The Heart of Yoga | Seeking a teacher
With the Heart of Yoga week celebrations coming up, read about Barb Brian’s experience working with TKV Desikachar, her teacher of 20 years.
By Barb Brian
“TKV Desikachar”. This name kept coming towards me in various ways, through yoga friends telling stories of going to Madras to study with him, or books coming into my hands written by people he had inspired. I was at a point where I was seeking a teacher to take me further into the spirit of yoga. In the early 90s when Sri Desikachar was listed as a presenter at an International Conference in Jerusalem ‘Unity in Yoga, Peace in the Middle East’, I was drawn to it.
My first impression of him was memorable. Sri Desikachar arrived at the conference a day or so later than the other faculty members, so there was an opportunity to witness a change in ambiance that his presence brought. Standing alone, with no entourage or minders in sight, the respect in which he was held was obvious. He seemed to embody the essence of what this conference was about – peace.
“It dawned on me as I embarked on this journey as a student of these teachings, that eventually we would also find creative ways of delivering T. Krishnamacharya’s teachings into the lives of future generations”
Barb assisting Sir, chanting in pranayama, Singapore
Vedic chanting was his contribution to the conference, allowing sound, the vibration of his chanting, to hold us together in peaceful intention. I felt that this created space for participants to work together harmoniously. Sri Desikachar stood alone yet seemed to unify the room.
My yoga studies and teaching up to this point came from a very different source. Having an established Yoga Centre for 5 years, I was inspired by my experience of Sri Desikachar’s teaching and presence to make a change in our approach. After these experiences in Israel and Bath, I committed to begin my studies with Sri Desikachar.
Initially, the teachings resonated because of the focus on Patanjali’s Yogasutra-s and the rich experience of breath-led practices. Eventually, a multitude of yoga tools opened up once my personal journey with Sri Desikachar began. As my studies deepened, I shared these teachings with my students and eventually hosted him in Melbourne, Australia, so that they could also directly experience the spirit of yoga transmitted through him.
My first experience of Sri Desikachar in Australia was as a spiritual Elder. Arriving into Melbourne, he was welcomed by the Aboriginal Elder of the region, Joy Murphy, who performed a traditional ritual, giving him permission to walk the land “from the ground that he stood on to the tops of the trees”. Joy blessed him with water and presented a small branch of gum leaves, his ‘key’ to the city. Recognizing the moment, Sri Desikachar received the blessing and responded by offering his own traditional ritual gesture of acceptance.
Our time with Sri Desikachar in Melbourne had been blessed with an auspicious beginning. Being with him has helped me gain a relationship with “honouring”, catching precious moments to appreciate, to be grateful, or to transmit something special. Ritual and ceremony are ways of connecting and honoring that I had lost and have now re-gained through his guidance.
Sri Desikachar’s first visit coincided with the launching of his book “The Heart of Yoga – Developing a Personal Practice”. A gathering of more than 300 students of yoga came to hear him speak. People who had heard of Sri Desikachar or had been touched by the teachings of his father Sri T. Krishnamacharaya. The whole evening was devoted to honoring his father, in whose footsteps he walks. “I am the postman, delivering my father’s teachings.”
It was during this presentation that I understood the importance of “parampara”, the role of Sri TKV Desikachar as the torch-bearer carrying the legacy of the teachings into the future. His faith in his father’s approach to teaching yoga was so strong, that it continues to inspire many potential “postmen” decades later. It dawned on me as I embarked on this journey as a student of these teachings, that eventually we would also find creative ways of delivering T. Krishnamacharya’s teachings into the lives of future generations.
When our studies with Sri Desikachar began, his presentations were always sprinkled with funny examples gleaned while walking, having meals together or from the local news. As I walked with him in the breaks, I was looking through the eyes of a traditional Indian man, in a foreign culture finding his tools to teach the next session.
Along the way in the domain of one-to-one study, “Sri Desikachar” became ‘Sir’ to me and to many others. The personal teacher-student relationship intensified over the years, where he provided many challenging opportunities.
Years ago at a big event in Singapore, I assisted him with a group pranayama class using mantra. Before we started, he said quietly to me “You don’t know many chants do you, what can we do together?” He chose something simple and slowly extended it so that I could follow – he using a mantra for inhale and I following with the same mantra for exhale. My moment of ‘freeze’ gradually thawed into an easy flow, following behind him. Not only did I survive that moment, I made a commitment to take chanting more seriously.
In my experience over the years, he has inspired many others to step into the unknown and be guided by the teachings, building faith and self-confidence along the way.
Part of the legacy of time spent in Sir’s presence are guiding phrases that stay with me like ‘sound bites’. “I tell all my friends, have no expectations”. These words echo in my mind. He’s repeated them many times in many different contexts. Each time, it’s as though he said it for the first time, a potent reminder, plunging the message even deeper, that if we engage in expectation, then we have some investment in the suffering that we experience when change occurs, as it constantly does.
