Tree of Yoga

Doing yoga is not just for the sake of doing the asanas, but a way of getting deeper in perfectioning the movement through being in a process of discovery your innerself soul and body. Who reads The Tree of Yoga will be able to understand better what I am trying to share with you.

After more than 30 years of yoga practice and classes from expert teachers, I continue to look for the lessons that will take me beyond where I am today. I have read this book so many times and always find new lessons in it. The first time, I probably read it through in a couple of hours. Now, I keep it on top of a stack of frequently consulted works. Most mornings, here in Brooklyn (NY) in a winter that seems an object lesson in global warming, I turn to The Tree of Yoga in the first hour after wakening. This practice reminds me to consider the important lessons I might forget: my stage in life, the stages that came before, how short life is, what is happening today, the tendency of memory to distract the mind, the power of attention, the value of self-study, etc. And tomorrow, a new lesson, a new understanding, with the next passage read carefully in the pale light of a winter morning. This is a book that keeps on giving.

While being an avid yoga practicioner, the first time I got to know anything about B.K.S. Iyengar was when I picked up this book. Since then, I have done much more reading by him. Tree of Yoga was wonderful in explaining some basic principles of yoga, and the concepts behind it. The book didn't go into explaining or documenting the various asanas (for that read Light on Yoga), but instead spoke of the history of yoga, the concepts, types, what it was about, etc. I read this book within a night, and have reread it many times since then. It's simple and inspiring, and will forever be a part of my collection.

B. K. S. Iyengar achieved an international reputation with the publication of his classic Light on Yoga in 1966, which today stands as the definitive work on hatha yoga, a work made distinctive not only by the 602 photographs of Iyengar himself demonstrating the various poses, but by the detailed manner in which they are explained. He was then 38-years-old. Since then he has written several other books on yoga and lectured widely while continuing his teaching practice. He is today recognized as one the greatest of all yoga teachers.In this book, editor Daniel Rivers-Moore has taken it upon himself to construct a narrative by Iyengar, gleaned from lectures given by the master in Europe and India during the nineteen-eighties. Rivers-Moore has done an admirable job of bringing the voice of Iyengar to the many readers who have not had the opportunity to hear him speak. The continuity of expression is maintained throughout, and the book reads as though Iyengar wrote it himself.One sees that Iyengar is speaking to teachers of yoga as well as students. The extended metaphor of yoga as a tree is an apt one since when our practice is strong we are like a tree, solid and unshaken by the vicissitudes of life. But it is only a metaphor, one of many used by Iyengar in his teaching practice. His metaphor is not related to what is one of the most profound metaphorical images in yoga, that of the tree upside down with its branches in the earth and its roots exposed to the sun. It is said that this is the way we will see the world after becoming firmly established in yoga. Much of what we once believed (as children and young adults), we will now disbelieve and embrace the very opposite.The value of asana, pranayama, and meditation in preventing disease and maintaining health has been established beyond doubt, and is one of the great boons humankind has gotten from yoga, and is under no circumstances to be underestimated. However, I took Iyengar's prescriptions for the further medicinal value of yoga with the proverbial grain of salt, just as I take the ancient claims of superpowers developed through the practice of yoga. His is a way of speaking that is native to India and has a long and honored tradition in the literature. One recalls the miraculous claims of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika of Svatmarama and the Siva Samhita, in which all disease is cured, and understands that the authors are speaking in a symbolic and intentional manner. What is most interesting and valuable in this book are the chapters on meditation and pranayama, and on the advice and warnings that Iyengar extends to teachers of yoga.Iyengar's yoga is the yoga of Patanjali, whom he reveres as "the noblest of sages." It is a yoga of discipline and dedication, a yoga of power and grace developed over at least several thousand years of practice. Of the four traditional yogas of India--bhakti, jnana, and karma--it is perhaps the oldest. It is certainly the one with the widest international application

Mr. Iyengar brings the practice and understanding of yoga into everday people terms. He weaves the intricacies of yoga into a picture beginning with the tree and connecting the tree's parts to all the different parts of yoga. It is filled with simplicity and humanness. His knowledge and experience of 80 plus years is weaved together to create a complete understanding of the history of yoga to how to practice it with more wisdom. Mr. Iyengar is an inspiration to those of us who don't intend to give up family, career and laptops to live on mountain tops. He assures us that living as a married man and as a father has not diminished his practice but has enhanced it. A must for beginner and advanced students and teachers for your bookshelf.