How do you open your chest? Have you ever questioned that? Do you never open your chest? You can't open your chest. Action is not in the chest. When the teacher says, "open your chest," you don't act in the chest, you act in the back. Now, stick your back ribs out. Don't disturb that, open your chest! Can you do it? No. Why not? That is the back. That is the chest. Now coil the back ribs in and collapse your chest! Can you do it? Why not? The teacher says, "Collapse your chest," so you should just bother about the chest. There are certain techniques which are causal, certain techniques which are effectual. There is a process, when you open the chest, you don't open the chest. It starts somewhere else. Lastly the chest is open as an effect. It is not the cause. When the teacher says: "open your chest," you are not supposed to open the chest, you are supposed to move your back. All these perceptions will come when you'll have this reflection in your practices. "Do I really open the chest?" All the teachers say, "open your chest." You can't open the chest. You don't open the chest. You can never open the chest. You have to work only with your back.
So adjustment is a process and you will know the process only when you practice with discernment. Sometimes you watch a film in slow motion. Why? So that you can clearly see what has happened. Why not understand the slow motion of your adjustment? How do you adjust? What are the things which are involved in adjustment? Adjustment is therefore not a Big Bang, it should not be a Big Bang. It should be a process. If it is a process, understand how many stages there are in your adjustment. How many things are involved? What is the sequential order in which the whole process is laid up? And all those things will come, as I said; the intelligence in your postures, in your practices, will certainly come when you do them with reflection, discernment and that will certainly come only when you do effort management.
We all think that Iyengar Yoga is working hard, working hard, working hard. Unfortunately, you are on wrong tracks. Iyengar yoga is not a stone-breaking business! Your concept of working hard itself is wrong. You think you should perspire. You have to perspire but don't think only that is Iyengar yoga. You will perspire as a process, in learning stages, or out of the process of doing for learning, you'll perspire. But don't think to perspire is Iyengar yoga.
When you have watched Guruji, his demonstrations, his grace, do you mean to say that he is exhausted by that? You have seen that he can talk normally also after a demonstration, he is as relaxed. He doesn't come out like a boxer after boxing bouts. Why don't you look at his practice, at all those things, and then try to define what the system is. Then you will understand that all the things which I am telling you are there in the system, they have to be traced. Actually, they are all on the surface; you are on wrong tracks because you are carried away by his postures. How is he doing Trikonasana? How is he doing Vrchikasana? How is he doing Kandasana? How is he doing this and that? You are carried away by something and you don't see how he is doing it. In difficult postures, when he is doing, does he do like you're doing Viparita Dandasana in class? Your face, your jaws, your teeth, your eyes? If he is not doing it, how is he not doing it? And why is he not doing it? He can show, "what difficult pose I am doing." He can also clench his jaws and tighten his eyes and show people that it's a very, very difficult pose, to make them understand that it is not simple. He can do that! People will say, "it's really a very, very difficult thing." They will beat hands for claps. Another thing is that he doesn't do that to show you that it is simple, but he is doing in a simple manner. He is simple in his practice. He is simple in his demonstration. That is what you see on his face, you should see on his face.
That's how the grace will come. The grace doesn't come by a stone-breaking business. Otherwise they should be all graced; they are working very, very hard, they break the stones eight hours a day, ten hours a day. They are not graced. Do you mean to say hard work is only the grace? That's not the hard work. Hard work is integrated work. And you are required to work hard because in your learning processes, as I said, you will have to go from hierarchy to hierarchy.
You'll have to struggle. Struggle is there, but it is not only struggle.Therefore your practice must be divided: this is the struggle track and this is the reflection track, and both should be co-mingled and also practiced side by side. And when you integrate, you will all become B.K.S. Iyengars, you will not come to me! When that is integrated, you will have no doubts. So, until then, you must see that these two tracks are there in your practice. The effort aspect and the conservation aspect. Action and reflection.
And as you mature, they will come closer and closer; at some places they will get co-mingled, that will give you the cream of asana. And you will come to know that the grace is there. At every stage, the grace is there; don't wait to become B.K.S. Iyengars, for grace. You can get grace at every stage.
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