Indian yoga guru Krishna Pattabhi Jois, pictured above aged 90 instructing a female student, passed away Wednesday. Jois, 93, brought the physically challenging form of yoga to the west, and counted among his followers Madonna, who included the traditional ashtanga chant on her Ray of Light album, and the actor Gwyneth Paltrow, reports The Guardian.
“Ashtanga practitioners perform a series of yoga postures, known as asanas, daily and in strict sequential order. Beginners carry out the primary series, moving on to the secondary series.
“Although the yoga positions are believed to be thousands of years old, it was Pattabhi Jois who became the most famous teacherof the system in the west. He left his native India in 1975 to teach classes in California, and has visited the UK several times, teaching up to 300 students at a time.” More here…
The BBC reports: “Introduced to yoga at a demonstration in 1927 at the age of 12, Jois immersed himself in the discipline, studying under the guru Krishnamacharya who had revived the ancient practice of yoga in the early years of the 20th century.” More here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.