BKS Iyengar

August 2014

BKS Iyengar: An incredible body of

work
Times of India, August 21, 2014

Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja 'BKS' Iyengar, the grand

old man of yoga who could do 30-minute head stands well
into his nimble nineties, began life as a sickly child; he
suffered from malaria, typhoid and tuberculosis till well into
his teens.
"I was like a parasite," he once told an interviewer. "I would
play one day and spend the next seven in bed. I asked myself
if such a life was worth living," said Iyengar, who was born
into a poor rural family in Bellur, Karnataka. Then his
brother-in-law, the famed Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, also
called the father of modern yoga, invited the boy to his Yoga
Shala at the Mysore Palace. The Yoga Shala was exclusively
for royals and outsiders weren't allowed but it was as if
Iyengar's destiny pulled him there.
Iyengar was to later recall that the royals, being a martial
people, jumped from asana to asana. "Martial people don't
want philosophy; they want vanity and have a martial
mindset," said Iyengar. So, there was the obvious problem. A
person could do such a physical form of yoga till the age of,
say, 40. After that it was impossible to keep up. "I changed
the system. How could I tell a 68-year-old to jump and go to
shirsasana?" said Iyengar, who moved to Pune to teach yoga
and stayed there until his end.

He began refining the system, rediscovering the lost art of

hatha yoga to recreate postures for every age. Once the body,
senses, mind, intelligence, and consciousness are
conquered, Iyengar would say, one has ethical and mental
health. Having transcended these, one gets divine health,
with health being an absence of disease.The divine life is
then within.
A three-and-a-half-hour meeting with violin maestro Yehudi
Menuhin in 1952 was pivotal in introducing the western
world to Iyengar. While Menuhin credited Iyengar with
transforming his playing, talking to Menuhin helped Iyengar
reassess his own past."I came from dire poverty. I learnt
philosophy from Menuhin," the king of asanas once said.
Soon, Iyengar was holding yoga lessons in European and
American cities. Fame at home followed, and it was through
the western prism that India once again saw the light of
yoga. From Jiddu Krishnamurti to Jayaprakash Narayan, he
taught them all. In the West, celebrities such as actor
Annette Bening, fashion designer Donna Karan and writer
Aldous Huxley were among his students.
The guru with a trademark shock of white hair has an
Oxford dictionary entry against his name as well as an entry
into Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. His
book, 'Light on Yoga', published in 1966, is considered a
yoga bible.
Iyengar's illustrious guru, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, lived
to be 100, and Iyengar though he did poorly in school,
describing himself as a "backbencher" in his autobiography
was a more than worthy pupil, learning from him the
principle: "Teach what is appropriate for an individual."

Iyengar went on to tailor yoga according to an individual's

need. He emphasized alignment in yoga which, until then,
was considered a state of equanimity . "Without alignment,
equanimity was impossible," said Iyengar. He introduced a
new, accessible grammar to the lofty verses of Patanjali,
making it possible for the commoner to connect with the
"high" science of yoga.
Elizabeth Kadetsky, whose wartsand-all memoir of Iyengar
upset many when it released, has said it was intellectual
rigour that drew her to this form of yoga. "In an Iyengar
class the level of language is so articulate and smart.... In
that way Iyengar has affected the world of yoga by giving it a
level of serious professionalism and discipline," she said in
an interview.
The influence went as far as China, where "Guruji" acquired
a considerable following, and even got a stamp in his
honour. Yoga, he felt, could bring the two countries
together. "I have created friendship through yoga," he told
his Beijing audience. "If you practise yoga, your way of
thinking becomes different. If you stand on your feet, you
see the world one way. But if you are standing on your head,
and are topsy-turvy, the world will look a whole lot
different."
Inputs from Neha Madaan

BKS Iyengar, who took yoga to the

world, exhales for the last time
Times of India, August 21, 2014

BKS Iyengar, the legendary guru who sparked a global yoga

craze and reintroduced it to generations of Indians, died of
kidney failure at the age of 95 in Pune on Wednesday.
If yoga is today practiced by countless millions around the
world and has exploded into a multi-billion dollar industry,
much of the credit goes to Iyengar.
A sickly child who suffered multiple illnesses including
typhoid and TB, life changed after he began learning yoga at
15.
At 18, he moved to Pune where he began developing his own
form of yoga, which he said anyone could follow, regardless
of their age.
Among his many famous disciples was the Queen Mother of
Belgium, whom he taught the sirsasana (headstand) when
she was in her 80s.
He set up Iyengar Yoga studios in 78 countries and his book,
'Light on Yoga', published in 1966, is considered the bible of
yoga.
Performing 30-minute headstands till well into his 90s, he
truly lived up to his message: "Live happily and die
majestically."

