Yoga of Heart: The Healing Power of Intimate Connection

325 Pages·2004·5.89 MB·English

by  Mark Whitwell

“Mark takes the complexity and the rote, the mechanical and repetitiveness out
of yoga, unearthing the delicious sensual pleasure of it.... And that's where the
tantric masters who originated yoga discovered the truth of
transformation.”—Dr. Rudy Ballentine, author, Radical Healing
“Dear Mark Whitwell, your new book Yoga of Heart is simply brilliant. You
have synthesized the essence of love and wisdom in an artistic form that opens
hearts and inspires minds and souls. As a written masterpiece it expresses a true
distillation of the perennial philosophical teachings of the ages. Besides
awakening us to our true magnificence, you have given us a way to align our
spines and minds with the divine. Thank you for your dedicated service and for
such a heart-impacting expression.”—Dr. John F. Demartini, author, The
Breakthrough Experience—A Revolutionary New Approach to Personal
Transformation “In Yoga of Heart Mark Whitwell reminds us that our own
innate power and wisdom is as accessible as an ordinary breath. With honesty,
compassion and enthusiasm, Whitwell takes the ‘sanctity’ out of yoga and in so
doing shows us that each moment, each breath, each relationship is
sacred.”—Adam Skolnick, LA Yoga Magazine
“Mark Whitwell has a wonderful lens through which he is determined to show
you your fully realized self. It is a paradigm shift; that simply by being yourself,
you are as deeply spiritual as any being on the planet, past or
present.”—Sherry Brourman, author, Walk Yourself Well
“Mark Whitwell's Yoga of Heart opens the door to our own way. His devotion
to his teachers, his living commitment to the teachings brings forth our own
practice and realization. We all have beautiful hearts. In Mark's yoga of heart
we discover ourselves to be free, loving, inspired and compassionate. I am glad
to have Mark as my beloved yoga teacher.”—Max Gimblett, artist, NY
“Whitwell affirms life at all levels and gives readers the confidence to be what
they were born to be. A must-read for anyone who has hit a rough spot on the
road of life. It is glorious philosophy for the yogi and non-yogi alike. Mark
Whitwell's Yoga of Heart is an indispensable companion for any yoga practice,
anywhere, any time. Whitwell celebrates modern life with ancient
truths.”—Gracie Astor Best, Whole Life Times, Los Angeles “Mark Whitwell's
Yoga of Heart celebrates the beauty, poetry and cultural relevance of yoga
today. Unlike so many other yoga masters cum authors, Whitwell doesn't dish
up a 5,000-year-old tradition as just another cookie-cutter fitness trend for the
young and gymnastic. Instead, he illuminates how a mindful, carefully
constructed, individualized practice can heal and transform anyone's life. If
you've never practiced yoga before, read this book. If you've been practicing for
years, read this book. It will permanently change the way you think about yoga
for the better.”—Isadora Fox, features editor, American Baby “Yoga of Heart
is a vital, bright light in the evolution of yoga in our time. Clearly articulated
with passion, compassion, extensive knowledge and warm humor, Mark
Whitwell compels students at any level to experience the joy of yoga as
awakening and liberating, NOW.”—Susan Swan, director, Positive Yoga
Foundation and Hamsa Yoga “Mark Whitwell's book is the essence of yoga,
beyond style, belief, technique. Empowering, radical! Easily accessible and
immediate. Yoga is as close as each breath, each movement. Yoga of Heart is
an important book in the unfolding of yoga in the West. Here you will find your
own authentic yoga.”—Saul David Raye, Thai Temple Yoga Master

