NEW DELHI: World renowned Yoga guru B K S Iyengar, who founded the ‘Iyengar Yoga’, breathed his last at a private hospital in Pune on Wednesday morning, an aide said. He was 96.
Iyengar was the greatest giver. This made him very special as a Yogi - completely detached and generous. He always thought of others while practising Yoga in a bid to transfer the nectar of the art to the world. He has contributed immensely to the country and to the subject of Yoga.
The Yoga legend had made significant contributions to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. He even adopted a Tigress, such was his life.
He always urged us to believe that the body was the biggest gift from the Almighty. And as the ‘atma’ resided there, one must keep it clean and pure.
I got in touch with him rather late in his life, in 1995. After suffering for over a decade due to slipped disc--cervical spondylosis, which rendered me bedridden, he made me what I am today. If I can write, walk and laugh, it’s all because of him.
While working with him, I made a TV series on him, but I was still in pain. I asked him, “Guruji, when will I be okay?” He looked at me and said, “What you can’t cure, you can endure.”
These words changed my life. He asked me not to worry and continue working. He gave me the courage to move ahead in life. Even in his ripe old age, Guruji would continue to practise Yoga. I was like his daughter, a part and parcel of his family. He trusted me completely.
I feel very blessed. His whole life was devoted to helping humanity. His mission was to propagate the joy of Yoga. If you asked something of Guruji, he would never say no. He would work relentlessly. He was either reading, writing or doing his office work. Not a single second of his life was wasted. That’s what he taught his children and grand children: don’t waste a single second of your life. Dedicate your time to your studies.
He valued time a lot. His book Light on Yoga is a masterpiece. His message was: “Where my practice ends, yours should begin from there.”
He invented amazing props, which could help even debilitated persons practise yoga without injury and extract the same benefits from the classical pose that a normal person would.
His death is a huge loss. He used to tell us that if we practised yoga religiously, he would be by our side.
(As told to Pratul Sharma)
(Nivedita Joshi is daughter of senior BJP leader and former HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, and an ardent follower of B K S Iyengar.)