...in a British double decker cargo ship to Katmandu… or to hitchhike, take the bus, go this way or that way, man - but it was on to Katmandu... That was the road, those were the days, ’68, ’69, the road, there was not yet Goa to hang out in, seasonal places to hang out in, not happening.

But we went there checked out India, you know touring... it was wild you know… I was always on my way to the East, but slowly… I was born in Hollywood, CA. And I went East to NY and then to London and Greece and then Kossovo all through Yugoslavia, hung out there - did a whole trip: Istanbul, Iran, Kabul, got married, went up to Katmandu

... and ended up in India in this Yoga 101 Ashram where Swami Gitananda was going to give you the whole works: he had astrologers, he had vedantic scholars come and give lectures, we did laya yoga, kriyas, man, we did levitation, we did everything that you could see in any yoga book, he had a big menu, we had a taste of this and a taste of that, it was really yoga 101.

... we did asanas, pranayamas, we did chakrabrakshalas, we did every clean out there was, we fasted and then after the fast we ate dosa (laughs) we ate the masala dosa, we did coffee enemas, we did every kind of thing, we did mainly a lot of the laya yoga kriyas, visualization, levitation…

Then the Swami organized an all India yoga conference. In a conference, in that part of the world you give an invitation and a ticket, first class rail ticket to the participants, because that is the way it’s done. BKS Iyengar got an invitation, Sri K Patthabhi Jois got an invitation... Some of them were adepts at certain procedures that were known in Southern India only locally - they could do a nauli kriya or some special aspect of a nauli kriya (etc)...

One man that was invited was a yoga acharya who had the ability to create soma... and he would do that in Nirvikalpa Samadhi while entombed - he was invited. (I think it was I and David who dug the hole with certain dimensions. And you can go to certain authorities and they will give you the dimensions for a proper burial to make sure no ants will come in, otherwise he will be eaten)... so, he was invited to the conference…

… BKS Iyengar doesn’t come… sends a paper to be read, that he wrote… formal. Nauli Kriya expert came, he really spun his belly around nicely, (David does it well, I do it well, because (when) Mulha Bandha comes, that’s what is really happening, that’s the foundation. We know that, brings up the sap).

The Yogi came to be buried and the hole was dug. From time to time you get some political problems in a place like that. The Police came out, would not allow us to put him in a hole to bury him at that time. It was OK, instead of that the Yogi’s wanted to demonstrate what Soma is and how you make Soma… And he declared that you have to do the Ketcheri Mudra, you have to catch that Soma by secreting it. The Soma was something from inside, not from a plant, not from outside, not from a mushroom but made through certain physical adaptations... but OK, he came did his thing beautiful guy… OK

… Pattabhi Jois he came with his wife and his daughter and his cousin and his nephew. (Guy - Vishvanath?) Yes, lean boy then, not lean now… But he was lean and really spiffy at one time so he came to demonstrate, Pattabhi Jois came to discuss, cousin came to translate, Ama came to take care of him. Saraswati was she there? I’m not sure.

A month or two before this conference, two young Indians from Mysore show up at the Ashram with Saris - wanting to sell saris and little sarongs, and one of their names is Basaraju and one of them is Manju, OK? And they hung out there, in their young 20’s and this one boy Manju demonstrates some Yoga postures that he had learned from his father… Oh Man! look at that…

...and I wanna’ show you something... so I saw these boys do this yoga work... so this one boy he had a card... and these were the two boys:

far out huh? so that is Manju Jois, huh?

So, I saw Manju and Basaraju and then a month or two later saw his father and then saw
Vishvanath demonstrate and I said: “OK, this I want to learn”.

Guy: Had you ever seen anything like that before?

No, you know that time before we met, I saw the Iyengar book in those early days and that was interesting and what we did was kind of nice, a little bit of a mix with some Sivananda stuff, very nice......but not like that...

I wanted to study (with Jois), there was no question, and I asked, and they said: “No, he does not want to take any foreign students at this time, and one of the reasons was that he had had that bad experience”

Guy: So he didn’t want to have you as a student?

No, he didn’t… but I would bring them everything that they needed: water and coffee and I’d go to town and there’s almonds and badami... and I had my beautiful daughter with me and my wife... and my daughter had her one year Hindu initiation with a great scholar in the Ashram in Pondicheri.... so she’s a little baby, you know, in the East they like babies…

Guy: So how did you persuade him?

