Thursday, August 21, 2014

LIVE HAPPILY DIE MAJESTICALLY


"Self-preservation or attachment to life is the subtlest of all afflictions. It is found even in wise men." (Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, II.9)

"Life is a continuous process, even though it is demarcated by race, place and time. Due to the uninterrupted close relationship between memory and subliminal impressions, the fruits of actions remain intact from one life to the next, as if there were no separation between births." (Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, IV.9)


"What, you must be asking, is the case when someone you love dies? You are sundered. There is a rending pain of separation. Of course there is...I lost my wife suddenly, brutally, unexpectedly. I was not even there, but away teaching in Mumbai for the weekend. I could not get back in time. I did not cry at her funeral. My soul loved her soul. This is love. It is transcendental and transcends the separation of death. If my ego, my small self, had been the source of my feelings for her, then I would have cried, and mostly I would have been crying for myself. There is nothing wrong with shedding tears for ones we love, but we must know for whom they are shed -- for the loss of those who remain and not for those who have departed." (Light on Life, 196)


"Birth and death are beyond man's control. They don't belong to our domain. Life departs when the time comes. According to the scriptures, death is a natural phenomenon of prakrti (nature) while life is vikrti (change, variation)...Birth and death are not in our hand. But life in between birth and death needs to be shaped, baked and cultured. Lord Krishna says that life is in unmanifested form before birth, it becomes manifest after birth, and goes back to its unmanifested form in death (Bhagavad Gita, II.28).

I would like to practice yoga until my last breath, as a humble service to yoga. My only wish is to prostrate before God, surrendering my last breath in a yogic posture." (Yoga Wisdom and Practice, 60)


B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga, The Official Website

"The Guruji Who Brought Yoga to the Masses"

A "Vox" article and link to a video

A 1934 (nearly 30 years before LoY) video of Iyengar demonstrating yogasana

The New York Times announces B.K.S. Iyengar Dies at 95


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