Ziva Kinrot and I first met in 1995 at the European Union of Yoga Federations Annual Congress in Zinal, Switzerland. I was there teaching Yoga as a guest of the Federation (EUFNY) and Ziva was there representing Yoga in Israel as President of The Israeli Yoga Teachers Association (IYTA).

It was through our meeting and her role as President of the IYTA that she invited me to visit Israel to teach Yoga. From this chance meeting of two foreigners in the Swiss Alps a lot of Yoga water has flowed in two directions.

Firstly the beginning of a twelve year relationship with Israel, still as vibrant as my first visit, to teach numerous times at many levels ranging from one to one personal lessons, to evening talks, to day seminars, retreats, Foundation Courses and now contributing to Yoga teaching and therapy training courses.

Secondly the further Yoga study and training undertaken by Ziva herself. I say further because when we met in 1995 Ziva was already an eminent Yoga teacher and had been elected by fellow Yoga teachers in Israel to be the President of the Yoga Association, a post which she held for the 3 years of office.

Yet in spite of this existing experience and long established place within Israeli Yoga teaching society Ziva chose to undertake a full training in this way of applying Yoga, known as the viniyoga of Yoga,

This involved her in travelling to England numerous times to study within the training courses running through my centre there, as well as many special training workshops in Israel. This was supported by Ziva’s commitment to years of individual lessons with me and to developing her personal practice. It was through this dedication to the teachings and practice that Ziva relearnt her Yoga skills as a musician realises that playing a piece of music skilfully is about the combination of learning to play both the music and the instrument as if one.

The recent developments these past years have seen Ziva becoming increasingly autonomous in terms of running her own Introductory and Foundation workshops supported by my confidence in offering her my own training manuals to use as she wishes through her own Yoga Studies Programme. I have also observed Ziva teaching and have supervised her through numerous one to one situations with her clarity, firmness and care for the outcome of the situation.

This has all evolved over the years to the point where Ziva is able to offer a full training programme in the art of Yoga teaching and therapy and my support and involvement in this is now becoming increasingly minimal.

As they say, when the student is ready the teacher disappears, at this rate I have not long left here in Israel as a teacher, and am happy to leave the music in the capable hands of the musician and remain as a personal friend, with a love of Israel and with a deep respect for all that this students devotion to the practice and teaching of the viniyoga of Yoga has accomplished.

There is a belief in Judaism that man’s soul transcends higher worlds at night, during sleep. In the course of spiritual work, the soul desires to experience during daytime similar qualities of night and sleep. The spirit and the soul desire to meet one another.

The biblical Song of Songs deals with these themes and may be read as an allegory, teaching that they are connected to the secrets of love, so its reading can guide us into the realization of spiritual life. The echoes of Song of Songs in Jewish prayers and teaching may help us in recalling the qualities of night and awakening to the spirit and the soul. Similar to writing down the details of a dream in order to recall during daytime, one is reawakened to the soul and the spirit.

In Song of Songs, King Solomon represents the world of spirit, while the beloved represents the soul. She brings him to her chamber and he brings her to his; where equality is reached, their coupling is perfect.

The text calls us to attention: “I charge you daughters of Jerusalem … stir not up, do not awake my love till he pleases”. The heart alone is not yet sufficient in order to reach the will. Only through the will of mature, ripe love, and not by means of the mind’s will, can the encounter take place.

The soul is active by nature, and the follower’s dilemma is how to reach a spiritual awareness in which the mind is asleep while the heart is awake. The heart does not think as the mind. It is attentive to the voice of inspiration. The heart does not think like the mind does – it is capable of hearing the voices of spirit and inspiration.

Common awareness cannot lead us into imagining such a state, since we fall asleep or our souls wonder. Only the state of an awakened heart opens the path along which the encounter may happen: “I rose up to open to my beloved and my hand dropped myrrh and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh upon the handles of lock”. Now we are crossing the threshold.
The fountain of love exists in all the worlds, but it is sealed and locked. It is our duty to open the path leading to it.