Iyengar's yoga class: Young or old,

everyone's on the mat
Times of India, August 21, 2014

In an overheated, billion-dollar market, Iyengar yoga stands

apart, with its no nonsense, classicist approach. The guru
smashed the weird-contortionist-twisted-around-himself
cliche to create a scientific system for yoga. Iyengar is
credited with some breakthrough ideas that form the
bedrock of yoga practised in the world today.
Anyone can do yoga. There is no premium on being fit, flatabbed or flexible in an Iyengar class. Iyengar believed yoga
was as much for the ageing and sick as for the young and
healthy. The techie with a stiff neck, the middle-aged mother
with flabby triceps, the senior citizen with a shuffle, for
Iyengar, no one was beyond yoga.
In his class you could see as many imperfect bodies gasping
to reach their toes as agile youngsters who could drop back
with ease. The idea was never to strike the perfect pose, it
was to do it mindfully.
In classes, the limber women in lycra were often told to
watch how intelligent ly and strongly the grandmother in
bloomers worked her back quadriceps in uttanasan, the toe
touch. You learnt that a sagging stomach, thick knees and fat
calves taught you to use the body mindfully.
The Iyengar props - which many yoga schools sneered at but
then co-opted - bolstered this belief. It allowed the nervous
60-year-old to go into a headstand, reassured that the rope
held her hip in place. The wooden brick brought every

forehead to the ground in the downward dog; the wooden

trestle let the body the right to a perfect forward bend.

First body, then mind Cross-legged navel gazing of the kind

that assorted lifestyle gurus teach is never a part of the
Iyengar practice. The guru believed that if you cannot sit still
without the knee complaining, the spine dropping or the
neck tilting -you had no business meditating. To centre the
mind, the body had to be centred and that came with the
rigour of physical practice. Once you cracked bodily stillness
only then could you think of moving into higher realms.
With him, pranayama came at the end of every session when
the body was pliant and quiet. Contrary to other schools,
Iyengar never believed in the pure pranayama class without
an asana preface. In fact, for him, working towards a pure
pose was an act of meditation.Align, align, align Iyengar
yoga has minimal movement. The goal is to strive for perfect
body alignment, the Vitruvian man as Patanjali saw it. The
standing pose, tadasana, was Iyengar's favourite for its
emphasis on alignment.
His instructions were micro-managed to achieve this. Even
surya namaskar, used as an aerobic warm up by others, was
a slow series of movements, each of which had to be just so
before you could move on.

Yoga guru BKS Iyengar passes away

Times of India, August 20, 2014

PUNE: Yoga guru BKS Iyengar passed away at a private

hospital in Pune today.
The 96-year-old yoga exponent was admitted to the
intensive care unit of a private hospital here for poor heart
function and difficulty in breathing.
Iyengar's heart muscles had become very week following
which less blood was being pumped by the heart.
"His heart's ejection fraction (capability of the heart to
pump blood) was 25 per cent when he was admitted on
August 12. Later it dropped to 20 per cent. He had been put
on medication to improve the heart function, but it did not
show much results," the doctor said.
"The ejection rate of human heart should be in the range of
45 to 55% for proper blood circulation in the body. But low
ejection rate of his heart led to decreased blood supply to all
the vital organs including brain, kidney and intestines. This
has also led to kidney failure," the doctor said.
After the kidney failure on Sunday, the Yoga guru was
advised continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) by
nephrologists from Mumbai-based Jaslok Hospital who
visited him on Sunday so that fluid as well as toxins
accumulated in blood are removed slowly with the help of
CRRT machine.

"We had put him on intermittent dialysis from Sunday. He

had undergone three cycles of dialysis but his kidneys didn't
much respond to the treatment," the doctor said.
"Iyengar died at 3.15 am on Wednesday," said a treating
doctor.

