The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice

by T.K.V. Desikachar

If we respect each person individually, it naturally means we will always start from where each person currently is.

I must create an atmosphere in my classes in which each student can find his or her own way to yoga.

I have to realize that each of my students is not the same person today as they were yesterday, and not at all the same as when they came last week,

The essence of my father’s teachings is this: it is not that the person needs to accommodate him- or herself to yoga, but rather the yoga practice must be tailored to fit each person.

This implies that progress on the path of yoga means different things for different people. We must not obstruct this progress by deliberately setting certain goals.

Yoga serves the individual, and does so through inviting transformation rather than by giving information.

How can the power of the breath be utilized?

You must understand the word mantra correctly. It is not a Hindu symbol but rather something much more universal: it is something that can bring a person’s mind to a higher plane.

So for Krishnamacharya, yoga meant taking steps that would lead to God in order to become one with God.

Illness is definitely not a good companion on the way, for it can distract the attention;

The steps in yoga that are concerned with the physical body are steps that should enable us to go the whole way, not the other way around.

Yoga is primarily a practice intended to make someone wiser, more able to understand things than they were before. If āsanas help in this, terrific! If not, then some other means can be found instead. The goal is always bhakti or, to put it in my father’s words, to approach the highest intelligence, namely, God.

The most important yoga text as far as my father was concerned was always Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra.

Nathamuni’s Yoga Rahasya.

The Bhagavad Gītā is also a great yoga text.

There was never any doubt that he felt that it was not he himself who did things. He regarded himself as powerless, and it was always the power of his teacher or God that worked through him.

I think my father was a sannyāsin par excellence, and yet he was also a family man; he never experienced any contradiction between living with his family and living in the true spirit of a sannyāsin.

Sannyāsa in the sense of wearing orange robes, never staying long in one place but wandering about and begging for food was, in my father’s opinion, no longer appropriate for our times.

When I first began studying with him he sometimes said: “What you are teaching at the moment is wrong.” He said this in front of the students, but I did not feel any shame. On the contrary, I was happy that mistakes would thus be avoided. My students were not in the least put off by this practice. It was rather seen as good fortune to be given advice by the teacher.

Of course there was the study of texts too, which took much more time than āsana technique because once you have understood this there is nothing more to say about it. The texts provide the content of your practice and make what you are doing comprehensible.

We should rather work in our own environment and then meet our teacher from time to time in order to find a point of reference. Having a point of reference is absolutely necessary. We need somebody who can hold a mirror in front of us. Otherwise we very quickly begin to imagine that we are perfect and know it all. This personal connection cannot be replaced by books or videos. There must be a relationship, a real relationship, one that is based on trust.

I was a slow learner and would do stupid things, yet he never gave me any indication that I was lacking. He would only say words in support of me, such as, “You do not have the background I have,” and he would patiently persevere with me.

The moment I say I am an Advaitin, I am making the word advaita into an object and I create division in myself.

The Yoga Sūtra says that each person gets different things from the same teaching based on his or her own perspective.

Yoga is intimate. There is no yoga between one and a million; yoga is between two—the teacher and the student.

if you go step by step, there will be no problems. Enjoy each step. Trying to leap many steps at once can be a problem.

Anybody who wants to can practice yoga.

But no one can practice every kind of yoga. It has to be the right yoga for the person.

A guru is one who can show me the way.

There is an image in the world today that the guru has a following and his students follow him like the Pied Piper. That is not good. The true guru shows you the way. You go your way and then you’re on your own, because you know your place and you are grateful.

The yoga concept of svadharma means “your own dharma” or “your own way.” If you try to do somebody else’s dharma, trouble happens. The guru helps you find your own dharma.

We do essentially three things: First, we are available to anyone seeking help.

Second, we offer instruction to anyone who asks for it.

The third area in which we work is in research and study projects.

Yoga is one of the six fundamental systems of Indian thought collectively known as darśana;

Darśana therefore means “sight,” “view,” “point of view,” or even “a certain way of seeing.” But beyond these lie another meaning; to understand this one we must conjure an image of a mirror with which we can look inside ourselves.

Many different interpretations of the word yoga have been handed down over the centuries. One of these is “to come together,” “to unite.” Another meaning of the word yoga is “to tie the strands of the mind together.”

A further meaning of the word yoga is “to attain what was previously unattainable.” The starting point for this thought is that there is something that we are today unable to do; when we find the means for bringing that desire into action, that step is yoga.

Yoga attempts to create a state in which we are always present—really present—in every action, in every moment.

The advantage of attentiveness is that we perform each task better and at the same time are conscious of our actions.

Instead there is the possibility of considering our actions fresh and so avoiding thoughtless repetition.

Another classic definition of yoga is “to be one with the divine.”

Yoga has its roots in Indian thought, but its content is universal because it is about the means by which we can make the changes we desire in our lives.

The practice of yoga only requires us to act and to be attentive to our actions.

I would say that where we begin depends on our personal interests. There are many ways of practicing yoga, and gradually the interest in one path will lead to another.

we can begin practicing yoga from any starting point, but if we are to be complete human beings we must incorporate all aspects of ourselves, and do so step by step.

As defined in the Yoga Sūtra, yoga is the ability to direct the mind without distraction or interruption.

Avidyā literally means “incorrect comprehension,” describing a false perception or a misapprehension.

Avidyā can be understood as the accumulated result of our many unconscious actions, the actions and ways of perceiving that we have been mechanically carrying out for years.

Such habituation in our action and perception is called saṃskāra.