Message from Guruji

I am filled with satisfaction and delight that my pupils have enthusiastically come forward to make the conventions of Iyengar Yoga being held in Europe and the United Kingdom this April and May 2002, a grand attraction as well as a great educational conference on yoga, by inviting my daughter Geeta, as the senior-most teacher, to be the Chief Guest and main speaker in our traditional house.

I am sure that these seminars after Euroyoga 93' and my visits in 95' and 97' will make my pupils, (known and unknown), to get an idea of the in-depth learning and practice required to transform their present state of sadhana into antaranga sadhana culminating in antaratma sadhana. See Yoga Sutra I.17 Vitarka vichara ananda asmitarupa anugamat samprajnatah, wherein Patanjali guides us the way of practice.

Vitarka is the intellect that is situated in the brain, it reflects, analyses investigates, calculates, weighs and assesses. Vichara is the reasoning intelligence that is centred in the heart. It weighs vitarka and the ability to reason beyond the logic of the brain with insight. Vichara takes you to be in touch with the core.

For example your asana when careful analysis and right adjustment with insight are used in conjunction with each other an inner re-orientation takes place of asmita or the nobleness of the self is felt in the entire asana sadhana, both longitudinally as well as latitudinally. Then ananda or elation and untainted bliss from the sadhana arises, wherein the self is experienced in all the asana sadhana. Vitarka and vichara have to "roll" together in the asana. One has to reflect through investigation and analysis before re-adjustment. The re-adjustment that springs from the asana gives perfect insight into the self. Ananda springs out from this state of asmita. This samprajnata asmita, totally residing in the heart of the asana makes ananda to spring up. This is experienced by the practitioner as real bliss. This felt sadhana where the intellectual vision flows inwards is distinguished as antaranga sadhana.

Then the practitioner becomes a noble person of feeling with great Self-respect and Self-regard (abhimana). Here, the asana sadhaka is in a state where all the subtle reorientation of the asana are nothing but the reflections from the Self.

By inviting this matured intellectual vision into the interior parts of the body, mind, intelligence and consciousness the sadhaka savours the taste of the ever-shining soul, the ambrosia of the soul that acts as the food of the consciousness. This is the amrta, the imperishable juice of the Self that the consciousness drinks. This is antaratma sadhana.

This is only experienced in asana by rolling together, grasping and comprehending through vitarka, vichara, ananda and asmita, so that each and every part – the skin, the cells, the breath, the movements of thought, intelligence and reason listen to the Self and the sadhaka experiences untainted joy and satisfaction in his sadhana.

BKS Iyengar
Pune, India, April 2002