!
A file photo of BKS Iyengar interacting with students of
Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, Institute of Yoga and
Yoga Studies at Mandaveli in Chennai. (TOI Photo)

BKS Iyengar leaves behind a world of

yoga
Times of India

PUNE: It was in the early 1950s when Bellur Krishnamachar

Sundararaja Iyengar took his first steps to global fame after
celebrated violinist Yehudi Menuhin introduced him to the
world as "my yoga guru". Over the years, the number of
followers grew as did the centres dedicated to his form of
yoga. Currently, there are over 20,000 Iyengar-certified
teachers across the globe.
Many of these teachers and followers were in the sea of
mourners at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga
Institute in Model Colony on Wednesday. Iyengar passed
away at a city hospital at 3.15am after having been admitted
there due to poor heart function and difficulty in breathing.
Vedic chants reverberated inside the room where the body
was kept. Family members quietly directed the steady
stream of visitors. There were so many that the funeral
cortege was held up for about half-an-hour.
Some of the visitors broke down, turning to friends for
comfort. Others found quiet corners to chant prayers. Scores
waited in a long queue to pay tribute to the man who had
turned their life around.
After a private ceremony restricted only to the family, the
procession eventually made its way to the Vaikunth
crematorium where the last rites were performed at 2.30pm.
"I know my guru has left for a better place. He has merged
with the supreme light," said Shashank Kapoor from Delhi.

There were many among the mourners who recalled their

decades-long association with the yogacharya, who had
written 24 books, many of which were translated into
various languages, including the immensely popular ?Light
on Yoga'. Others had met him only briefly, some not even
that. Yet the profound influence he had on them made his
passing a personal tragedy.
Patrizia Maffei from Rome had the briefest encounter with
her guru a few years ago. Struck by Iyengar's triumph over
ailments, she had taken up yoga after undergoing four back
surgeries. "After practising yoga for a few years, I started
training as a teacher. I have a rod in my back. But his
teaching did not require fit or perfect bodies," she said.
Marina Jung from Melbourne considers herself lucky to
have learned from the master. She remembered an occasion
when she was distracted. "He noticed it immediately and
issued a firm reprimand," Jung said.
A personal session with Iyengar was not necessary for a
personal connection. "Ten years ago, Guruji told a large
gathering of disciples in Estes Park in Colorado about his
attachment to his students. His generosity of spirit moved
everyone," said Cyndy Cordle from San Diego.
Yena Lee from Seoul in South Korea had learned yoga, but
had discontinued her practice. On a friend's
recommendation, she visited the institute six years ago and
met Iyengar. "I started yoga again. I did not know how
important he was to me until I came to know that he had
died. I cannot even explain why." she said in tears.

Thousands of Iyengar's disciples from India and abroad

thronged the crematorium as well. Mayor Chanchala Kodre
also attended the funeral. Many disciples were at a complete
loss for words while the last rites were being performed and
were unable to express their feelings. His daughters, Geeta,
Savita, Vanita and Suchita were present for the funeral,
while his fifth daughter, Sunita, was unable to come. Geeta
and Sunita are yoga teachers while the rest have practised
yoga, a disciple at Vaikunth said.

He dreamt of Bellur as a global yoga

village
Bellur (Kolar district): Bellur Krishnamachar Sundaraja
Iyengar may never have become a famed global yoga guru,
had he been attentive in his English class. Iyengar, who
failed his English exam in class 10, didn't go on to college; he
took up yoga.
On Wednesday, the tiny village of Bellur in Kolar district of
Karnataka, with a population of around 1,000, paid homage
to the man who was born here 96 years ago. As news of BKS
Iyengar's death spread in the morning, the village folk
assembled in front of the grama panchayat building in
tribute.
The Brahmin boy from this dusty village had to move to
Bangalore at the age of six for a formal education, as the
nearest school was 20km away. This had always rankled
Iyengar, who would tell his scores of disciples that all
children should have a proper education.
VS Nagesh, principal of Ramamani Sundaraja Iyengar
Composite Junior College, told TOI that had BKS passed his
SSC examination, he would have gone on to college and
maybe opted for a government job. "In that case, yoga would
not have reached the rest of the world," said Nagesh.
BKS had always dreamt of developing Bellur as a global yoga
centre, and was working out the modalities, helped by his
elder daughter and lone son, who have also taken up yoga.

