Interview with John Weddepohl

I first met John Weddepohl in 2005. It wasn't exactly a face-to-face meeting rather it was virtual. His dear friend at the time did a Yoga training with me at Alan Finger's Ishta yoga Studio in NYC  and she told me about him.  "I am with this guy, a yogi actually who is completely crazy about Yoga. He and Alan are good friends".

I was fascinated. I had no idea that my teacher had a contemporary who was also as deeply into Yoga as he was and the fact that he was nuts about yoga made me curious.

A year later while doing some research on the teachers who had taught Alan, I decided to write to John and introduce myself and see if he could share some of his experiences and thoughts on his early years of Yoga study. Turns out John started Yoga when he was 19, in 1969 and opened his first yoga studio just a few weeks later. But the journey didn't end there it has gone on for another 40 years and has led him to the study of Vedanta- which means the end of knowledge.

John and I did eventually meet in person and I thought it would be fun to interview him more formally about his experiences in India, the nature of his own practice and to learn a little bit more about Vedanta….

How did yoga find you at such an early age and who did you study with?

In 1969, at the age of 19, I wandered into one of Kavi Yogiraj Mani Fingers Satsangs in central Johannesburg and was intrigued by his thinking. Later on I decided to go and see a girlfriend of mine on Mani’s son Alan’s farm in the mountains just outside Johannesburg. Mani Finger was Alan’s yoga teacher, and everyone on the farm was doing yoga. Although Mani had impressed me, I wasn’t the least bit interested in all the stretching stuff. In fact I felt a huge resistance to it. Not much later something happened, a crisis of sorts -checkmate on the chessboard of life if you like, and suddenly everything ground to a halt- so I decided to try it. Once I dipped my toe in, it was as though I had never stopped. Soon Alan had me teaching class and guiding the morning meditations, this just two and a half weeks after my arrival. It all felt so natural to me, I felt so at home that I ended up living at Alan’s Farm ‘Kutir Niketan’.

When I met Alan’s father Kavi Yogiraj Mani Finger, later for the second time he said ‘Ah we have finally caught the butterfly’. 

How did it change you?

I personally have no idea why this tradition drew me.
My initial aversion is apparently quite normal for someone associated with it in the past. Like in the sangoma (African healer tradition) it takes a while for the sanusi – the student - to accept what is happening to them. Through the years though, brief moments, or glimpses of what seems like a destiny, which can only be described as experiences of a psychic nature, begin to unfold, drawing the person further and deeper into the tradition. Each time these strange unexplainable episodes occur, you see a correspondence in your immediate surroundings confirming and reflecting this strange emerging and incredibly meaningful reality. Somehow I knew immediately I could trust these things. Whenever they happened, I felt reassured.

Years later in 2000 when I met Credo Mutwa, the great sangoma and spiritual father of Africa, I discovered him living only a few kilometres away from the old ashram. I asked him about the area, and he told me that the whole valley was extremely relevant for the healers, and these mountains have been revered by the ancient traditions for thousands of years. On the high ground above there is a spring where people have come for thousands of years for healing, and to observe the stars. He told me the mountain above the ashram is known locally as ‘The mountain of God’.

Not so long after the ‘ashram’ Alan and Mani got me to open a commercial retail yoga centre in midtown Johannesburg. Swami Nisreyasananda head of the Ramakrishna mission in Africa gave satsang, and was guest of honour. To have these great men open the studio was a tremendous privilege. Most teachers had their studios in back yards and garages back then. This was the first sort of ‘yoga as business’ venture. However South Africa being what it was back then saw the venue being shut down by the police~ which meant I had to find myself a job!

What were your other passions beside yoga?

Music being my forte and other calling in life led me to embark on a career in music which took all my attention for a long time.
Long before my music career took off and got underway, the psychic experiences I refer to earlier were still strong in mind. I kept these experiences to myself, though and tried to seek out advice through reading and meeting bizarre people involved in witchcraft etc. but no one could help me.

So what happened when you decided to focus on music, Did you stop doing Yoga?
After such a focused sadhana yoga couldn’t help be in the background in everything I did. In fact I attribute my success in music to yoga. But it became Karma Yoga. Being married and living as a householder with a child meant I was focussed on business, and succeeding, but this didn’t stop me from seeing things from a yogic perspective. We may leave the practices but yoga never leaves us. I would be doing mantra japa in business meetings, and occasionally do asana at home. I started full blown sadhana though again 25 years ago when I decided to take kriya initiation with Shiabendu Lahiri the great grandson of Lahiri Mahasaya, and received mantra diksha from Swami Veda Bharati of the Himalayan Institute. 

