Honoring SharathJi

SharathJi has always been a living embodiment of love, kindness, faith and unwavering devotion. His devotion has inspired millions of people to practice from a place of love. 

While he taught me asana, the real transmission I received from him was how to have faith in oneself and another. He transmitted this through his guidance and presence as my Guru: his gentle yet fierce kindness; his firm attention and ability to see it all, including what is not visible to the eye; his ability to teach each student individually despite the crowded room, when he was with you he saw you, to point out just a few of many qualities. SharthJi taught me about the attitude of faith and devotion through his own presence. His humor is what made his light shine bright, he always guided us to find the humor in the challenge. When assisting he would often tell me ‘I am so tired’, yet his attention was unwavering, perhaps he got off the chair a little less, but his eyes were always sharply watching. He dedicated his whole life to the practice. 

Through the years, anytime I would see him, this bright, kind smile greeted me. In our last lunch together this year he shared with us videos of the millions of people that came to practice with him in Asia, he was so proud. He showed us his collection of photos from his safaris, he loved to study wild life, particularly tigers. He watched over us like an eagle. 

I shared with him a picture of our Shala, he stared at it in silence, examined it by zooming in and then asked ‘this is your shala?’ I said ‘yes SharathJi’. He looked for a little longer then while still looking at it he said ‘very good, very good shala, very beautiful. This is very nice, very good Bibi’. I am not exaggerating on the repetition of very good, he was always deeply pleased and happy to see the fruits of his efforts - seeing his students thrive as lineage holders. I take this today to heart, I feel more than ever the responsibility as his student to make our space a sacred home for Ashtanga. I feel so blessed to hold his blessing to teach, and even more to have had the honor to assist him for seven of the ten years spent learning at his feet. His legacy is one of love, devotion and faith. 

स तु दीर्घकालनैरन्तर्यसत्कारासेवितो दृढभूमिः

sa tu dirgha kala nairantarya satkara asevito drdhah bhumih 1.14

Practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended to for a long time, without break and with deep devotion.

He often recited this Sutra during Sunday conference. In the Veda shraddha is an Ishta Devata, or a cherished divinity. When you looked at SharathJi’s  eyes, what you'd see is Shraddha established within him, in his heart. As his students, we grew up at the feet of Shraddha. We watched it move and spread. SharathJi was a devoted student of the Veda, he embodied these big concepts, he understood them and embodied them . He was Shraddha embodied.

Here is a recording of our class honoring his life. 

(Passcode: aS#e4Rc9)

Lastly I will leave you with Lara Land’s stories and one of our students shared this story:

In June of 2008, I was working in India and decided to go study in Mysore for a month. It was a time of transition – Pattabhi Jois had mostly retired from teaching and Sharath and Saraswati were usually the teachers in the room. On Sundays, students attended “conference.” At these events, Sharath would offer a reflection on yoga and answer questions. He described ego as an enemy, and I remember him saying that an example of ego in his own life was feeling angry or sad whenever he felt unappreciated as a teacher.  He also showed us a lot of his wildlife photography – he had many beautiful pictures of tigers and it was obvious that they gave him a lot of joy.  

 I hated conference. To me at that time, it felt very wrong to sit in a room full of Europeans and Americans (myself included) talking about the pursuit of a spiritual path that most people in India didn’t have the leisure or resources to pursue.  It felt self-indulgent and gross. So, one conference, I asked Sharath about it.  I think I said something like: “All the people who are crowding to get on and off the buses in Mysore every morning to go to a job that doesn’t pay them enough to make a decent living – what about those people?  It doesn’t seem right that this Ashtanga yoga practice – if it’s so great – is only available to people with a lot of money and free time.”

So yes, this was kind of an asshole question.  I had, without realizing it, done the classic thing that people do with a religious teacher – I had thrown my own garbage in his general direction. Sharath smiled.  He nodded.  He was quiet for a second.  And then he said, “That is a very hard question.” And then he gave an answer that I found so unsatisfying at the time that I can’t remember it very well.  I think he essentially said that yes, we were very lucky to be able to practice Ashtanga. But he didn’t dismiss my question, and he didn’t pretend to have an easy answer.

At the memorial event hosted by Eddie Stern last week, John spoke about the new Active Series that Sharath had created and launched in Virginia just a few days before his passing. The Active Series is short, and all the Sanskrit has been removed.  It’s a series that is meant to make the practice more accessible.  Maybe not to everyone crowding on those Mysore buses, but certainly to a lot more people.  And so, a few days later, when I saw the new Active Series book on Bibi’s altar to Sharath, it almost made me cry. I felt like I was looking at Sharath’s gracious answer to my angry – but still real – question from many years ago.   

Join us in practice