About Guy

I can trace my interest in yoga to a time in my childhood. When I was six years old, my family moved from the grey suburbs of London to the Sussex countryside. Our back garden opened onto fields, forests, lakes and rivers - and this became my playground. Over the next few years I would spend hours every day climbing trees, playing in the river or sit fishing by the lake. Being out in nature, I remember having no clear feeling of a boundary between myself and my environment - it was as if my mind merged with nature. I often experienced a profound sense of peace, happiness, heightened awareness and vitality.

Around the age of ten, as my critical thinking began to mature and I started to read my father’s newspaper, I became aware of man’s potential for evil. Up until this point I had been innocent, but now I began to read about human atrocities, murder, famine, etc. and this came as an enormous shock to my system. As if overnight, my wonderful experiences in nature vanished. I had woken up out of my dream but the reality which now began to dawn on me seemed so much less real, so much less vital - and so miserable! It was as if I had experienced the fall of Adam from the garden of Eden and I had woken up to the nature of suffering.

Looking back, I believe at times I had been experiencing a kind of samadhi: I often felt a deep sense of peace and happiness. Losing this experience was a heavy blow that caused me a great deal of pain and this prompted the beginning of my search for yoga: I wanted to re-connect with what I had experienced previously.

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I originally traveled to India to study at the Mysore Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute with Pattabhi Jois and ended up spending several years attending classes there during the 90s. Although I was fascinated by the system Pattabhi Jois created, and ended up teaching it for decades, I did not find that Pattabhi Jois could answer my deeper questions or give me proper guidance on the path of yoga beyond asana and pranayama.

But in 1993, I met someone who could satisfy my questions: Dr KLS Jois, "Acharya" https://sadvidyafoundation.org/the-sacred-tradition-of-yoga/ - he has remained an enduring guide all these years.

Although Pattabhi Jois gave me a foundation in practice, the understanding of the true meaning and purpose of yoga came through Acharya: Yoga is not something to strive for or something to attain, it is something intimate and internal, something that is uncovered and that happens naturally when the conditions are right.

Yoga practice returns us to the natural state in which the innate peace and happiness that is our birthright can be experienced.