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Yoga As We Practice It Today Would Not Be Possible Without the Vision and Determination of These Four Women

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Yoga As We Practice It Today Would Not Be Possible Without the Vision and Determination of These Four Women Yoga as we practice it today would not be possible without the vision and determination of these four women. They challenged the misconception Not so long ago, that yoga was an inscrutable, males-only practice and forever altered the yoga landscape for us all. g rIn a Loving t i t u d e INDRA DEVI SWAMI SIVANANDA RADHA 54 yogainternational.com winter 2012-13 ©2012 Yoga International. All rights reserved. by anna dubrovsky yoga was an esoteric practice, virtually unheard Not ofso in the long United ago,States and other Western countries. A powerful vehicle for enlightenment. For men…in India. Fast forward to the mid-20th century: yoga is now global, mainstream, and decidedly coed. Few people have had as much to do with that revolution as the four women featured in these pages. Charged by their revered teachers in India to spread the word of yoga far and wide, they reluctantly agreed. But then a curious thing happened. At some point, each woman began to make the teachings her own, creating practices anyone could do, no matter their limitations. And all four of them taught us all—male and female, young and old—what it means to be fully alive and truly at home in our bodies. We bow to them here for kicking the doors of yoga wide open and happily walking on through. >> LILIAS FOLAN GEETA IYENGAR winter 2012-13 yogainternational.com 55 because she wasn’t an Indian man. Born Eugenie Peterson to a Russian noblewoman and a Swedish bank direc- tor, she was every bit a sophisticated Westerner, comfortable traveling the world and mingling with newsmakers and high society. And yet she was never stern or ceremonious, and her warmth and quick wit endeared her to everyone she came into contact with. She at- tracted and welcomed students regard- less of their motivation: from slimming down to Self-realization. Devi’s own interest in Eastern spirituality began in her teens, when she came upon the writings of Bengali poet-philosopher Rabindranath Tagore and the American occultist who wrote under the pseudonym Yogi Ramacha- raka. In 1926, the 27-year-old actress and dancer attended a gathering of the Theosophical Society in Holland, where I N D R A D E V I she became enthralled with Jiddu Krish- First Lady of Yoga namurti. The next year, she sailed to India, following the renowned spiritual hen Indra Devi yoga master T. Krishnamacharya, teacher from city to city. moved to Cali- opened China’s first yoga school, and For 12 years, she made India her fornia from China returned to India to teach yoga to Indi- home, marrying a Czechoslovakian in 1947, friends ans themselves before making her way diplomat, starring in an Indian movie urged her to call her to America. (the stage name Indra Devi later became teachings anything It didn’t take long to find a fan base her legal name), and rubbing shoulders but “yoga.” After all, it would be at least here—and it didn’t hurt that some of with such notables as Mahatma Gandhi, Wanother 10 years before Richard Hittle- her earliest fans were among the glit- Jawaharlal Nehru, and Rabindranath man would introduce yoga on television terati. “A great many people seem to Tagore, whose writings first sparked her The Spiritual Emissary and two decades before B.K.S. Iyengar have taken up the study of yoga simply love affair with the country. It helped to wrote Light on Yoga. Post-war Ameri- because Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo, have friends in high places; when Krish- cans would have no sooner signed up for Jennifer Jones, Marilyn Monroe, Olivia namacharya refused to accept a woman yoga than for fire-eating. de Havilland, Mala Powers, Robert as his student in 1937, his royal patron But Indra Devi remained unde- Ryan, and also the world-famous beauti- intervened on Indra Devi’s behalf. terred. The Latvian-born itinerant felt cian Elizabeth Arden are known to have By the time Devi followed her dip- right at home in uncharted territory. been devotees,” she noted in her 1959 lomat husband to Shanghai in 1939, She’d cracked a centuries-old glass ceil- best seller, Yoga for Americans. Krishnamacharya had warmed up to his ing by becoming the first woman—and Indra Devi made an ideal, albeit sari-wearing student, insisting that she first Westerner—to study with Indian unlikely, ambassador for yoga, in part teach yoga. And so she did—for the rest Indra Devi brought a woman’s perspective to what had been a man’s world. She also brought her background as a dancer and her deep respect for the nonsectarian teachings of