by Christopher Key Chapple and Maureen Shannon-Chapple
Gurani Anjali firmly believed that each individual contained the divine within and sought to teach in a way that allowed for it to be known and made manifest.
Gurani Anjali often referred to the core ideas of the Vedas and the Upanisads in her teachings. She emphasized the importance of desire, setting forth an apothegm that claims: “Desire is the root of creation. As you will, so you will be.”
She spoke often of the individual soul or Jiva or Purusa, urging her students to rise up into the Mahapurusa, the universal consciousness. The Brahma Mantra and the Gayatri Mantra were chanted as an expression of yearning for this connection. Repeatedly, she advised her pupils to observe the three moments of the day: the rising of the sun, the fullness of the day, and the setting of the sun.
Dealing with as many as one hundred individuals with varying skills and interests, Gurani Anjali sought to make space within the Ashram for an array of talents. She encouraged outdoor instruction and always sought to bring out the best in each individual, while urging them to uncover and correct their hidden worst parts as well. Only by honesty about oneself could one reach authenticity.
She spoke often of the rhythm of life, invoking the Vedic terms Rta and Rtu. Rta denotes several words that are cousin words in the English language: artistry, ritual, rhythm, righteous. The word Rtu signifies flow; an ability to move and change with agility.
Memorization and the oral tradition played a vital role in Gurani Anjali’s conveyance of Yoga. Within the first few months of Yoga practice, each student at the Ashram by osmosis developed a working vocabulary of dozens of Sanskrit words, including names of asanas, the yamas and niyamas (disciplines and observances), and philosophical terms such as samadhi, purusa and prakrti, the three gunas. Under the guidance of the Assistant Director, Ashram students undertook textual studies of the Samkhya Karika, the Yoga Sutra, and other works.
In 1979 and 1980, Gurani Anjali gave her students a new task: memorization of the second pada of the Yoga Sutra in Sanskrit. For Gurani Anjali, this pada encapsulated the core of Yoga: kriya yoga, the klesas, Samkhya, and Astanga Yoga.
Students at Yoga Anand Ashram, from the beginning of their training, were schooled in the Yoga of purification. They performed tapas by fasting and keeping silent weekly, generally not speaking on Saturday and not eating on Sunday. They were encouraged to read from a variety of sacred scriptures daily.
Gurani Anjali urged to seek out and understand and move beyond the klesas or impurities that impede spiritual life. Every action became an opportunity for self-reflection. Each week students were assigned a discipline (yama) such as nonviolence and/or and observance (niyama) such as contentment. Our application of these practices became a battlefield for overcoming the klesas of ignorance, egoism, attraction, repulsion, and clinging in daily life.
The basic contours and parameters for this philosophy included the big frame of Purusa or Consciousness interacting with Prakrti, the realm of Action. The drama of life was to be purified by the application of selfless conscious action. Life was not to be denied but to be embraced, put through the crucible of sadhana. She wanted us to become fearless.
She required her students to read Aurobindo’s Secret of the Veda, a complicated text that emphasizes human involution, the notion that the challenge in life lies not in worldly accomplishments but in human development, what has also come to be known as the human potential. She urged emulating Sri Ramakrishna, who learned from all religions, and Swami Vivekananda, who boldly created institutions and inspired the masses with his message of universal love and tolerance. In regard to Tantra, she assigned the works of Arthur Avalon, also known as John Woodroffe, who wrote about the basic physiology of the chakras and the ascent of kundalini, all framed in a language that explains how the actions of Prakrti take place for the sake of liberating Consciousness or Purusa.
She welcomed people from all walks of life into the Ashram, including butchers, gardeners, clerks, scholars, housewives, postal workers, teachers, construction workers, and truck drivers. Many of her students took up university studies related to the Yoga tradition and have gone into various teaching fields. Others received their higher education directly through Ashram programs and events. Her model for education was direct and simple: feed the senses, engage the imagination, introduce sadhana, inspire a regular practice, and the person will be transformed through Yoga.