Transcript of interview with B.K.S. Iyengar performed for the benefit of a group of Iyengar yoga students attending annual winter yoga school in Bhimashankar. Some answers have been rearranged for readers’ convenience, full interview is available in audio and video at the seminar site, Zaen.ru.

- You have lived a very long life – what you would have changed if you lived it again.

See, I never knew that I would live so long. I was afraid of tb. There were no medicines. Doctor told me that I can live 4 or 5 years more. 24 or 25 years or so. So yoga gave me a long life – I am still living! I revolutionize this subject in such a way that I made this subject which can be practised by average individuals. It was considered a very difficult subject – I brought it to the level of a common man. And I build up this subject so that all can do. So this was a revolutionary transformation – not just a tranformation. I have revolutionized this subject and I transformed the people by getting them attracted to the way I started pursuing it, which made people have a go at it. If i live long – of coarse it is impossible now – I don’t think I live long…

- May you live ever longer Guruji!

- No, that is impossible. We are mortals, so we have to die. The immortal does not die. The body dies. I will not die. But my body becomes old, so i have to take a new body.

- Do you believe in reincarnation?

- Yes, I definitively believe in reincarnation. If I don’t believe in reincarnation, then all of you should become like me in this life alone. Why have not you become like me in this life? (Laughs heartily.) Naturally, you have to understand, each one wants to become a better intellectual then that what he is. So similarly life is like that. Each time life wants to be better then what it is, so you believe in the progress of intellectualization, and I believe in reincarnation! (Laughs again.)

- And do you know your previous life?

- I am not interested in those types of things. I want to live like you people and die like you. Not an extraordinary life, I want to live and die like a common man. People should know that this was so, so and so, nothing

- What would you expect your next life to be.

- I will be a yoga student only.

- Maybe a teacher?

- Maybe. But you have to begin – so I will be a yoga student. They say latent impressions. Latent impressions in me – you see, I am still practising, I am not a talker. I practise regularly for the simple reason so that my conscience and my consciousness should leave this body with the word yoga in my conscience. And that’s why I practise.

- So that would be your guide through reincarnation?

- That’s right – the imprint. I want to keep the imprint in every cell of my body. So that if old cells die, new cells come, new cells have the feeling of yogic blood to function.

- They say that in Iyengar school everything you do with body is perfected…

- My friend! This is all easy chair yoga teachers. Have you ever seen a man 89 years old like me, walking, active, practising. Thay talk! Find me a man 89 years old like me, and let him come in front of me, and let me see, whether he is illumined or I am illumined? What is body after all? It si a particle of the soul. Can you neglect the body?

- No

- The whole science has said the this is the phychosomatic body. So soul and body go together. Who can say that this is physical this is soma? Who has to say there is a physical body. There is no physical body without the mind!

- I see. Is this why you never taught meditation as a separate subject?

- I don’t teach meditation. This is also wrong!

- Wrong?

- It is definitively wrong! What is concentration? Concentration leads to meditation, is it not? So when you are doing asana, you are completely aware of even the nail, corner of the nail? Do you know life there? I can tell you exactly what I do there.

- Is this conscious effort on your part?

- It is there. Life is there! But many of you have no lives!

- But Guruji…

- That is why I am telling you, just listen! So you are all thinking… You are all academic, not practical people. You think you know yoga because you read books. But I know yoga because I am doing it. I am not dependent on books! So meditation is of two types. There are three types of meditation, not even two. There is rising sun. It has no rays in the morning. Later the rays come from that sun. And period of rays on the sun is longer then without rays. And there is also setting sun which has no rays. So people like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramana Maharishi, such people – their meditation was like a rising sun. Your meditation is like the setting sun. Now you go to sleep. Setting sun means that you are darkness and you go to darkness, that is what is taught today in meditation. What I teach in meditation is midday sun. The rays of the consciousness should reach everywhere as the rays of the sun touches the Earth, I want the rays of my consciousness to reach everywhere, touching every single part of my body evenly without deletion. That is meditation. You cannot say asana is not meditation, because so many people can talk, but they are not yogis. In this case Patanjali should have said that this is physical yoga. Give me one quote from Patanjali Yoga Sutra that this is physical yoga.

- There is no such quote.

- So when the original author does not say so, who are we, you and me, to say that this is physical yoga?

- It is only because we have read Yoga Sutras by you, Guruji…

- And what do I say there?

- There is said that there is a ladder in yoga…

- This is for convenience sake that this has been said. You’ve got 5 sheets of the body. From the skin to the soul there are 5 sheets of the body, layer after layer. They are intervowen, interrelated, interconnected. Can you penetrate from the soul to the skin, skin to the soul? So it takes years of practise. So my practise is that I do. What should I do for that ‘physical’ yoga? I want my consciousness to remain even if I stay in Shirshasana from 1st second what is my state of mind – and maintain it to the end. Do you think like that? So that is why others call it physical yoga, Because they have no idea. But for me: – how to maintain it without oscillating, without dropping. Maintain same spirit, same quality, same substance.

- Yes Guruji, it is just for clarification that I am inquiring.

- Is this not clarification what I am saying? There is (COSHAS LISTED). There are also 3 other coshas, but we don’t touch that.

- How can a person make such step?

- When the body is strong, it is under control, you will power is acting on your body. Until that you are the slave of the body. I am the master of my body! So what the asanas have taught me is how to have the control of your body. Your practise is like the wind. If the wind blows this way, the tree bows that way. So your asanas are like that. I will maintain the stability.