While all this went on I was I still really enjoying what I was doing. I had everything going for me. All that comes with a successful modern lifestyle. Yet in spite of this I always felt something big was missing. There was this huge gaping hole. And of course there was something missing, as it is missing in all of our lives. Me. I was missing!

What happened after you left the music industry?
I had started to teach yoga again, and had begun to re-acquaint myself with friends doing yoga- ‘the yoga club’. I was still involved with other pursuits though like motor car racing which I enjoy, so I’d literally go from being on a race track, to a being in committee meeting of the Yoga Teacher Fellowship. While I was doing this the opportunity to travel to India came up.

What was it like being in India after so many years of doing Yoga?
It was a wonderful experience. Not only being in India for the first time, but being on the ashram of Paramahamsa Satyananda, who was such a great man. At the time Swamiji was not really coming out that much, and would rarely meet people. He said he did not want to be disturbed. He said if he felt like he was being disturbed, he would go back into the forest! But we were lucky and were able to meet him. We were a group of South Africans and he spoke to us and we all had our photo taken with him. After that I returned regularly to the ashram in between all my other travels around India. Eventually I took Karma Sannyas Diksha in the tradition.  
Still in the back of my mind though were those early experiences, so I’d ask whomever I came across about them. Finally on meeting one of my teachers in India, he told me these experiences were in fact true initiation.

How would you describe Swami Satyananda? What was the key teaching you received from him?
Swamiji was the most compassionate, humble and modest man you could ever meet yet had the will to rule with a rod of iron. Nothing on that ashram went on without him knowing about it, either when you were on or off the ashram. Swamiji always seemed to know your thoughts and your whereabouts. Eventually over the years I was there, Swamiji was coming out more and more and it was getting really exciting. I would always visit the ashram during Guru Purnima or on Shiva Ratri, and we would be blessed with the presence of Swamiji.
Besides being with such a great guru, key to the teachings I personally received from Swamiji are my approach to pranayama, and Tantra, and on how to attune ones attitude to ones Ishtadevata.

What other traditions and lineages did you come across. Do you feel that their teachings were authentic?
I was really intrigued with the Aghori’s, so decided to visit a friend in Nepal. There I ended up meeting and staying with some of the really great Baba’s of Nepal. One cannot truly evaluate meeting such individuals. It only manifests afterwards. As your life unfolds so you see the effect of having been with such people. Also in Nepal I met many vaidyas practicing ayurveda. Every meeting stands out as a milestone. However recognised throughout as India’s greatest yogis are the Tamil Siddhas. So in 2005 I decided to travel to a place called Palani where I stayed with the Pulipani family, a dynastic lineage in the tradition of Bhoga. Bhoga or Bhoganathar is the great guru of Babaji of the Himalayas, mentioned by Yogananda in his book. Bhoga was active in Palani around 5000 years ago. The Pulipani family welcomed me into the family. Bhoga is also known in China as Bo Yang Loa Tse, and still enjoys a following there. During my stay it came out that Patanjali did his sadhana in Palani, at the Pulipani ashram, and that his guru Vyagrapadar is actually the North Indian name of Pulipani. Staying with Srilasri Sivananda Pulipani Swamigal I was introduced to the Siddha doctors and taken to all the Siddha Peethas of Tamil Nadu. I guess if we question whether the traditions are authentic or not, we only have to look at the sutras and the legacy of Patanjali to see that.  

How did you end up studying Vedanta?
I was in Johannesburg when a friend called to say someone interesting was in town and would I like to meet him. I said of course, not knowing who it was. It turned out to be H.H. Swami Suddhananda. We had a lovely time together and at the end of the evening Swamiji asked why don’t I come to his ashram in Thiruvanamalai and do his month long course. I had no idea what the course was about, or who he was, and when I asked he just shrugged his shoulders. But I decided because I liked him a lot I’d go do the course. I was on my way back to Rikhia anyway so altered my plans to do the course.

