Yoga East

 

The Jungle Doctor

By Laura Spaulding
AYRI, KPJAYI Authorized Level I, Sharath Jois Level 2, Yoga Alliance E-RYT 500

In the Ashtanga Yoga tradition, an invocation is recited at the beginning of practice each day, which goes in part:

Vande guruṇām caraṇāra vinde sundarśita svātma sukhāva bodhe

Niḥśreyase jaṅgalikāymane samsāra hālāhala mohaśāntyai

Which means:

I honor the guru (teacher) who shows the way to the highest good.

The teacher is like the jungle doctor who removes the poison of worldly existence.

In 2009 I took a teacher’s course with Sharath Jois who was the grandson of K. Pattabhi Jois, who was for many years the main teacher of the Ashtanga system. When I first met Mr. Jois in 1999, he told us in a conference one day that he planned to offer a course to already-authorized teachers to pass on the tradition.  In 1999 I was new to Ashtanga Yoga and this was my first time in Mysore, but I could imagine how great it would be to participate in that course.  Ten years later in 2009, he and Sharath planned to offer the course in June.  By then, I had become an authorized teacher and I was invited to attend.  I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.  Sadly, a month before the course was to have started, Mr. Jois died.  After a period of mourning and the memorial service, Sharath taught the course on his own and he tried to make it as similar as possible to his experience of learning under his grandfather.  We were required to teach each other while Sharath observed us and made corrections.

Sharath told us a story to illustrate that our duty as teachers of yoga was to practice and study yoga to be of benefit to others.  He told us: in a small village, there was a large banyan tree at its center.  Banyan trees have aerial roots that descend from the branches so that the tree expands out from the center. Some trees are huge, taking up a lot of space. They don’t bear fruit and have little practical value other than providing shade. In this village, a yogi appeared and took up residence under the shade of the banyan.  One of the village merchants didn’t like the tree or the yogi because they were of no value to the village. He tried to convince the other villagers that the tree should be cut down, and then the yogi would leave. However, none of the other villagers were willing to cut down the tree.  It had been there for a long time.  Not long after, one of the merchant’s children became gravely ill with a fever.  One of the other villagers told the distressed merchant, “Take him to the yogi.”  Desperate, the merchant took the child to the yogi, who took the child and held him in his arms.  He instructed the villagers to bring him cool water and he bathed the child and placed some herbs in the child’s mouth.  Gradually, the child’s fever subsided and the child began to sleep peacefully. The child recovered.  The merchant changed his mind about both the tree and the yogi.  

Then Sharath told another story of an incident that had been witnessed by his grandfather and grandmother while they were on a pilgrimage to the temple at Kedarnath. This famous temple is 11,755 feet above sea level, and 16 kilometers beyond the nearest road in a remote part of the Himalayas.  It is accessible only by walking or riding a pony along a steep mountain path, or by helicopter.  Pattabhi Jois and his wife visited it before helicopters were used so they walked. 

As they were walking up the mountain, they saw a woman collapse, possibly from altitude sickness.  No one knew what to do to help her, but a yogi appeared. He knelt beside her and examined her briefly, then he dashed off and came back with herbs that he crushed under her nose and revived her.  Then he quickly left again and they didn’t see him again. 

In 2018 I took my second pilgrimage to Kedarnath and rode a pony.  The ponies stop and let off their riders about two kilometers from the Kedarnath Temple, and everyone must walk the rest of the way or hire a porter to carry them.  Porters are available along the way to carry people up the path. They have a large basket strapped to their back like a large baby carrier.  Passengers sit in the basket and are carried up to the temple.  A friend who was on the pilgrimage with me developed altitude sickness and was unable to walk the rest of the way to the temple after we got off the ponies. A porter came along and wanted to carry her, but she was distraught and reluctant to sit in the basket.  She kept trying to walk, but after two or three steps, she would have to sit again and try to catch her breath. As we waited for her to collect herself, I looked up toward the temple and saw an amazing sight.  A young yogi dressed in the orange robes of a renunciate was striding down the path toward us.  He was looking at her seated on the ground with great concern.  This young man seemed to have a glow about him.  He spoke excellent English and sat down beside her.  He smiled reassuringly and began to give her helpful breathing instructions in a calm voice.  Within a few minutes she had become calm and her breathing was no longer labored.  She agreed to let the porter carry her and they went ahead of us. The young yogi continued down the mountain.