- You say in your book “Light on life” that it is through the alignment of your body parts that you …

- No, first I started to learn the alignment of the +++ and the muscles. That is the outer body. Then I said about the joints and the bones. That the flesh should be close to the bone and that surcumferentially it should be equal throughout from the skin to the bone. That is second stage. Then the mind should be flowing along with the movement of the body. The distance of the mind, the distance of the intelligence, the length of the intelligence, the width of the intelligence should be like the length and the width of the body. That is the third stage. The forth stage is when the rays of the consciousness should be even everywhere. So I gave the way from gross body to the subtlest body. If I speak that your conscience should be of equal level to the body, what do you understand? So first you have to go from inner leg, outer leg, inner calf muscle skin, outer calf muscle skin… (2-3.30.14) Are they equal: same life, same light? You have to come part by part, then put it together and coordinate together. That is what – you can’t leave the body, it is consciousness that grows through the body!

- And how many years of practise does it require to reach that stage?

- I told you, didn’t i? It may take generations. This is what Bhagavat Gita says: one in million may reach the higher state. So we have to accept it traditionally: where are we, how much have we practised?

- Do you think that you need many lives through which you have to move?

- I think so. That is why I go to this level. That is why because you are coming – maybe next time there is so much confusion when I am there, God will guide me – please help them, I am not practising for liberation. I am practising so that next life God gives me I can also contribute something to the people.

- Let me make sure that we all appreciate what you do, Guruji, but it is sad we cannon be like you, Guruji!

- No! I work for it! I open the door. Suppose I don’t work – do I learn alignment? Naturally, not! Now when you stretch your finger, is it aligned? Now when I stretch my finger, you see, is it aligned? Now you stretch your arm – is it aligned? Look at it – it is up and down, up and down. (Everybody laughs.) I stretch – it is there up and down?

- No

- My culture – I use the body as a factory for the mind to work in the laboratory of the body. That is why the asanas are there.

- But is contemplation also necessary for the development?

- Contemplation is reflection. You don’t know the art of reflection – so you never know what is contemplation. Contemplation is a dictionary word you can use. Without reflection there is no contemplation. Do you reflect on what you are doing?

- We try…

- You try? Then that is not contemplation! (laughs) You understand? But don’t use that word! You are going that path, that is all you have to say. And contemplating… You cannot contemplate, I can contemplate, because there I no oscillation in me. There is no oscillation even in my toe! I stand one hour in Shirshasana without moving my foot. Can you?

- No.

- So I have reached the state where I can maintain the body according to my dictation. It should be like that. If I do wrong, even without looking I can tell you where I do wrong. Can you do like that? That is known as Pratikshajnana – I have direct perception and conception of what I am doing when I am doing it. When action and reflection come together that is contemplation, have you understood now? I don’t contemplate – it appears to me. (LOL)

- Yes. Can I ask more general question? You have lived through most of the 20th century. What is your feeling of where the world is going?

- Can you tell me where the wind is going?

- Yes, if you lick your finger…

- And afterwards? That’s the same life. So it goes, nothing to worry! So we have to build up so that it moves according to our way of living.

- It is said there is a surge of spiritual practise and yoga now. How do you see it?

- It means there is a want, and that is why there is a search. But as there are so many confused teachers that, naturally, the search ends in confusion, not in clarity. So that’s why I am using asana.

- There is another thing about Iyengar yoga they say: in other schools pupils practise a lot at home, even if they do everything wrong, whereas in Iyengar yoga they can do it all right – but barely do so at home, only come to the class.

- That is institutionalization. I only say if your conscience does not permit, don’t do it. You say mine is physical yoga…

- I never said this Guruji.

- Well, others “physical yoga” they call it. But how can they know it is physical yoga? If I am not demarcating, who is the third person to demarcate? Who is he after all? I am experienced – so my experience does he know?

- Then is it your body your teacher?

- My body is my teacher – yes. I use my body as my teacher to guide me then I am guiding my body how it has to be. Should I use an example that these people can understand? It is common in the West that you are married and you have a girlfriend. So what is your state of mind if you are going to bed with your wife, but you’ve got a girlfrind?

- It it oscillating consciosness?

- These people will tell you, (Turning to the audience) is it oscillating consciousness or is it guilt? (Из группы – да, это совесть)

- Then this must be conscience in a guilt-ridden way?

- Yes, So that is what guides me, It is a moral obligation. It is religion. True religion is taught by conscience, and is cultivated by consciousness.

- Then true religion if found in the body, not in the temple?

- Body is the temple – temple is the soul. How can you separate? You go to the temple, I go to my heart. What is the difference?

- Heart is better, it always with you.

- Ok, I will give you one definition of yoga, which Patanjali has indirectly suggested – for you information.

You know, brain has been divided biologically into 4 hemispheres. And there are 4 chambers of the heart. Patanjali has also divided brain into 4 parts intellectually. Analysis, synthesis, joy, and the true ‘I’, at the seat of the brain. He has also divided heart into 4 intellectual chambers: friendliness, compassion, gladness, indifference. Blending 4 chambers of the head with the 4 chambers of the heart is asana and pranayama. Have you understood? Dhyana does not do that. Only the asana blends the head and the heart.
Asanas and pranayama is jnana marga, the rest bhakti marga. To put it into practise is karma marga. That is in the first sutra of second chapter (QUOTE IN SANSCKRIT). You have to earn, you have to do karma, you have do gain knowledge and these two is bhakti.

- Will you ever come to Russia?

- I don’t know. I can’t tell you know.

- Thank you very much, Guruji!

- God bless you!