Big Island resident Norman Allen plays a significant role in "Enlighten Up," a feature-length documentary about yoga, providing a strong local tie to a film that's making waves in a grass-roots fashion around the world.
"He's the most unconventional guy," explained filmmaker Kate Churchill, who added that she needed to meet with Allen and work on his farm several times before he permitted any on-camera interviews. "He's very special. His wisdom definitely has its own style. He's someone who's walking his talk."
When asked if he should be referred to as a yogi or guru, Allen, who has studied yoga for 40 years in India and other parts of the world, laughed. "Just call me Norman," he said during a conversation from Kona.
At one point during the film, which premiered last month at the Maui Film Festival, Nick Rosen, the yoga neophyte who became the guinea pig/star of the documentary, asks for help dealing with his daily emotions, which he admits can revolve around food, sex, greed and jealousy. Allen tells him simply, "Go (screw) yourself."
Later, Allen explained what he meant. "(Nick's) got to be complete in himself." The big Self is a unit complete unto itself -- unselfish. The small self is selfish and needy, when you bother people. The goal of yoga is to be the big Self, to be completely liberated, free and un-bonded. This, he continued, can be done at all different levels of sophistication.
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