Guru Purnima

Saturday, July 12 is Guru Purnima.

"Yogacharaya Shri K. Pattabhi Jois (Guruji) was born on the full moon of July 1915, in Kowshika, a small hamlet located 150 kilometers from Mysore in the southern state of Karnataka..."

Chant the Guru Stotram.

Practice with Sharath in the US.

"They thought that the boys and men that would come to my class would be a bit shy because I’m a woman. But I was determined; this was something I wanted to do. So I did it! The decision was all mine..."

Guruji's teacher: Tirumalai Krishnamacharya

Mary Flinn was one of my first serious teachers

Guy Donahaye was my first Mysore teacher

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya 

caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

Moon Day Tomorrow and Some Inspiration

The week in review: 

Albuquerque Ashtanga Yoga Shala resident teacher, Elise Espat, is teaching this week at The Yoga Shala in Winter Park, Florida.  More information and registration here.

PJ Heffernan is the current teacher in Albuquerque. PJ comes to us from Wisconsin where he teaches at his shala just west of Milwaukee in Waukesha.  Yes, that is the same guy from the documentary "Mysore Magic".  He'll be here through next week so be sure to get ye to practice. View schedule and register here.

Tomorrow is a moon day.  All classes are cancelled and do take rest from asana practice. 

Some moon day reading from around the web:

“Through practicing asanas, your mind should change.  That is the transformation that happens within you….Then you are a true Ashtanga practitioner, not just bending your body…Practice should not be just two hours, this practice must be for the whole day, whole life…Then there will be meaning to your practice.” 
- Sharath Jois, Krista Shirley's conference notes 

"Don’t hurry, this practice take time, the more you try to rush it, the more you will miss what it is actually about.... Everything has its own time."
- Saraswathi

"It is very important to understand yoga philosophy: without philosophy, practice is not good, and yoga practice is the starting place for yoga philosophy. Mixing both is actually the best."
- Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, "An Interview with K Pattabhi Jois: Practice Makes Perfect"

"Yoga teachers say: Practice once a week, and you’ll get sore. Practice three times a week, and you’ll get FIT. Practice every day and you will transform your life."
- The Purple Mat Blog

"[Mysore] provides the space to be learn directly and almost privately from a teacher, but within the context of a group environment. A student is introduced to the practice at the appropriate pace for them. Poses are taught in a way that is right for that specific body, with its own limitations and strengths. It’s a very individualized process, yet firmly rooted in a tradition and a community. Mysore offers the opportunity to be inspired by other practitioners, of all levels, without practice becoming a competition, since everyone is practicing the poses that were given to them, at their own pace."
- Frances Harjeet

"It was harder NOT to practice actually. I realized then that you could chop off my arm or leg and I would still practice. I don't do it because I should. I do it irrationally because I love it.
- PJ Heffernan


 

Shri K. Pattabhi Jois - 5 years ago today

We created this week's comic in deepest gratitude and loving memory of Shri K. Pattabhi Jois.
Happy birthday Guruji and may your story continue to inspire!

Please visit this link to the KPJAYI website to read more about Guruji's life and legacy:
http://kpjayi.org/biographies/k-pattabhi-jois

The quote is from "Yoga Mala" by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.


About The Yoga Comics
Editors: Jessica Walden and Elise Espat
Illustrator: Boonchu Tanti

Facebook: facebook.com/TheYogaComics

The Yoga Comics tribute to Shri K. Pattabhi Jois

We created this week's comic in deepest gratitude and loving memory of Shri K. Pattabhi Jois.
Happy birthday Guruji and may your story continue to inspire!

Please visit this link to the KPJAYI website to read more about Guruji's life and legacy:
http://kpjayi.org/biographies/k-pattabhi-jois

The quote is from "Yoga Mala" by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.


About The Yoga Comics
Editors: Jessica Walden and Elise Espat
Illustrator: Boonchu Tanti

Facebook: facebook.com/TheYogaComics

Weekend Edition #15 Guru Purnima

Me and Guruji at his birthday celebration on my first trip to India

अज्ञानतिमिरान्धस्य ज्ञानाञ्जनशलाकया ।
चक्षुरुन्मीलितं येन तस्मै श्रीगुरवे नमः ॥
ajñānatimirāndhasya jñānāñjanaśalākayā |
cakṣurunmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrīgurave namaḥ ||
I offer my respectful obeisances unto my spiritual master, who has opened my eyes, which were blinded by the darkness of ignorance, with the torchlight of knowledge.

This year Guruji's birthday is on Monday which is also a moon day and Guru Purnima.  I remember that we were trying to learn to the Gurustotram (below) so we could chant it for him at the celebration but we were too nervous to make mistakes and didn't do it.  Jayashree schooled us after by explaining that we should want and be grateful that our teacher corrects our mistakes because that means he cares and he is teaching us and then we can learn.  The photo above was taken by Elena De Martin of La Yoga Shala, Milano...


   

In honor of Guruji, here is a sweet video by Barry Silver of Ashtanga Yoyogi...

