Rest in Peace!
Rolf Naujokat was one of my dearest friends from my period of practicing in Lakshmi Puram. We joined the shala at the same time but Rolf was already a very advanced practitioner who had been living in India for a couple of decades. We spent many happy hours practicing, cooking, eating and hanging out in those early days.
A really beautiful soul, full of devotion and generosity - if there are any saints in the Ashtanga tradition, Rolf is surely one of them. I am sharing this interview I did with Rolf in Goa in 2007. Here is the audio and below is a transcription:
GUY: So Rolf can you tell me the story of how you came to India?
ROLF: Ah, to India ok. It was in ’73 or ’74, and I came actually on that hippie road – Istanbul, Afghanistan, and then Pakistan, India not knowing much about yoga but more into that hippie trip. After India I came to a place in Hyderbrad which changed the approach in life for me. I got in touch with what is called “yoga” and it went deeper and deeper. So there was it that I met my first guru, this Babaji brought me on the path of yoga. And there everything started for me. It was ’73, ’74 and then in ’75 I had established already a daily practice, not Ashtanga but Hatha yoga in a traditional way with Pranayama and a lot of kriya and sitting practice. so I really had my little sadhana with days of fasting and different kinds of things in the way of yoga and that stayed with me until now.
The style has changed over the years. And then I had a time when I was practicing Iyengar yoga for seven years and then I changed into Ashtanga. I met Ashtanga in '80 to '83 where I lived with Danny Paradise and Cliff Barber who were practicing Ashtanga Yoga and I was doing Iyengar then. And they turned me on to Ashtanga and ..... the four sequences. So I practiced ... not regularly. And I was still doing Iyengar and teaching Iyengar. It was old style Iyengar ; there were less props, still a lot of jumpings. It was very pleasant.
But Ashtanga took slowly more and more over and I kept practicing and teaching the other way, which was fine because I see yoga as a oneness and I don't see so many differences in different systems. It's more about the nature of people and how it fits to them. And then finally in the beginning of the '90s I came to Guruji. And then when I met Guruji it was very clear. There was no question - I just saw him and I was like "yeah, that's my teacher." There it carries on; there is Guru shakti. Shakti manifest in this man. Then I stayed and came every year at least one time a year mostly between three and six months. Sometimes I came two times a year; depending on how my financial situation was. It was easy because I lived in Goa and it was only fifteen hours bus ride from Mysore.
That's why I was able to spend quite some time there but it was mainly all in the small shala (in Lakshmi puram). And in the beginning when I came there were maybe eight people (practicing) in the shala (at a time). Then the next year twelve and then there were two shifts of twelve people and that was for a long time like that. And after come more and more people. This time in the small shala was very important for me. The attention from Guruji was just full on. He was always there with us. There was no moment when he wasn't with us, you knew he was adjusting always some one of us. And Sharath started also to teach and so there were two of them. Often we were trying not to get adjusted so they were always there with our practice. They knew our practice and it was a connection which was not so much based in words and vocalisation but more in feeling the body - how Guruji touches us one day and then the next day: you see that every opening he achieves in a different way and he adjusts us to bring us to another level depending on what the asana was and where we were in the practice. And Sharath just grew up in the grace of Guruji to become a teacher. And over the years he developed amazingly until he's now taking over the whole thing. But these times for me were the precious times. The big shala is amazing but it's just different. But I feel I received most of the blessings there. It was a bit of family with Guruji and Amma making coffee and every student know each other. In the afternoon we cooked together. It was a very very graceful and special time. And Guruji just become a channel of guru shakti which manifested through him. And the more I was ready to receive, the more I was able to receive. That was my arrival and time in Mysore in short words.
GUY: Can you say something about Guruji, his personality, how he teaches, what his energy is like and so on, how he treated you personally ?