An example of this happened in the late 90s. An Australian and New Zealand tour was in its final stages of organisation when Sir suddenly cancelled it. My immediate response was “But you made a commitment, plans have been made in many places. You can’t cancel it now!” After I cooled down and discussed it with him further, I understood that he had reflected on it and felt that other steps needed to be taken first. It was not the right time for him to come. It was also a lesson in the difference between students who are eager and those who are ready.
As the teacher, he didn’t walk away and simply wait until we were “ready”. A special plan was put forward to prepare us thoroughly to be able to receive the teachings as committed study groups. Studentship and Sanga were brought together in his master plan. Rather than him coming for a weekend workshop, he provided the right teacher to come for two weeks and travel to different locations across the country. In addition to this, an open invitation was extended for us to come to the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram as a combined group to consolidate what we had received.
My studentship shifted more and more from the group to the personal one-on-one domain. In one of our sessions I arrived really distressed and intense. Sir encouraged me to explain what had happened. A story of betrayal unfolded and he actually laughed! Then he turned his head and feigned a sore neck. “It’s just like this” he said as he turned his neck awkwardly, “nothing to worry about, it will pass”. Treat lightly, that which seems overwhelming”.
Sir was a master of poetic gestures in answer to tricky questions, or to acknowledge special moments in time. It is a unique, heartfelt communication that is effective where ordinary language doesn’t serve the situation well. A favorite one, in answer to a question about the meaning of “life” he spelled out:
L-earning from mistakes
I-nspired by loved ones
F-orgiving the errors
E-njoying the present
Very early in my studies with Sir, I asked him why so many of his former students had fallen away and established themselves in different ways and yet still used his teachings as their own. His answer was brief and without judgment: “It’s simply a matter of the heart”.
On a world tour in 2007 when Sir was touring with his family, many people who were not very experienced in yoga wanted to come to be with him. His instructions were to “turn no seeker away”. The feedback from this event indicated that Sir’s capacity to create layered experiences where the very experienced and the beginner can equally receive nourishment was extraordinary.
The different relationships with Sri Desikachar the yoga teacher, therapist, spiritual guide or the companion walking through nature, are woven together in my experience of him at different times and places. His quiet, subtle, teaching at deep fundamental levels directly affects my life, as freshly now as the moment of transmission.
Sir was happy to spend time and develop a relationship with my partner Andrew, who was often his companion in the breaks from teaching and in driving out of the city to be in nature. Sir’s name for Andrew varied between ‘Krishna’ when he was taking him from place to place and ‘Om’ at other times.
On one of my trips to Chennai, Andrew came with me and it was during this trip that Sir made a beautiful gesture. He’d been out walking and found a large heart-shaped leaf and thinking of Andrew, he picked it up and before gifting it to him, painted ‘OM’ on it and generously had the leaf framed.
Meeting Sir in India each year has been very precious. I met a man who was truly in his place. He seemed to be at home in every sense of the word, walking in the spaces where he studied with his father for decades; memories held in special places.
I also knew Sir as a family man living with his extended family in a home positioned within a very poor community that was much enriched by his presence and peaceful influence.
I remember moments when I’d come across Sir and his wife Menaka, walking their dog Tulsi in the local area. I’d receive a friendly wave as though I was also part of the light and color of the community in which they lived so open-heartedly. In this same spirit of generosity, we occasionally enjoyed being together with Sir and his family at New Woodlands for a thali or a snack.
Sitting across from Sir at his desk, I found that as well as the topic of the day, other fundamental spiritual teachings about life were also in progress. On one particular day, Sir set me a course planning task and sat in front watching while I completed it. Many rubbings out later, he came over to my seat and scooped up all of the tiny pieces of rubber from my mistakes into his hands and asked me: “where should I put these?” There was no bin. I indicated the garden. He said that Menaka wouldn’t be pleased, indicating the wasteful and unnecessary activity that a few moments of thought before putting pencil to paper would have prevented.
Sir encouraged us to be efficient with resources at the mental level, to reflect before action. The symbolic lesson of the use of the eraser on the end of a pencil has never been forgotten.
I learned to appreciate the face-to-face time that I had with Sir. “Take a step!” He always encouraged me to have a go, “to break the cycle of doubt”. When I wasn’t prepared to have a go and possibly get it wrong, I squandered opportunities to make a choice, have it verified, or find out the reason why the choice was incorrect. Sir always found intelligent ways to bring about faith and understanding. All I had to do was have a go! Break out of the usual and move towards the unknown.
At the end of my annual study with Sir in Chennai in the late 90s he gifted me an old green clock. He said that this had been keeping the time in his father’s room for many years while teaching his students. Then he pointed to the face of the clock and said, “Look, it’s cracked!” and he gave it to me. Sir handed me my new practice and simply said “Something must crack”!
This became the symbol of my relationship with Sir. The symbol of the cracked glass of the clock that kept time through the teachings of his father and the words “something must crack” have been companions along the way to becoming more open and free to the ocean of gifts available to a student who is truly seeking …. the light through the cracks.
At the end of every session, Sir always walked me to the gate to say goodbye before receiving the next student. As I look back with gratitude at the man, the mentor and the bringer of peace, I know that his presence dwells deep within me and continues to travel onward to my students, through time, an everlasting impression of the spirit of yoga flowing from one to the other.