Since man’s expulsion from Eden, the human soul (described at the beginning of Song of Songs as “look not upon me because I am black”), cares for everything around her: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground … for dust … thou art and unto dust shalt thou return”. She cultivates the vineyards: “My mother’s children (notice that she does not say ‘my brothers’) made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept”. She cares for others, while neglecting her own soul, her own vineyard.

The time comes in which she seeks her lover: ”Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon”. She hears the call which announces other possibilities in life, and it is the voice of the spirit: “The voice of my beloved! behold”. And the voice says: ”Rise up and come away”.

The soul, which is invisible to the eye, is like a ”dove in the clefts of the rocks”. She can not reveal her real essence: ”Black, sun bath looked upon me” is not her true nature. During daytime she is ”as the lily among thorns”, a Cinderella, while at night she is a queen.

The Garden of Eden provided the prerequisite circumstances for a psychic spiritual encounter are rooted. There lies the reflection of real life; there, life can come to fruition. The text posits an answer to the question of the expulsion from Eden. It allows a recovery from the fall and relocates man in Eden.

The lover’s voice is saying: “For lo the winter is passed, the rain is over and gone and then flowers appear on the earth … rise up and come away …” The life period that had hidden the true essence is now over. The aim is to bring into life a quality that allows one to remember .In the text, one passes the threshold and enters the garden, the place of blossom and blooming, where the flower of the soul can flourish. There the human soul acquires its own higher sources, the spiritual reality whence she has come. She seeks and finds the lover, and creates the initial contact: “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth. I sought him but I found him not”. The search takes place in the city (the material world), where the guards go around on patrol and their role is to keep away from the gate those whose time to cross the threshold has not arrived yet.

In the first encounter between him and her, she brings him to her home: ”Brought him into my mother’ house, and in the chamber of her that conceived me”. The mother’s place is the soul’s home. The cosmic mother is always situated in the background, behind the screen.

In chapter 4, the king (world of spirit) dwells with her (the soul), and we get to know her through his eyes. The chapter ends by stating the king’s motive for needing the encounter: “A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse: a spring shut up, a fountain sealed … a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters”. The next chapter becomes possible only after these verses. We have to remember who the speaker is. It is God’s voice. So how can there be anything sealed or locked away from him?
There is no literal answer in the text itself, unless we assume that the fountain, the water source is situated here, and it can only be reached through the means of a heavenly marriage. Thus we can infer that the world of spirit needs the body, the physical world.

Chapter 5 presents the secrets of the process and the merging; the mystical marriage itself, as the king stands, observing and beholding, looking and describing her beauty. As part of creation, a new fountain springs into being: it is the renewal of the spirit, as well as the soul, as they meet. Their renewal is the motive and the cause of their union. The fountainhead of life is located behind those locked walls of the soul: “A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse” and he, the spirit, finds his life source in her.

The text develops as a dialogue, exploring these altered states of awareness. It describes the entrance into the Garden of Eden and the first encounter as a mutual penetration of soul and spirit. This is the initial super-sensual state: “I sleep and my heart waketh”; a state in which I am asleep in terms of whatever concerns the mind, unable to perceive sensory messages, while at the same time the heart remains aware. Awareness is transferred from the mind to the heart.

The heart is the center, where spirit and soul merge.

After the reunion the text says: ”I opened to my beloved but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone: My soul failed when he spoke. I sought him and I found him not”. The stage is set, the soul is ready, but then she cannot find him. This is the heart of the encounter. In the ordinary perception of the mind, there is disappointment. How can the encounter and union proceed while the beloved has disappeared while speaking? If, from her point of view, the meeting has not taken place?
“The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me the keepers of the walls, took away my veils from me”. She is back to the physical world. But then text then gives a heavenly and transcendental description of him by her. It seems that she does know him very well …

As we step out of the experience and return to a common state of mind, the experience seems illusive and transient. It has already passed away. The minute description of the lover results from a super-sensual struggle. The post-encounter experience is perceived as a wound and a loss. The encounter itself is perceived as a momentary, transient lightning. The record of that encounter is the result of a post-encounter recollection process, which takes place in a different state of awareness. The recollection itself is an element of the flow of inspiration.

