4. THE PURITY AT THE SOURCE (Bangkok, Banaras, Bihar) 2015

4. THE PURITY AT THE SOURCE

I have been actively practicing ‘yoga’ for the past four years. Initially, whenever I asked my teacher Shantanu about what I should do more to progress faster on the esoteric (non-physical) elements of yoga, his stock response was ‘spend time at the Ashram.’ This used to infuriate me at times.  The ashram he referred to was the Bihar School of Yoga (BSY)– almost a 16 hour journey each way utilizing multiple transportation modes!


BSY has two main ashrams – both in back of beyond places. They strongly believe that to maintain the purity of their teachings, a conducive environment is absolutely essential. Therefore, if one wants to learn yoga taught the BSY way, one has to indeed go there. The focus is on ensuring the purity of yoga teaching rather than on mass dissemination.





Over the past four years, I found myself making these trips with increased enthusiasm. Last week, as I participated in the ‘asana’ and ‘pranayama’ sessions, I was stuck once again by the caliber of the teachers. Their amazing focus, clarity of thought and diction, care and consideration for each of us and finally their personal discipline, was indeed inspirational. The fact that we saw them at various other points in the ashram working non-stop in various ‘menial’ tasks was further humbling.

 People sometime ask me about the need to go ‘all the way’ to Bihar. No one questions that to get the best training in Engineering, one goes to MIT in Boston. The analogy does indeed hold. To drink from the purest stream, one indeed has to be willing to make the trek to the source! Not once, but repeatedly to get re-energized….

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