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Pattabhi Jois
We are offering our Level I TT here in Antwerp Belgium, From the Ground Up and the mediation, wisdom training, anatomy and therapeutic application of yoga they are thoroughly enjoying.
We learned the sad news of the death of Pattabhi Jois yesterday and so today we set up a humble alter to him with a large striking photograph of his ebullient face as the centerpiece. There were fresh flowers decorating his image and Surya led a small aarthi, blessing his image by encircling the alter with the offering of a hand held fire while we chanted the “kaurpurgauram” mantra. It is astonishing to remark on the extent that his teachings have proliferated around the world, and here in Europe Ashtanga Vinyasa is popular. Certainly the vinyasa wave that swept through the USA could not have happened without the influence of Pattabhi Jois teaching.
His death falls mid stream in this week’s training program and on our syllabus today are the teachings on impermanence. So the timing for our small puja to “guruji” was fitting and we reflected on how potent it is to reflect upon and witness directly the passing of circumstances. I remember guruji referring to the “birthing and deathing” of al things, and I have always treasured that phrase, for in his broken English he pointed to the way that the birth and death involved in ongoing transformation is not static but is being acted and re-enacted again and again,
I recall having studied with Pattabhi in Mysore for six months on my first trip to India in 1989 (and returned again to study in ’95). Surya also studied and practiced in Mysore, prior to the two of us meeting. So we both have the Ashtanga Vinyasa practice as a common source for our teaching and practice. I learned the Primary and Intermediate series with Patabhi Jois in 1989. This was before Sharath, (his grandson who will lead the tradition form this point forward) was assisting in the classroom. There were just 12 of us in the room (Derek and Radha, John Scott, Lino Miele, Dina Kinsburg) and what I recall most was how nimble Pattabhi was given his 75 years at that time (he was born in 1915 and died in 2009, so was 94.) He was like a veritable lion the way he moved about the room—lifting people up and dropping them back, holding people in poses and climbing down to the floor next to or on top of his students. I particularly recall the weight of his girth on my back in baddha konasana! The abundance of core strength he demonstrated, down to his very bones, was astonishing.
His passing is indeed a considerable loss to the yoga world, for not only did he have mastery of the yoga asana forms and have the shakti to transmit this extremely formidable and rigorous practice to all those who walked into his shala, but he was a master of the language behind the yogic teachings. He had moved to Mysore to study with T. Krishnamacharya from a small village in rural South India and attended Mysore University studying Sanskrit. From his guru Krishnamacharya and through his studies he memorized the Sanskrit slokas from the Upanisads and bhakti sutras and Bhagavad Gita. On the occasions when Pattabhi Jois would lecture on the philosophy of yoga, and students would have opportunities to ask him questions, (which he abhorred because his mastery of English was always left wanting), he would quote verses from the ancient sources, reeling off lengthy verses in Sanskrit. He was not only a master of hatha yoga but was a scholar, and a bhaktin ( I remember how before the first class started at 5 AM, he could be heard I the front of the home performing offerings to his household deities). Pattabhi Jois had mastered the yoga teachings by a strict discipline of study and a yoga sadhana that includes in-depth memorization of traditional text—harkening back to the days when yogic teachings were limited to oral transmission—is now a dying art. With Pattabhi Jois’ passing we lose a solid link in the chain of direct transmission of scripture learned by heart.
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