After the encounter and its recollection and commitment to memory, the soul now knows what it seeks.

In our physical practice, the more we repeat our actions, the better we get. But that is not how the soul works. Acquiring spiritual skills is the other way around. Any further attempts to reconstruct that experience will be more difficult than in the first time. Hence the phrase “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seral upon thine arm” and the connection between head, heart and hand in laying Tefilin. We wish to cultivate a certain mood, to nourish a unique state of mind that will assist us in remembering and to strengthen the powers of the heart.

“For love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as grave”. Experiencing love is not without suffering. One has to remain loyal to love in order that love will remain loyal to her or him; otherwise, it turns into jealousy deep as hell.
We must start anew, make a new beginning from a place of “contented, willing love”, where love does not turn into jealousy.

To summarize,

1. Once the experience is reached, an encounter takes place. One has to experience that it is transient and that it has passed away, and return to life once the heavenly feast is over. The short interval is perceived as such in terms of the physical world, but the experience itself is everlasting.
2. We live in a reality of ‘having this as well as that and this while that’. Preparation for the transition into another state and the transition itself take place at the same time. The Song of Songs does not mislead us, as it describes the ‘this and that’ – the experience being simultaneously ephemeral and eternal.
3. The sense of the threshold is repeatedly emphasized in The Song of Songs.
4. The masculine element is elusive and transient. It has no independent life on its own. The feminine element is the one that is fertilized, impregnated, gives birth; she is the one that bears the fruits of love across time. She is the one who seeks him out, and he is not the one who is wounded by the watchmen. She is a source of life for him, and he bestows on her the meaning of life and a sense of direction.
5. The soul may survive without the spirit but the spirit cannot survive without the soul.

The essay is based on lectures by Dr Yeshayahu Ben Aharon and is published with his kind permission.

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Had I met Paul Harvey in the street I would have thought “what a nice man, maybe an electrician, veterinarian or shop owner”. Had I heard him speak I would have thought “what fluent, pleasant, humor-laden speech. He must be an actor or tourist guide”, but Paul Harvey is a teacher, a yoga teacher and an important persona in the western yoga scene.

He does not wear whites, nor an orange dress, nor stretch pants or even sports-wear. In jeans, sport shoes, a bouncy lock of hair and with a captivating smile he manages to fascinate, for 4 long days, the workshop participants who take part in the Reidman College teachers training program guided by his student and senior Yoga teacher, Ziva Kinrot.

“Yoga is a system that evolves with a person through the years”, Harvey introduces his development model of Yoga “children prefer a physical, powerful and challenging practice. Therefore, the appropriate practice for them would focus on the physical aspects of asana. The middle aged man finds himself busy, worried and carrying much responsibility. He cannot dedicate two hours for practicing asana, so the objective of the practice needs to change. The focus needs to be altered for support, protection and replenishment, and the primary tool for achieving this is pranayama. Elderly people tend to become introspective, retrospectively examining their lives, examining their relationships with the world, with the path they have traveled and death. Meditation best serves these objectives.” This model is key to Harvey’s practice and teaching.

One on One

Paul Harvey is a student of Desikachar, who studied with his father Krishnamacharya, one of the prominent teachers of the 20th century. Among Krishnamacharya’s students one can find B.K.S. Iyengar and Patahbi Jois who founded two of the prominent Yoga schools of our time – Iyengar and Ashtanga Vinyasa. The third school to grow from Krishnamacharya’s teaching is known as Viniyoga. This approach is upheld by Desikachar and supported in the west by Harvey. The meaning of the term Viniyoga is “application of Yoga” and is better understood as an approach to the correct application of the tools of yoga.

