Tree of Yoga [Paperback]

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.

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 since it melds well into any and every way of life, from the monastery to the streets of the city.

Iyengar has been described by some as a teacher of physical yoga only--an unfair description that he recalls and rejects in two different places in this book. On the contrary he demonstrates here that he is also a master of raja yoga, and in particular a man who understands that the prerequisites of hatha yoga are essential to the achievement of samadhi.

Those who are familiar with Light on Yoga and Iyengar's other works, will find this volume a fine addition to their library and of value because of the light it sheds on the personality and understanding of one of the great teachers of the ancient art of yoga.