A recent interview with Dr ANANDA BALAYOGI BHAVANANI

[Guest guest]

Dear Dr.Ananda,

It was a great pleasure to go through yours and AmmaS

interview with the photographer.

It took me down the memory lane and i am pleased to

see an honest portrayal of what happened which

contributed to your inner growth,and the

transformation in Amma.

I was a witness to the role Amma played those days of

Swamijis personal secretary, assistant, stenographer,

librarian and also his student.

Often after starting the class he would wait for Amma

to join as soon as she finished the work assigned to

her.

I feel grateful to god for this rare oppurtunity to

witness a true yoga master in Swamiji,since he was

instumental in showing me the right direction at the

right time and place with great love,and expecting

nothing in return , although i was not his disciple

Narasimhan

20th october2004.

---

" Yogacharya Dr.Ananda Bhavanani "

<yognat2001 wrote:

>

> A recent interview with Yogacharya Dr ANANDA

> BALAYOGI BHAVANANI by the world famous photographer

> Mr. Derek Biermann who is writing a book on a

> spiritual journey through India with wonderful

> photos and interviews with many Yoga masters of

> modern India. “YOGA - PERSONAL JOURNEYS IN INDIA”,

> is scheduled for publication in 2005. The material

> for the book was compiled after four months

> traveling through 28 cities in India and the 50

> yogis provisionally selected for the book comprise

> both Indian and Western teachers and students who

> answered questions relating to their personal

> experiences and journeys in Yoga. The proposed

> format of the book is a high-quality, bound,

> quarto-sized, hard cover publication of

> approximately 225 pages, and over 100 full-page

> colour photographs of portrait and Yoga poses.

>

>

>

> Ananda:

>

> It is a great privilege for me to have been born to

> Swamiji and Amma, and to have grown up in an

> atmosphere like Ananda Ashram. It was a privilege

> that I can only explain in terms of positive karma

> from my past lives. To Swamiji, everything was yoga,

> it wasn’t something you got up in the morning to do,

> or something you did in the evening, the entire day

> was yoga. Whatever you did was yoga. If you got up

> at four-thirty in the morning you would find

> students practicing meditation, if you went at six

> o’clock you would find Hatha Yoga classes under the

> big tree, if you went at eleven o’clock they would

> be doing pranayama, if you went around in the

> afternoon you would find classes on the therapeutic

> aspects of yoga, and in the evenings there would be

> mantra chanting followed by the satsang that often

> stretched in the late night. The entire day,

> wherever you looked, had something going on and

> there was something to learn. In addition to that,

> hundreds of local children used to come to

> Ananda Ashram on Sundays. They would receive free

> food and clothing, and this was done in order to

> entice them to yoga. There had to be a pull to get

> them to come and then once they did, the yoga took

> over. We had children who came here from every

> aspect of Indian society, the rich and the poor and

> from all religions. There was no way that I could

> escape that atmosphere’s influence on me, and I knew

> that I had been put there for a definite purpose.

>

> At the age of four, I was officially named to be my

> father’s successor. Many people asked what a

> four-year-old could know or understand, but I recall

> the occasion vividly. I was then not only exposed to

> yoga, but also to mantra chanting through a Sanskrit

> pandit who taught me different mantras from the

> vedas. When I was 12 years old I had to go to school

> because I had to have an official education. My

> teachers thought that I would be uneducated but they

> didn’t realise that my elder sister Yogacharini

> Renuka Giri taught me maths, and my mother English,

> general knowledge, geography and history. I also had

> a local tutor who taught me Tamil, and a pandit who

> taught me Sanskrit. I had received all the education

> that I needed so when I went to school I did very

> well, and was always easily at the top of my class.

> I tell the children I now teach that I was lucky to

> have been spared that ‘so-called’ education because

> I grew up in an atmosphere where I was exposed to

> real life. We also had a

> small zoo at the ashram, and so I grew up with

> monkeys, deer, foxes, mongooses, ducks, and rabbits

> running around. It was an atmosphere where concepts

> simply entered my young head effortlessly and in a

> natural way. People ask me what special lessons

> Swamiji taught me, but he didn’t have to do anything

> because each moment was a learning experience. I

> didn’t always understand what Swamiji taught me, but

> it still made an impression. Those memories stayed

> in my thoughts so that when I wanted to call upon

> them, they are there. I think that consciously and

> unconsciously I was imbibing everything from my

> environment - I was practicing and taking part in

> classes, and even teaching if necessary. Amma

> encouraged me to sit down every month and to write a

> one-page article about yoga. I wrote about different

> asanas for about months with Amma correcting my

> English, and we published a small book on Yoga for

> children from my writing.

