In Memory of Guruji Sharath Jois: the sudden passage and what he meant for us [EN]

​Srī Guruji Sharath R. Jois I thank you and salute you. 🙏🏼🪔
 
Sharathji has passed away last Monday 11/11, during a hike in the forest with a group of his dedicated students around the campus of the University of Virginia USA. It was sudden.
 
How hard it is for us all to be writing and/ or reading this. There is a deep involvement of all of us with Sharathji as the Paramaguru of the Ashtanga Yoga tradition. Was he not only the center column of all traditional Ashtanga Yoga lineage, but more than that he was taken in to peoples lives as a mentor, a faithful supporter, as a genuine loyal to truth and practicality, a nature lover, a friend, as a remover darkness, as torch bearer – Guru. He was before all this a loving father and husband, and he would glow instantly whenever his family would enter the room.

​I’ve been studying directly with Sharathji since 2015, at the early stages of my involvement with yoga and Ashtanga practice. From that point onwards I felt a strong connection with Sharathji, to my surprise, it was and is deep. I described my first realization of him has my Guru in a blogpost named ‘Guruji: from skeptic to devotee’ you can find in my website, in late 2016. From that point onwards  every year I found a way to connect with him in person. During my practice the voice of support within me is still his, throughout the years never softened and it never will. 
 
Wether on a lengthy trip to Mysore, or on the WS I joined in twice in London and one time in Ubud, or wether online during Covid pandemic. His presence mattered, to bring me back to my humble center, to take me deeper or ‘hold my horses’.
 
What maked Sharathji special was his ability to be equanimous, gracefully shifting from messing humorously with you to being assertive and demanding with you that makes your spine immediately straight and eyes focused.  He knew ‘sthira sukha āsanam’ not just applied to āsana practice but to life. Living life is a flow between conducting it and enjoying it. That is why interactions off the mat were really important for the journey of long months studying with him. The wait in the mysore room. ‘One more!’ , could mean you or not, but how you manage your emotional response to that calling was up to you.
 
This next February 2025 it was going to make 10 years since I first met Sharathji. So 10 years ago I already had my acceptance email from the shala to join KPJAYI, and I already had tickets for my first trip to India, and I was back to practice frequently after a wild summer break. I was 22 years old.
In almost 10 years, Sharathji was present in my life as the solid rock that holds my commitment to Ashtanga practice unfailingly. It did accompanied me through different stages of my life. 
 
My first season of practice in Mysore with Sharathji it helped me turn from a rebel anti-capitalist kind of a hippie into the path of Dharma (righteousness). I ended up more focused on making myself better than in destroying - from my lifestyle or exposing myself to - greedy interest, not that I wouldn’t just that the focus wasn’t there anymore.
 
In that first season besides not knowing much more than half primary series, I was losing everything: I lost my wallet in Gokulam streets, with my national ID and Credit Card in it, which eventually came into Sharathjis’ hands and which he returned it to me during conference with a small dose of mocking; and I lost, twice I think, my Shala Card. After these incidents, in the waiting room for the Mysore class, almost everyday he would come over and ask “where’s your card?”, “Haven’t lost your card?”, and laugh and walk away. He would invent jokes for and about everyone waiting for class. A way lighten up tension of those waiting to come in to practice. But it was also to confirm that you were assigned to that batch, and more importantly, I believe, it would serve as a personality test. To learn you and how approach you. At that point I knew I had to adapt myself, had already strings tied to my Shala Card so it wouldn’t fall off, and rearranged how to carry my wallet. I was just too comfortable in the shala routine and had to get my shit together, listen to the call to get ready and assume responsibility for my life. Years later I still question if I have my s#%t together… I hope not to disappoint you Sharathji. 
 
Fast forward years later I return already 30, married with Vanessa, also a committed Ashtangi, and our new-born baby Aria just 4 months old to stay for 3 months. We were blessed to connect with the lineage has a family. Myself to be there grown up (not that I felt it next to him) as a father and as a committed practitioner meant a lot for me. It meant a lot for both of us, Vanessa and me. In fact, our first big date in the same month, was a huge step in our relationship, we met up in London to go for Sharathji WS July 2019. That little trip was a bond in between us and Sharath was there binding us. I decided almost last minute to join Vanessa in London for the WS and I will never regret it. Later we travel to Mysore with our kids. The enormous respect Sharathji has for parents in the sadhana is amazing. He knows that there are things bigger than us, bigger than our little sadhana journey and being a father or mother is one of them, he knew it is the most natural expression of love. He would daily make an extra effort to accommodate our new-born with a rug for us to lie her down as we waited to go practice. The gesture was just full hearted. 
 
Sharathji gave a lot of him to all of us. He would want us to feel safe so we would not rush and fully open up to our potential. ‘Why you rushing? your baby is safe outside! …’ he said and giggled, during a Led Intermediate, as I was rushing the vinyasa into Mayurāsana. 
 
This February 2025 we were returning to Mysore (maybe we still are), with our two children. Taking our new-born Ravi, to live a similar trip as Aria traveling in his first few months to Mysore, India. Meet Sharathji and feel the Ashtanga community at the source.
 
It’s hard to recognize that Sharathji his no longer here for us to show up there, thank him and show him - look the person I became, look the yogi you help me became, validate me and give me your dear blessings! This sort of ego validation was an underlying motive to go back to see him. But Sharathji would hardly engage in any validation of that sort. Sharathji was very wise on how to not boost our egos and not to be the cause of inflated egos. He would probably be more prone to gracefully disinflate our ego, as that is more in line with a yogis path. And we all knew that, at least those who understood it so. Sometimes this was brutal for some people. We knew that whatever great achievement we had from a previous season with him to the next one, was not going to be received with all ‘hurrays and fireworks’, but maybe with ‘mere’ pure content, and this is also why we would return, perhaps subconsciously, as a form of one-to-one emotional recalibration. This was an incredible skill of his, a natural occurrence perhaps, a raw interchange, plainly putting us owning us. Giving us what was already ours, making us realize what what we carry with us, to ultimately realize to we are.
 
Sharathji would want us to own our validation. To not need a constant external approval. Maybe Gurujis last lesson to us is that of spiritual sovereignty. Guruji has left his body, trusted us and left us the hard task of self-accountability and self-approval within the Ashtanga Yoga journey. Needless to say Guruji has left many capable guides to assist us on that journey along the Way.
 
Guruji has also left us with divine grace, pain free in the midst of dormant trees in the woods, as if diffusing himself within the deep core of earth’s natural kingdom. So that in from now on one to seek him has to connect with the divinity of nature. Can’t imagine how it would be to feel those trees in those woods when they restart blooming, after their long exhale, in the coming spring. And nature during his life was his big love, the natural world and its mystic power.  Wishing us all to truly and deeply connect with nature. Connecting raw with nature can be through our bodies, through other beings or in raw natural environments (micro to macro). Perhaps the biggest test of Sharathji to us individually and as a community is from here onwards.
 
Besides all the impact as guru and teacher I mentioned above, and much before that even, Sharathji was a loving father and husband. My thoughts and prayers go to Sharathjis family in lovefull support first, and that all who have Sharathji in their hearts center may we all find sense and comfort somehow.
 
Love you Sharathji (1971 - 2024)
 
 Sérgio Ramos
17.11.2024