Well, I didn’t keep on, but… I’m a nice guy (good vibes) and Amaji told him or asked him to give it a chance... so because of her....otherwise he wouldn’t take us - there was no need. In those days he was teaching at the Sanskrit Patashala, 50 Rupees a month... and he would have his chetty merchants who were his patrons, you know, and they’d come and he had a room where the locals would come (for yoga classes)...

So, he agreed to take me on as a student, and in a month or so I shifted on to Mysore. At first, I stayed upstairs there, where they reside still, undoubtedly, unless they got a new house.

No, he would teach some non-Brahmans, not too many… But in the later years it started to happen more... but you have to understand the culture ... you grow up in South India in a rural setting and you are a Brahmin… that’s conservatism and conservatism means fundamental, that’s it, it’s hard and long before you make a transformation from that... what do you call that? Evolution?

But he certainly got thrown into the forces of a movement of society, and I saw which way he was going, and I saw which way I was going, and they're opposite. But there was a meeting.... if you go to eternity, you get off the wheel...what can I say? huh?

But I've always been a drop out. And I have been dropping out all the time in my life, I dropped out here to Hawai’i, I drop out, they drop in, there is no place else, no more to drop out now, but then I think I dropped out now in other kinds of ways huh? We’ll see what happens there… (laughs) Change my diet… huh? got this far out diet now...

So yeah, I went to Mysore and I used to go to market for him, I’d get flowers, I’d be on my bicycle, I brought a ten speed bike that’s one thing I liked to have, I had the derailer there, nicely bike around, shop for them quite extensively, go to markets, get the Puja flowers, do all kinds of things - anything I could and go to class at five in the morning and umm, well maybe in the beginning I didn’t, I’d wait until everybody was done until about 7:30 in the morning then get a private lesson, get established and then graduated into the five o’clock period and I used to go five o’clock in the morning and five o’clock in the afternoon - two sessions. Later on between that I would go to the University or do this or that and I did that for a number of years…

So, I used to sit and after I practiced I sat and I watched and watched and most of everything that was being said I never understood inside the talk between students. I would talk with people like Kokoraju and Shanta, I would socialize with them and I would go to their villages and I would learn their culture and I probably know more about Iyengar community than anybody could… and even Krishnamacharya’s first students and teachers in Mysore, because my first wife she became a dancer there, a Bharatanatyam dancer, her dance master studied with Krishnamacharya’s father there, so I got an insight into that. But meanwhile, living with these great men of a very fine scholarship you know… a different orientation… but very sweet bhakti’s… so I got the whole infusion...

...and then what happened was David came to America and started to teach… he was teaching in California in one of those towns… Encinitas

David wrote a letter and asked if Guruji would want to come to America, to Encinitas, and Guruji wanted to go. Talked to me about it, would I sponsor him? So, I said I’d sponsor him no problem, you know, if I could do it, but here I am living in here - an expatriate, you know, I don’t know what it’s gonna’ take. In those days it’s a little hard to get visas, it might even be hard nowadays...

...on several occasions when I went back to America to show the Grandchildren my baby, I taught. I taught in Philadelphia in ’73 or something like that and then I went to California on my way back to India through Hawai’i and I taught in Venice California, started right on the beach, I had a whole group and that’s the way it goes. And one of my students was a lawyer so I wrote to him to be the sponsor for Guruji...

...his name was Friedman. Mr. Friedman sponsored him legally here. I went with Guruji on the train to Madras to the American Consulate there to get the paperwork done, took care of that, we got his visa no problem. The problem was his son Manju because Manju asked me if I would get him his visa as well…they said: “we ain’t gonna’ give you a visa - you ain’t gonna come back” - and he hardly ever came back...

And so, when Guruji went to Encinitas I stayed out in India and he went for a short trip. By that time I had been there a few years I was one of the men that would go and talk in Universities or give demonstrations, I would give demonstrations just like Sharat might do now or whatever…

Guy: You would tour with Guruji?

