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 Father Joe Pereira is returning to Hong Kong in July.
Holistic HK is re-running an interview with this fascinating priest we ran in 2002.
When I asked Father Joe how the Church had reacted to his yoga practice he recalled a story; "My vicar-general was very concerned about my yoga. One day he had to go to a doctor for surgery to remove his varicose veins. The doctor told him, 'If you go to this priest I know who teaches yoga you won’t need surgery for this.'
Father Joe smilingly continues, "Today I get a lot of support from the church and I must acknowledge this, it's a conversion of sorts." Stories like these tumble from him continuously as a testament to his life of yoga, priesthood and healing. He attributes his ability to withstand convention to his mother. She was one of the first graduates in the country, whilst his father was not and was 4 years younger.
There is an obviously interesting storyline in a Catholic priest who teaches yoga. But Father Joe is far more than just a healthy and fit Bombay priest who doesn't look his 50 + years. His story and his presence are one of those unique products of India; innately spiritual, and embracing the fluidity that moves between traditions whilst staying true to one main path. I warmed to him straight away. He verbally ambles easily between cultures: quoting a Sanskrit phrase of meditation in one breath; referring to a speech at a Cambridge University conference on proving the effects of yoga on drug rehabilitation, and sharing his love of Mother Teresa. Beyond the story of a priest teaching yoga there is a deeper more compelling one of healing the poor and being open to those most in need.
 His two main influences are Mother Teresa and BKS Iyengar, the famous yoga light and teacher. "I met ‘guruji' (as he deferentially called his yoga teacher) in the last years of my 10 year seminary training when I was based in Poona" (where Iyengar lives). And then I saw him again at a Yehudi Menuhin concert in Bombay. Menuhin introduced him as my violin teacher! I started yoga with him in 1968 and have not missed a day since". His yoga practice has taken him on a personal healing journey as well as a charitable one. "I had two serious accidents and needed surgery three times on my legs. Now I can sit in full lotus and do all my exercises and I don't even have the memory of them. In fact in 1997, 17 years after those operations, Father Joe needed remedial work on his spine. He was fortunate to be able to meet personally with Iyengar every 2 to 3 weeks who devised a special program for him of 26 exercises "each more painful than the last". But after a year and a half of them now there is no pain. "And that is Iyengar – you trust the process."
In 1971 Father Joe approached Mother Teresa. He was having a crisis of faith. After the seminary years, well protected from temptation of the world, he fell in love. And as part of the post Vatican Council generation of priests he was frustrated with the progress of change. "I was in a hurry to change the church." He approached Mother Teresa and asked her to pray for him. "I don't pray over priests, I pray with them" and together they prayed, Father Joe "crying like a child". "Don't quit," she said "the Lord has work for you." Later she added that it may even take 10 years. And 10 years later in 1981 the Father started the Kripa Foundation and in a very Indian reincarnation was able to help Mother Teresa in her work. Throughout the interview he would refer to ‘Mother' and she is obviously a living inspiration to him. Every year on the anniversary day of her home in Bombay on January 8 he gives a talk recalling her.
In 1981 he moved into working with those in most need. "I wanted to take down the walls that separate a church from the street and give shelter to those that needed it." Eventually this led him taking on drug addicts from Mother Teresa Missionaries of Charity, as a result offering him the Boys Town in Diamond Harbour Road in Calcutta. From 3 addicts he was receiving 250 a year. "Mother was thrilled" that such a thing was possible. And as addicts recovered they went back to their own states and new centres were set up. Soon there were centres in Delhi, Goa and all seven of the North Eastern states, 31 in total. Now he wishes to work in the largest slum in SE Asia; Dharveri in Bombay. Before that, he had been invited to work in the North East of India, in the states known as the 'seven sisters'. "We started helping those with HIV+ and Aids. 10 years ago there was such a stigma that they were thrown in jail for having Aids and food was thrown through the bars for them to eat to prevent contact". Now he wishes to build Aids hospices in India as well as more drug rehabilitation clinics. He is 40% funded by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. He recently helped 150 drug pushers find other jobs and gave 50 sewing machines to their wives to offer alternate employment. He continues to practice and preach through the priesthood mainly through the Missionaries of Charity. And Mother Teresa inaugurated both his centres in Bombay and Calcutta. Mother had asked him to give a talk at retreats for her nuns. "Can I ask them not to bring their prayer books" he asked her. When asked why he said that they would be falling asleep at the 5 am prayers. Instead he introduced yogic simple breathing, and Benedictine mantras. It seems like the mantle from Mother Teresa has fallen to a degree on his shoulders. As he said to his superiors when he first applied to set up his rehabilitation centres "we can not let Mother Teresa have a monopoly on this work!"
 It is no surprise that another influence was Father Bede Griffiths, a British Benedictine monk who wore the saffron robes of a Hindu swami in a Christian based interfaith ashram on the banks of the Kaveri River in Southern Tamil Nadu. Father Bede is well known for books bridging East and West and like him, Father Joe bridges yoga and Christianity, social action and meditation. The guiding key to it all seems to be Father Joe's spiritual dedication, regardless of convention. His energy he attributes to "the flow, its not mine, to be in tune with whatever God wants but always believing that the sky is the limit".
So how can one deepen one's faith and spiritual practice? He quotes Iyengar saying, "holiness is wholeness". "Sometimes this leads to you being out of control, you really go through a period where you can see two levels of existence. One comes finally to live by faith alone. The more you learn to really let go the more fully present you are. The struggle comes when you forget this and try to control life and that brings stress."
It's not just his vicar general's varicose veins that have helped him along. Now he teaches yoga above a church in Bombay three times a week. Officially he is the drug and alcohol abuse consultant to the diocese of Bombay. And what of those who struggle with combining yoga and Christianity? Given the vision of healing that Father Joe has, it seems pedantic. "Oh those fundamentalists they are always seeing the devil on my shoulder!" In his mind "Jesus is the supreme Yogi because he said the Father and I are one" and yoga means yug = union = one." He recently was asked by the Bishop of Poona to work in his diocese. Father Joe responded positively and was offered the holiday home of his seminary college, his alma mater. "It was as if God was confirming my path for me. And these miracles are always happening. Mother Teresa used to say " God makes things happen to us and we human beings have to let things happen to us"'. The Father continued drawing his hands together as he spoke "it's where these two meet in the middle that our life becomes something beautiful for God".
In India things don't seem to go so much in a linear fashion rather in circles and cycles of life. As a student of Indian philosophy Father Joe seemed very Indian in this way. As I left him Father said to me "it is said that when one is in the sunset of one's life, it is not the things we have done that are important but the love we lived." And this man of the cloth's journey has led him from a seminary to yoga, healing and social work, all in the mission of love, as he says "my family are those who are unloved by others."
Iyengar Yoga Workshop
Father Joe Pereira
July 11 – 15
At The Iyengar Yoga Centre of Hong Kong
To Register: E-mail
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. Post payment by cheque to The Iyengar Yoga Centre of Hong Kong, Room 406 New Victory House, 93 – 103 Wing Lok St., Sheung Wan. Tel: 2541 0401, web: www.iyengaryogahongkong.com.
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Mon July 21 – Sat August 2
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