OCTOGENARIAN YOGIS

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OCTOGENARIAN   YOGIS

The living of the yoga life with its bountiful

practices enables us to age gracefully. There have been a great many examples

of such yogis is the past and even in modern times there are many who have been

examples of this dictum. The recently departed Guru of the modern Ashtanga

movement, Yogacharya Pattabhi Jois was 94 and fit as a fiddle to the last

moment of his illustrious life. Yogacharya BKS Iyengar at 91 is a living

testimony to this while in recent times our own Guru, Yogamaharishi Dr Swami Gitananda

Giri, Swami Kuvalayananda, Shri Yogendraji, Pundit Kannaiah Yogi, Swami

Suddananda Bharathi and so many others have been role models of “aging

gracefully”.

Swamiji has had many students who have become octogenarian

yogis and are living the yoga life with amazing grace and zest remaining “young

at heart”! In the past two years I have had the opportunity to meet two of them

and interact with them with great reverence for the way they have lived and

continue to live their life.

Yogacharini Janaki Devi (June Chadwick) is past her

eightieth birthday but was part of my first intensive retreat in the UK that was held last year in Wales. She put

to shame many of the younger participants with her ability and enthusiastic

participation in each and every session of the three day retreat. Janaki has

been a student of Swamiji’s for many decades and has visited the ashram on many

occasions and has also introduced many students to the Gitananda tradition. She

had been part of Swamiji’s retreat in the UK

in the 1970’s and to have her in my first UK retreat was very special indeed.

 

My recent tour down under gave me an excellent

opportunity to interact with Sri Balarathnam in Melbourne who has founded the Vibrational Breath

Therapy, based on Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga. Sri Bala has been a dedicated

student of Swamiji since the 1980’s and helped guide me to choose my destiny at

a time when I needed the guidance. It was a great pleasure to meet him again

after many years though we have been in constant touch through regular

correspondence and exchanges of ideas over the net. I consider his Chakra

mediation session held on my birthday at Melbourne

to be amongst one of the best birthday gifts I have ever got till date! Sri

Bala’s dedication and intense Yoga Sadhana at this age is an example to us all

in how we can and should live. I was amazed at his enthusiasm to spread the

message of Yoga and help everyone that comes into his life. Heat off to him for

it!

I have grown up seeing many of Swamiji’s students who are

now into their late sixties, seventies and eighties and one that I always

remember with great love and affection is Nergis Dalal in Dheradun. Nergis is

now entering her nineties and must hold the record for being Swamiji’s oldest

living student. I still remember the summer Swamiji took us to North India and the time we all spent in Dheradun. She

was one of Swamiji’s loved and loving ones and also had a great mutual

admiration running between her and Amma. Once when Amma was visiting me at

Wardha during my medical education, we were pleasantly surprised to read a

column in the newspaper where she had written a glowing account of Amma’s

amazing life. Nergis is a prolific writer and had a lesson on yoga in the

Indian school text books for many years that took Swamiji’s message to so many thousands

of students all over India.

It was so wonderful recently to receive a lovely letter from her sharing her

blessings and good wishes on my growth.

There are so many more out there in the world but I

felt stimulated to write about these three seniors who have been such an

important part of my life and continue to bless me in all my efforts to spread Swamiji’s

message worldwide.

 

-- Yogacharya Dr Ananda Balayogi BhavananiChairmanICYER and Yoganjali Natyalayam25, 2nd Cross, Iyyanar NagarPondicherry, South Indiawww.icyer.com

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