The Yoga Song

In most Iyengar Classes, we sing an invocation to the Sage Patanjali. For a variety of reasons, teaching in a Baptist Church, living in a conservative town, teaching at a conservative school, and just also not wanting to sing in public, I've never really done the chant. I've come up with my own invocation, reciting the first five lines of the Yoga Sutras which I feel is in keeping with what the Iyengar's want from the chant and that was sort of that.

Until Marie and Pam come back from dinner Friday night and say, "why haven't you taught us the yoga song?"

So here's the link to the yoga song.

and here is what Geeta says about why we should chant

"We chant so that at the very beginning that feeling of sanctification comes from inside, with the feeling of surrendering oneself, because nothing can be learned in this world unless you have the humility to learn. So the moment you think of the Lord at the beginning of doing a practice, you know that you are very small in front of that greatest soul. Once that is understood then the other problems which always arise while practicing, mainly concerned with the ego, will be affected. You know that you are "coming down" to learn something. And you can't learn anything unless you come down; if you think you are on the top and you know everything, then you are not a learner at all. In that sense, the chanting helps.

We decided to chant these two slokas from the very beginning. When Guruji asked us to practice yoga we started with this recitation. But we didn't do it in the classes because when people came as beginners, they had the idea that it is a religious prayer of concern only to Hindu's. It took people a little while to understand. Whenever we had some public program, a celebration such as Divali or Guruji's birthday, we would recite these prayers. People started taking interest and asking us what the prayers mean. When it was understood, everybody accepted it. For several years now we have been chanting these prayers before classes."