yoga of heart

PREFACE
It is my privilege to introduce Mark Whitwell in the context of this important
book, Yoga of Heart. In a sense, Mark and I are creatures of a kind that
transcends the fact that he is a New Zealander returning to the West after years
in India, and I, a woman from South India, who arrived back to my self,
learning yoga in the West. The particularities of our differences are striking.
However, our commonality lies at the intersection of yoga, at the junction
where East meets West in a landscape of our making: arising out of the
rejection of the oppression of the inquisitive mind and the inquisition of the
intuitive being. We are creatures of a kind in that we have attempted to
experience the essential truth in all experiences.
Without a student or a sincere question no teaching is necessary.
Therefore the student must be “heard” first and respected, so that the
response is relevant.
Mark arrived in India seeking the self at an impressionable young age in his
early twenties. I arrived in America giddy to be done with India and “be free to
be myself” at the age of twenty-one. We were both seeking to be ourselves.
Seeking our selves that were wrenched away by society's assault of ideas and
dictates of what we ought to be. Seeking to be free of the conditioning and
impositions. We both had to leave our native lands in order to breathe freely.
We arrived in our romanced lands of ideas and ideals, where answers were to
be found, lives to be experienced that could be inherently and intuitively
claimed as ours, where we could live from the heart and be whoever we wanted
to be and above all our true selves—only to find that we had merely traded one
set of constraints for another.
The realization came that to be truly free one has to be free of all culture that
arrived pre-packaged and pret-a-porter, like a Baby Gap accessory bag for the
newborn soul, completely outfitted. In an increasingly global world, one has to
make a culture of one's own. One has to determine for oneself the meaning of
everything in relationship to everything else. This is our privilege.
I met Mark Whitwell at a workshop at Be Yoga in Manhattan. A good friend,
who had a “good sense” of yoga, recommended it—Mark was her favorite
teacher's teacher. She had mentioned only the bare essentials. A yogi; had
studied with T. K. V. Desikachar; had helped bring the book Heart of Yoga to
the world. I went with no expectations, which I find to be the best way to
approach yoga. In fact, I would even recommend an eyebrow slightly raised. It
keeps you on your toes and encourages examination of the experience.
The large room was packed, mat-to-mat, wall-to-wall, filled to the limit with
eager yogis and yoginis—some in spandex and others in Indian paraphernalia:
an anklet here, a nose ring there, and lots of linen. Up ahead was a very striking
man. Quite tall and youthful looking, sporting a very “Euro” look: red jeans and
a t-shirt! A rock star with a face lined with compassion, long hair in a ponytail.
Without much preamble he led us through a beautiful composition of asanas.
I was familiar with the idea of viniyoga, having met T. K. V. Desikachar in my
hometown Madras. The concept of breath motivating movement had a natural
appeal to me, which I had readily incorporated into my Ashtanga Vinyasa
practice. This time it was even better. The warmth generated in the body was
softer with a gentler intensity and completely permeable. The sensation of
peace and presentness that overcame us at the end of the asana sequence was
beautiful, natural and exquisitely subtle.
The energy in the room was eager and worshipful. We gathered around him
like a string of exotic beads, drawn from our distancing mats. A discussion
followed naturally. I sat off to one side backed by the wall, away from direct
line of sight but close. I no longer remember the questions, but I distinctly recall
finding Mark's answers infuriating. Vigorously so. Subversively so. “There is
nothing sacred!” he declared. People shifted uncomfortably. What do you
mean, you desecrator of the spirit?! “Only then you will realize that everything
is sacred,” he added. It was like a slap in the collective face of the audience.
Like a slap the midwife gives on the back of a newborn child. We were
outraged, alive and breathing.
Oh, I see. I smiled. I see. I was refreshed. With that statement he had brought
into focus the nature and artificiality of our lives. Also into my focus came the
realization that not everyone had heard him. Truth, in the Socratic vein, is most
subversive when heard for the first time. I felt that there was quite a reaction in
the room that had felt the subversion instead of the truth. I went up to him at the
end of the workshop, apologized in advance for my temerity, and mentioned
that he might have reached his audience better if he had been less drastic. He
laughed out loud and it was the beginning of a beautiful, mutually felt
friendship.
Mark dispenses with pedestals and the pedantic. While most teachers get
caught in semantics and syntax, precision alignment or prophetic tradition,
Mark encourages you to experience. Instead of creating a myth of knowledge
and technology which takes you away from being, he leads you directly to a
lived experience of being YOU, in your body, and being with your breath. The
only thing that can be done is enabling people into experiencing. A moment.
This moment. The miracle of life happening in us as a breath. Mark does that
effortlessly.
There is a relaxedness about Mark that encourages you to relax into the
moment. In that relaxedness one realizes that the world and our lives are
overladen with unnecessary information, all of which takes us away from the
simple pleasure of experiencing life. Life then is about unlearning. It is about
piercing through the armor of acculturation, the escapism of education and
unloading the burden of history.
There is a deeply ingrained idea that yoga is an escape out of life. Many a
seer has pleaded with the Almighty in weighty Indian literature for relief and
cessation of this “painful repetition called life.” The need for a way out of this
“problem” called life has been the basis for a lot of spiritual thought. Mark on
the other hand says, “The idea of alternate realities and after-lives such as
heaven has made a hell out of life on Earth.” It is so refreshing and inherently
intuitive. It is a RELIEF.
Yoga means union. It is meant to lead us to jivamukti—literally, life-
liberation. The conventional interpretation is that yoga means union with the
Self, the little self merging with the big Self, leading to liberation from life.
Mark says yoga is union with life, embracing life in all its wonder and
incongruities, embracing ourselves, and all our selves, leading to liberation
from all things that take us away from life. I for one like his interpretation.
Yoga of Heart is Mark's gift to the world. A lifetime of learning and
unlearning has resulted in this precious jewel of a book. It is a love song to life.
It is a love song to you. Yoga of Heart is NOT merely a yoga book. It is a book
for life. Mark takes ancient practices and makes them accessible and relevant to
us in our modern lives. Yoga of Heart contextualizes yoga firmly in the midst of
our lives, locates life in the midst of yoga, interwoven like breath in the body.
Yoga is not a separate thing to be done in gyms and health clubs, separate from
life. And yoga is not a separate thing to be pursued in isolation away from
everything else, as in the days of yore. Yoga has the ability to illuminate and
inform life. Mark illustrates with infinite compassion and intuitive empathy in
simple language just about everything one needs to know to lead a full life and
be fully engaged with life. Mark demystifies many a yogic principle, from
breathing techniques to practical and profound approaches to intimate
relationship with another, from diet to dhyana, all in the context of life, situated
in our times and for us.