A Master in Our Midst - The life and teachings of Victor (Vyasa) Landa
“I believe that my most precious possession is life.” This is the opening line of a prayer said daily at the School of Life in Bethesda, MD founded by Victor (Vyasa) Landa. “Peace is the most desirable condition for man as an entity and for the world as a whole. It is very difficult to achieve global peace, no matter how many treaties or covenants are signed, especially if those who are supposed to abide by them or sign them do not have peace themselves. “ This statement has been on the brochure of Shanti Yoga Ashram since it first began in the 1980’s.
Life, peace, love, purification, the spiritual world, surrender to God, are among the favorite topics expounded by Vyasa not only during his life on this plane, but now as his presence and the authentic yoga teaching lives on in the community he led as well as in the hearts of all those whose lives he touched. Since he left his body one year ago, messages and visitors have been streaming in and out of the Ashram with teachings and stories spanning his 35 years as a yoga teacher and spiritual leader in the Washington D.C. area. This article shares some of the principle concepts of yoga tradition that he upheld, practiced and taught to pay tribute to one of the great and true masters that lived in our midst during this time of great transition in the world.
After sustaining a successful career in his native Peru, Victor Landa came to the USA to visit his spiritual teacher, affectionately known as Maestro, in the early 1980’s and stayed, thus embarking on a full-time path of living and spreading the spiritual teachings. He made his way to Washington DC and began teaching Hatha Yoga classes at a time that yoga was little known and anything beyond asana and pranayama was ripe for suspicion of cultish practices. Vyasa settled in Bethesda after being asked to leave the first 2 houses he occupied as a yoga teacher, by the landlords concerned about worried neighbors. Approached by one of those neighbors one day, Vyasa offered a friendly talk and the neighbor slapped a bible on the table between them saying, OK, now we can talk. At the same time, Vyasa was asked by fledgling yoga teachers in the area how he managed to maintain a yoga center full-time; his life example was the answer – work hard, live frugally, serve others, trust in God. He held daily 6:00 a.m. yoga and meditation, went out to teach 6 classes per day, had a home-based bodywork practice and hosted guests from India and elsewhere.
In 1992 the School of Life was created to foster ethical and healthy lifestyles to prepare students physically, mentally and spiritually to realize the Spirit that is within and in the world. For active members, it was a support community to make spiritual development the most important part of their lives. Yoga teaches that our true nature is pure consciousness, a divine spark that all life shares. This means faith in the value of every person and every sentient being. Putting this into practice means many things such as giving meaningful work to all rather than rejecting one who doesn’t fit into the picture. It means respect for the person and for harmony in relationship over the desired result of the project at hand. Vyasa would set things up so as to face one’s anger and shortcomings to be able to see them -- and people loved him anyway! In fact they love him for it because he saw you as you were, without judgement and with unconditional love, the mark of a true master. He exemplified interrupting one’s own work to attend to another’s needs, rather than interrupting a conversation due to impatience or having something else to do. He never ever complained even in times of serious personal hardship. The teacher exemplified the high yoga practice of putting ego and desire in its rightful place and taught his students the dictum: change no circumstances in my life, change me.
One of the basic principles of yoga is proper diet and early on a garden was begun, expanding to a mini farm on a student’s land, then to taking on a service of offering spiritually infused food (from Biodynamic agriculture) to the community. An article Victor wrote in the early 1990’s describes how what one brings into one’s body is taken up by the cells that are then affected not only by the material qualities of the food but the energy of the plant or animal or persons who handle it from farm to table. Just as with food, the mental impressions one is exposed to – what one reads, hears, sees - must be digested as well. With this knowledge, right living takes on new dimensions including Hatha yoga practice that serves to work with all systems of the body including the nervous and endocrine system to help process all the things one exposes oneself to in daily life. For this reason, Vyasa’s main teaching concerning Hatha yoga was that the regular practice of a basic and balanced routine is most important. Therefore, careful restraint of what one brings in and purification practices keep oneself tuned for the inner work.
The quality of food being key to the teaching and life of a yogi, programs were developed to provide a partnership between farmers and consumers (CSA), to teach organic square meter gardening to impoverished women and others, and to provide healthy home-cooked food for the homeless i.e. programs to feed the haves and the have nots. Vyasa firmly believed that no one on earth need go hungry. While hunger is a complicated problem of the world as we know it, it is simple fact that mother earth provides abundance of what is needed for all. Looking at all the fruit on a tree and all the seeds in a single fruit tells of the nature of creation: bounty, growth, expansion. With the right intention and right use of intelligence, human beings can fulfill the role of stewards of the earth and her inhabitants.
