This has been an amazing day with Birjoo Mehta! A couple of local teachers were in India in the winter (probably for Guruji’s 90th birthday) and Birjoo asked them to suggest some themes that might work for his workshops here in Victoria, and next week in Vancouver. Being the polite Canadians that they are and of course gracious that he was coming here on his first independent tour of North America, they said that he was free to choose the focus of his workshops here.
What theme did he come up with? Consciousness and how we find it in the asanas. He just went right to the heart of yoga. If we are not looking for that union with the higher consciousness, why are we spending hours of our week in asana practice? The workshop theme excited me and I was instantly hooked on his every word.
Birjoo has a wonderful way of articulating the sometimes complex or confusing concepts of yoga philosophy using computer and management analogies. Did he tailor the workshop just for me?
For example, Birjoo talked about the importance of alignment. As you may know, when people ask about the essence of Iyengar yoga one of the first words to come to mind is alignment. Birjoo talked about how alignment fits into reaching our consciousness using a business plan analogy.
Every business has a mission statement, creates strategies to meet the mission statement and uses tactics to implement the strategy.
For yoga, the mission statement is citta vrtti nirodah, which translates to the cessation of the fluctuation of consciousness. In other words, yoga’s goal is to put our consciousness at peace.
To attain this state of consciousness, Iyengar yoga uses alignment as a strategy.
One tactic to align properly in Adho Muhka Svanasana is to extend the index fingers and ensure that they don’t roll out. This tactic ensures that not only are the fingers straight, but the mounds of the hand are pressing down, which in turn helps align the arms and so on along the body to the heels.
I think that Birjoo’s engineering background helps him explain these ideas in a clear and logical manner and I feel very lucky that he is here and opened the workshop to beginners like me.
Iyengar Insight: Asanas penetrate deep into each layer of the body and ultimately into the consciousness itself.
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