A Turning Point
Chittaranjan-vatika-model-colony-pune-parks
This week passed much quicker than the first; time is relative, and finding a rhythm seems the right note to start on.
My daily 20-minute walk from apartment to class feels shorter and friendlier. Forward bends are emphasised during RIYMI’s second week of the month, and with hamstrings lengthening, my stride widens. Patterns appear within the surroundings of this beat.
As I start off for Monday’s 7am class with Prashant, it is still. Just a car getting washed and ready for the day. I learn this is an everyday ritual for the young man who now nods each time I smile past. The morning air is cool, with the faintest touch of rain. It’s monsoon season, although we haven’t had any heavy showers yet.
The class starts with “chanting to enchant” and strikes a chord in me. I find Prashant’s language divine. He speaks to something beyond words, a beat in my heart. We consider syllables and meter. It’s poetry to my ears; I love a good song lyric.
Prashant vibes well-versed points from varied classical and traditional philosophical angles. It takes my breath away, and with syncopation, I lose whatever it is that “forms and informs” I-ness. Abhi put it simply within Wednesday’s class, “to surrender something is to no longer own it.”
Prashant ends our week with a two-hour pranayama class at 6pm Friday. Unknowingly I’ve synced with him and this for many years. NPYR has a Friday restorative class: patterns, natural rhythms, timing, the path.
Beloved Guruji, a book published one year after Mr Iyengar’s passing, is upon the dining table as the Englishman, the Pole, and I share our prepared Saturday lunch of chapatti, dahl, methi (fenugreek) and okra. Roman (cue deep Polish voice) says, ‘I read an article by your teacher Alan. Have you seen it?’ I look up quizzically, torn piece of chapati in my right hand, ‘show me?’ This sings out …
The language was brought into the service of communicating an experience rather than simply to describe an action. He was inventing language, just as he invented so much else.
Alan’s article, Reflecting On Iyengar, harmonises with my week. Reading it makes me emotional.
Yesterday’s Saturday morning class with Sunita (Mr Iyengar’s daughter) examined humility - “not something that can be taught. You see, it is inside you. I cannot tell you to be humble. Only you can feel what it is. Forward bends are a way to bring out this understanding.”
A turning point in understanding, unlocked by the divine grace of the Iyengar family, who have welcomed seekers like me into the sanctum of their close quarters for decade upon decade past.
This Sunday, I give thanks and lower head to heart for being bestowed an insight into the vast subject of Yog.