i saw him first on a festival. years ago. he was leading an ashtanga class. i was spitting my lungs up since somehow the first series became the second somewhere in the middle...

i instantly loved him. always smiling, always laughing. kind and friendly. but firm. what is still a struggle for me, it is just a game for him. yoga is like breathing for him.

still, years later on another festival, when i walked up to him to ask him a few questions... i was nervous. really nervous. though i never am.

and i should not have been. he welcomed me with a huge smile. and he could answer all my questions just as simple as he can make yoga practise.

yoga is very simple. everything else is complicated.

bpy: Why did you start yoga in the beginning?

MJ: Because of my father. My father is the guru. Watching him did inspire me to practice yoga. That is how i started.

bpy: How old were you?

MJ: I was seven years old.

bpy: And was there no other option, did you want to do anything else?

MJ: Well, i played cricket and soccer. But i picked yoga because that is what i most liked to do.

bpy: What does yoga give you that nothing else can?

MJ: Yoga will help you to focus. Make you stronger, healthier. It is the best thing you can do to your body. That is why i picked it.

bpy: What is the most important message that you would like to teach to the people?

MJ: I give them a lot of encouragement. Help them to take care of themselves. That is all the people want. They are totally unfocused. So i tell them 'just concentrate on your body, what you eat, what you drink, take care of your bodies.' Simple advices. Nothing big. Easy to follow.

bpy: Is ashtanga for everyone?

MJ: Everyone, yes.

bpy: What do you think of other styles and schools of yoga?

MJ: They are all made up. Ashtanga is the original yoga. It comes from hatha yoga. It is advised to everybody of any age and any shape - no problem.

bpy: Do you miss that they do not teach much of the philosophy or lifestyle part of the yoga here in Western countries?

MJ: Yes, the west is always interested in the physical part, they really don't go to the whole thing. That is my goal. When i go around i try to teach not only the physical part, but the philosophy of yoga, what it does to you, the power of chanting, pranayamas. So all parts of the yoga. You can't just do asanas. Yoga is all about balance. You have to practice asanas to get strong and healthy, and you do the pranayama and chanting to stimulate the nervous system. So when you put it all together, then you will get all the benefits.

bpy: What is yoga?

MJ: To unite with yourself. Because once we start looking at ourselves, our own problems, what is going on inside, we start working on them. Then you will feel better. A lot of people do not know how to handle problems. They are looking outside. I try to help them. The yoga teacher tells to look inside, what is going on. Once you clear that out, you will be fine. That is yoga all about.

i like jedis. i do. sometimes i even say i only do yoga so that i might become a jedi. of course as a joke. but not entirely untrue...

lately - as i started re-watching the original trilogy - i started re-thinking my theory about jedis being better than siths. siths are not afraid of the dark side. they are not afraid of anger, hatred or fear. they learn how to use it. if a sith started using the force for good, maybe balance would be brought to the galaxy...

so eyal... 'I call my yoga mahakala: the big black. I prefer the dark side to the white happyhappy. Buddhist people don't like to say it because it is a demon. But it is a good demon. Mahakala is protecting the dharma, because these days lots of things seems distorted and we need some protection.'

eyal is one of the greatest people i have ever met. he is true. honest. no masks. nothing artificial, nothing superficial. plain and simple. he is what he is. i always liked those who are not afraid of the dark side of life. but uses it to become stronger. 'People have no shadows without the sun.'

when i walked up to him after his class and asked him to give me an interview, he instantly smiled and said yes. i told him we could 'bitch about yoga' - as i heard him say many times. he was instantly in. 'Maybe it is a personal thing. Yoga today is about marketing, not about quality. It is very superficial. People get very traditional, very orthodox. They don't experiment. And the taste is changed.'

