Monday, August 8, 2016

A Note about a Master-Teacher

tkv-desikacharI am sure there are a lot of people who would be writing their own dedications to this great teacher.  I also have to add mine; all these and more are due to him.  He had mastered the art and science of teaching.  This is the essence I get from all that his direct students say.  Sri. T.K.V Desikachar, son of Shri. Krishnamacarya, and teacher to many of my seniors and teachers, passed away in the wee hours of the morning today.  I have never met him or learnt from him.  But he looms large in my world and learning just because of the impact he has made on my teachers.  None of them ever fail to mention him or his teaching regularly.  All my teachers and colleagues who studied with him or learnt from him, attribute much to him.  They have one story or the other that they just have to relate.  And I have never heard of students talking of another teacher with so much reverence, and so much love, at the same time.  I have always wondered what it was in him that made him so dear to all his students. 

My first introduction to him was through my teacher, Smt. Lakshmi Ranganathan, when she spoke of him with such regard and gave me the book he had written, “The Heart of Yoga”.  The book touched me and inspired in me such a fire to study more.  It was such a simple book, and yet so comprehensive and thorough as Introductions go.  ‘Much like the teacher himself’, Smt. Jyotsna Narayan, another of his students, and my teacher, would say.  As I wrote this, I realised that each of his students imbibed so much of all that they describe of him.

The teacher who introduced me to asana and pranayama and yoga and laid the unshakeable foundation, Smt. Lakshmi Ranganathan, who holds his knowledge, dignity and thoroughness with work in great love and esteem is filled with all of that herself.  The teacher who introduced and sowed in me a such a love of chanting, and stories, Smt, Jyotsna Narayan, talks much more of his loving nature and his storytelling ability than anything else.  You just have got to spend half an hour with her to be bathed in her loving warmth and her stories.  For another one of my mentors and colleague, Saraswathy Vasudevan, it is his devotion and commitment to teaching itself that is moving.  Anyone who has even a passing association with YogaVahini will tell you that Saras is first and last, an inspiring teacher, holding such a passion for teaching and empowering students and lives.  Typical of her, her response this morning in the Sangha’s whatsapp group when asked whether there would be group classes today (owing to Sir’s demise), was “All classes are on, he taught us to teach.”  I am certain that each student of his would carry something of him. 

This seems to have been a teacher who held numerous roles and angles and all of them with ease and love.  Each one had a perspective of him, which they have taken and become seasoned with it.  I cannot but wonder what strength and depth such a teacher would have come from.  I do and yet cannot regret that I never got to meet with him, because he seems to have left behind so many manifestations of himself whom I have the opportunities to study with. 

In conclusion, I am going to quote here some words of Smt. Jyotsna Narayan from a talk she gave about her beloved ‘Vaathiyaar’:

“… the idea of a shrethrika, farmer.  But he would constantly say, if we plant a seed, then we have to water it, we have to clear things around it, and if it is a mango seed, then you need some water, then unseasonal rains, and if there is frost, then?  And if there is rain in Feb, then there would be no mangoes in May.  Then the goats may come and eat away… and I will be listening to this whole story… then it becomes a big tree, but the fruit is not for you.  It is for everybody.  To me that is the greatest teacher.  He would ask, how much can a farmer eat anyway??  What do you want from your student, beyond this?  You have sown the seed, you have taken care, and that’s all.  Also, a mango seed can only become a mango tree, not an apple tree.  So nurture them in their own nature, don’t try to change people was something also that I learnt from him.”






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