On the way up to Stonemonkey in Leamington Spa for my workshop (which was great fun by the way, thank you everyone for coming, Digby, Maddy, Paula, for making it happen) I had a little time to kill and was undecided whether to pull out my own Krishnamacharya book to prepare or Yoga Makaranda, went for the original and had a minor epiphany on page one, how have I never connected the dots on this in all the other times I've opened Yoga Makaranda. I tried to upload a post on the Ipad while traveling up but it let me down. here it is finally.
At the time of writing Yoga Makaranda (1934), the practice of tens, even hundreds of sun salutations had been in vogue as a health and fitness fad. Krishnamacharya seems to have felt this trivialised the surynamaskara. Krishnamacharya would still teach the stages of the sun salutalutation but as individual asana with long stays. He would occasionally teach the surynamaskara with mantras as we do in Vinyasa Krama.
In ashtanga vinyasa of course we only practice 5 A's and 5 B's. which is hardly excessive .
"One cannot have such a trivial attitude as expecting immediate benefits in auspicious matters like yogabhyasa, worship, sandhya vandanam (salutation to the sun) or chanting of mantras as though one were a laborer who does one hour of work and expects immediate payment. They should not lament that they have not received even one paisa for all the time spent on this. When this pattern of thinking begins, we enter a phase of deterioration day by day."
Krishnamacharya Yoga Makaranda (1934) page 1.
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Question: What does the bhakti mean to a person who has no belief in Isvara?
Krishnamacharya: Love is bhakti for them
Here's a link to my presentation of how Krishnamacharya and Ramaswami would teach the sun salutation with mantra
http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/srivatsa-ramaswamis-complete-book-of.html
and here's a link to the Surnamaskara for health in vogue at the time of Krishnamacharya writing Yoga makaranda.
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http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/balasahibs-original-1928-suya-namaskar.html
And Thank you to Gabor for sending me this link to the Sandhya Vandam (salutation to the sun ritual)
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/sandhya/index.html
At the time of writing Yoga Makaranda (1934), the practice of tens, even hundreds of sun salutations had been in vogue as a health and fitness fad. Krishnamacharya seems to have felt this trivialised the surynamaskara. Krishnamacharya would still teach the stages of the sun salutalutation but as individual asana with long stays. He would occasionally teach the surynamaskara with mantras as we do in Vinyasa Krama.
In ashtanga vinyasa of course we only practice 5 A's and 5 B's. which is hardly excessive .
"One cannot have such a trivial attitude as expecting immediate benefits in auspicious matters like yogabhyasa, worship, sandhya vandanam (salutation to the sun) or chanting of mantras as though one were a laborer who does one hour of work and expects immediate payment. They should not lament that they have not received even one paisa for all the time spent on this. When this pattern of thinking begins, we enter a phase of deterioration day by day."
Krishnamacharya Yoga Makaranda (1934) page 1.
I just came across a video I posted at the beginning of the year, I'd completely forgotten about it, it was an attempt to reconstruct a sun salutation from the descriptions Krishnamacharya gives for the different stages, treated as asana, in Yoga Makaranda. On reflection now I'm not sure how I feel about it, Krishnamacharya seems to have gone out of his way to avoid presenting a sun salutation and here I am constructing one from his writings. I guess watching and perhaps practicing the sequence below you'll have to decide for yourself if it's merely an exercise routine or if it's value lies elsewhere. Krishnamachrya said that we seek god ( read whatever you wish into that term) in the kumbhaka, the approach to asana that Krishnamacharya offers us in Yoga Makaranda has a kumbhaka on almost every breath.
On the question of kumbhaka and God
Question: What does the bhakti mean to a person who has no belief in Isvara?
Krishnamacharya: Love is bhakti for them
Here's a link to my presentation of how Krishnamacharya and Ramaswami would teach the sun salutation with mantra
http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/srivatsa-ramaswamis-complete-book-of.html
and here's a link to the Surnamaskara for health in vogue at the time of Krishnamacharya writing Yoga makaranda.
http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/balasahibs-original-1928-suya-namaskar.html
And Thank you to Gabor for sending me this link to the Sandhya Vandam (salutation to the sun ritual)
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/sandhya/index.html