That was it. Vedanta. I had no idea during or after the course what was really going on, although I went off back to Rikhia afterwards quite convinced that I had encountered and experienced something quite astonishing, and someone really incredible. So began the time of walking the tightrope between two traditions, Tantra at Rikhia and Vedanta.

What is vedanta? What is self knowledge?
All teachings attempt to describe one thing, the truth of the human being. Vedanta is the culmination of this journey and inquiry. The journey like all journeys begins in ignorance and ends in the absolute truth that we all are as human beings. This final resolution and understanding of oneself is seen as the end of knowledge, and is called Vedanta. ‘Veda’ the word means knowledge and ‘anta’, when joined together with ‘veda’ means the final resolution of that knowledge, the truth that finally rests and resolves in you as yourself.

After meeting so many amazing teachers in your opinion what makes someone a good teacher?
We should not be talking about good teachers. Here good is not good enough. The teacher who shares the absolute knowledge with you, which is the knowledge of the knower is always the greatest, the very best teacher. This knowledge is the best knowledge you can have as a human being. It is not like any other knowledge. Anyone teaching us the knowledge of the knower – yourself- is the greatest because it is the greatest teaching anyone can receive as a human being.

For you in your own practice how does hatha yoga and self-knowledge come together?
Hatha yoga speaks for itself. Ha and tha, or Ham, Tham.  This is the basis of yogabhyasa (Yoga practice). By balancing the sun (Ha) and the moon (Tha)- the two opposing energies in the body, represented in the two sides of the body, you have Yoga. This has nothing to do with the consciousness that you are already with or without the body! Thinking Yoga and Self-Knowledge are coming together or have ever been separate is the mistake. Being- Self- is Yoga. Just because we don’t know ourselves, and continually think of ourselves as separate, doesn’t change the fact that yoga or self are ever existing. We go round thinking that something must be done, but OM TAT SAT means ‘I am already That’. Not ‘I will be that’. So this is where we go wrong.

To live comfortably in the world and have the best time - know yourself. Once you know yourself, you surely want to have the best body? The best body is a healthy body in tip-top shape. It’s no good having a body if your body is weak and in a mess. Like a car you want a car that is the best not one that keeps going into the garage to be fixed. No one wants to be driving a wreck. We all want the best. The best car may be a Porsche, Ferrari or Bentley, but as far as the body goes, the best body is a yoga body. This is the Ferrari of bodies. So too if the best car is Italian or German, and the best body is a yoga body, what is the best knowledge? The best knowledge is the knowledge of the knower. The Self. With this – self-knowledge/yoga – walking around in what we call a divya deha or diamond body, what can stop you? Nothing. Nothing can go wrong. If you know yourself and look after your body, you will always have the best time in the creation. Nothing will ever stand in your way, because nothing can stand in your way.

Having been involved in Yoga for so long, how do you see Yoga developing into the future?
As human beings we tend to complicate everything. We are so busy complicating yoga that we forget ourselves. In yoga we forget that we are the yoga itself. In modern yoga the miracle is not the millions of people doing yoga, but that anyone can remember the thousands of different names we are giving to a simple practice. I feel we need to simplify our approach to yoga. If you want to keep healthy do a simple practice daily. That is all we need. I do one set sequence everyday, which includes everything - asana, pranayama, and meditation practices. How long does it take to learn a simple sequence of yoga? Like brushing your teeth. When you brush your teeth, you choose how much toothpaste you squeeze out the tube each day. Exactly like that, learning a sequence, how much you squeeze out your body, and do your yoga is all up to you. The benefit of yogabhyasa (yoga practice) is a body and mind ready to swing into action anytime life throws a crisis at you. Not complicated stuff with bells and whistles, and elaborate frills and rituals. You have to remember – you are the yoga itself. Time is money- If I can only afford a short practice everyday what’s the problem? Once you know yourself as the yoga itself - you realize its all nonsense anyway.

What do you do when you find your bank account is empty or your wife or business partner has left you in a mess or your business has failed? Stand on your head, do a mantra, asana and breathe? No, you go down there straight away and take control of the situation, and find out what the hell’s going on. Standing on your head and breathing doesn’t help you.

The best sadhana for everyone is - do your job, and then do your yoga. All these practices, mantra, meditation, breathing- all are just a way of reminding you of yourself anyway. In the end when your practice is done, who is left sitting there? You are. You are the meditation itself.