“In Viniyoga we adjust the posture to the person rather than have the person adjust to the posture. The practice is set according to the person’s current state of being. This means that the practitioner needs to realize that yesterday’s or last year’s Yoga practice is not the proper one for the present time. People tend to prefer a simple and repetitive practice routine, but this is not really possible if we take into account the constant change in our lives. For example, I know of women that use 4 different practices for different times of the month: before ovulation, after ovulation, pre-menstruation and post-menstruation.”

This is why Harvey prefers the classis teaching tradition of one-on-one. Teacher and student. This is the only way to establish an optimal personal practice. “Yet even in group classes I try to develop individualized practice. I refrain from teaching too many asana or from personally demonstrating asana. I will approach each practitioner, attempt to identify their personal needs and ambitions and offer comments that are relevant for their practice. People have different potential and limitations. I will admit that teaching group classes is a challenge.”

Performance & Arrogance

Harvey often mentions compromise. “Asana can be performed in a precise uncompromised form, but this is unnecessary and potentially damaging”. Therefore, Harvey advocates paying careful attention to primary elements that need to be executed with precision, while consciously compromising secondary elements. I chose to open the interview with a question that has been on my mind for some time and touches upon this topic:

Given your compromising approach, I recall a paraphrase I’ve heard on more than one occasion that “Yoga preaches surrender and release of/from the ego”. On the other hand I’ve encountered numerous senior Yoga teachers that despite their preaching of humbleness and humility, displayed a patronizing and arrogant attitude. Does Yoga really preach surrendering the ego? Is this possible? And if so, are those teachers in error?

“There is a common opinion in the spiritual community that estrangement of the ego can lead to personal development, but the reality of things is just the opposite. Self denial is the very force that feeds the ego. The more we punish it the stronger is grows. This position is a typical western confusion between humbleness and humility that are key concepts in Indian religion but not necessarily related to Yoga. We have no way of measuring these concepts, one man’s humility is another man’s arrogance. The Yoga Sutra (a core Yoga text written by Patanjali circa 200 BC that contains 195 sayings, insights or meditative thoughts) does not state humility as a value, but it does advocate action that is anchored in introspective investigation.”

“The problem in the west is that Yoga and asana (Sanskrit for posture) have become synonymous. In California, Viniyoga is called mini-yoga because a Yoga practice is usually referred to as asana practice and does not include breathing and meditation practices that can lead to introspection. The physical practice is associated with arrogance: “I do these many asana that I perform with perfect form, stretching and stability”. Even my teacher’s (Desikachar) daughter took in 380 asanas in 4 months, though this was in a classic teach-student setting with a young and able student. The western yoga teachers that you can find in the gyms also present a formidable repertoire of asana. I focus on the average people, not those that come from a background of fitness or dancing. To them I suggest focusing on a small number of asana.”

“Another difference between east and west lies in the fact that in the east people do not take things personally. For example, a teacher might offend a student but the student will continue to obey. The student will not claim that his ego is offended, but will utilize the teacher’s input for growth and development. In the west we are more doubting, sensitive and have a fragile self-esteem.”

Working with the Ego

If so, then what is the true essence of Yoga? What are its objectives?

“In India the following analogy is used: the ego is like a blind man, it can move in different directions but it cannot see its objective. The ego has an agenda, it is a survival mechanism. It has no vision, it works instinctively but not intelligently. Awareness, on the other hand, is likened to a cripple. It cannot move but it can see and grasp things, register and understand. The integration between ego and awareness gives birth to harmonious and intelligent action. This is the essence of Yoga.”

Sadly, Yoga as experience today, does not offer an alternative lifestyle, it remains an additional activity in the already noisy life that we live. I am not sure that many people would like to use yoga for introspection or as a means to recognize change. People are satisfied saying ‘I would like to change, but without too much effort’. People would like to reduce the stress in their lives without examining the source.”