A frequent visitor to Bellur, he was here last April for the

150th ceremony of his late father and took part in the Anna
Santharpane. He spent a couple of weeks at the village, said
Govindarajalu, administrator of the trust running his
institutions. Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda met
Iyengar here in May and learnt a few yoga lessons from the
master.
His youngest daughter, BJS Savitha Raghu, who lives in
Bangalore, said it was her father's dream to provide a good
education and healthcare facilities to children. This led to a
primary school in Bellur, started in 1967 in memory of his
parents. A high school was started in 2005 for his wife
Ramamani, and today, the Bellur Krishnamachar Seshamma
Smaraka Nidhi Trust runs the Ramamani Sundaraja Iyengar
College.
The Trust has also set up a charitable hospital, taken up
renovation of temples and other developmental activities.
BKS leaves behind six children and thousands of disciples
across the globe. Family insiders say the deaths of two of his
sons-in-law in the span of a year may have affected his
health.

His book is a Bible for yoga enthusiasts

Simple yoga techniques, but enough effect on body, became
synonymous with BKS Iyengar.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaj Iyengar practiced yoga till
he was admitted to hospital last week. Iyengar pioneered the
use of props (support) in yoga. Chairs, pillows and
specialized ropes were used as supportive equipment and
were known as 'Iyengar props'.
Guruji was a strict and serious yoga teacher. Sitting upright
on a steel chair and twisting your body to the left and right,
he said, is good exercise that benefits the abdomen. His
book Light on Yoga is still referred to as a Bible that's been
translated into 17 international languages.
BKS Iyengar was a brand by himself. He got the word
Iyengar introduced in the Oxford dictionary because of the
yoga techniques he pioneered. He was introduced to yoga at
a very early age by his guru and brother-in-law T
Krishnamacharya in Mysore. Soon he shifted his base to
Pune, and started teaching yoga. His methods attained
renown after famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin was
impressed and took it to the West.
Besides Pennsylvania State University having a monument
named after Iyengar on its campus, the Federal Star
Registration of the US has an 'Iyengar star'. China, despite
being a communist country, has also brought out a stamp on
Guruji.
-- As told to Anil Kumar M (SN Omkar is chief research
scientist, aerospace division of IISc)

Yoga Guru BKS Iyengar Dies at 95

Time Magazine, August 20, 2014

Yogacharya BKS Iyengar performing Yoga at his Yoga Institute in Pune,

Maharashtra, India, in 2007. Bhaskar PaulThe India Today Group/Getty
Images

Influenced a generation of yoga practitioners

in the West
BKS Iyengar, the Indian yoga guru who helped make yoga a
popular practice in the United States, died Wednesday at the
age of 95.
Iyengar, who was on TIMEs 2004 list of the 100 most
influential people, was admitted at a hospital in Pune, India

after being admitted for breathlessness, the Times of India

reported. A photo of the smiling yoga guru appeared on his
website with the words I always tell people, live happily
and die majestically.'
Iyengar started practicing the 2,000-year-old tradition of
yoga after a series of childhood illnesses and began teaching
in the 1930s, according to USA Today. His students
included the violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the American
actress Ali MacGraw. He wrote books on yoga that helped
spread the practice to the West, including the seminal Light
on Yoga which was translated into 18 languages.
Actor Michael Richards described Iyengars technique for
TIME in 2004: Iyengar teaches practitioners to lavish
attention on the body. The goal is to tie the mind to the
breath and the body, not to an idea, he wrote. His
philosophy is Eastern, but his vision is universalist. You can
incorporate Iyengar into your life and yoga practicebut
ultimately were Westerners on Western soil.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter he
was deeply saddened by Iyengars death.

BKS Iyengar, Indian guru who sparked

global yoga craze, dies aged 95
The guardian August 20, 2014

BKS Iyengar, photographed in Karnataka, India, in 2005. Despite a heart

attack at 80, he continued to practise yoga into his 90s. Photograph:
Dinodia/Corbis

BKS Iyengar, the Indian yoga guru credited with helping to

fuel a global explosion in the popularity of the ancient
spiritual practice, has died aged 95.
Iyengar started his yoga school in 1973 in the western city of
Pune, developing a unique form of the practice that he said
anyone could follow.
He trained hundreds of teachers to disseminate his
approach, which uses props such as belts and ropes to help
novice practitioners achieve the poses.

He wrote many books on yoga, which has been practised in

Asia for more than 2,000 years, and has in recent decades
become hugely popular around the world.