ROLF: He treated me in a way that I felt I needed it, especially that ... I had a little bit or quite a bit of an ego when I came there. In some way he broke it down. He was always shouting at me in the practice, always shouting, always correcting. But it was not in a mean way, in a way it was to eliminate something which was not necessary. And after he was very friendly, loving and receptive. We would meet in the market and he was buying fruit or vegetables and he was very sweet. But during the teaching he was very firm and straight forward, there was no bull shit. I feel his teaching in those days were very personal. When I saw how he adjusted or he taught a pose or some part of the sequence to some people and how he taught it to other people, even if they were learning the same asana and the same sequence, it was taught so that the person could understand it the way they were able to learn it. So I felt it was very personal the teaching in those days even if it was eight or twelve people in the room. And you were just feeling that both Sharath and Guruji know your practice and know where to help, where to adjust and where not to adjust. Whaht I really loved in the beginning, it was just eight of us and I had the first shift. Later when there were more shifts I was allowed to sit maybe the next two shifts and see how he and Sharath were adjusting. And this was a big big learning process for me and many of those things I received there I use now when I'm teaching or when I have students. Yeah, it was a big learning process.
GUY: Can you describe a little bit what it is that Guruji teaches?
ROLF: The asana aspect you know: it is a system that is still practiced now more or less the same. But it matters how it is brought over individually to people. And it brought me to a point where I got confronted by my blockages or discomfort in myself or what you can call very simply 'ego.' And to a point where you can't let go anymore without anger or attachment until it just falls off; it's not a pulling off something it just falls off. And it was how Guruji is and was teaching and I think other students experience it very different.
I felt him very very close to my process of call it 'waking up' or something like that. And also somehow when I think back to that moment there on the (yoga) mat, and especially when I stayed focused on my breath again and again how it concentrated the mind. It was like bringing me into the here and now on that mat in that moment of sweating, in that moment of being in his arms adjusting and feeling a kind of love or whatever you call it coming over from him. It is very subtle, difficult to put into words somehow making it less, toning it down.
Individually, he is something very special. And I often felt it was like a kind of shakti that comes through him using his body and mind, Sri Pattabhi Jois was a tool, which was so ripe and ready that allowed his shakti to pass through him and give it to other people, bringing them to their own practice. I think what Guruji wants to do in his teaching is to bring us to our own practice not to just depend on a certain school or teacher. This is my idea and how I received it. That's why I went there for three or six months of practice and then I came back here to Goa, teach a bit and keep up my practice. When I was ready next year I went back. So in this case, I feel he is giving that, brining you into your own practice and that's what the whole thing is about.
And the yoga is about remembering that we are already one with the divinity and that we've never left it. Only the illusion of the mind makes us different, pulls us into this aspect of dualism. I feel all the teachers I had taught me that and during the time when I came to Guruji it was just a continuation of this guru shakti manifesting through him in this way. I like to put it this way because I know no other words to use it or explain it. And the thing is, in a certain moment when we are getting also older you feel that it is much more subtle: its not just about putting your legs behind the head or grabbing your ankles, what happens with the practice of the system is a bit beyond the asana aspect. The asana and the breathing system is a tool to bring you or us to that point of a non-dualistic view of god not just by reading about it in books but by experiencing it inside. Also, again and again the aspect of letting go - because the older you get you can't just throw yourself into kapotasana. You need a few breaths to go in and open, to be in that process of doing. Somewhere you realize the message that yoga is much more than asana and I think that it what Guruji wants to teach us, and he's an example of it.
GUY: Guruji always talks about the starting point of Ashtanga yoga as being the asana practice, the third limb of Ashtanga Yoga. Why do you think that is the case?
ROLF: I think by doing all the asana and sweating a lot, it’s very simple, a lot of toxins and blockages are getting removed from the body and then this vehicle, this physical body-mind system feels good and prana, energy can flow freely. Also the fluctuations of the mind become quiet, more quiet more quiet and at a certain moment there is a point of stillness in you, which is not like a state of static stillness, but a moving stillness which is maybe what you feel sometimes makes you breathe. And it goes in this direction and you experience it. So in one way the asana is the first step and I agree with it and it's good. For some people it takes longer and some people shorter, for some people very long.
GUY: How important is the householder lifestyle for Guruji?
ROLF: Maybe it's just to show it's possible to lead a yogic life even as a householder. Maybe there is not so much meaning behind it but just to see it is possible to do it. That it is not such a step into the extreme ascetic life.
GUY: Do you see much difference, I mean you've spent a lot of time in north India with more of a saddhu culture and then seeing in the south India this more Brahminical and Advaita approach. Do you see you much difference in the two as far as yoga practice goes?
