A sharing from my teacher Beryl Bender Birch...When Mary Dunn, a senior Iyengar teacher, passed away a few years ago, Mr. Iyengar sent all the senior teachers a passage from the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, verses 10-30, portions of which read as follows . . . The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. . . There has never been a time when you and I . . . have not existed, nor will there be a time when we cease to exist. As the same person inhabits the body through childhood, youth, and old age, so too at the time of death, he attains another body. The wise are not deluded by these changes . . the impermanent has no reality; reality lies in the eternal. Those who have seen the boundary between these two have attained the end of all knowledge. . . the body is mortal but he who dwells in the body is immortal . . .you were never born, you will never die. You have never changed; you can never change . . . the Self of all beings living within the body is eternal and cannot be harmed. Therefore, O Arjuna, do not grieve. Thank you Mr. Iyengar for your tireless work to make the practice of yoga accessible to so many and for the enormous influence your efforts have had in bringing yoga to the West and to the world.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 02:34:33 +0000