This intention - to give and to serve - is love in its greatest expression. Love was another of Victor’s favorite topics. A Hindu book describes 5 kinds of love: parent/child, friendship, teacher/student, master/servant, romantic. Love is so much more than we see in the movies! Given that the word Yoga means to join and unity, the basic yoga practices of yamas and niyamas (ethical principles on how to relate to others, and duties or observances) are about putting into action love for life, for creation, for oneself. For the first yama, ahimsa (non-violence), Vyasa prescribed higher and higher practices beyond not physically harming another to speaking only kind words, to compassion with others’ weaknesses, to not even having a negative thought. Practices of love embrace forgiveness, not offending, not taking offense, trust, mercy, and gratitude; all contributing to harmony, another of his most often spoken of topics. He said: What is important is to try to develop love, first for those who are around us, then to extend it, little by little, to all people. That’s the best work we can do for the world and to serve God. Our main responsibility is to generate love. When you live a spiritual life, especially in surrendering to God’s will, and see things with this attitude, life becomes a beautiful experience. Even though there may be many challenges, they lose their importance when you are in such a state of grace from maintaining your mind on these things. Bring to the world the omnipresent love of God, the love that you receive, pass it on. Pass it on to the world. It is so much needed. Love unconditionally, love intensely, feel that love; work on feeling that love, make it real – make it have expression in the world. He gave a practice: when you are alone, repeat to yourself the word “love” trying to make it a reality within you. You will receive that grace, that presence, that state of love without any image or attachment surrounding it. Suddenly you find yourself loving everything!
Vyasa spoke of God. He was never reticent to speak out on what needed to be said -- always with great respect, an open mind and a willingness for healthy debate. In the introduction of his Shanti Marga (Road to Peace) course he said: “We are going to base our work on a belief system which will be a temporary tool; i.e. it will give us a frame of reference. We don’t have to ascribe to it heart and soul since after the course is finished you can drop it if you prefer and just benefit from the experience it has provided and whatever you have learned.” He goes on to talk about accepting that there is a creator, a giver of life who has given rise to the whole universe, the concept of duality, that in our pure state we share the same qualities of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, that our pure state is enveloped by a physical body, that matter is the farthest vibrational rate from the creator and our efforts should be directed to raise our level of vibration to be part of the creator – then harmony is attained, we become one, and our journey is over. He encouraged his students, but never insisted, to ascribe to an anthropomorphic image of God, Divine Father or Divine Mother as this is more accessible to the human mind and emotions. He honored all religions as teachings and traditions for the culture and people they serve and to this day, the School of Life members recite interfaith prayers. Studying the holy books of various religions was a wonderful experience of seeing how the founders and mystics brought forth one and the same truths; and this Perennial Truth is part and parcel of the Vedas - the oldest scriptures of Hinduism and considered to have not come from man.
Vyasa presented as the 4 pillars of yoga: viveka, vairyaga, the law of karma and reincarnation. Viveka translates as discrimination but not in the ordinary sense of the word, rather discriminating between the real (spiritual) world and the unreal (material) world. Vairyaga is dispassion or detachment, not suppression or repulsion but to rise above the instinctual nature (of the lower 3 chakras) to selfless, unconditional, universal love and unity of all. The law of karma was always emphasized as a teaching law not a punishing law going hand in hand with reincarnation. The School of Life was important, he said, because we are not taught in regular school about returning to the spiritual world and having to work at our evolution. Without this logical explanation of karma and reincarnation, it is very difficult to see why we must face the things we do in life, to improve ourselves and to evolve. In the Ashrams and Gurukulams of India, these things are traditionally taught.
On this note, purification was another often spoken of topic referring to removing the different elements that have been attached to us in the process of evolution. Bad habits, wrong food, wrong thinking, improper actions, all the heavy things that tie us down. We need to be willing, by good actions, by right living, to remove the ballast. He said it can take years of inner work before discipline is really developed and mental and emotional problems are worked through, but one should not be discouraged. Instead be glad you are working on it! Meditate, make resolutions, do your sadhana (spiritual practice), get up again when you fall. Humility is a key practice. It is key to attain harmony within oneself and with others and the world. And yes, another of Vyasa’s favorite topics which he modeled daily with his own life.
Victor Landa’s life, work and words were as practical as they were profound. Live for an ideal. Meditate and pray. Chew food 50 times. Go to bed early (9:30). Practice silence. See God in all. To uplift and unify the planet in these challenging times, he said purify your thoughts and feelings to clean the psychic environment that affects the whole planet -- this is the power of thought.
Though sacrifice is defined as a loss or offering for a higher purpose, Vyasa always said sacrifice means to make sacred. On the yoga path, the highest of the 5 niyamas is Ishwara Pranidhana, surrender to God – a full sacrifice of oneself. Then comes gratitude and joy, he said, knowing and experiencing that there is an order in the universe, that everything happens for the better; then, worry, wanting to control, suffering, etc. dissolve and the most precious possession life is experienced in all its fullness.
While saints in the west are often viewed as flawless superhumans, in the east, a saint is one who wholly dedicates his or herself and life to God, as Vyasa did. It does matter how we live our lives, treat our family, earn our money, what we eat, what we say, how we handle our successes and our failures. Vyasa showed the way.
The most frequent thing said by those who came to pay respects after Victor’s transition was: “He changed my life”. Those who knew and lived with Victor Landa know there was a master in their midst, and by all accounts he still is. May he continue the precious possession of life on the other side with even greater expansion of love, service, and devotion to God.
With much love and gratitude to Guruji for sharing his enlightened mind, compassionate heart, shining soul and his life with us, and to Maestro Oscar Basurto his beloved Guru.
By Lakshmi Landa, Pathways magazine, Winter 2019