ROLF: I think first the much of the saddhus especially the Shiva saddhus have much a totally a Advaita approach. They have a total Advaita or non-dualistic approach. And many of them have been Brahmins or were born in high caste and they just throw it away. They are caste in the system and the leave it beyond. And many of them do practice asana and pranayama maybe not Ashtanga system but Ashtanga yoga in a way how it was described in Patanjali. So I don't see so much difference. I think the lineage from Krisnamacharya and what he comes from okay, it's mostly householders but that is just a part of it, you know. To again, to show that it is possible to lead a yogic life in a way of let's call it self-realization as a householder or as an ascetic in the end it doesn't matter. When this point of realization has happened then the frame that it is whether it is a household system or a Baba in the jungle it doesn't matter. The way the realization has happened it is just happened then there is no matter of difference; there is no dualism anymore.
GUY: Do you think it’s more challenging to be a householder?
ROLF: Maybe it’s according to your samskaras. For some people it’s just their way to be a householder. That’s how it is. It’s not that worse than somebody who sits by the river alone or lives in an ashram. These are only outer circumstances. When they are standing next to each other for example on the mat it doesn’t matter if it is a householder from New York or a hippie from England; on the mat they sweat the same and go through the same process and that’s what happens inside, the process. It may appear different but at the end to realize that in the oneness of truth there it is the same. This is how I feel about it, it doesn’t have to be necessarily true. That’s just my approach to it. So I don’t like to see a difference and say one is more difficult than the other. It’s according to our samskaras what we are into here.
GUY: How do you the see relationship between what Guruji teaches and what he calls the Ashtanga Yoga and the Patanjali Yoga and the Yoga Sutras?
ROLF: I think often in the system that Guruji teaches people forget the other parts and think only of the poses. They often forget that actually this aspect of ahimsa, should be done in my own practice for me: to have a little respect, that I don’t need to reach a pose today, just give my body the time to grow into it and approach it with that aspect of ahimsa with love with gentleness to myself in. Often it is getting forgotten and then at this point, often, people get injured or injure themselves and they say, “Oh it’s Ashtanga yoga;” it’s not, it’s mostly them where they bring all their baggage from their daily life onto the mat and want to do the things in the same way that they do their daily life, in their jobs to approach, to reach, to be goal oriented. I think what Guruji is teaching Ashtanga is no different than what Patanjali is teaching. I think there is no difference. It’s just what people make out of it; a big misunderstanding and we can all see that.
GUY: How do you think we came to make such a mistake?
ROLF: Conditioning from our daily life in the past. And you see often after some years people change and change their approach. Maybe they have to hurt themselves in that process, that sometimes happens - often it happens! But it’s not necessary because often Guruji tried to stop them or make it a bit playful to take the serious aspect out of it. Playful means not stupid and lazy, no. It means more like with a bit of joy in it, you know and he tries to bring that, I remember, with the laughter. And laughing maybe people fall out of the pose and do not take it so seriously. But on the other hand when people get on the mat (to practice) they are already angry and if the neighbour accidentally puts their feet on their mat, you know…
So I think it’s the people who bring all their baggage and it’s also what Guruji had to deal with. And in this way he was very good at illuminating that (for the students) especially when he knows the people coming (who come back year after year). I remember when we came back and we met again and again, the same people, it was like one crew and he always asks “What news?” Maybe he sometimes mixed up the names but or he pronounced them wrong but he knows who is who and that was a very special thing. Again this point of personally working with people in a system of Ashtanga where everybody does more or less the same: primary, intermediate, or advanced series. So the whole practice system is a little like a bit of tool to wake up; it can be, the chance is there.
GUY: What is the other option, if you don’t wake up?
ROLF: Um, that you drop it sooner or later.
GUY: How do you see Guruji bringing in the teaching of Shankaracharya and the Advaita Teaching. Generally speaking we think of Patanjali yoga as a more dualistic approach.
ROLF: Is it really a dualistic approach or is it only seeing the dualistic illusion and letting it go? Making ourselves realize and see the dualism as an illusion to make us ready for seeing the non-dualistic aspect of God or divinity. But maybe also it’s like again different people reach different realization or different people receive Guruji’s teaching in different ways. And I can eat only so much as I can digest. When I try to eat more I will get sick or I have vomit. So if I can eat a little and I can digest, I receive more than when I try to get it all. And the message maybe is quite big and it maybe takes some time (to understand) and that’s maybe why Guruji likes for people to come for a long time and more regularly for him to see. And you see the people changing and also their approach to what yoga is is changing, but as I said before, maybe that is the way: to bring the Patanjali teaching and Shankaracharya teaching, the non-dualistic aspect through the practice.