'I call it lululemon yoga. It is an escape. And it is okay to escape because life in this century is very hard. But it wasn't meant to be like this. As an escape mechanism.' yoga is not about poses. definitely not about bikini bodies doing cirque du soleil hashtaged as yoga. and mostly not about what kind of pants you wear. yoga is life: the way you move, they way you eat, talk, act or react. how you treat yourself and everyone else. the way you face yourself, peel everything off that is not true, that is not you. they way you face your dragons so to train and ride them. the way you try to find balance. between all that white trash and the dark side.

eyal is all this. yoga. the real one. and the best part is, he still knows how to smile...

bpy: At first why did you start doing yoga?

EC: I came across it when i was twenty three. I lived in New York, i did some drugs. I had to quit bad habits. I wanted to be better to myself. I went to a yoga class. The smell of the studio totally felt like home. A few months after i had started, i did it every day. And that's it. It stuck. Now i try to get out. (smiles)

bpy: What did yoga give you that nothing else could before?

EC: On a basic level it is relaxation. Because i tend to be neurotic, and it sets me relaxed. But it also developed to be like a therapist for me. I used to do psychoanalysis, and my therapist said that he felt like yoga was his co-therapist. I think that is what it does to me: it is like therapy. It gives spiritual dimension to my life.

bpy: What is the most important message that you would like to tell people who come to your classes?

EC: I like to work hard, i like physical work. That is my preference. And i try not to be serious. Not to be spiritual. Try to be as real as possible. Be myself whatever that means. And try not to be bullshit. It is very difficult.

Because when you teach you take on a persona. I think my students like my classes because i am trying to be real. I don't play relaxed, i don't put on a face. I am quite an angry person, i have this kind of quality and i am using it. Sometimes i am fierce. I used to be more fierce, now more gentle after having kids. I like to give alignment notes. I try to bring intelligence to the practice. Awareness. I try to stop people from hurting themselves mainly. That is the beauty of being a yoga teacher. To help people chill out and not to do too much.

bpy: What is yoga for you?

EC: It is the way to be in the world for me. Now it is natural, a part of my life. I can't see my life without it. It doesn't have to take the form of yoga. Because it lives within me. So if i even stop practicing, it is there. I think everyone is in yoga. In one way or another everyone is having this kind of experience, whatever they do.

It is my life. I rebel against yoga and i love it. Like a relationship. I hate it and i love it. I hate that i love it. It makes my life better and miserable at the same time.

i walked eagerly over to the yoga village on samsara festival to attend simon's lecture. it would be about breathing, i thought it had to be exciting. simon did not start today, he has a name. he must know something...

many came and the tent was quickly full. some arms and legs hanging out into burning sun. simon was soon center of attention, but must say, not only because of his mojo but the tight black yogapants worn without a tee.

as soon as he started talking i knew that this would be fun. he did not take it seriously: i mean in the positive way of laughing and making everyone else laugh. i think this is one of the most important things a teacher must know: being able to laugh, laugh on themselves, and make others laugh. anyways and on themselves too. otherwise it is all just a huge cramp.

he put me off instantly: do not be mat centered, face towards me. people tend to face in the direction of their mats...

then we started. the lecture was terrifyingly interesting. i got to know why iyengar and jois have their shoulders stuck to their ears whenever they lift their arms up in old b&w photographies. and that buddha was not fat just relaxed. that the abdominal muscle can move in directions that are out of this dimension. that it is silly to twist on exhale. and we do not need to learn to take huge slow breathes, but to learn how to budget the almost nothing... so it was fun.

at the end of the lecture i asked him a bit shyishly but still: i asked him to talk about yoga with me. i would put it on my blog, i said smiling. his reaction was brilliant: he welcomed me with great warmth. so two days later we sat down under a tree and talked about yoga.

it is always soothing to hear my own thoughts and realizations from a master who has a lot more knowledge, experience and wisdom. so my direction is right and yoga is one after all...

bpy: What was the reason why you first started doing yoga?

