Enlighten Up! — Film review (May 9, 2009)

Director: Kate Franklin; Cast: Nick Rosen and many yoga teachers (2009)

This documentary follows a twenty-nine year old unemployed journalist, Nick Rosen, in his search throughout the U.S. and India for authentic yoga teachers. Admittedly not searching for spiritual enlightenment, but unsure what he is searching for, he asks every teacher he encounters to help him define yoga. The ultimate answer he receives, from a fatherly teacher in Vrindivan, is “follow your own path,” a paraphrase of the Bhagavad Gita’s admonishment to follow your own dharma.

The pretense of the film is shaky. Nick was chosen because he wanted to be in a film, but not because of his own search for any deeper meaning in life. The director, Kate, attempts to use him as a stand-in for herself, and her own desire to seek enlightenment through yoga practice, but she is unable to elicit that drive in her subject. Kate’s off-screen questions put Nick on the spot, and come across as projections of Kate’s own need for validation. This sets up a conflict. At one point Nick rebels, “I only do for myself — eating, drinking, having sex,” implying, “What else is there?” Kate’s own immaturity allows this to go unchallenged, as if the yogic values of yama and niyama that lead to the distinction between the Seer and the Seen are not important in a fulfilled life.

The film falls apart for two reasons: Most of the teachers Nick encounters are unable to explain to him, in a language he understands, how to find the underlying spirituality in practice. The American teachers, a “Who’s Who” of faculty at any Yoga Journal Conference, are portrayed as relying on platitudes, stock phrases, and even intimidation that hide their own lack of spiritual depth. It is unclear if this reflects Kate’s limited editorial viewpoint, or if it is an accurate representation of the teachers’ lack of insight.

Secondly, Nick is both too inexperienced as a practitioner, and too immature to comprehend what he does encounter. Even B.K.S. Iyengar concedes on screen that he only began to understand yoga as a spiritual practice at the age of forty-two, after more than twenty-five years of practice. The viewer is left constantly wondering, “Is Nick going to get it?” It’s as painful as watching young children repeatedly fail at a task that you know they’ll be able to master later in life. But Nick’s not a young kid. He’s too old to be a slacker. His responses are superficial and unsatisfying. Ultimately, the film lacks the character development and successful transformation of a typical “coming of age” film.

Only during the final scene on his departure from India does Nick relax and display confidence. This interview takes place with an ironic sign in the background, “Do not leave anything behind.”


Although the film did not resonate with me, there are many aspects of the plot that paralleled my life story a generation ago. I found yoga at the same age, after a painful divorce and losing my job. I, too, started for purely physical reasons and was equally unimpressed by many of the teachers I encountered until I found Judith Lasater, who is briefly shown in the film. That led me to B.K.S. Iyengar, her teacher, who is featured in the film.

Afterwards, I also sought out Pattabhi Jois, who Nick found first, after studying with some of his pupils in the U.S. Nick, after studying with Jois, went to Iyengar. Then Nick, as I did, went to Vrindaban, the home of the Hare Krishna movement in North India, to study with a bhakta. Similarly, I met a yogi who spent thirty years in a cave. The yogi gave two of us a private audience, with his student translating. I was fascinated by his words of wisdom, but the other young man, like Nick, was homesick.


There are several themes that could have been explored to make this a more relevant film.
1. The need for spirituality in America’s material culture.

2. The need for spiritual pluralism in a predominantly Christian culture.

3. Spirituality that addresses the “gray” areas of adult life, beyond the “black and white” extremes of childhood religious education.

4. An exploration of how the tenets of non-violence, etc., that are expressed in the yamas and niyamas and permeate so much of Indian culture, are applied to yoga practice.

5. An exploration of how the language of yoga helps give voice to the latent spiritual drive that underlies even the most “physical” practice.

6. A polemic that shows how the promise, by reputation that yoga may meet spiritual purposes, remains unfulfilled in the U.S. due, in part, to co-optation by the “fitness industry.” Missing the essence yoga is not new. Even among some pandits in India, as this film shows, there are those who practice physically but teach philosophy separately, and, thus, are beset by the basic problem of dualism, or a lack of integration. As BKS Iyengar urges, “By the body, for the mind.”