GUY: Guruji always says 99% practice 1% theory. What do you understand is the theory part?
ROLF: I think that’s it. I think 99% practice and 1% theory; that’s perfect. It’s also not only 99% (asana) practice, it’s also in everything. Because theory, there’s so much theory going around in the world. There’s so much theory on many aspects of life and so much less practice. So I think a little bit more practice is much better than all the theory. I think that somebody who sits every day maybe half hour just half hour in silence or does japa kriya for half hour or a half hour on his mat (practicing asanas) lives during this half hour or one hour this way of (yogic) life. It is better than reading hundreds of books and having all this theoretical knowledge in the head but where nothing manifests. I know people that know a lot of the scriptures. They know a lot of the slogans and can speak them and think them but in their daily approach to life they don’t really manifest. I don’t want to judge them, I just see that. So I think 99% practice in many aspects of life is very useful. And a little theory to keep it to have a possibility to put it in words.
GUY: So you think it’s more a suggestion about how one should think about practicing rather than how we weigh the importance of one part against the other?
ROLF: I remember one time Guruji said in a conference, “Ujayi breathing, you keep it twenty-four hours.” And this ujayi breathing brings you, in a way, when you are aware of your breath, it brings you back to that point. I think it is the shortest way to that essence inside you that makes you breathe, that makes a plant grow, that makes meditation happen. I think the shortest way towards it, or one of the shortest ways or the way I allow myself to experience this is through the breath. So when you say, “Oh you keep ujayi breathing twenty-four hours a day,” this means something like 99% practice not only these two hours on the mat. You can be with your breath in your work in your garden, even when you dance, even then you can be with your breath in the movement or even when you sit on the bus or travel - there is that possibility. It means practice not only for two hours but it manifests yoga in our daily life, in our approach to situations and everything we experience. Maybe I misunderstand but that’s the way how I understand it.
GUY: Why do you think breathing is so important in yoga?
ROLF: It’s the first and the last thing we do. You come out and if you don’t breathe you don’t stay in this human body and when you leave it’s the last thing you do.
GUY: How does it become part of a sadhana, how does it become part of a practice? Why is it such a useful tool in the practice?
ROLF: It’s the closest thing to death, death of the physical body. Without food you can survive for one month. Without water maybe also quite a long time. But without breath a very short time… but I have met some yogis that can stay a long time also without breath. And what I experience when I practice this way (maybe there are many other ways) but I think it’s one of the closest ways to, let’s call it, Self-realization and to make meditation happen - through the breath. You feel it as a very simple grounding aspect. When your breath is even, by doing, for example, just primary series, your breath is even and you go through (the practice), there is this moving in stillness within you and a certain kind of bliss happens… you cannot deny it, it just happens. When there is not, “Wow, I have to bind in Marichyasana!” (ambition) so much, no you don’t even think about that! You just go in (into the posture) with the breath and out. But it takes time in practice (to experience it). One time Guruji said, “You need to do one asana ten thousand times to be able to understand it.” When he said that it touched me, and I felt it was true. And after some years of practice and maybe doing the same poses, something changes but that is very individual and everybody should find out for themselves or experience it for themselves.
GUY: Guruji always talks about devotion, bhakti and praying to God but I think most Westerners find that quite difficult. Why do you think it’s so important?
ROLF: I think yoga cannot happen without devotion, without bhakti it’s not possible. People say “oh there are so many different kinds of yoga - whichever kind you feel, fits to you.” if you have no devotion or no bhakti, it’s not happening, it’s just not happening. Each musician hears it when he is in a certain state in his devotion and love for his music, this makes the music happen, otherwise no music happens. And that is with everything, especially with the yoga. When there’s no devotion in it, it’s just like a lamp without oil.
GUY: And what do you think it is most important to be devoted to?
ROLF: here, people in India devote themselves to a certain deity and they worship that deity for example Krishna and they see it in the form (of a statue) and this manifested form and in a certain moment that form melts away and it is just a devotion to the unmanifested aspect of divinity. And in the practice that we do, in Ashtanga Yoga, for example, the devotion in that can bring us to that same point, I think. That’s how it works in a way.
GUY: What about Guru bhakti?