!
Crowd of yoga enthusiasts doing headstands at Iyengar yoga
convention in London. Photograph: Zen Icknow/ Zen
Icknow/CORBIS
His insistence on perfecting the poses or asanas won
him a huge following, among them celebrity fans ranging
from the cricketer Sachin Tendulkar to the writer Aldous
Huxley.
It was an encounter with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who
came across Iyengar during a trip to Mumbai in the 1950s,
that prompted him to take his practice global.
"Perhaps no one has done more than Mr Iyengar to bring
yoga to the west," said the New York Times in a 2002 profile
of the guru.
"Long before Christy Turlington was gracing magazine
covers, decades before power yoga was a multimillion-dollar
business, Mr Iyengar was teaching Americans, among
others, the virtues of asanas and breath control."

US model Turlington graced the front cover of Time

magazine in a cross-legged pose for a 2001 report on the
explosion in yoga's popularity.
Critics say the global expansion of yoga into western gyms
and fitness centres has taken the practice too far from its
spiritual origins.
But Iyengar said it was unfair to blame yogis. "It all depends
on what state of mind the practitioner is in when he is doing
yoga," he said last year in an interview with Indian
newspaper Mint.
"For the aberration, don't blame yoga or the whole
community of yogis."

!
BKS Iyengar demonstrating a yoga pose in the 1960s.
Photograph: Associated Newspapers/REX
Iyengar died early on Wednesday in hospital after suffering
kidney failure, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
His website carried a picture of Iyengar's smiling face beside
a message that read: "I always tell people, 'Live happily and
die majestically.' 14 Dec 1918 20 Aug 2014."
Despite suffering a heart attack at 80, he had continued to
practise yoga into his 90s.

He suffered from ill health as a child but found that he could

improve his strength by practising yoga, which he took up as
a teenager.
When he was 18, his guru sent him to teach in Pune because
he spoke some English. There, he developed his own form of
yoga, eventually opening his own institute.
There are now over 100 Iyengar yoga institutes around the
world.
The Indian information minister, Prakash Javadekar, said
Iyengar had "made Pune the capital of yoga and spread it all
over the world".
The prime minister, Narendra Modi, a yoga lover, tweeted
that he was "deeply saddened" by the guru's death.
"Generations will remember Shri BKS Iyengar as a fine
guru, scholar and a stalwart who brought yoga into the lives
of many across the world," he said.
Iyengar is survived by a son and a daughter. He will be
cremated on Wednesday afternoon.

India yoga guru BKS Iyengar dies- BBC

20 August 2014 Last updated at 04:19

Until Mr Iyengar fell ill last year, he could still hold a

headstand for more than half an hour, as Sanjoy Majumder
reports
Indian yoga guru BKS Iyengar has died in the
western city of Pune, aged 95.
Mr Iyengar was admitted to hospital last week and died
early on Wednesday following kidney problems, doctors
treating him said.
Mr Iyengar was credited with his own brand of yoga, and
taught author Aldous Huxley and violinist Yehudi Menuhin,
among other celebrities.
Iyengar yoga is now taught in more than 70 countries and
the guru's books have been translated into 13 languages.
Archive shows BKS Iyengar in the 1930s
One of yoga's finest teachers, Mr Iyengar practised what he
called an "art and science" for more than eight decades and
ran one of India's top yoga schools in Pune.
He continued to practise - "practice is my feast", he once
told a correspondent - in his old age and could still do the
sirsasana - or the headstand - for half an hour until last year.
He used around 50 props, including ropes and mats, to align
and stretch the body.

"When I stretch, I stretch in such a way that my awareness

moves, and a gate of awareness finally opens," Mr Iyengar
told the Mint newspaper last year.
"When I still find some parts of my body that I have not
found before, I tell myself, yes I am progressing
scientifically... I don't stretch my body as if it is an object. I
do yoga from the self towards the body, not the other way
around."
When he first met Yehudi Menuhin, the violinist complained
that he never had time to relax and never got a good night's
sleep.
"Within one minute Iyengar had him snoring happily away.
But Guruji did warn me: 'Relaxation doesn't mean yoga is a
soft option. It's a disciplined subject - a casual attempt only
gains casual results'," Mark Tully, former BBC
correspondent in India, wrote after meeting Mr Iyengar in
2001.