Mark Whitwell Unravels the Seduction of Yoga Knowledge

New York City NY

01 February, 2021

2:48 AM

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By Rosalind Atkinson “Without understanding these intricacies and secrets of yoga, some people look at the books and try to do yogabhyasa (like looking for Ganesa and ending up with a monkey). They get disastrous results and bring a bad name for yoga sastra. We need not pay any attention to their words.” T. Krishnamacharya, Yoga Makaranda 2.4 When I first went to Yoga teacher training, I imagined that I would have my head stuffed full of yoga knowledge. I imagined I would come back incandescent with learning, able to bleed Sanskrit onto anyone who came near me. In hindsight, I can see that this was a fantasy of power, believing that knowledge could make me somehow bulletproof, and more importantly, protected from my own self-doubt. As it turned out, this wasn’t how it worked. I had been thinking about doing yoga teacher training for a while, as I was volunteering at a retreat centre and had watched some disastrous yoga offerings given there. Perhaps arrogantly, I felt that I would like to try and offer something halfway decent myself. The bar had been set very low! Heart of Yoga book by Mark Whitwell I had criticism in me of all systems that proposed to be getting a person closer to some idea of connection or love as if those weren’t already the fabric of our reality, but I had resolved to just go to a standard, reasonably indepth training, and to strip away any seeking philosophies myself, discarding what I found in conflict with my understanding. This betrayed my ignorance, because I see now that every little part of a yoga education depends on that one question at the root of it: is it about participating in reality, or is it about reaching for a future result. The teacher’s state determines absolutely every aspect of the process. You cannot take Iyengar’s movements outside of his personality as an authoritarian bully, for example. You cannot rebrand Bikram’s abusive systems as hot yoga and continue on as before. There is a deep logic between teacher and what they teach. The system is cohesive all the way. “Take the teaching, leave the teacher” is not possible. So thank God that I happened to pick up the book Yoga of Heart by Mark Whitwell before I managed to enroll in one of those sensible courses. Otherwise, I would have ended up with a deep disconnect between the yoga I shared (a mere physical practice) and my ideals and understanding of life as something that didn’t need progress towards a future result. I would have unwittingly absorbed the modern, externally focused yoga that the West has arrogantly created in its belief that it can improve upon an ancient Indian system of Furthermore, I would never have had the seed of criticism of spiritual authority planted in me that led to me leaving that retreat centre for good. Read the full article here: Mark WhitwellAbout: Mark Whitwell has taught yoga for over three decades across the globe, and is the founder of the Heart of Yoga foundation, and the Heart of Yoga Peace Project. Mark Whitwell is interested in developing an authentic yoga practice for the individual, based on the teachings of T. Krishnamacharya (1888-1989) and his son TKV Desikachar (1938-2016), with whom he enjoyed a relationship for more than twenty years. Mark Whitwell is the author of four books: ‘Yoga of Heart,’ ‘The Promise,’ ‘The Hridayasutra,’ and, ‘God and Sex: now we get both.’ He also edited and contributed to his TKV Desikachar’s classic yoga text, ‘The Heart of Yoga.’ Mark Whitwell is a father of three and a grandfather. He now resides between New Zealand and Fiji and continues to write, teach, and speak.