… with Guruji I would demonstrate the postures and he would talk…

Guy: Would he stand on you? (the way Krishnamacharya used to stand on Guruji when lecturing)

Well it depends, in class, sometimes he would do something like that. In conferences... it depends where it was... in a university kind of thing it was different, kind of more sophisticated than that! Because you see, it’s a class kind of thing, and even though Guruji is a vidvan or even maybe a double vidvan, there is still a class consciousness of some type inside Brahmanical orders, and at that time he’s just working his way up into some kind of position himself. He was recognized as a great man, as a scholar, as a pukka brahmin... but then when he would mix with the academic people - or with real rich people, you would feel a little bit aside. But he was cool as long as he was in his language...

the Kanada language which is so beautiful... its like a cross blend, it’s like Italian, it’s a mixture of the Sanskrit and the Dravidian, so nice!

... bellowing through the streets of Mysore, (you hear) this very beautiful Karnatic music… and I used to listen to the music - so many dozens of concerts with Guruji and Amaji… and you could sit and eat dosa and hear the music but if you know what the lyrics were... all the lyrics of all the songs that you hear - this is 18th century Karnatic rap man! Spiritual rap to the utmost! To Vedanta to Namarupa… that’s where it’s at, this is their heart, that’s Mysore... the music is spellbinding. You can bring back the dead to the life with this music... its his whole life!... he knows every one of those songs... That’s where the culture is - right there.

Guy: can you say a little bit about the character of the man himself, his teaching…

Well, I went in there and showed up and trusted him right away. I was ready to let him do it to me, to submit to that kind of practice. First, I lived in the house and I used to crawl upstairs and crawl back downstairs. I was laid up, disabled from time to time! Most of the time! My body was a hard body, I had been a bit of an athlete, played football...

… couldn’t do Baddha Konasana… couldn’t do anything! A little good form, I had some idea of form and ability to use my body, but uh? Not trained uh? So, I could see I was in for it, it was like having a drill instructor. And so I was a good student, I showed up, I was determined and submitted to it. And sometimes if you’re not a natural it’s good to go through the whole cycle of events, and I most certainly went through the whole cycle of events; and I know what can transform and get a new body if you want, if you persist.

so…I asked him, one day I could hardly move, I said: “Guruji can we just take it a little easy, you know, I got time, I’m not going back over there anymore, I'm well put up here and I’m digging everything… And do we have to do it so hard like this? (six days a week, double sessions, I did that for so long).
But you didn’t have to do it that way.

Many people in the class with me never did it that way, they were the merchants - because (of) different motivations, (they had a) whole other kind of criteria for the practice. The personalities are different, the events in their time are different and so that’s what I like about his room, you knew who came in there because they needed their regularity or they had too many dosas in their belly... and this person comes ‘cause they gotta’ come but they’re never gonna’ be jumping around but they can do something else. Maybe they are going to have to stand on their head for 30 minutes against the wall and all these different things depending…

But you know, Guruji is very beautiful in the way he could speak and bring about the flowers and gems of the Vedanta of Shankacharya, his Guru - his Advaida philosophy - he was very nimble, anecdotal, mainly in Kanada and Sanskrit.

So he was known as a very erudite, perceptive and humorous man - if you knew his language. Then I started picking up on this language and enjoying part of that. But what I’m saying is that in the room you could have - you can’t put the word serious on it - but you could have people that did the form explicitly and those that did it inexplicitly to the max but with different accents - and this was going on simultaneously in the room. And if you saw the room this morning that I taught in I kind of do it like that because that’s the way I saw it and that’s the way I learned it.

I’ve never seen a group class in my life yet. He started teaching group classes at the Ayurvedic College with Bassaraju where they did them in the batches, and you could do them in the batches, but that’s not the way I learned it and so I learned it to look at the body, and see these things and go like that (give an adjustment) and that’s what he had to do to me. Maybe that’s why I learned it that way too, but that’s how I saw they did it in the room.

Sometimes you get a prescription from the Doctor/Ayurvedic School and then you would work one on one. I used to work with him or watch him work on a Polio victim or Stroke victim. We would do that kind of work it was wonderful to do that kind of work like that. And so, I learned and watched and learned and watched and saw like that. And that’s what I saw. I never saw any kind of big classes and I always wondered how then you could see what was going on with not only the physical position of the body…

So he broke me in, he took me all the way, I was there and integrated there and studied Ashtanga Yoga.

