Author: Santan Rodrigues
Publisher: The Yoga Institute
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: 223
ISBN/UPC (if available): N/A
Description
What manner of man is a Yogi? Is his life a bed of nails? Shri Yogendraji's life is as interesting as his towering personality.
What do you say of a man who strove hard in various fields of life, to rise to eminence, only later to reject the achievements and the entire field of work. Being a sensitive soul, he became conscious of the limitations of the activity he undertook.
In his teens, for example, he founded the Free Thinkers Association, wrote the Bible of free thinkers, in his book Life Problems; he wrote with distinction in Gujarat literature on many branches such as essay, biography, novel, poetry etc.
In his twenties he planned an Encyclopaedia on Yoga in ten volumes, and published the first volume, he took to industry and was the Principal with an agent in no less a business house then Oxford University Press of London; he set up a large Yoga Institute on a 250 acres plot in New York and planned another such one in India, already in his thirties, he was a very responsible householder who blazed a new-trail of "Yoga with respect" by establishing The Yoga Institute of Bombay with its activities of publishing, training, medical, social and research.
In fact Shri Yogendraji showed his capacity to set up large undertakings but withdrew from these when he realized the limitations of these activities.
This is the case of his encounter with the Government, when he put up the first Teacher Training Institute of Yoga in India, or the first hospital of psychosomatic medicine, or the first research institute of its kind to evaluate Yoga, or when he cooperated with other organisations in setting up the first All India Board of Yoga, the International Board of Yoga etc. He withdrew from some of these when he viewed the activity against a larger frame of reference.
Shri Yogendraji now is 86 but he has the spirit when an opportunity arises, to put in all efforts to his work to reach high level of excellence though it may happen he may like Newton laugh at the achievement in the end.
This biography is a culmination of two years research and is a factual account interspersed with personal letters that brings to life the story of a man who is the acknowledged pioneer of Yoga Renaissance.
Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iv
SPEAKING ON THE SUBJECT ix
I. OF ROOTS AMONG OTHER THINGS 1
II. THE MAKING OF A CIVIL SERVANT 13
III. THE PLANS GO AWRY 25
IV. FOLLOWING THE PATH OF THE ANCIENTS 36
V. AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER 43
VI. A LITERARY CAREER BRIGHTENS 52
VII. THE BIRTH OF AN INSTITUTE 65
VIII. THE SUN ALSO RISES IN THE WEST 79
IX. OFFERING THE WEST THE UNKNOWN EAST 90
X. THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 114
XI. HOW MUCH MORE SHOULD A MAN KNOW 122
XII. IT IS NOT GOOD FOR A MAN TO BE ALONE 128
XIII. TWO SHALL LIVE AS ONE 134
XIV. AT HOME 143
XV. THE DEAR DEPARTS 153
XVI. A MOVE SCUTTLED 165
XVII. A REFUGEE AT LARGE 177
XVIII. THE HOUSE THAT HE BUILT 184
XIX. THE SPAN OF A LIFETIME 195
XX. BACK TO PATANJALI AND BEYOND