by Katherine Payne
Source: Iyengar Association of the North-West Newsletter
I visited the countryside of New York last summer to study Sanskrit with Vyaas Houston for two weeks. Like many students of Iyengar yoga, I could recite the Sanskrit names of various Hatha yoga postures, but I had no idea how to read the exotic Devanagari script. On the way to the airport I remember remarking to my husband, "I feel like a migratory bird. I know exactly where I'm going but I can't explain why I'm going. All I know is I've got to go."
The Sanskrit Immersion course taught me more about the practice of yoga than I expected. The course is taught with full observance of yogic attitudes and I found this to be a totally unique experience. On one level it was a natural process for me: the gymnastics of forming the words and striving for the perfect "flow" was something I was familiar with in my daily practice of asana. On another level, however, I had a tremendous amount to absorb and evaluate.
The same concentration and awareness, the same mindset required for proper asana is used to learn the sounds of Sanskrit. The alphabet is constructed according to the structure of the mouth, with five basic mouth positions producing the letters of the alphabet in a perfect order. This requires learning exactly where each sound is located within the structure of the mouth and prescribing the correct amount of energy and breath to pronounce each letter. On the third day, after reading a relatively long Yoga Sutra aloud, a fellow student remarked, "This is like yoga for the mouth!" And, indeed it is. Every time I read a Sanskrit word or group of words, I was amazed to find that the formations taking place in my mouth took as much focus as an asana with all the body parts combined.
It was also after the third day of applying every tactic known to the modern-day student and getting nowhere that I began to have serious reservations about my success as a Sanskrit scholar. Imagine a group of twelve "enlightened" adults in a classroom where each person takes turns reading Sanskrit aloud and yet is somehow supposed to remain unattached to the goal of "getting it right." It was clear everyone was processing this attitude on some level, but I can only speak for myself. After 17 years of mind-molding, grade-obsessing education through the American public school system, I wasn't prepared to learn by detachment! I was developing a serious case of self-doubt as I strained to reach the elusive position of "the quickest" or "the brightest" student. That night I went to bed exhausted and worst of all, with an overwhelming sense of dissatisfaction. My yoga lesson had begun.
That night my sub-conscious wove a tale in which a dark-haired woman with a long, red tongue cut off my head! It was certainly traumatic but at the same time I awoke quite "light-headed." I learned later that this woman was actually a Hindu goddess named Kali who slays egos for a living. Her timing was perfect. From that point on, I was able to start the process of relinquishing control and learning patterns from the past to have a direct and permanent experience of Sanskrit.
No one is better suited to guide the student through this process than Vyaas Houston, founder of The American Sanskrit Institute. His system and methods not only work, but are based on the principles of yoga as the only effective means to learning Sanskrit. Teaching the student to keep his mind "on the point" is intrinsic to Vyaas' teaching methods.
But what impressed me the most was Vyaas' attention to the student. It's hard for me to tell whether his love of Sanskrit or his love for the student is stronger. Certainly both are necessary to enable Vyaas to declare he can teach Sanskrit to every student who comes to him. With this statement he places an enormous responsibility upon himself, and yet, as his student, it's easy to see how he's able to fulfill his promise.
I will always value the two weeks I had, tucked away in the Catskills mountains, surrounded by new friends, a brilliant teacher, and the ancient language of yoga. My relationship with my students, my teachers, and my practice has matured considerably since the course. Sanskrit is one of those subjects that has the distinction of giving me a sense of "the more I know the less I know." It has been and will continue to be a profound teacher for me, as it has been for countless students of yoga.
Kathryn Payne is the the director of The Yoga Tree in Seattle, WA.