Yogin FAQ

Why did you make this film?
I practice yoga.  I found that many places in the West solely focus on the physical portion of yoga, the asanas.  The asanas are only a small part of yoga. Many people don't realize that their primary function is to prepare the body for meditation.  My film is a commentary on those who choose to only focus on the physical aspect.  I want to remind them that there is a lot more to it!

Why did you call the film “Yogin”?
Yogin is another term for yogi, a practitioner of yoga.  I liked Yogin because it sounds plural in the English language and it also sounds like Shogun and Ronin, associating more of a warrior aspect to the yogi.

How long did it take you?
From the very first time I said, “Hey, it would be cool to have two yoga masters face-off,” until I had a finished piece was about 2 years.  That doesn’t mean I spent 2 years on it.  I was in an MFA program at the time, so I had other classes, and I did little work over the breaks.  If I had worked on it full time, it would have been 8-10 months.

What programs did you use?
I animated in Autodesk Maya, and then composited in Adobe After Effects.  I like the fact that Maya is the Sanskrit word for “illusion” and can be interpreted as a phenomenal dream of duality.  Eastern philosophies view Earth as a cosmic dream in which we are all actors in a play.  It seems fitting that my film has been created within Maya.

What is that statue and does it have any significance?
Of course!  Everything in the film has significance.  That is a statue of the Hindu god, Shiva the destroyer.  In this particular form, Nataraja, Shiva is dancing upon the ignorance of man.  The master, Guruji, is the “actor” playing the part of the will of Shiva.

What other symbols are there?
The temple has eight sides, representing Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga: Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi.
The pattern on the floor is a Sri Yantra.  It is said that meditation on that pattern in the minds eye can carry one to enlightenment.
The mountains and temple are purple – the color of the 7th and highest Chakra, Sahasrara.  It is the union with the higher self, all is one and one is all.  Note that Guruji almost always has the statue of Shiva, or a big purple mountain behind him.

The battle scene seems to start off with difficult poses.  It seems like you could have created more range, starting off with simpler yoga poses moving to the more difficult ones.
The drama on Earth is one big cosmic dance.  The egotistical Yogin challenges Guruji to a battle.  Guruji accepts the challenge but then quickly morphs the battle into a dance.  Towards the end of the battle scene the characters are playing more then they are competing.  A yoga-battle is silly and absurd!    

It doesn’t really seem to be in the spirit of yoga.  A true yogi would never compete.
No kidding!  That is the whole point of the film.  The ego loves a competition.  When we are attached to the will of the ego, there can be an unpleasant and often painful outcome. 

I don’t get it, why did Yogin spontaneously combust?
When Guruji feels like Yogin has stepped aside from his incredibly powerful ego, he moves their interaction to the next level, levitation via pranayama. Pranayama is often viewed as breath control; however that is only partially true.  Pranayama is the control of life-force.  I look at it this way:  We can take a corpse, stuff it with food, give it water, replace the damaged organs and tissues, electrocute it or do any other number of things to a lifeless body - it is not going to come back to life.  There has to be some other element.  That element is an intelligent engery or life force, also known as prana or chi. 
Unfortunately for Yogin (or fortunately if you look at the larger picture of reincarnation), his ego is so strong that it inhibits the flow of his life-force.  As he concentrates his prana with the “breath of fire” the ego traps the energy until Yogin’s body cannot physically hold it any longer and he spontaneously combusts. 

We all know that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.  So what happens to that energy when we die?  Yogin has just been taught a monumental lesson.  He literally burned away is ego.  When his life-force returns to another body, his ego will have a considerable less amount of control over his actions.