“As I mentioned earlier, Yoga is not interested in denying ego, but in developing the ability to effectively express it. Yoga is interested in the “I”. The “I” is an essential element in communication. I could not communicate with you without a clear sense of I and without the ability to observe my relationship with myself. Yoga focuses on the human core: how do I relate to my body, is it healthy, how do I manage my energy – through thought or feeling, how do I contain my embarrassments, how do I make choices, how do I introduce clarity into my life. The ego, from a Yoga perspective, is a complex object which includes aspects of thought, emotion, feeling and behavior.”“Self observation is more difficult in asana. To progress towards introspection, our practice needs to be more reflective and the key tools to achieve this are breathing and meditation. Breathing practices can replenish and balance our energies. Closing the eyes during the practice also serves a purpose, introspection is easier without the distractions of the surroundings.”

“This brings us to the question of what it is that we wish to examine within ourselves. The self that Yoga addresses is not a cosmic, god-united self. Yoga addresses a personal self, the one with whom we have a daily relationship. When we have developed an understanding of our relationship with our own ego, then we can begin to investigate our relationships with others.

Thinking beyond the posture

In your approach, a Yoga teacher is a semi-psychologist. What are your objectives, as a teacher, what are the questions that you ask yourself during a lesson?

“Yoga, maybe as opposed to modern psychology, is interested in surfacing the problem but not digging beyond it. Yoga doesn’t ask why, instead it focuses on how I can be more effective on coping with the situation. As a yoga teacher, I try to think beyond the posture into how it is internalized. I continuously explore my relationship with myself and with my students. I ask myself who the individuals facing me are. I feel that the fact that a person attends a Yoga class indicates that he is confident and trying to better himself. He is more interested in improving his life than in strengthening the forces working within him.”

Can Yoga practice improve western society at large?

“No, but I think that people practicing Yoga can have an affect. The introspection offered by Yoga enables us to understand the way we live and where change can be effective. Western society is searching for meaning, and in the UK, for example, 86% of the people do not go to church – this creates a cultural & spiritual vacuum which Yoga can fill.”

“In addition, the field of eco-psychology which investigates the inter-relationship between my life and life around me is evolving. Maybe our salvation will be found in the destructive attitude we have taken toward the planet. The attempt to save the planet has brought together people, that otherwise might not have come together.”

“I don’t think that everybody will be practicing Yoga in the future, but I do believe that tools such as Yoga can assist people in taking care of themselves and of the world around them, in being more productive and creative. Once people find their center and develop their self-esteem through Yoga, a change process will have already begun. “

The change Harvey is describing is not a drastic one. Much like the posture – where he is searching to create a little motion in a lot of places, so in life, he hopes for small changes and feasible short-term objectives.

Harvey believes that the future of Yoga is in the west. Western psychology, the emphasis of western society on the pluralism and the individual value system, as opposed to the Indian culture, a person’s ability to understand his role in a community can prove to be fertile ground for the development of Yoga. Yet Harvey warns that we should not lose touch with the core spirit of Yoga.

Harvey was introduced to Yoga in 1972 when he realized that he was unable to sit quietly for a single minute. His wife found an ad in the newspaper and they both attended their first Yoga lesson. Harvey’s visual memory from that lesson focuses on the teacher’s large and rounded stomach as it shrank inward and then extended as it filled with air while the teacher remained standing on his head. Harvey got out of that lesson feeling good, and that feeling encouraged him to continue seeking the source. When I ask him if he has found the answer he replies that if he had, he would probably have retired to an exotic beach. He concludes saying that “What’s important is not to find the solution itself, but to identify the mystery and to continuously touch it and draw strength from it”.

Years before that, as children in Tel Aviv, we would peep through the studio windows of Moshe Feldenkriez, the founder of the method bearing his name and the yoga teacher of the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion.

