga in the UK. s r e n g ch to s e r engt h in impartingthe knowledge of yog a for on e coPlease do put your name forward.live with right wo rds and r ightThere will be cwo conventions next year (see pages 25 actions .Aand 46) and as these events are always popularremember to book early. Inside the magazine we haveseveral articles, letters and interviews that we hopewill provide something of interest to everybody.I am pr ud of this union and I prayAlmighty God to bless y OJ all to uset he ke ys of f iendliress , compassiona nd gladnes t o take pupils tOWardsspiritual quest and ble s sednes s.There is material of great importance to teachers, con cerning professional development days, asscsssmentsetc., to be found on page 47 and pages 49-54; so besure to read this carefully.May the As socia t ion serve al l .We are very pleased to announce to members that theIYA (UK) has now appointed a part-time (50%)Admimistrator. Leza Hatchard lives in London andhas nad extensive experience in administration. Herfirst task will be to son out our membership database,so members should send any change of address detailsetc. directly to her (see contact details below). RosBell is acting as Membership Secretary, so any queriesabout membership should still go to her (contactdetails for all the EC are on page 42).Could we also thank everybody who sent us material ,from articles to adverts and listings, and look forwardto more in the future (we are especially keen to receiveimages and photographs that would be suitable forpublication in IYN)e J::- ):Y (/, t, .,. ) C' (BK .S.1YF.NG.J(.(!)IIItems should be sent to:--------------------2Iyengar Yoga News No.4tllC('(({lsi('11(ilrltrlirt/trim!lfIlrll r fltl'its allri t('oe/INs III til(,\'.it!1lOr Fillfr' s('l/(/7(N/ll'isl/(.'s fr'.'jlccial1/1(///.impire /ISIe,IYA (UK) clo Leza Hatchard21 Woodgrange Avenue, EaLing,London W5 3NYtelephone: 020 8354 3983e-mail: admin @iyengaryoga.org.ukI"CI'crN/('111' 1Il!'sfSJurujiCopy deadline for next issue:26th March 2004/sllWelt kl'cswil (( /l1I/(/llt ((1Ie1edltilllles fr·11'11('11'1111 1jC'ltr /c·/(elti,e((11(/11'/(/e/·(,t/I'II(i L}(.(jO'.7l e ilt((lIl'jL'1t /r'rII('/ft /('/'(',icll(Oll'/cri'lCallc/ 'lel/m,sit,! rll/(/ lI'Isl,liNt CI'CUItllC/"illreIt(. )l'illess(llIri eml/r,I/{'II' 01/(/ill(Iu:rller S{(ln's)U'"l Winter 2003
INTERVIEW WITH GEETAJIFollowing Dr Geeta S. Iyengar's European Tour in April and May 2002, JudithJones interviewed her for Iyengar Yoga News on 25th August 2002 in the libraryof the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, India. In this finalinstalment of the interview Geetaji talks about AyuNeda and about women.DIoyou think thatyogapractice andayurvedaare incompatible with Weftern medicine?Geetaji: No! Undoubtedly, they are differ ent branches. We have to respect Westernmedicine, respect yoga also, and respectayurveda as well. I would say, when allthese three subjects come together, they canbring a wonderful result. It could do won ders. But if this has to happen all the threebranches have to be studied by all in orderto do the research work. They should doyoga, they should go for ayurveda, andknow modern medicine as well. If thesethree subjects come together I think it willbe a great blessing to human kind. But sep arately we develop only one side of it andthat is why the problem comes. Then itappears as though one is against the othertwo.Iyour problems or disease with medicines,he knows up to what level the yoga can betaught. For instance you are controllingyour high blood pressure with medication,he will remind all the teachers that youbeing a patient of high blood pressure con trolled with medication what precautionshave to be taken. He will try to see how itwill be controlled through the practice. Hedoesn'.r say to stop the medicines. On thecontrary he will say that if you are takingmedicines what and how much to do. Asyou begin to feel better and light, and no longer getting palpitations or symptomssuch as heavy perspiration, dizziness etc, heasks you to reduce the medication andincrease yogic doses. As the pressurebecomes normal, medicine is no longerrequired. Through yogic practice youmend.II Suppose if you are having a problem, youThere are certain good concepts in ayurve da also which are universally applicable,such as the three humours of the body. Ifmodern medical science can pick up andapply that, it may help them to improvetheir own science. Now medical science isaccepting certain household medicines. Forinstance it is now agreed that turmericpowder is good for cancer, ayurveda knewit from the very beginning. That is howUSA wants to patent these substances.Instead of patenting - making money,holding, possessing - instead of thinking onthat line, why not say, "We are all posses sors for the knowledge which exists in thiswork for human upliftment." Do we nothave a right to have the knowledge for thegood of everyone?are taking the medicine, he has tried to findout how to get rid of the side effects ofthese medicines. Ifyou are trying to controlThis is how the word veda also has come.Veda means to know. The vedas are notThe doctors think onlv in the line of conventional Western medicine and medicalscience. The science of yoga is one of self experience. To accept yoga one necessarilyneeds to practise it, but doctors don't wantto find out what yoga does, and if they aredoctors of ayurveda, they don't know aboutmedical science and yogic science. Theywant to go in their O\vn way. If they are ayoga practitioner, they don't know abouteither medical science or ayurveda and theywant to go in their own way. But I think asfar as Guruji is concerned, though he is nota medical practitioner or an ayurvedic doc tor, still being a yoga practitioner he isalways open for all these things.IIIyengar Yoga News No.43Winter 2003-------- -------------- ------------------
