The term "Iyengar" has also made its way to the lexicon. The latest edition of Oxford Dictionary of English defines "Iyengar" as "a type of hatha yoga focusing on the correct alignment of the body, making use of straps, wooden blocks, and other objects as aids to achieving correct postures. - ORIGIN named after B.K.S. Iyengar (born 1918), the Indian yoga teacher who devised this method."
Here is an excerpt from his entry in Time Top 100 People, written by one of his students:
"Our bodies are great. They carry our brains around wherever we want to go, sit us down with a friend for a good meal or make us feel invigorated after a run or a swim. Yoga may have origins outside our culture, but its benefits are now felt within it. The beauty of Iyengar yoga in particular is the revelation that there is a living architecture hidden in all of us that only needs unveiling. Like any architecture, it demands diamond-like precision. In fact B.K.S. Iyengar teaches that the body should flow into a yoga posture the way light fills a well-cut diamond. Iyengar is 85 now, and he still teaches at the institute in Pune, India, that he founded in 1973. He taught his first class in 1936, but it wasn't until he struck up a lifelong friendship with violinist Yehudi Menuhin that Iyengar brought his teachings to the West. His 1966 book 'Light on Yoga' - with 300 pages of instruction and photographs of postures, or asanas - introduced yoga to people around the globe. Aficionados founded Iyengar groups in the U.S. as early as 1974 and slowly fed what has become mainstream Western acceptance of a 3,000-year-old Indian tradition. Iyengar teaches practitioners to lavish attention on the body. The goal is to tie the mind to the breath and the body, not to an idea. His philosophy is Eastern, but his vision is universalist. You can incorporate Iyengar into your life and yoga…Iyengar knows what the body needs, and he's introduced to the West the Easterner's best path to health and well-being." (Time, April 26, 2004)
Iyengar's yoga disciples include author Aldous Huxley, cricketers Martin Crowe and Sachin Tendulkar, film personalities Naseerudin Shah and Meera Nair, politician Murli Manohar Joshi, and the Queen mother of Belgium, among other celebrities.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja (BKS) Iyengar was born on December 14, 1918. He was a victim of malaria, typhoid and tuberculosis in his childhood. At the age of 16, his Guru Sri T. Krishnamacharya introduced him to the physical discipline of yoga. Gradually he mastered the art and science of yoga and took it to a higher level.
Iyengar's practice and teachings were well appreciated by India’s first President Dr. Rajendra Prasad, and Pope Paul VI, among other eminent personalities from different countries. A fortuitous meeting with the violin maestro Yehudi Menuhin in 1952 was the beginning of Iyengar’s foray into the Western world. In 1975, he inaugurated the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute (RIMYI) in Pune, named after his wife. His teachings were first published in 1966 as Light on Yoga, which was translated into 18 languages. Today, he is the author of 14 books.
Iyengar was the first person to teach large groups of students. Even at the age of 85, he continues to practise and is always at ease in any posture he performs.