ROLF: Guru bhakti grows, it grows inside. nobody can make it happen, it just grows. It is like when the seed germinates, it comes out like a little plant and grows into a tree, it’s beyond words, beyond giving flowers, beyond giving money, beyond all that shit; it just grows in your heart towards your master. And it comes out as something greater than thankfulness, I cannot really put it in words but I only know that it is growing. And I think the guru feels when it is growing. you know when Krishna’s devotee, when she gave Krishna in her devotion and love, instead of giving him the fruit of the banana, she gave him the peel because she was so into the study of love for Krishna, so she gave him the peel without noticing and Krishna just ate the peel. And then other devotes shouted: “You just ate the peel!” “No” he said, “I just ate the bhakti of the devotee.” So I think it goes in this direction.
GUY: do you think Guruji teaches a set system of yoga or does he teach each person individually?
ROLF: I think within the frame of that system he was teaching people individually. That’s what I said in the very beginning like I saw in the small shala, I saw how he adjusted different people in the same pose in a different way; taught them how to handle it in, different ways and it was the same structured system. So I think there lies a lot of individuality and personal approach to the people.
GUY: What’s the value of practicing every day for years and years and years? How does that change one’s inner experience?
ROLF: Regular practice is a sort of tapas, What they call in India tapasya. Some yogis they stay for twelve years on one leg, and some for twelve years only eat falhari. So different kinds of things, and the asana practice is also part, they practice for twelve years regularly and some they keep it going for a long time. I know some babas in their late 80s and 90s who still have a strong asana practice. So it is a tapasya. And the tapasya is purifying, purifying not only for this mind/ body organism but also for, let’s call it, developing guru bhakti, which is actually the bhakti to divinity, to God or whatever which makes us at a certain moment become one, makes that grow. and to burn away a lot of hangups, they say burn away, but I feel more that they fall away. And a daily practice helps. And this kind of discipline, that’s what it is, a certain kind of discipline, many people say, “Oh this makes you framed and rigid. and in a certain way, ok, that’s right, but in a certain moment the discipline opens you up to spontaneity. That’s how I feel it. It makes the ground fertile to be spontaneous and I think it goes a little in this direction. when you can see it on this level, you have a daily practice, always somehow the nadis remain quite clean and the body in its different koshas (bodies) is also quite pure, then again this gives fertile ground for the Atman, or whatever you call it, to realize its union with the para atman or you own union with God. and then there is another thing, after some years that daily practice is not like, “Oh I have to go on the mat.” No, it’s like, “Yeah, I can go on my mat.”
GUY: How important is it to have a teacher, a yoga teacher?
ROLF: I think if you want to learn music and play sitar it’s good to have a teacher, to know the scales and the idea of the instrument, and yoga can go in this direction. Let’s call it on that level, to learn asana, to put your body in a certain way, to make it easy happen. I think on that level a teacher is quite important. But the teacher, I think, should really always encourage the student or friend or whatever, to self-practice, you know, but still give guidance and maybe suggestions of how to work and approach it. it’s just useful. And when this teacher happens to become a guru, then again the story happens: and this is like the plant of the guru bhakti, it can grow … often here with Ashtanga there’s Guruji and then there’s older students that teach younger students. when I teach often I feel like actually we are all the same, you know. Maybe I have practiced a bit longer and bit more than him or her but there is not like…I have often not really the feeling that I am teaching, you have more the feeling that I transmit something that was given to me and I try to communicate it in a way so that these people get it, in a way without hurting themselves too much and just guiding them and not to think “I am teaching something,” because I think that is not it. I communicate something but it’s not my creation, you know, no. I just transmit something.
GUY: You made the comparison with music a few times. Do you see there’s a relationship between yoga and art?
ROLF: Yeah, yoga is an art. I think it’s an art, yoga, totally. martial arts they call an art and it ended up in street fighting; it’s an art. And yoga for sure is an art. There’s no question about that for me.
GUY: What about the subtle aspects of the practice? Do you feel they’re somehow integrated with asana practice? Do you naturally evolve towards Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi through just doing asana practice or do you need something else?
ROLF: Eh, I think it just grows out of that. Most people after doing asana practice for sometime, they want to sit (meditate), you know, sooner or later, often later. For some people it’s sooner, it happens that they want to sit, you know. Then the next step of doing Pranayama, it’s such a beautiful thing, such a final touch. When you are able to sit there without pain and just guide your breath, without even trying, the idea of not to control, no, just again with love guide your breath in a certain way. It’s an extension of the asana practice. It’s not like one chapter, next chapter, no the whole thing is one, and it merges with the next one: Pratyahara, Dharana, Dyana and at the end maybe even Samadhi happens. It’s a process where you grow. It’s not like, “Oh, now I do this aspect, now I do this.” No, it’s only one. That’s how it works for me.
