Wave after expanding wave of gratitude
What would I feel when Mr. Iyengar walked into the room? How would you feel if you were a ballet dancer and had a chance to take a master class with Ballanchine? If you were a cyclist, how would you feel if you could get training tips from Lance Armstrong? And yet neither of these comparisons come close. For me and for thousands and thousands of other yogis, Sri B.K.S. Iyengar has been the deepest wellspring of our practice, the deepest inspiration us and for those who have taught us as well.
Two and a half hours before the class was to begin, students began lining up to claim mat spaces as close as possible to the stage from which Mr. Iyengar would speak. When he finally walked in, the room exploded with applause. And I discovered what I felt:
Wave after expanding wave of gratitude that brought me to tears.
As the ovation went on and on, I remembered how much yoga has changed my life, how many moments of tranquility and deepening self-knowledge I owe to this man and his teachings.
In his opening talk, Mr. Iyengar stressed that asana practice, to be true yoga, must be the union of the body with jnana, the intelligence. And that when we succeed in doing that, we are opening the door of bhakti--of devotion. We are coming into the temple of the body.
