Light on Pranayama [antikvár]

Foreword 'Yoga is nothing but the total experience of human life; it is a science of the integral man!' Jaques S. Masui. Yogacharya Sri B. K. S. Iyengar, the author oi Light on Yoga hardly needs an introduction to the seekers of light on Pranayama. The science and art of Yoga, as presented by Patanjali centuries before Christ, begins by moral and other precepts for physical, vital and mental health, potency and purification. It proceeds to postures - asanas, which influence the aspirant beneficially through the neurophysiological system and the endocrine glands. Sri Iyengar has dwelt with them in his book Light on Yoga in such a thorough and detailed manner, with about six hundred photographs, that there is scarcely any other work on that subject so encyclopaedic, precise and lucid. The book gives the complete theory of Yoga and treats the subject of asanas fully, with a peep into pranayama. Published by George Allen and Unwin, Ltd, the book is so popular that it has run into many editions and has been translated into several languages. It is being used as a practical guide by people all over the world. Sri Iyengar, impelled by nature and driven by circumstances, learnt Yoga the hard way at the feet of his guru Sri Krishnamacharya. Sri Iyengar has been himself a teacher of Yoga, and a good task-master at that, all the time. What he speaks and writes about Yoga is like an abundant overspill from all his rich and meaningful personal experiences. The demonstration lecture on asanas that he gave in Bombay last December on the occasion of his sixty-first birthday, with his daughter Geeta and son Prashanta, was a marvellous revelation of his control over every nerve and muscle of his supple body. Hundreds of his disciples from abroad witnessed the performance and wondered how he retained such plasticity and vigour at that age. To him it was child's play, a mere routine. One of his close disciples remarked that he has trained his body 'to twist, to twine, to turn, to bend, to wriggle, to pull, to flex' and much besides! It is but logical that one should expect from Sri Iyengar an equally exhaustive and instructive book on Pranayama, which is the next step in Yoga, namely, the science and art of breath-control. Though there are several yogas practised, such as hatha-yoga, raja-yoga, jfiana-yoga, kundalini-yoga, mantra-yoga, laya-yoga and so on, basically and in essence Yoga is a scientific and systematic discipline for a successful organisation of