Dhirendra Brahmachari and his book Yoga Sukshma Vyayama

I collect a lot of books on yoga among other things. I do practice some yoga sequences everyday and it is the same sequence I practice since many years. However I have a habit of collecting yoga books and this is quite an obsession. Dhirendra brahmachari was a popular and controversial yoga teacher in India. One of his famous yoga books was the Yoga Sukshma Vyayama. This was a very popular book and it has been out of print for many years now. This book presents a set of simple yogic toning exercises for the whole body with emphasis on breath and focus on the chakras. I think I first heard of this book in Richard Hittleman’s book ‘Yoga Self Taught’. Ever since I wanted to get my hand on this book but failed. But thanks to the internet, I could locate the brahmachari’s book on the suksha vyayama in a government of india website.  This system of exercises is a complete set and was highly popularised by Brahmachari.

I have added the book in my site and you can download this rare book in the form of a word document. Click the following link: Download Dhirendra Brahmachari’s Book – Sukshma Vyayama

Controversy was the second name of Dhirendra Brahmachari. He was mentioned in the press during his hey days as the Rasputin of India. He was a charishmatic yoga teacher who befriended the Nehru-Gandhi Family. He was also the personal tutor of Indira Gandhi. It was rumored that he had an affair with Indira gandhi, which might be quite possible as he was a handsome healthy man. He had an open access to Indira Gandhi’s house when she was the prime minister of india and many of the sychophants around Indira were quite jealous of Brahmachari’s proximity to Indira Gandhi.

The Brahmachari also was the first person to teach yoga on Indian Television, Doordarshan. I remember as a kid watching a program of Dhirendra Brahmachari on DD. Ironically this yogi was running an arms factory in Jammu. He owned his own personal aircraft and was into major money laundering. Being a yogi is no gaurantee of virtue. He died in controversial circumstances in an aircrash in the early nineties. Just like his student Indira Gandhi and her sons he had an untimely death.

Kushwanth Singh has mentioned a lot of incidents of his encounter with dhirendra brahmachari. Kushwanth singh devotes an entire chapter in his book ‘God and Godmen of India’ for Dhirendra Brahmachari.  He also has some good things to say about Brahmachari. He mentions that Dhirendra brahmachari was one among the few people who in the 20 years of his association with him showed no signs of ageing in all those 20 years. He looked very young even at 70 and had no grey hair or wrinkles. Apart from that Kushwanth Singh also mentions about the Brahmachari’s trip to Russia. He was asked by the communist government in USSR (the then undivided russia)  to teach the astronauts yoga. There is a photograph of Brahmachari in Russia where he stands in the freezing cold and is just wearing a Dhoti and a thin cotton cloth to cover his upper part. Kushwanth Singh also mentions with glee (how he likes to catch the holy cows unarmed) how the brahmachari ate one whole pastry in Indira Gandhi’s house. He made some concessions to himself on that day to eat some un-yogic food. He also talks about his meetings with the yogi and the way the yogi used to check about the correct working of his solar plexus.

Brahmachari influenced many people to take up yoga and lot of those well meaning people were put off by the kind of controversial image he had. Osho Rajneesh mentions in one of his talks on his observations on the TV yoga programme of Brahmachari. Osho mentions with glee that Brahmachari was exhorting his yoga students especially a young teenage girl on the benefits of Mula Bandha (Anus lock or squeezing the muscles of the anus). The young girl was feeling a lot of discomfort on TV.

Yogi Bhajan another controversial and popular yogi claimed that he studied under Dhirendra Brahmachari. Indeed Brahmachari built a very strong propoganda for the practice of yoga. Many people benefitted from his yoga institute in Delhi and Jammu. However his popularity as a yoga teacher was overshadowed by his corrupt life. His yoga  institutes were taken over by the government after his demise.