GUY: What do you think the ultimate goal is according to Guruji? Where is this practice taking us?
ROLF: Mmm, ultimate goal… I think forget the idea of goal. so long as there is an idea of goal and aim, I think there is still too much of ego effort involved. Then you can say, “Don’t worry just do your practice and all is coming.” What is all coming? All coming is maybe that moment where I realize: I am already there; that I don’t have to go no where anymore. There is no where to go; there never has been anywhere to go. That it was always there, that I am always in it. inheriting this divinity, through this body/ mind organism. So aim and goal … I don’t like that word so much. We use them but it can create a lot of misunderstanding.
GUY: If you are a teacher and you have a student you want to do something with them, maybe it’s only to help them do what they want to do, but there has to be some…you have to have some goal, some place you help them go to.
ROLF: Or you can, for example, show them how to do the pose in a way that they can do it alone and guide them in that, but I don’t have to put them the idea of a goal. They already have enough goals and aims. They come to you with Marichyasana D and they think already of Kapotasana, so why should I support that? So just bring them back to the moment and then let it grow into the next, which often is not that easy but I don’t like to put too much more aim and goals ideas inside.
GUY: I wasn’t suggesting you put it in the student’s head but in the teacher’s head there has to be some agenda, something but okay…
ROLF: Yeah, it didn’t really work for me that way. I think it’s very individual from teacher to teacher: how they teach and when they know the practice of the student for some time, they know where to help or where to stop or better go this direction or better go this direction. Sometimes it can happen that the student, he or she, shows you where the need is. I think there, in this direction, it happens.
GUY: So it’s the teacher following the student rather than the other way around. It’s an interesting idea.
ROLF: Or maybe walking together and maybe you just hold the hand in difficult spots. I felt it often that Guruji did just that, hold the hand as I pass over some difficult area. So I try to bring it over this way a bit. But again it’s very individual according to each person’s nature. Maybe some bring it over with a very military way and it works somehow also because in the end it doesn’t matter, what ever makes it work, to wake up, that’s’ fine.
GUY: How do you incorporate Guruji’s philosophy or teaching in the way that you teach?
ROLF: I think it means more or less living a bit the same way of life, of yoga, even if his maybe is a bit more involved. A guru wants to bring you on that way, and when you live it, then you can communicate it. And then there is the similarity. when he was teaching, he gets up early, he does his practice, then he teaches, he has his sadhana before he teaches. It’s a part of his daily life. And somehow the guidance or teaching of students is not separate anymore from your own practice, it spills over and it becomes one. I think that’s how it feels to me. So I see there the similarity. I remember one time he took me to show me his room and his deer skin where he does his prayer and his pranayama. It was really nice, I saw so much the similarity while I do in my little place in the morning in the level I am. So I saw the similarity.
GUY: What do you think is the relationship between practice and teaching?
ROLF: Without practice not much teaching happens, again you regress if you don’t practice what you teach. Or at least Guruji practiced sixty, seventy years and at in a certain moment of age there’s just sitting practice, the pranayama, but yoga has manifested so much (in his life) it just keeps coming through. So the practice is the basis of any teaching. If this is not happening I would not believe in the teaching.
GUY: And Guruji is not practicing anymore he’s not practicing asanas or hasn’t been practicing for quite a long time.
ROLF: But before that there was fifty years of practice. I mean fifty years! Now I have done maybe thirty years and I feel already there is quite a little foundation, you know. And there is quite a well where water flows, the ground water it’s reached a certain level and it flows. What he showed me up there sometimes what he was doing: sirsasana and so on, but mainly he was doing pranayama and sitting practice and I think that at a certain moment this becomes the essence. many asanas they just work towards being able to sit, you know, to be able to sit comfortably.
If you teach over asanas it’s good to have maybe twenty, thirty or more years of background, of foundation that can prepare you. I think that’s good. If I see one of Guruji’s old students, Cliff he’s seventy-five and he still has a practice going, maybe he modifies it but there still a practice happening, I mean that is something. You know, that is something beautiful. But mainly he goes also to the aspect of sitting, he is clean and pure so he can sit, he’s allowed just to sit and it happens.
