SKPJ AND MYSORE IN TIME MAGAZINE
Time magazine has an article about the yoga teachers in Mysore who attract a local following. According to the magazine, the local folks don't even know / care about them.
I think that's a load of bunk* - perhaps the writer speaks Hindi, not Kannada - but here's an excerpt anyway:
K. Pattabhi Jois, who taught Natascha here, was a disciple of Krishnamacharya, whose style he took to the world. But she also studied with Jois's student B.N.S. Iyengar, who moved away from his guru's rigidly-defined sequence of postures towards greater emphasis on the spiritual. "If anyone asks me for advice, I suggest Jois for flexibility, and Iyengar for concentration," she says, while demonstrating a split and touching her forehead to the ground as nonchalantly as a cat stretching after a nap.
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*Locals call SKPJ "Dollars Guru"
The correct initials for Mr. Iyengar is B.K.S.
ReplyDeletepalcsi, there is also a B.N.S Iyengar in Mysore, who is of the Ashtanga tradition. So, there is B.K.S. Iyengar in Pune (whom you are speaking about), and there is B.N.S. Iyengar in Mysore!!
ReplyDeleteThere are many locals in Mysore who'd agree with "dollars guru". Whenever I'm staying with my husband's family in Mysore, I always find myself defending SKPJ. They feel yoga should not be paid for, that true yogis do not charge fees. But when I tell them about how he started out, when as a young Brahmin man he set out to learn this yoga, when few people thought it was something worthwhile, and how he then dedicated himself to only a handful of western students in the '70s, then they begin to see it differently. Funny, the work that some journalists can churn out on tight deadlines ...
ReplyDeleteAnother strange thing is the writer's omission of Venkatesh, aka the backbending king of Mysore, who from all appearances is the real deal (and not a Guruji wannabe).
ReplyDeleteOne can pretty much assume the writer has never been to Mysore, but rather has based this article on 1 or 2 phone interviews.
ReplyDelete-caroline