“Practice, Practice and All is Coming”
I am reading “Guruji: A Portrait of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Through the Eyes of His Students;” a newly released inspiring book that consists of interviews with many of Ashtanga Yoga’s senior teachers. It provides clear insights into how Pattabhi Jois (“Guruji”) trained his students.
The theme that comes up over and over again is Guruji’s emphasis on practice. It is also a theme that resonates with my own experiences with Guruji and other teachers in our lineage. It is about showing up and doing the practice. Ashtanga teacher Guy Donahaye, co-editor of the book, says: “For me, the most important lesson Guruji gave was to engrave a deep samskara (tendency) for practice in my mind. From practice, everything follows.” Pattabhi Jois would often say that Ashtanga Yoga is “99 percent practice, 1 percent theory.” When he said this he was certainly not implying that we neglect studying the shastra (the ancient body of literature on Yoga). He himself was legendary for his knowledge of it and could recite long verses from memory. He was moreover stressing the importance of practice. Practice for him was the foundation. There is a famous Zen saying that could have easily been from Guruji: “practice is enlightenment, enlightenment is practice”. In other words, there is no deep and lasting healing and transformation outside of practice. It is awakening. The true value of Yoga is to be found in our daily practice, in our lived experience.
In my experiences with Guruji, no matter what was going on for a student, the prescription seemed to be the same, “you take practice”. And this prescription is at the heart of the Yoga sutras wherein Patanjali advises that we cultivate our practice skillfully and continuously for a long time. Nancy Gilgoff, the first America woman to study with Pattabhi Jois, put it this way: “He’s teaching us to go within, to look inside, to investigate ourselves…. The answer is in all of us and he’s just given us the framework to work within that. I find that to be the greatest gift of all.” Thank you for that teaching Nancy, it has inspired me often as I hope it does for those of you reading this!