SBO: I think everyone starts doing yoga from a very early age. What happens is that we get taken away from it. And so some people lose that natural child-like quality. So maybe the day you think you started yoga is the day you realize you lost it in the first place. You suddenly go 'gee, if i move like this or breathe like this or think like this, i feel better.' And at some point along the line, someone sais 'that's yoga!'. 'Oh, okay, that feels good, i'll try yoga.' That is what happened to me in the beginning.

bpy: What did yoga give you that nothing else could?

SBO: I can answer that on many different levels.

But if i ever have to answer the ultimate level, is that it gave me the ultimate realization that happiness is your choice. The ultimate realization that we're all connected with some sort of universal conciousness. That is something that yoga gives. And anything that gives you that is yoga.

Some people do not know what yoga is.

bpy: What is the most important message that you would like to teach the people?

SBO: My phylosophy on simple levels is to do three things: enjoy your life, look after your body and help other people enjoy their lives. Simple as that.

You can be happy however you are. If you are just comfortable with yourself and accept your limitations. And if you do a bit of physical yoga, it is actually pretty good, because it helps your body move a bit freer and helps you get a bit of an attitude with yama and niyama.

I try to teach yama and niyama in poses.

As for yamas...

You have to have ahimsa which is not 'non-violence': ahimsa is to be gentle. Not just to say something positive, say something negative. If you say 'don't think of pink elephants, don't think of pink elephants, don't think of pink elephants', you will think of bloody pink elephants. If you say 'don't be violant, don't be violant, don't be violant', it makes you feel like violent someways. But if you say 'be gentle, focus on being gentle, be gentle with other people'...

There is satya. It is about balance, honesty, it is fairness. Honesty is not to tell how horrible you look today. Better be tactful: say i've never seen you in these clothes before, and smile and that is it. Don't even mention what is not to be mentioned.

And you have asteya that sais don't steel. But you will say that the opposite of take is give. You have to give people, give service to yourself, to others. Your body, other people's bodies, brains, minds.

Brahmacarya is not 'no-sex'. My master used to say: why celibate when you can give it away free? As Pattabhi Jois said it is also nice to nourish the growth of a child. But you also nourish the relationship with someone you love. Make love to each other, there is nothing more beautiful. Why would that be outlawed, that is silly. So it is making nourishing relations.

Aparigraha is not 'non-attachement'. It does not mean that if you loose this or that, it doen't matter. But actually aparigraha means freedom: if you are not attached, you are free. Give freedom to yourself and others.

So yama is to be gentle, balanced and give nourishment and freedom.

Niyamas are like this...

Shaucha is not 'to be clean'. But it is cleaning the inside, the blockages that block your energy. So, get rid of the things that block energy: too much tensing, too much stressing, too much breathing, too much drinking, too much eating.

Santosha is not to 'be content'. It is just to choose to be happy, when you want to. Happiness is your choice whenever you like.

Tapas is not 'to struggle and suffer'. It is not just like sticking one hand in the air and suffer for fifteen years. Tapas is being passionate, doing your passion.

Svadhyaya is self-study: the most important study. It is understanding why you are, where you are, who you are. They say in India that there are two types of knowledge: there is knowledge of self and there is all the other, the unimportant stuff. :D

Ishvara-pranidhana is not 'to surrender to God'. What is God? Everything is. They are recognizing that everything is one universal conciousness. To me Ishvara-pranidhana is the surrender to love.

So niyama is the passionate inner quest to remove the obstacles of happiness and inner connections.

bpy: What is yoga?

SBO: In yama terms: it is the gentle, balanced giving of nourishment and freedom.

In niyama terms: it is the passionate quest to remove the obstacles of happiness and loving connections.

But in terms of what yoga is practically: it is learning how to be in stressful situations while being totally relaxed. To learn how to be in really boring, dull, unstimulating situations and be really happy and attentive. And also to be in a miserable life and still choose to be happy.

That is all yoga too.

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