In the same period that yoga was gaining in popularity in the west, the interest in yoga in Israel was growing. In the 60`s, a few private studios were opened and a Sivananda yoga center was opened in Tel Aviv. Among the internationally known teachers that came to Israel to lecture and teach in those years were Swami Vishnudevananda and Swami Venkatesananda. In those days, a retreat with Swami Venkatesananda would start with a 6:00 A.M. asana session; each participant would go on to work and the day`s activities; at 5:00 P.M., there would be a pranayama workshop and evening lecture.

The Israeli Yoga Teachers` Association was established in 1979 by veteran teacher Rachel Solberg and a group of volunteers as a non-profit organization whose main goal is the promotion of yoga in our country. In those years and since, this association initiated and organized many different yoga activities, as well as establishing a connection with the European Yoga Union. In 1995, an international Yoga Conference for Peace took place outside of Jerusalem. Among the many teachers who volunteered their teaching were Indra Devi, Desikachar, Amrit Desai, and Bernard Bouanchaud, who was a frequent guest teacher in Israel in those years. Those years also saw the blossoming of yoga in Israel, as different styles and schools of yoga were introduced all the time. Iyengar yoga and Ashtanga yoga made their mark.

As we see, the interest in yoga and the desire to explore Indian philosophy did not start with today`s youth, those many young people who make their post-army trek to India and return home with a different perspective on life and a desire to continue exploring yoga. This growing popularity has led to the establishment of a wide variety of teachers training courses.

The varied reactions to the shorter courses is interesting. Some of the graduates jump right in and start to teach; others look for other frameworks in which to deepen their practice; and there are those that sense the great responsibility that comes with the teaching of yoga and hesitate to start teaching. The lucky ones meet a teacher with whom they may continue their yoga journey.

I met Paul in the summer of 1995 in Zinal, Switzerland. I immediately knew that I had found the answer to my personal need for deeper understanding of the potential of yoga. I remembered the words of Bernard from the year before: `you must find a way of raising the level of yoga in Israel.` There was a spark and Paul started coming regularly to Israel in 1996. A year later, we initiated the Viniyoga Foundation course. This course was the basis for and an umbrella for yoga teachers and practitioners of every style and school.

Through the experience of our meetings in a series of seminars and retreats led by Paul here in Israel, we have come to change and expand our perception and understanding of yoga through viniyoga. If before we could compare our understanding of yoga to the view from a window, after being taken on a journey of discovery that included different aspects of yoga (asana, pranayama, textual study, chanting and meditation ) it could be said that we now had a view from the roof. This view is more ample and detailed; we have gained both in spectrum and depth.

Paul’s last visit, his eighth, could be labled as extraordinary :

1. Because the aim of the retreat this time was to deepen our understandig and relationship with the benefit of change through the 3rd chapter of the Yoga Sutra :vibhuti (extra- ordinary) pada.
2. Because of the extraordinary amount of people who attended the preliminary seminar (there were 150 participants – as you see in the photos) most of them heard of the event by word of mouth.
3. Last, but not least, during the retreat, we were blessed by a phenomenon that does not happen often: pouring rain and thunderstorms. In this dry country, where water is an issue, this was certainly extraordinary.

The consequences of our studies with Paul are personal and professional. It affects our lives, our practice and deepens our relationship with the yoga tradition and it’s textual resources.

Both teachers and pupils benefit.

The Yoga Sutra is more accessible, the urge to share the knowledge with others became practical; more teachers include the Y.S in their teaching and wish to bring the quality of Viniyoga spirit to their lessons.The interest in study-groups increased.It is interesting and pleasurable to realize the common ways of study between the Yoga tradition and the jewish heritage.

Paul plans to continue regular teaching in Israel, two of us have been coming to Summer retreats for the past 3 years and i plan to continue coming to the U.K for special events and courses.

We hope that Paul will be coming more often to support the Viniyoga studies in Israel.