Guy: How far do you think the physical practice can take you?

In most cases probably nowhere, without taking other steps…

Guy: Without the right intentions?

Without the right intentions, without the right diet, without Yama/Niyama it ain’t happenin’. Its just not happening...You gotta make sure that you desolve the ego, get rid of the ego. If practice becomes sensational and competitive it is completely anterior, it becomes tamasic. You gotta’ become sattvic in potential, in means and in intent or you don’t have a chance.

Guy: You don’t think that practice destroys the ego?

Practice often amplifies the ego depending where the intent comes...over and over again, not a little bit you know… the warnings are out there it’s in the songs, it’s all over the place…

Guy: Do you think Pattabhi Jois makes some kind of provision for helping people destroy that: the ego… when you were studying with him…

well yeah...what I’m talking about, everybody knows it. That’s common vedanta, everybody knows.

Guy: do you think the physical practice can lead to liberation?

… without real considerations… no, you might get a kundalini flash, an ah! ooh! or an ecstasy or euphoria or something like that… until you know you are not the body what are you going to do?
...so if you associate with the body when you are doing the practice…you got some travelling to do...

Guy: You don’t think that the obstacles that you encounter when you are practicing can produce a sort of sudden self-knowledge and understanding of yourself…

Yeah, you can say: "what am I doing with this compost? This carcass here, this heavy weight?
I wanna be light! I wanna’ rid myself of it!"

But, to rid yourself of it (and your gonna’ get rid of it)... you gotta’ cultivate that thing that doesn’t get rid of and that’s the Self. That’s what you cultivate. And as much as you cultivate the shell, the carcass, this compost pile... you shouldn’t get enamored with it at all! Because, if you do, you are really going to suffer, really very much, when it goes, and it’s gonna’ go. And the sooner that you can develop yourself, you don’t have to worry about it going anymore since you are more free.

And then there are postures and asanas - they take you out of the body and into the prana. You gotta go deep. You have to go to the next level. Forget Yama/Niyama - prana’s where it’s at. It has to be cultivated, purified and considered… that’s much more subtle, the practice has to lead you to Prana.

And if you died right now (and this is what they do in Mysore) they’ll tie you up into Padmasana real nice, you’ll sit good! So, I could put you in any posture right now if you were dead - you wouldn’t moan or groan, but I couldn’t give you the prana back, that wouldn’t be there. The body would look fine, the statue would look fine, but the prana is not there. Prana is really the next level. Everybody that has been doing this pratice for so many years if they are not into prana in every kind of consideration I think that they have some nice things to look forward to. (Laughs)

Guy: I’ve heard some people say that they see the practice as incorporating all 8 of the aspects of Ashtanga Yoga. For instance, if you have like a violent attitude and you exert that on your body, you experience suffering and pain and so you learn how to develop ahimsa (…) with the breathing you are working already with pranayama, with the drishti you are already introverting your senses and so on… The practice somehow contains the whole Ashtanga Yoga in itself. What do you think about that?

Not much! (Laughs) The fine art of disposition. You can develop any kind of argument nicely and debate or anything like that to justify positions and things like that but it wouldn’t stand in any council of vedantists. You can isolate and say that it would be something like that, but you would have to look... is that potentially there? And so forth... No big deal, it does a lot of things it’s going to develop… It can do everything.

If you wanna’ be a hatha yogi, then you are going to put it into that perspective. People use that word Hatha Yoga, it’s worse than Ashtanga Yoga - much worse, to use generically Ashtanga Yoga as a system when there are only a few postures even mentioned in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Just get the equanimity - they are talking equanimity again, they are talking equanimity from body pain and suffering like that.... if that can be accomplished.

