A Week with Raya Uma Datta in Vancouver

Part Three: What We Take Home.

The week with Raya drew more participants than any community gathering in the Association’s history. The group photograph captures the smiles of people who had spent these days together. Some had reconnected with old friends; others had joined this community for the first time. They now shared memories of classes, conversations, attempts at something unfamiliar, and jokes that would stay with them for a while.

Throughout the week, Raya returned to the importance of community. He spoke about it in discussions of personal practice, learning to teach, difficulties, and plans for a future Iyengar centre in Vancouver. By the final day, those conversations had found expression in the gathering itself.

A Place Where We Can Ask for Help

For Raya, community began with a simple human act: being able to say, “I need a little help,” and knowing there were people to turn to.

He returned to this theme in different conversations. He asked why we sometimes hesitate to ask for help within a community. Raya recalled that students had been a source of energy for Guruji himself. The teacher gave them direction, while their presence and work helped sustain him.

This gave the discussion of a permanent centre in Vancouver a practical meaning. The community needed somewhere people could come regularly, where experienced and newer practitioners could learn alongside one another, and where there was time for shared practice and conversation. Raya encouraged people to contribute whatever they could: time, skills, energy, or financial support.

In her closing remarks, the President of the Association, Nancy Zrymiak, recalled that the open practices at the beginning of the week had been Raya’s idea. He wanted to spend time with the community, and the two sessions gave that wish a warm, welcoming form.

When the Song Reached Something Within

On the final morning, attention became quieter. Raya invited participants to stay longer with the breath, notice its movement, and allow themselves rest when needed.

During the concluding Savasana, Claudia MacDonald read a verse of Song of the Soul in English, and Raya followed by singing the same verse in Sanskrit. The hymn is known as Nirvana Shatakam. They continued this way through all six verses.

The song closes with these words:
Ever serenely balanced, I am neither free nor bound –
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss is where I am found.

Leslie Hogya singled out this moment in her reflection. The text appears after the introduction in Light on Yoga, “hiding in plain sight,” as she put it. For her, the song recalled how fully yoga engages human life: body, mind, breath, and soul.

For me, the moment was deeply personal. I would describe my experience this way: “In everyday life, I often feel like someone who has to fulfil a role, find a way forward, and overcome the next difficulty. No problem, that’s the way we live, fulfilling plenty of roles within a society we reside in as a spouse, teacher, student, achiever, traveller, dweller, buyer, seller, etc., etc. But gradually, a shell seems to have grown around me, the older the thicker, like the shell of a nut. It offers protection, but it also becomes harder to feel what lives inside. You know, Patanjali says there lives the Seer. Who knows what that Seer is?
Something very subtle happened during the song. It was as though the shell became a little thinner in one place, and light began to filter through. For a moment, I sensed something true within me, deeper than the role I was trying to fulfil, something drawn towards eternity, knowledge, and love. These three things are the essence of a soul – I knew that before, but what I understood in that moment was how practice could gradually wear away the shell, allowing those qualities to shine through.
I wanted to return to that feeling: to listen again, practise, and give myself time. Perhaps, through returning, the armour I have become accustomed to wearing can gradually soften, allowing what lives within to emerge more freely.”

Each participant had their own experience that morning. My account preserves one of them: a quiet moment of recognition that was difficult to put into words. Such experiences can also give us a reason to return to practice and make room again for something that is easily lost among everyday demands.

Stories That Continue to Teach

After lunch, participants who had started studying in Pune decades ago shared their memories of Guruji. They spoke about initial uncertainty, demanding corrections, humour, and care. Sometimes an understanding of a lesson arrived long after the event itself. For those who had never visited the institute, this was a chance to hear about Guruji from people who had learned from him firsthand.

Linda Schilling wrote: “What really will stay with me, amongst other things, about the workshop with Raya is the absolute respect he has for the Iyengar’s and their work. I was left feeling that with Raya and Abhijata steering the ship, Iyengar yoga is in a good place.”

At the close, Nancy thanked the organizers, board members, volunteers, and families who had hosted visitors. Months of preparation had made the gathering possible: making arrangements, welcoming people, finding accommodation, preparing the space, helping at registration, and being available when another task arose.
Jane Munro named gratitude as the feeling she took away from the gathering. She remembered Raya’s openness, willingness to reflect, and humility sustained through practice and struggle.

Before finishing, Raya recalled how Guruji spoke of successive generations of his students as his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. People from different generations and with different experiences had met at the conference. Each had received something of their own and could now continue the practice with a new spirit.

The gathering will continue in everyday life: when someone opens the book again, meets friends for practice, or makes time to listen to something that once stirred quietly within.

That is somewhere to begin.