GUY: I like that analogy the thing that you said which is, you find your source and then it overflows.
ROLF: Yes, yeah yeah.
GUY: That’s beautiful.
ROLF: Yeah, it’s the ground water you reach.
GUY: Then you can share it.
ROLF: You need some time of digging.
GUY: What do you think is the importance of food in practice?
ROLF: A big importance. Everybody who practice even a few weeks knows it is so, it’s very clear. Like with your scooter or motor bike what you put in, that’s how it drives. If you put kerosene, you go no where and with the food its the same. You put too much, even if it’s good petrol, it flows over and it will not ride and with the body it is the same. Balanced diet, not too much, not too little, in a good clean way, I think it’s very important. I think living as a vegetarian is a good idea. It’s a good idea. But it should not be forced on people. But they should get the information and a chance to try. What I experience in people who are eating a lot of animal products before, when they started practicing, after one or two years the consumption of animal products reduces and at certain moment it vanished, just by a daily asana practice. Maybe it takes a long time, but it happens. And at a certain moment, these people, even without telling them, they come to you and ask and then it’s good, then they are ready. And then you can give information about food. I think food, vegetarian food let’s call it, in a yogic way is very good. And even if you look at the Chinese Shaolin people, the traditional monks who practice this Shaolin martial arts, they were all vegetarian. So it has something to do with the diet, what you eat and how you eat and when you eat, people can get a lot of information nowadays. It’s good to take as much as possible (information) and then in the moment look how it fits for you, your body/ mind organism, for your condition/ constitution, if you eat maybe only raw or if you prefer more cooked food, or less at this time of the day … So that everybody has a chance to find out individually and it’s something beautiful. even if you do not practice yoga, all humanity would be better off to be more vegetarian. Some people they may be like Eskimos, they are different; they are born there so it’s their karma and all this story. But for other circumstances, vegetarian food is quite a big step in the way of yoga.
GUY: Can you just say something about what you think the negative effect of inappropriate food on practice is?
ROLF: Yeah, indigestion and bloating and a lot of disturbance in the mind even if you don’t think it, but if the stomach and the intestines are full and not clean and not eliminated so the mind is clouded and that makes everything a little bit more difficult. It’s like, again, that well: if you start to dig your well and you take out two shovels and you put another shovel in again, so it’s a longer process to get it all out. So food is quite important. Anybody can read this in many good books and the internet, so everybody knows it actually.
GUY: What do you think it’s most important to think about for a healthy life-long practice?
ROLF: A healthy life-long practice? By maybe creating the circumstance around this; find a nice place where you are. To have this little area where you put your mat and you do your daily practice so that it becomes something natural. Then it will take care of itself. When it has manifested in certain way it will take care of itself. Then even when you travel it will always happen, the chance or possibility to do your practice. And then sometimes I think even when you have a small room, hotel room maybe, when you travel, then this is a part of the practice also. You make it happen there and just be thankful that it happens. You know maybe you have to shift sometimes from here to there, but (dealing with) that is just part of the practice.
GUY: And would you change the practice as you become older?
ROLF: Now I’m going to be 55 in two months, my practice has changed. like I said before I need to be a bit more warm to do certain poses. There are still some poses that I can still go in and out of like that, but for backbends I really like to be warm and really give myself a few more breaths to take the pose. That’s part of getting older and it (practice) also should be approached with thankfulness, in a nice way thankful for this way of growing old and you just realize you are not twenty-five anymore and it’s fine. And also if you have a daily practice, this practice is somehow taking care of the change that happens, a certain awareness arises that makes it work. And then you don’t have to drop (eliminate) too much or change too much, it’s just there. Maybe you are a bit more slow, but it is still there and you remain very thankful for it. And in the end whatever you can keep, whatever will remain is just perfect as it is.
GUY: Do you think Indians and Westerners need to practice differently?
ROLF: I think individuals anyhow practice different. And you even if you do the same, it is different than mine or yours and that’s how it is. Indian, well I notice Indians have a more light and easy approach to the practice, especially now that you see some more Indians come also to Mysore to practice with Guruji. I was also a long time in the temple, practicing there often and I saw Indians, some just take it as a social meeting and some, when they even practice seriously, they have more lightness. You see in some foreigners also, men who have dropped a lot of baggage and do not take it too seriously, you know, just a bit playful. But in the end I think it’s very individual.