The hatha yogis had different ideas on what to do: using the body as an instrument for emancipation, they wanted to have the pure crystal body, they wanted to use this to transmute the soul and use it as real vehicle. They are the ones that cut the little ligament under the tongue to catch this soma - which we saw take place in Pondichery with this man. He had to have extreme vows of Brahmacharya. They couldn’t go and take their intestines out and wash ‘em without continence and so forth. That Hatha Yoga, the co-mingling of the sun and the moon, the Shiva/Shakti is all it’s at… So they would not be prepared to do Hatha Yoga if they knew what Hatha Yoga was…

Guy: So, you think that this is some kind of fantasy. People think that if they practice what we call Ashtanga, that somehow they will achieve some kind of emancipation without paying great attention to the Yamas and Niyamas and having instruction in Pranayama is a pure fantasy…

That’s only in the beginning. You got a lot of other things to consider, even in Samadhi before you are going to be happening… you have so many stages there and things to consider - (Samadhi) with seed and without seed… you're going on up, you have to bring it on up, and when down you gotta bring it up. It’s serious work. One in twenty million, it’s not suited for everybody, this Yoga or any Yoga. Except we gotta watch it roll - everybody on that road, who took the motorcycle, the bus, walked or tramped across to the East some years ago… You know: Richard, Alpert? the whole works of them came back with the good stuff ... all the gems.

We went into their box and took the jewels. They are available to us, so many choices we get as dilletants in the West. I’m afraid they are still looking for Poncé de Leon you know, I’m afraid they are still looking for Poncé de Leon’s treasure! You know what that was? The Fountain of Youth, and so more for that aspect… then forget the youth! But you know, this practice has many other auxiliaries, it depends how it’s approached… don’t mistake me …

Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful, it’s a whole trip, but it’s included with all kinds of integrated things … but here we just want the gems, and let us have the gems, ‘cause somehow we deserve it. It’s the same reason we find ourselves in problems again and again in the world…

You gotta know the Gunas. How can you do anything and not know the Gunas? You gotta study something... he used to say, and I was the first one to hear it: “99% perspiration and 1% theory” but that 1% theory is a lot of theory and you have to know some theory - something…

But to have a practice that locks you into a format and a discipline that calls you to attention. That will teach you (that) if you get afflicted in the body, what means can you use to un afflict yourself? That’s all there. That’s precise and glorious if you can deal with that. It’s too late to dig the well when the fire is burning and the house is on fire. “Oh, man I gotta go do some yoga…!” No man! You learn it early and practice it and then when you are in trouble you can call on it, because then it’s appropriate.

That’s why, be established in it. It takes a few years of regular practice, you get to be intimate with your body, you know when it’s out of humors and you can evoke some relief for it.

Guy: Do you have any idea where the system came from originally, do you have a sense that this is something very ancient…

See, I became very friendly with a guy and he was my Sanskrit teacher for a while. I studied the Yoga sutras with him. You know Norman?

Guy: Norman Sjoman? (author of "The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace")

Yeah.

Guy: Not personally, I’ve met him briefly. I’ve read his book.

My very good friend. Norman was one of the first early students of BKS Iyengar. When he took his Sanskrit PhD from Puna all those years back he was being beaten by Iyengar heavy duty! (Laughs)
Broke ribs there doing back bends... so I got to hear all his stories…Norman came to Mysore.
Norman is a brilliant man. He has to be the most brilliant “Sanskritist” in the world today - outside of India. I would lay a bet on that. The court astrologer even wanted him to be his student over there at Mysore palace, that’s why he got in and got those photos. He's brilliant. He has a few flaws but other than that! (Laughs!)

Guy: He didn’t study with Guruji did he?

No, he used to give him a hard time…but didn't study with him. The man on the cover of that book, Dattatreya, he was Norman's student and when Norman had to go away, I taught him Pattabhi Jois style.
...so he would have his theories and I would listen, and Norman always wanted the document (Yoga Korunta), to see it, because he was the one who would be able to (verify it)...

Yeah, so you asked me that question… First, of all: so what!

This whole practice is to go beyond authority and to experience... no you can’t trace it back in my opinion to some thousand year old document... and you have to know the nature of Krishnamacharya and how he first presented it... not too hard to investigate. But if somebody is investigating something like that, I would have to know why (because something is really not reaching out spiritually). Unless it’s for an Academic approach that somebody like Norman tried to present - it’s mute… I won’t even discuss it too much… It turned out to be a nice system.

And.. no, I don’t know, it’s mute in terms of it’s origin but it’s development, it can be isolated, it can be… mainly practiced and experienced is where it’s at... so you enjoy it, you watch your trip and see how you develop in that trip, you got to continue, forget Yama/Niyama, you gotta do everything eventually…