Krishnamurti. Previous layout, from left: Courtesy of Indra Devi Foundation; Yasodhara Ashram ©1990; Kelly Davidson; Elaine Banister; Background: Niels Poulsen mus / Alamy 56 yogainternational.com winter 2012-13 of her remarkably long life. Devi died just shy of her 103rd birthday in Buenos start a new fashion Aires, Argentina, her home since 1985. Devi’s teaching style bore little In Yoga for Americans, Devi addressed everything from asana to the resemblance to that of Iyengar or perils of soft mattresses. The section on diet included recipes and Ashtanga yoga maestro K. Pattabhi sample menus—and a taste of her humor. “The Indians claim that people Jois, who also studied with Krishna- afflicted with arthritis should always keep a raw unpeeled winter-crop macharya in the 1930s. That could be potato close to their skin,” she wrote. “I myself have seen a woman, who because Krishnamacharya was gentler previously had hardly been able to move her fingers, open and close her with her, or perhaps Devi recognized fists a week after she started playing around with a potato…. Since there that rigorous discipline and unquestion- is no risk of any kind involved in holding a potato, and since you may ing obedience would not sit well with even start a new fashion by wearing one around the neck like a medal- most Westerners. She certainly recog- lion, you could safely try this experiment…. And let me know the results.” nized the difference in lifestyles between Westerners and Indians. “I have taken into account not only the pace to which and, in the latter third of her life, her While disciples of Iyengar and Jois life in the United States is geared, but devotion to Sathya Sai Baba, the fuzzy- refer to their teacher as Guruji, Devi’s also the fact that most of you have not haired holy man who preached, “See call her Mataji, an affectionate and rever- had a chance to keep your muscles lim- with the eyes of love, hear with the ears ent term for mother. And, like the best ber and your joints supple,” she wrote of love, work with the hands of love.” of mothers, she taught them about un- in Yoga for Americans. Her Sai yoga was not the vinyasa flow conditional love. “It’s not only asana that Devi brought a woman’s perspec- she learned from Krishnamacharya. she tried to teach us,” says David Lifar, tive to what had been a man’s world. She still used the breath to move within director of the Indra Devi Foundation in She also brought her background as a and between the poses, but her char- Buenos Aires. “The goal of Mataji—the dancer, her deep respect for the non- acteristic trademark was gentler and most important thing of her teaching— sectarian teachings of Krishnamurti, more devotional. was to give love to everyone.” TheSWAMI SpiritualSIVANANDA RADHA Emissary ust two months into her stay in India, Sylvia Hellman’s guru made an unexpected request. “Start an ashram or school [in Canada] for the divine teachings of yoga and Vedanta.” It was a tall order. The year was 1955, and practically no one had heard of yoga in North America. Besides, Hellman had not gone to India to be- come a spiritual pioneer. She had gone to see Swami Sivananda Saraswati, hoping for insight into the meaning of life, which she had good reason to question. Born in Berlin in 1911, she had witnessed both World Wars and Jlost two husbands: the first killed by the gestapo for helping Jewish friends leave Germany and the second felled by a stroke. When he asked her to start an ashram, Hellman tried to reason with the for- mer physician. She pointed out that she didn’t even know Sanskrit or Vedanta. She hadn’t studied the Bhagavad Gita. “It would be the blind leading the blind,” she insisted. Three months later, Swami Sivananda threw her another curveball. “When you Left: Stringer / Reuters; Right: Yasodhara Ashram ©1995 go back to the West, do not work anymore for money,” he told her. “God will look winter 2012-13 yogainternational.com 57 hidden language hatha yoga men. Two years before she died in 1995, Swami Radha named a woman, Swami Shortly before Swami Radha left India, her guru handed her a hum- Radhananda, as her spiritual successor dinger of an assignment, Swami Lalitananda recalls. “He said, ‘Now I and decreed that a woman should always want you to discover the spiritual and mystical levels of the asanas and remain behind the spiritual wheel at report back to me.’ She said, ‘Gurudev, I don’t even know what you’re Yasodhara. “There have been other very talking about. You have to give me an example.’” And he gave her the strong women leaders, but they haven’t example of the headstand, Swami Lalitananda says. “He said, ‘When necessarily passed their lineage to you go into the headstand, it’s like you’re turning your world upside women,” says Swami Lalitananda, who down.
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