Two questions, asked again and again

Yoga is not whatever we want it to be. It is a clearly defined philosophical system with a precise vision of the human person, the world, and freedom. Asana belongs to yoga, without any doubt, but the heart of yoga is deeper. It is a way of seeing and a way of being, and that is what this course is about. If you are a sincere practitioner, and especially if you teach, this is about knowing what you are truly practicing and what you are passing on.

What you will meet here is not a modern remix. It belongs to a lineage that reaches back through the Nāthamuni Sampradāya to Rāmānuja, and you will study with scholars who speak from inside that tradition. The aim is not to collect ideas. It is to cultivate viveka, clear discrimination, so that practice becomes grounded, purposeful, and real.

How to study

The format is more than one hundred hours of video with written introductions. Watching and taking notes is the main work. Much of it plays like a podcast, so let it run, and let repetition do its slow work. Relax into Indian English. If you do not catch everything at first, keep going, your ear will attune faster than you expect. Read alongside us. During the course, read the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras in any reputable translation, and keep a journal. What you write down and reflect on is what becomes stable. The truth is simple. Retention, not access, is what changes us.

A personal word

I begin by sharing some of my own small understanding, so that when the scholars speak you already have a map in your hands. I did not have that advantage when I started. Much will sound beautiful on first hearing. Some will pass straight overhead. That is natural, and it is fine. This curriculum is built to open the heart and sharpen the mind so that more and more of the teaching lands. You have twelve months. Come as you are, and begin where you are.

Your access to Online Studies

As a student in this program, you are welcome to attend every live course in the Mysore Yoga Traditions Online Studies, free of charge. The link below takes you to that library at mysoreyogatraditions.com, where the live sessions and the wider body of recorded study are gathered. It is a generous resource, and it is yours to use throughout your training.

What you already know

Almost everyone who comes to a training has heard of the eight limbs, and of the yamas and niyamas. So this is where we begin, on ground you already know. Take what follows as a child's attempt at a vast subject. Each person who explains these things brings something different to them, and you will hear them explained again and again as we go, by people far wiser than me. That repetition is not a flaw in the course. It is how the tradition teaches.

Aṣṭāṅga means eight limbs, and this is where the practice takes its name. Each limb supports the next, leading from the way we live in the world to the deepest states of absorption.

1. 01YamaExternal disciplines
2. 02NiyamaInternal disciplines
3. 03ĀsanaPostures
4. 04PrāṇāyāmaBreathing exercises
5. 05PratyāhāraWithdrawing the senses from their objects
6. 06DhāraṇāConcentration
7. 07DhyānaMeditation
8. 08SamādhiAbsorption

You will be expected to know these by heart, and to explain them to Dr. Alwar in your final examination. Study them, and practice them on a personal level, not as ideas but as a way of living.

The world that produced the practice

What is Mysore Yoga Parampara?

Paramparā is a Sanskrit word meaning that which is passed from one generation to the next. In the eyes of the Sanskrit community of Mysore, Paramparā is less about the performance of postures and more about a living tradition of spiritual practice. On our journey we will focus on the spiritual lineage from which Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya and the other great teachers emerged. Ashtanga Vinyāsa Yoga, as it has spread across the world, comes directly from this Mysore Yoga Paramparā.

There has been much debate among international practitioners about what counts as traditional yoga. Devotion to one's teacher and careful adherence to the asanas as taught is certainly part of it, but Paramparā holds much more. It reflects a whole view of life, with spiritual practice standing alongside the physical. It was never meant to be a marketing tool or a pyramid promoting one style of asana. For anyone who wants to meet this great tradition beyond the postures, listening to the elders of Mysore is the place to start.

Who was Sri Krishnamacharya?

Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya is widely regarded as the father of modern yoga. Look at the postural yoga practiced around the world today and it becomes clear that his teaching shaped at least half of it. Much has been written about where his postures came from, and the accounts often conflict. The simple truth is that there is no definitive information about Rāma Mohana Brahmacārya, the teacher from whom he is said to have learned them.

His spiritual lineage is far less explored in popular yoga culture, and yet it is far more accessible. Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya was an Iyengar, with spiritual roots in Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy, and he belonged to the Nāthamuni Sampradāya. All Iyengars trace their ancestry to one of the priests appointed by Rāmānuja about a thousand years ago, the founder of Viśiṣṭādvaita. In this course we learn mostly from teachers within that lineage, to reach the deepest insight available to us.

The lens you are looking through

Before we read a single text, a word about the lens. Indian philosophy carries three great schools of Vedānta, each named for the Ācārya who shaped it. Śaṅkara taught Advaita, non-dualism. Rāmānuja taught Viśiṣṭādvaita, qualified non-dualism. Madhva taught Dvaita, dualism. Every text you are about to study, the Gita, the Sutras, the Upanishads, has been read through one of these three views, and the same verse can mean very different things depending on which Ācārya is holding it.

