The following are excerpts from Thus Spake BKS Iyengar by Noelle Perez-Christiaens, ©Institut de Yoga BKS Iyengar-Paris 1979
5. KRAMAKĀLAYOGA
‘CHRONOLOGY’
As it was discussed in Yoga YUJ*, the word yoga expresses an idea of junction, of binding, of linking together several things to form a new entity. We have just seen that krama gives the idea of advancing, approaching, going towards. Kāla is time. Kramayoga was a rhythmical succession; kramakālayoga indicates the same succession in time. It’s a ‘chronological’ junction, the junction of successive moments in time, a series of moments or a series in time.
Iyengar is very attracted to this notion of time, which is a simple impression of the relative [one] in which we live until we experience samādhi, but he tries to prepare the pupil for the dissolution of time in infinity, to lead him slowly, towards the notion of a time beyond time, of a perpetual instant, a never-ending present. He therefore has to break the notion of time in our heads, especially the notion of time as a real entity which advances (KRAM). Thus he speaks of ‘chronological authority’, by which he means the authority of a clock which obliges us to stay in a posture the length of time we have decided to devote to it. He immediately breaks this notion: “Sit in this āsana and accept chronological authority. Chronological authority is no authority, as time is just movement in space.” (X33) And then returns to this idea in another way, “Do not do chronological timing without acting psychologically. The brain must work.” (X56)
We need a time of daily practice, until our whole lives are composed of daily yoga. But this time of work must not be a dead time, stupidly lent to obedience. The intelligence, the mind, must use this time and through it dip into eternity. A clue to this might be found in another reference to time: “Chronological time and psychological time are quite different.” (X280) We have all had the experience of seemingly endless moments, and days which fly by.
But we must admit that we would prefer to think of the word ‘chronometric’ rather than the word ‘chronological.’ The latter refers to an arrangement of dates and times of occurrence. Whith this in mind, the three sayings are much clearer and more comprehensible: “The authority of a time-piece is no authority, as time is just a movement in space.” (X33)
Only the perpetual present IS.
* Cf. Yoga YUJ, Noelle Perez-Christiaens, Paris
6. MANAS
“PIT YUR BRAIN IN YOUR BUTTOCKS”
At first glance, this sentence must leave you speechless; how to put an organ, the brain, down into a muscle, the buttocks? Why did he not say, for instance, ‘pay attention to your buttocks,’ or even ‘your buttocks must become intelligent?’ The Master used neither a word derived from ‘intelligence,’ nor one derived from ‘attention.’ Why not? For years I wondered why he named the organ and not its function.
And then, one day, having begun the translation of Pataňjali’s Yogasūtras with Mlle Anne Marie Esnoul, I came across the word manas several times, alone and in composition. Here are a few examples:
– (I.30): durmanasya, which she translated [as] ‘anxiety’ (dur expresses a discomfort)
– (I.34): manasaḥshiti,translated [as] ‘stability of mind’
– (II.40): saumansya, translated [as] ‘benevolence’ (sau, from SU, which means ‘beautiful’, ‘good’, ‘well’)
But each time Mlle Esnoul expressed a discomfort — the exact meaning of manas cannot be rendered in our languages by one word. She explained that it was ‘the attention which produces the perception of the bodily sensations.’
– Could we not translate it [as] ‘attention’?
– No, replied the Sanskrit scholar, attention is translated otherwise.
– Then perhaps [as] ‘perception?’
– No, there is another expression in Sanskrit for ‘perception.’
– Is it a faculty of the mind?
– Not for an Indian. Consider Iyengar: he translated it neither [as] ‘mind’ nor [as] ‘spirit’ in English. It’s a sensory faculty. It’s on the physical level with the senses, like a sixth sense. It’s the attention of the organ itself which allows it to perceive the vibrations it is responsible for collecting and transmitting to the brain.
Then I finally understood why Iyengar, wanting to use a physical word referring to the senses, chose ‘brain.’ In asking for the brain to be put down into the buttocks, he awakes in the pupil the idea of attention and perception, of efficacious concentration to make the buttocks become conscious of their responsibility within the entirety of the synthesis that is a posture.
Then other sayings became clear, ones to which I hadn’t paid enough attention [to] before: “What is the use of merely developing the muscles if the brain is not working?” Here again is the brain, tied to the physical world, to help the body become conscious, to perceive. This is the whole idea of manas. [Once more, referencing] the physical union: “The brain is the heaviest limb in our bodies.” (X194) Let us examine an even more recondite saying: “Move the ears deep inside, the brain resting on the mind. At the same time, the brain is looking at the mind so as not to allow the mind to create any vibration in you trunk, and the mind is watching the brain so that the brain is not cut off from the observation, from that humility.” (Q55) Here again, the brain is joined to the trunk, to the ear – a sensory organ – to the concrete sensory reality over which it watches so as not to allow it to err or to be disturbed by the mind, observing it in order to perceive all its subtlety.
It is difficult to understand right away what is hidden in the refined use of a word which may seem to be evoked in an unusual fashion!
Rafael Durán 