books. Later, they came in book form. Vedais the ocean of knowledge, which wasalways existing. Vedas do not belong to anyparticular sect, caste or religion. The wordHinduism is not found in any of the vedas.First of all understand this fact. There is noword called Hinduism or Hindu in Vedicliterature. Vedic literature speaks aboutwhole humanity.Universal truth?Geetaji: Yes - absolutely. It is universaltruth. Ie is cal'led as Saniitana Dharma - theeternal religion. Its eternity is meant forthis eternal world. The vedas believe thatthe whole world is one family. Can youimagine the idea coming in those days? Butstill they have said vasudhaiva kutum bakam. The whole earth, the world is onefamily. Why did the idea come? Do youmean to say that the vedic rishi's consideredIndia as the whole world? Vasudhii is earth,our planet. The whole earth is one family.If that idea has to occur, do you mean tosay they were not knowing this wholeworld? It's only the question of Sanskritlanguage. It's not even Sanskrit. Vedic lan guage is not Sanskrit. It is called girviinab htisha - the language of the God. Girvanameans God and bhtisha means language.The script too is called Devaniigari - scriptof God. This means the knowledge thatcomes is coming from some higher energy.In this sense Sanskrit is the origin of otherlanguages.If suddenly something strikes me, like itstruck Newton to say that an apple comingdown means some energy is pulling thatapple down. Why did no one think aboutit and yet he could? He could think aboutit. Do you mean to say the apples were notfalling before him? But his thinking processbegan to think, "why did it come down?" Itoccurred to him that something is gettingpulled. The word "gravitation" appearedlater. He called it as gravitational force. Doyou mean to say there was a language firstwhich called it gravity, or gravitationalforce and then Newton found it?Iyengar Yoga News No.4The language developed as the knowledgecame. So the knowledge comes, the lan guage develops. When you begin to under stand something, you develop the lan guage. Yoga was existing before Patanjali ,but it was scattered in several scriptures.But Patanjali developed the language. Hecodified it. In this sense, Patanjali too was ascientist. He did a lot of experiments andresearch work to put the whole of yogic SCi- Ience in the sutra form.Therefore, we human beings of developedintelligence should not reject the subjectjust because it belongs to a foreign lan guage. For me if English is a fore,ign lan guage, to you Sanskrit is foreign language.But the subject matter is meant formankind.So if Ayurveda, Western medicine, yoga,come together they can do wonders. Weshould not be ignorant of it or make it anego problem. If you take that earlier ques tion regarding yoga for Indian andEuropean women, it comes from our ownego. To say that "oh I am an Indianwoman, you are a European woman."Does it make any sense? We are the same!Our problems are same. All of us wanthealth. All of us want happiness. It is onlyour culture, outer appearance, language,and nationality that might be making a fewdifferences. Do you remember I said theclouds are the same everywhere? You don'tsay this is an Indian cloud and tha.r is anEnglish cloud, no chance, it is impossible!The douds are the same! The sky is same.So there is no difference. We only have tolook into it. In which way we are treatingthrough modern medical science, in whichway we are treating through Ayurveda, andin which way we are treating through yoga.Now, the recent progress is that doctorshave begun to recommend yoga. They saythat when you have a heart problem, andwhen you have diseases like cancer or youhave high blood pressure - do some yogaand meditation. Still this statement comesfrom ignorance though yoga is recognised.What is yoga and what is meditation? Are4IWinter 2003
Ithey two separate things? These (\'10 wordsare used as (\'10 separate methods. Is medi tation something different from yoga?Then how did these twO words come intoexistence - yoga and meditation? Yogaincludes meditation.II would like to say that yoga has to be thewhole life style. Apart from the medicinaltreatment on diseases, Ayurveda has to beknown since it has its own value which cat egorises the human constitution very clear ly and distinctly based on three humoursnamely viita, pitta and kapha as well asthree qualities sattva, rajas and tamas. NoI other science has given this distinct consti tution. Western medicine has made a greatprogress in the field of medicines and sur gery. The subjective knowledge of yoga andAyurveda, ifintermingled properly with theobjective knowledge of western medicalscience, can do wonders for human beings.IIWhen teaching Indian and Europeanwomen do you perceille allY d ffirences intheir needs?IGeetaji: There are twO ways to look at thisquestion. All women have the same prob lems. Women's psychology is the sameeverywhere. As far as the lifestyle is con cerned there are differences based on cultureand custom. The Indian lifestyle, Europeanor American lifestyle are changing andwhen you compare from one country toanother you do find the lifestyles changing.As tbe environment changes, the require ments of the human being toO change. Thiscreates problems that may seem to be dif ferent and separate, but when you go to theroot of the problems they are the same.Emotional problems, ageing problems,physical problems, for all women suchproblems are very similar.II Butto some extent, as I say, the socialnorms and environmental conditions dif fer, even in the countries like Europe andAmerica, in spite of havi
IYENGAR YOGA ASSOCIATION (UK) President: Yogacharya Sri B.K5. Iyengar . www.iyengaryoga.org.uk . IYENGAR YOGA NEWS - Issue No.4 - Winter 2003 . Editorial Board: Kirsten Agar Ward Ros Bell Alan Brown Joe Bum Judith Jones Philippe Harari . Design: Philippe Harari. Rachel Lovegrove Printed by: Red Flag Press, Cambridge . The photograph on the cover is of participants at
