Maas Mag: Prison Yoga
Dieter Gurkasch kills a woman at a young age. He spends years in prison and, after his release, comes into conflict with the policeagain. The armed assault almost costs him his life. Once again in prison, a new life begins for him - yoga and meditation replace his anger.
Today, Dieter is a board member of the association "Yoga and Meditation in Prison". He wants to help other offenders find inner peace. A conversation about guilt, reparation and the spiritual path to freedom.
How yoga changed the life of a murderer
More than 20 years ago, Dieter Gurkasch injured the owner of a shop so badly during a robbery in Hamburg that she died in hospital, as a result. As convicted criminal, he served his sentence in a prison in Fuhlsbüttel. Back on the loose, he commited further crimes and engaged in a fight with the police.
A bullet hit him, and Dieter barely survived. In intensive care, he suddenly felt empty inside. The anger, the hatred, the aggression - his reliable drive had disappeared. During his second prison sentence, he seeked support and gets into yoga. Dieter changed, he became a different, softer person.
Today, he is convinced that every person can change and find inner peace through yoga and spirituality. I met Dieter Gurkasch, offender, book author and yoga teacher, in Berlin.
We know each other from a conference on victim-offender mediation, where you represented your association and also spoke yourself. Would you briefly explain what exactly victim-offender mediation is about?
Victim-offender mediation originated in the American Restorative Justice, which is about facilitating a healing process between a victim and an offender, regardless of the offence. Both parties meet and, under moderation, try to find compensation for the damage caused. Restorative Justice encompasses the entire conflict, the healing of the victim through his or her forgiveness, but also the healing of the relationship between the offender and the victim. In the German victim-offender mediation, the focus lies primarily on the victim. The perpetrator is not taken under consideration here.
Now you yourself are a perpetrator ...
… and victim. Today, science agrees that every person who has become a perpetrator was him a victim and could no longer stand this role. We have to get away from the idea of attributing strength to the perpetrator, because actually it is usually the other way round: the perpetrator is often under tremendous inner pressure which he himself is not able to control. This builds up and builds up until he can finally not take it anymore. So he snaps. That is a sign of weakness, not strength.
Every perpetrator is a victim, says Dieter Gurkasch.
After your personal healing process, did you try to get in touch with the victim's family?
No, because the crime had already happened over 20 years ago at that time. I decided against reopening the wounds of the relatives, only because I desired forgiveness. But I thought of them very often.
You are on the board of YuMiG e.V. - "Yoga and Meditation in Prison", which aims to help prison inmates achieve inner freedom through yoga classes. Is this some kind of compensation for the crime, like an attempt to make amends?
No, that is something different. I will never be able to make up for what I have done, because I have killed a human being. What I can do now is declare to life my willingness to increase the love in the world and to teach the way of yoga. And this is exactly what I have been doing since the year of 2003, when I lived in a Kundalini release for several months. This process has given me the strength I want to share again. I think life constantly gives us impulses that show us how we can behave. We just have to manage to subordinate our free will to the will of God, of the universe, of love. That is modern spirituality.
How do you think yoga can help prison inmates?
Yoga helps inmates who regularly participate, to relax. That is very important in a stress-dominated environment such as a prison. A person under pressure will always choose the path that has ensured his survival until now. But through relaxation, the man can turn his gaze in another direction. And that is exactly what we want to achieve: inner freedom and self-determination.
Yoga in prison is becoming more and more popular these days. It was different when you were in prison. How did you get into yoga, yourself?
My wife first started practicing the Five Tibetans during my second period of imprisonment. When she wanted to convince me of the positive effect, I asked her what this "girl's gymnastics" was supposed to do for me … Well, shortly afterwards I injured my hip very badly and the doctor forbade me any sport except yoga and the Tibetans (laughs). After the first week, I was whistling in the shower. So my fellow inmates asked me what I had taken and whether they could have some too. That's when I realised that I was on a different frequency.
At first nobody believed him, then his fellow inmates thought, Dieter was drugged.
What did your fellow inmates say about your new lifestyle?
When I started yoga, I was at the top of the prison hierarchy and no one would have dared to say anything against me. I then showed the exercises to many fellow inmates myself, which created a real yoga hype. But the more I practised yoga, the happier and the less aggressive I became, which led to me slipping down in the hierarchy.
After the drastic experience with the shooting, in which you almost died, your extreme anger finally disappeared. Where did this anger come from?
I was a very sensitive child from an early age, which led to me having big problems with my classmates at school. My parents feared they had spoiled me too much and tried to harden me, saying things like "A man knows no pain" or "Real men don't cry". This shaped my image of manhood and split me internally. Then this inside fight began. I tried to fight off my feminine side and became more and more aggressive because I thought that was the only way to prove my strength. It was yoga that helped me to accept and integrate my feminine side, which in turn helped me to achieve real freedom inside.
I can tell that your perception of strength has changed. How would you define a strong man today?
A strong man is the one who is at peace with his own masculine and feminine parts. Someone who can be courageous, but also gentle. The fight against the opposite sex on the outside is only the mirror of one's own inner fight. Both sides have to be in balance and that's where yoga helps.
“Yoga gave me structure and peace of mind.”
So, you already found your inner freedom in prison. How did yoga help you to be released into physical freedom?
Yoga first gave me structure and later it gave me peace of mind. With the strength I gained from the exercises, I managed to admit to myself what I had done. So I could accept the guilt associated with it. Even if now instead of resentment there is only sadness, I have learned to forgive myself. That took a very long time.
What can associations like YuMiG achieve?
The association is now active in 30 prisons and has 200 committed members. Our work is not only about a number of inmates we want to help, but about healing society as a whole. We should not expect people to behave only according to certain rules, but we must also create a framework for this as a society. With YuMiG, we want to help the reintegration of ex-offenders.
If you could go back, what would you tell your own teenage self?
In too many crucial situations, I have made the wrong decisions. That's why I would tell myself: pay attention to the messages that life gives you and let them guide you.
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