Still from Barry Silver's tribute video http://www.ashtangayoyogi.com/images/guruji.swf

And gratitude to my teacher R. Sharath Jois.  Ashtanga yoga changed my life.

Sharath helping me with back bends.  Photo by Tom Rosenthal lightonashtangayoga.com

My painting/drawing of Ganesh

I recently opened an online shop featuring my artwork in hopes of raising funds for India.  50% goes to the work being done to help the people in Uttarakhand. The other 50% helps fund my trip to India to study with my teacher Sharath in the fall.  Please check it out and support!  http://artbyelise.storenvy.com/

Pattabhi Jois and Sharath - Opening Chant

Yoga Comics: Life is Precious

"In the yoga shastra it is said that God dwells in our heart in the form of light, but this light is covered by six poisons: kama, krodha, moha, lobha, matsarya, and mada. These are desire, anger, delusion, greed, envy and sloth. When yoga practice is sustained with great diligence and dedication over a long period of time, the heat generated from it burns away these poisons, and the light of our inner nature shines forth."

Comic via The Yoga Comics
Quote via the KPJAYI

Pattabhi Jois talks about yama, niyama...

Conference at the Old Shala in Lakshmi Puram 1998 via Guy Donahaye and Ashtanga Yoga Shala NYC.

The Yoga Comics - Always Mula Bandha

 

 via The Yoga Comics

{Video} Guruji talks about the opening mantra

Happiness and true knowledge. Shri K. Pattabhi Jois discussing the opening mantra via Tom Sewell.

Video: Guruji from Enlighten Up!

In this clip from the film Enlighten Up! Guruji discusses the importance of practice.  It is through continuous application of theory that we gain practical experience of yoga.

Namarupa 3 Gurus Interview

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya students TKV Desikachar, BKS Iyengar, and K Pattabhi Jois interviewed by R Alexander Medin in the 2004 issue of Namarupa.

"3 Gurus, 48 Questions"
http://www.namarupa.org/magazine/nr03/downloads/NamaRupa_03_02.pdf

Subscribe to Namarupa 

Video Archive: Sharath and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Demonstration

{Archive} Outtakes: The Yoga Portfolio

Sri K. Pattabhi Jois: guru, Ashtanga yoga. Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, 91, has been described as “fierce and compassionate” and “strict and loving” by his students, but it’s this kind of dichotomy that makes the teacher of Ashtanga so revered. Jois, who has been teaching for 70 years, started with a studio, or shala, in Mysore (Mysooru), India, that held only 15 students, and is now used to teaching groups that can number in the hundreds. He leads his students through a series of asanas that flow one into the next, synchronizing with the breath, and getting gradually more difficult, with the goal of producing an intense internal heat that detoxifies the body. Photographed at Sanskrit College in Mysore, India. 

 

High quality image at Govinda Kai's flickr page here

Article at Vanity Fair here

Archive: The Yoga Portfolio

The May 2007 Vanity Fair photo essay featuring Shri K. Pattabhi Jois (Guruji).




High quality image at Govinda Kai's flickr page here
Article at Vanity Fair here

Guru Purnima: Remembering Guruji

• "Every other adult has told me to get a haircut and get a job. You are telling me to practice yoga, and all is coming. OK, I am ready!" -The tribute article for Guruji at Yoga Journal
  
  
• Namarupa interview with BKS Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois (Guruji), and TKV Desikachar.
  
  
• In Memoriam by Kino MacGregor.
  
  
• "This is a personal account of my connection with a great teacher, nothing more." -Paul Dallaghan at ashtanga.com
  
  
• "A Day in the Life" short film by John Romero.
  
  
• Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute by R. Alexander Medin at ashtanga.com.
  
  
• Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Public Talks on Ashtanga Yoga (France 1991) at aysnyc.org.

Castor Oil Bath

Originally published October 2008 in www.livingmysore.com:

Relieve aches, pains and stiffness with oil baths
By Kimberly Flynn Williams

Oil bath is a traditional, weekly Ayurvedic home remedy still practiced widely in South India. Shri K. Pattabhi Jois routinely recommends oil bath to his yoga students especially for the relief of back and knee pain as well as stiffness. Weekly oil bath reduces excess internal heat (pitta in Ayurveda) particularly in the joints, liver, and skin. This heat is generated by poor lifestyle, including consumption of oily, processed, and difficult to digest foods, alcohol and tobacco, in addition to stress, air pollution and inadequate sleep. This imbalance increases with the heat generated by yoga practice and hot climate. Eating an over-sufficiency of healthy foods that are deemed "heating" in Ayurvedic terms, also adds to this imbalance.

Excess heat can be felt in the joints as pain and stiffness and in the back, often in the lower right-hand side and hip, as a nearly debilitating pain. This heat also contributes to a short temper, burning anger, red skin, pinkish acne, and redness in the eyes. When a daily ashtanga yoga practitioner still carries extra weight, especially around the middle, has difficulty with weight loss or with digestion, and has a regularly sluggish bowel, these are all signs of surplus heat.