>

> When I went to school I didn’t have much time to

> continue to practice my asanas. I was not treated

> any differently from any of the other children in my

> class because of my world famous parents, and I was

> never put on a pedestal. I think that it is

> important for children to understand that they are a

> part of a group, and not act only as a single unit.

> I must have been about or when the rebellious side

> of me started to surface. I decided that I was going

> to become an architect after I read Ayn Rand’s book,

> Fountainhead because that was the sort of philosophy

> that was popular amongst my peers at school. I

> decided that I wanted to have my own life and not to

> follow in Swamiji’s footsteps. Swamiji was not happy

> about my rebellion because he had dedicated himself

> to guiding me, and didn’t understand what I was

> talking about. One day the school principal called

> me as I was making my way to a meeting with other

> students who wanted to become architects and

> engineers. He said, “Ananda, your

> father is a doctor who has done so much good for

> the world through yoga. Don’t you think that you are

> closing your options? If you follow him into

> medicine, then you can use it to complement your

> yoga.” I credit my principal and Sri Bala, a student

> of my father with planting that thought into my 18

> year-old ‘pea-brain’. I thought about it and

> realized that God had been kind to me that day

> otherwise I might not have gone into medicine. I

> took a step back and once the idea clicked, I

> realized what an idiot I had been not to see the

> great gift that was right in front of me. I

> immediately wrote to my father and said, “Swamiji,

> as soon as I have completed my education, I would

> like to do the six-month yoga teachers training

> course with you.” He wrote back and said, “I’m so

> happy”.

>

> Instead of just six months, I studied with Swamiji

> for the next two years. I attended his courses like

> any other student, which was a life-changing

> experience for me, though I realized that I already

> had all the tools from my childhood. It really put

> my thinking in the right place. It gave me a sense

> of purpose in my life because I felt that I knew

> what I was doing. I decided that I would begin my

> medical studies after I had completed the two years

> with Swamiji, and that I would combine yoga with

> medicine. My father saw where I was heading and was

> pleased with my decision.

>

> He had been disappointed before because there is an

> unbroken lineage of teachers in our yoga parampara

> that had existed for thousands of years. Perhaps if

> it had not been for my principal’s suggestion then I

> would not be a doctor today. I met him again a few

> years ago, and he was pleased to hear that I was a

> doctor and continuing my father’s work. Swamiji also

> felt that I was the reincarnation of one of his

> friends; a swami from Kerala, who had told my father

> in his last days that he, would be reborn to him. I

> don’t claim to recall my past lives, but I certainly

> have had all the opportunities to follow in his

> footsteps.

>

> I learnt a lot of what I needed to know in the two

> years that I studied with my father. It is said,

> ‘When the student is ready, the teacher appears’,

> and at that point I was ready to absorb his

> teaching. I began to realize the systematic

> codification of his Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga

> teaching, and how all his teaching was interlinked.

> All the pieces of the jigsaw from my childhood came

> together. The other advantage was that I lived with

> him, so there was always the opportunity to talk to

> him about my questions. We would often have

> conversations after satsang where we would sit up

> late into the night. In those talks he didn’t teach

> me magical things or tell me secrets about special

> techniques, what he said was always very practical.

> He taught me that the brain has a certain capacity,

> and that we should not waste it by filling it with

> useless knowledge. He said that I should know where

> to look for something when I wanted it; in that way

> I wouldn’t have to try to learn everything. He

> said that I should know which book and chapter to

> refer to, instead of trying to learn the entire

> book. He made me think about how I was going to link

> my studies at medical college with yoga. In those

> two years of study he taught me and prepared me for

> what I would face in my five years of medical

> studies. He influenced my view of the sciences of

> medicine and of yoga. A doctor trained in ‘the

> system’ would view yoga within the limitations of

> modern medicine, while Swamiji taught me to look at

> allopathic medicine without limitation. Those two

> years gave me a perspective that I did not have

> before, and it helped me to see what it was I had to

> do. I could see the greatness of his teaching and of

> him, and it helped me to firmly decide to continue

> his work.

>

> Everybody knows me here in Pondicherry, and I know

> them because I was born here and I grew up here.

> When I was at college in Nagpur, it was a totally

> alien situation for me. I had to learn a new

> language and a new culture, in addition to my

> medical studies. Then I observed people’s attitudes

> towards

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