GUY: So you see that as maybe being a positive thing, they don’t actually need to do it in such a heavy way; they are more free somehow. And it’s a good thing to do it more lightly…
ROLF: Like I say, the practice takes care of it anyhow. If you don’t reach it today maybe next week it happens, that’s fine. But you did today what you had to do, what you’re able to do and that’s amazing. Even just put your mat down and do a few Surya Namaskaras and you are there, the few Surya Namaskaras with peace and joy – beautiful. And after some time a few Surya Namaskaras become Advanced A or B (series) … it’s the same attitude inside. I think it should go in this direction. again what we say in the beginning is ahimsa – be gentle and loving with yourself, in this way also be with your next one, with your neighbour.
GUY: Most students won’t be able to do the advanced asanas. Do you think they have less opportunity for spiritual growth?
ROLF: No way, I think it doesn’t matter.
GUY: Can you say something about advancement in the asanas and the meaning of that.
ROLF: Guruji said it one time, he said, “People practice Primary and Intermediate it keeps you going very well and gives you the basis to be able to sit,” you know. Advanced series are beautiful to do and I love it and I’m still thankful for what I can do. But sometimes you see people, especially young people and some older people, they just do half primary, they are so aware and in the moment with it and it’s so beautiful, going in and out with the breath. and some are just hurrying through Advanced series and look like a horse with a carrot before, you know? And I think “oh!” but that will after some time, especially in young people, it will drop and then it’s good also sometimes to guide them but sometimes it’s also not necessary, you know. So I think realization can happen with asana or without asana because it’s already there, it’s already there. The woman who works the whole time in the kitchen, the moment she does that with all her devotion and all her love can find that realization just there. Or the man who works in the garden, or other people choose the way of yoga, in the moment there is that devotion towards God you know, one step towards God takes you eventually straight there and it just happens. for us somehow maybe our samskaras or what happens to be the path for us is yoga, that’s fine, that’s great, so let’s do it. But we should not think of difference between us and other beings, somehow misunderstandings maybe happen, and again, this dualistic aspect appears, and judgment happens, and that is, according to how I feel, is not really correct. Yoga is a useful tool and you should do it with love and keep it clean and nice, but it’s a tool that makes happen to remove the veil of dust of our inner being, and that is one way. And Shiva says in one of the old scriptures when he spoke to Parvati, he said: there are so many ways that there are creatures on this earth.
GUY: Can you say something about Amma’s role in Guruji’s life and how her death affected him?
ROLF: I think Amma, she was like the mother not only for Guruji but also for all the students when we were in the small shala. She was like a joyful reflection of what happened in the shala. Her presence was giving a lot of stability to everything what was going on there and especially to Guruji. And when she died, when she left her body, it was a very very sad moment and I never saw Guruji like that, never, even now, when we saw him sometimes sick. that moment when she left, he was ready to leave also, not because he was physically sick it felt like he was ready to leave. And that’s how I felt. And then when he recovered he became healthy again but that moment was very very sad.
GUY: What do you think helped him to recover?
ROLF: I think the teaching and the sharing of love with a lot of his students and devotees and maybe the feeling that Amma wanted him to carry on. Something like that; maybe other things too, but this is what I felt.
GUY: If there was one thing that you would say you were thankful for, with finding this practice, with meeting Guruji, with Ashtanga Yoga, what would it be?
ROLF: But it is the whole thing, the whole package. It’s not like one thing out of many; it’s the whole thing to me. It’s the meeting with Guruji the receiving of the teaching, the time I was allowed to spend in his presence or I’m allowed to spend in his presence. And there’s nothing to rip apart to say this is a special thing, no. and I think the most, one of the biggest things I feel thankful for, which I even feel keeps the practice going, is that it manifests in my life in such a way that I’m allowed to share it. I think that is a big thing. Yeah, in this way to be thankfulness is also because I’m allowed to make my living with something I love to do myself and that is actually, you should not forget, something also very special. Yeah, that’s your way, how you make your bread is a part of your way of life, and that is something incredible. You don’t don’t do something you hate to do to make your bread. You do something with what you live and you receive your daily needs. And then that is the way of Guruji’s teaching, and the practice is taken care of also.
GUY: Thank you Rolf.