GURUJI: A Portrait of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Through the Eyes of His Students

{from the Ashtanga Yoga Shala website}

Publication Date:

Guru Purnima — July 25, 2010

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GURUJI: A Portrait of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Through the Eyes of His Students

Guy Donahaye and Eddie Stern

It is a rare and remarkable soul who becomes legendary during the course of his life by virtue of great service to others. Sri K. Pattabhi Jois was such a soul: through his teaching of yoga, he transformed the lives of countless people. The school in Mysore that he founded and ran for more than sixty years trained students who, through the knowledge they received and their devotion, have helped to spread the daily practice of traditional Ashtanga yoga to tens of thousands around the world. Guruji paints a unique portrait of a unique man, revealed through the accounts of his students. Among the thirty men and women interviewed here are Indian students from Jois’s early teaching days; intrepid Americans and Europeans who traveled to Mysore to learn yoga in the 1970s; and important family members who studied as well as lived with Jois and continue to practice and teach abroad or run the Ashtanga Yoga Institute today. Many of the contributors (as well as the authors) are influential teachers who convey their experience of Jois every day to students in many different parts of the globe. Anyone interested in the living tradition of yoga will find Guruji

richly rewarding.

From the jacket cover:

"The guru’s transmission of energy and knowledge is a precept central to classical yoga. How Jois handed down teachings and values and what they were, the aspects of his personality and quality of his presence, and above all how he guided and changed so many lives through yoga—these are the subjects of Guruji. Through the words and recollections of students and close relations who knew Jois for over half a century, we are given remarkable insight into the life and mind of a dedicated yogi, an astonishing wealth of knowledge about the path of yoga, and a documentary account of how one traditional school of yoga has spread around the world."

Yoga/Spirituality - 16 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations - July 2010 - 6 x 9 - 496 pages - ISBN: 978-0-86547-749-0
- $40.00 - North Point Press

Contributors: Norman Allen - N. V. Anantha Ramaiah - S. L. Bhyrappa - Mark and Joanne Darby - Brigitte Deroses - Joseph Dunham - Heather Troud - Nick Evans - Richard Freeman - Nancy Gilgoff - Peter Greve - Ricky Heiman - Manju Jois - Dena Kingsberg - Krishnamurthi - Sharmila Mahesh - Lino Miele - Chuck Miller - Tim Miller - Rolf Naujket - Graeme Northfield - Annie Pace - Brad Ramsey - Peter Sanson - Saraswathi Rangaswamy - John Scott - R. Sharath - David Swenson - David Williams - Tomas Zorzo