ORIGIN
My grandfather Mr. Alekh Prasad Das (1902 – 2000) was a self-realised master, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and an award winning writer. I am his eldest grandchild and had the good fortune of studying under his tutelage for three years in a primary school in the village of Samia, where he lived in semi-retirement. He taught me Kaya Yoga when I was only a little boy. He passed away at the age of ninety-eight, and as a cricket loving Indian, I was greatly disappointed because he chose to declare his innings, instead of going on to score a well-deserved century. His innings, however, was graceful and chanceless, for he never had an illness; but came to an unfortunate end when he slipped and fell over a wet concrete floor and broke his hip. His children, well educated, well established professors and doctors, instead of giving him a proper rehabilitation, gave him complete bed rest. At that age, no wonder, his skeletal system ossified, making him stiff and immobile. Consequently, he became incapable of performing his daily bodily needs. Since his one and only wife of seventy years had passed away a few years earlier, he chose to join her in the other world, instead of becoming a burden on his children on this earth. One forenoon he called for my father, who is his eldest son, and daughter-in-law, my mother, and blessed them and bid them goodbye. Then he had a modest lunch and a siesta. He never opened his eyes again.
My grandfather, a practitioner and teacher of Kaya Yoga, had simplified and perpetuated this holistic system founded by his forebear, the Fifteenth century poet, philosopher and great yoga master of Orissa, Achyutananda Das (circa 1480 – 1550). Achyutananda was an accomplished yogi, who is believed to have breathed his last in a meditative padmaasana posture while levitating eight inches above the floor. My grandfather in his autobiography, Jibanara Daka, that received the Orissa Academy of Literature Award, has recorded this astounding fact. I am, however, not certain that my forefather Achyutananda, was the founder of Kaya Yoga, and it is possible that he inherited Kaya Yoga from his forefathers or was even initiated by some anonymous guru.
I have been practising Kaya Yoga for over forty years and in the last ten years I have taught this holistic system to students from over forty countries. The present era of globalisation requires the widening of the scope of Kaya Yoga through worldwide teaching and preaching to confer the benefits to the entire humanity.
Excerpts from Kaya Yoga: Road to happiness, health and longevity;
©Nachiketa Das; ISBN 9780980322309; 1st ed. 2007; School of Kaya Yoga.