In India, oil bath is customarily taken with castor oil that is later removed from the skin and hair with a special herbal paste made of equal parts soap nut and green powders mixed with water. Castor oil delivers the best results, but is nearly impossible to remove without these powders. Guruji suggests that, after leaving India, the yoga student can replace castor oil with almond oil, which easily washes off with bath soap.

Continue reading full article at Living Mysore...






Since 1995, Kimberly Flynn Williams has traveled yearly to Mysore, India to study Ashtanga Yoga with Shri K. Pattabhi Jois and his family at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute. She began her studies with Pattabhi Jois in 1993 during his teaching visit to New York City. Inspired by Pattabhi Jois's vast knowledge of Yoga Shastra, she has been a student of Sanskrit Recitation, Yoga Sutras, and Philosophy under Dr. M.A. Jayashree since 1998. Kimberly co-directed and co-founded Ashtanga Yoga Shala in Los Angeles where she taught for 10 years and twice hosted Pattabhi Jois. Kimberly, AYRI Authorized, teaches Ashtanga Yoga and Sutra Chanting in Hawaii, throughout the United States, and Internationally. She began yoga practice in 1982.

Pattabhi Jois talks about yama niyama and pranayama

GURUJI: A Portrait of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Through the Eyes of His Students

{from the Ashtanga Yoga Shala website}

Publication Date:

Guru Purnima — July 25, 2010

Order your copies now through your local wholesaler or contact Twanna McLennon at 1-800-221-7945, ext. 5438

GURUJI: A Portrait of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Through the Eyes of His Students

Guy Donahaye and Eddie Stern

It is a rare and remarkable soul who becomes legendary during the course of his life by virtue of great service to others. Sri K. Pattabhi Jois was such a soul: through his teaching of yoga, he transformed the lives of countless people. The school in Mysore that he founded and ran for more than sixty years trained students who, through the knowledge they received and their devotion, have helped to spread the daily practice of traditional Ashtanga yoga to tens of thousands around the world. Guruji paints a unique portrait of a unique man, revealed through the accounts of his students. Among the thirty men and women interviewed here are Indian students from Jois’s early teaching days; intrepid Americans and Europeans who traveled to Mysore to learn yoga in the 1970s; and important family members who studied as well as lived with Jois and continue to practice and teach abroad or run the Ashtanga Yoga Institute today. Many of the contributors (as well as the authors) are influential teachers who convey their experience of Jois every day to students in many different parts of the globe. Anyone interested in the living tradition of yoga will find Guruji

richly rewarding.

From the jacket cover:

"The guru’s transmission of energy and knowledge is a precept central to classical yoga. How Jois handed down teachings and values and what they were, the aspects of his personality and quality of his presence, and above all how he guided and changed so many lives through yoga—these are the subjects of Guruji. Through the words and recollections of students and close relations who knew Jois for over half a century, we are given remarkable insight into the life and mind of a dedicated yogi, an astonishing wealth of knowledge about the path of yoga, and a documentary account of how one traditional school of yoga has spread around the world."

Yoga/Spirituality - 16 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations - July 2010 - 6 x 9 - 496 pages - ISBN: 978-0-86547-749-0
- $40.00 - North Point Press

Contributors: Norman Allen - N. V. Anantha Ramaiah - S. L. Bhyrappa - Mark and Joanne Darby - Brigitte Deroses - Joseph Dunham - Heather Troud - Nick Evans - Richard Freeman - Nancy Gilgoff - Peter Greve - Ricky Heiman - Manju Jois - Dena Kingsberg - Krishnamurthi - Sharmila Mahesh - Lino Miele - Chuck Miller - Tim Miller - Rolf Naujket - Graeme Northfield - Annie Pace - Brad Ramsey - Peter Sanson - Saraswathi Rangaswamy - John Scott - R. Sharath - David Swenson - David Williams - Tomas Zorzo

What does it all mean?

As I watch videos on youtube (my cyber shala or morning inspiration, if you will), I remember last night's dream. I was with a friend. A girl, I think. We were playing maybe a card game or something trivial in a room with a bunch of tables. I think we were playing and slowly Pattabhi Jois (Guruji) started to notice us and play a bit. Last few times I saw him, he was very old, very out there, and not likely to randomly start fraternizing with me. I guess in the dream, our playing interested him and sort of brought him out of the stroke-funk. He started getting younger- like the Guruji of myth. I really wanted him to be my teacher and tell me that if I cried, he would cry (like Nicky Doane's story). There was a feeling of connection, and then I woke up.

Maybe a week ago I dreamt I was sitting at a communal picnic table with a bunch of friends including one who was killed (in real life) much too young. I was confused because she was supposed to be dead, but here she was -- alive.

Not sure if they are connected outside of the table and resurrection thing.

Except that they were both smiling a lot and trying to talk with me.

And the warm fuzzy feeling of peace and joy surrounding them.