Light on Yoga - Day 37

 

Tribute to Guruji and Light on Yoga - Day 37

The Asanas - from Tadasana to Savasana

 

Mr. Iyengar included 200 postures into Light on Yoga, with over 600 photographs.  Really an amazing undertaking, especially at the time it was being published.

 

Before the Asana section Mr. Iyengar lets the reader know that after the name of each asana, there is a number with an asterisk.  These numbers indicate the intensity of the asana.  The lower the number, the easier the asana and of course the higher the number the more difficult. The numbers ranged from 1 - 60.

 

An example of a pose with the number 1 is Tadasana or Mountain Pose.  An example of 60 is Tirieng Mukhottanasana.  This is an intense back bending pose where you stand and reach back to grasp your ankles.

                              

Something like this next pose...Eka Pada Urdhva Danurasana - one legged, one arm upward bow pose is only a 12 in intensity :)!


In an article Mr. Iyengar wrote called, "Presentation of asana in Light on Yoga", he writes that "art is of two types.  One is called bhogakala - the art of appeasing the pleasure of the body and mind, and the other is called yogakala - the art of auspicious performance to please the spiritual heart or the Self."

Each pose in Light on Yoga is presented from the soul where each fibre and cell presents from the source.

Mr. Iyengar's hope from Light on Yoga was for others to build it up further from where he left off.  He writes, "because that is the means to the end."

When you practice let the process penetrate inward to, "connect the intelligence from the core of the being to the skin, again reverse it, from the skin towards the core."

Find that involution.
Namaste.
Pamela Nelson
www.plnyoga.blogspot.com