The clearest difference between them is the question of the soul. In the Advaita view, the individual self is finally not separate from the absolute, and at the end the drop returns to the ocean. In the Dvaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita views, the soul is real and enduring, carrying forward through many lives, gathering its karma, evolving and devolving across time. When any one of these is explained well, it is so coherent that you can scarcely imagine an objection to it. And yet they differ. We come through the Viśiṣṭādvaita lens, the school of Rāmānuja and of Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya. In this talk, the late Dr. M.A. Narasimhan lays all three side by side.

There is a spirit in these scholars that I want this training to carry. They love philosophy, and they leave it to each person to arrive at their own understanding. In all my years among them, not one ever asked me to adopt their religion or to believe as they believe. For them yoga is a science, open to anyone. Dr. Alwar comes from the Viśiṣṭādvaita tradition, yet he quotes Advaita and Dvaita scholars freely, and he never speaks against another philosophy or another faith. In their lectures these teachers cite Buddhist texts, and Plato, and Aristotle, as readily as their own. They are not ignorant of the world. They have studied it. As Lakshmithathachar Swami often said, the Indian tradition is essentially a human tradition. Religion they hold close and private. Philosophy they discuss, and debate, in the open, drawing on every form of truth they can find.

This matters for understanding what yoga is. Yoga is not a religion. It speaks of godhead, but it does not ask you to believe in God. It is among the most widely held philosophies in all of Asia, practiced in its pure form by Buddhists and Hindus and many others, whether they believe in God or not. We look through the Viśiṣṭādvaita lens, but we come in that same spirit of openness, to think carefully, to look deeply, and to search for what is real. These are not dogmatic people. They are some of the most brilliant men and women I have ever met, and they have given their lives to the study of philosophy, their own and everyone else's. To learn from them is a rare gift.

The Shat Darshanas, with Lakshmithathachar Swami

Sri Lakshmithathachar Swami was the head of the Nāthamuni Sampradāya until he reached his final samādhi in May of 2021. He was my teacher, and I loved him very much. He was a legendary scholar, thinker, and scientist, and a great proponent of Vedic culture. He permanently changed my understanding of spirituality and of God. I remember him saying one day, if I take the time to teach you this, you must never forget it as long as you live. He was one of the great ṛṣis of Mysore, and time spent with such a person leaves a permanent mark.

We begin with the ṣaṭ darśanas, the six orthodox philosophies of India. Yoga is one of these six. To understand Yoga you need a basic grasp of the other five, and especially of Sāṅkhya, which is its sister system. One note on the names. You will hear two names for the sixth school. Uttara Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta are the same thing. Lakshmithathachar Swami treats both Mīmāṃsās together in one talk, so all six schools are covered below.

Guruji B.N.S. Iyengar

Now one hundred years old, he is the oldest living teacher of Ashtanga Yoga. There is a charming detail worth knowing here. In Indian reckoning a child is considered one year old at birth, counted from the time in the womb, so the arithmetic of a long life is always a little generous. His hundredth birthday falls this September. He is a mad poet of sorts, half joking, speaking in riddles, and he taught me more than I can say. His talks have lingered in my mind for years and taken a long time to fully understand. I brought him to America in 2014 and he lived with me for a month.

I want you to begin where I began, in the abstract and the difficult. Patañjala Yoga is a favorite subject of his, and in his own eccentric way he has opened the core of Indian philosophy to countless people. Listen more than once. The meaning arrives slowly, and it is worth the wait.

For more from Guruji, including Yoga for Healthy Living and the Principles of Karma Yoga, continue to the Writings of B.N.S. Iyengar.

The heart of the study

The first two are led by Dr. H.V. Nagaraj Rao, a revered Sanskrit scholar and master of grammar, poetics, and philosophy, with a rare gift for making demanding texts clear and vivid in English. The Gita is led by Dr. M.A. Alwar.

The elders tell it themselves

Modern Ashtanga Vinyāsa grew in the school of Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya and was carried forward by Śrī Pattabhi Jois. The practice as it spread to the West took shape across decades, and the syllabus Western students first received in the early years differs in places from what is taught today. The tradition has always been living rather than fixed. The original 1973 syllabus, preserved by Nancy Gilgoff, is offered below so you can see the practice as it was handed across that first bridge between Mysore and the world.

An invitation, not a requirement

In conclusion

What little I have offered here is only a doorway. The real education is in the hours you give to these teachers, and in what you carry back into your own practice and your own teaching. Hold to svādhyāya and abhyāsa, study and steady practice, and the rest follows. As Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya taught, the work of yoga is to replace old patterns with new ones, slowly, patiently, over a lifetime. The essays you will write for your graduation, on the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras, grow directly out of these three texts, and the philosophy examination is with Dr. Alwar. Take your time. Let it settle.