Heart of Yoga - Mark Withwell

The heart of yoga is the relationship between teacher and student. In fact the mutual affection between two actual people is the practical means of spiritual transmission and transformation of the entire wisdom tradition of humanity... all times. all cultures, all geographies. Desikachar had a unique siddhi gift of showing real respect for all people, young and old, all demographics, good and bad! In his life’s work to give Yoga to the mainstream this love and respect of others was palpably demonstrated all over the world. Here we see him in the great tradition of exchanging a gift with a student. The gift is indicative of the gift of love and affection in Yoga. We attempted to show his quality of being in his book The Heart of Yoga. The heart of yoga is the place where all opposites merge. Left with right. above with below, inhalation with exhalation, strength with receptivity, within and without. The heart is the seat of mind... from where body and mind arise... the first cell of life that appeared when you appeared. One of these heart relationships is the teacher student love and affection in which the Yoga practice of the union of opposites is the natural response and the enactment of. The teacher is not an authority, not senior, not a hierarchy, not a knower. The teacher is no more than a friend no less than a friend... not necessarily a personal friend but a capital F Friend no less. The mood or bhav of the relationship is profound friendship.. . a natural arising, the nurturing force of Mother Nature in local community. It is natural. The teacher is not a personal or social identity and does not have followers or need for social continuity, name or fame. The Yoga teacher is a function only. You may be that function for your community?

These words of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, the teacher of the teachers make the point that there is a right Yoga for every person, no matter who the person is, including You! “If you can breath you can do Yoga!” Yoga is your direct intimacy with Life itself... the Life that beats your heart and moves your breath and sex, that which brought you into existence in the first place and presently sustains and nurtures you. Krishnamacharya very carefully taught the principles from the Great Tradition that ensure that Yoga is adapted precisely to your needs... body type, age, health and cultural background. These principles ensure that your Yoga is participation ONLY in the given reality, power and wonder of your own life. Not a seeking for future possibilities that create imposition of mind and emotion that ruin your life. This knowledge has been left out of the popular styles of yoga and religion today and need to be included. When they are included your Yoga becomes entirely your own, efficient, powerful and safe... direct embrace of reality itself. The principles are precise but easily practiced.... carefully fitted to each person so that your Yoga is ONLY participation in the perfect power, intelligence unspeakable beauty and intrinsic harmony that is life.

TKV Desikachar and UG Krishnamurti lifetime friends catching up in Madras.
❤️.
You are the power of the cosmos arising as pure intelligence and unspeakable beauty. Your body is in perfect and intrinsic harmony with the cosmos in every way. This is not a spiritual statement or a poem. It is a plain fact. No one need give you this and no one can take it from you.
Your Yoga is direct participation in this fact.
❤️.

Desikachar has been a bridge for the transmission of ancient wisdom to modern times. English speaking and qualified in sciences and engineering Desikachar’s brilliance was able to communicated his fathers scholarship to western minds. He was able to do it partly through his friendships with J and UG Krishnamurti who helped him understand the West.
UG made a huge contribution to Yoga by ensuring the accuracy of adapting Yoga precisely to individual needs in the way Krishnamacharya taught. UG ensured that Yoga is ONLY each person’s participation in the Given Reality, power, intelligence, beauty, intrinsic harmony and not AT ALL a search for a future result or socially prescribed idealism that only obstructs body and mind. There is nothing to be liberated from. Thought structures of all seeking obliterate the mind’s ability to perceive its own pure state of life from which it arises from and functions for, the given reality, the natural state of everyOne. This avataric collaboration between Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, TKV Desikachar and UG Krishnamurti has clarified Yoga for humanity for all time.

You care about others!
.❤️.
These are the only qualification to teach Yoga. They are available to all and do not require an arbitrary certificate or any 200 or 500 hour corse of arbitrary information. They are never the less quite specific and no one can teach without them. To summarize: Who can teach? 1. You have a good teacher yourself. 2. You practice yourself. 3. You care about others.
.❤️.
Asana, pranayama, meditation and life are a seamless process of intimacy with life. Life, God, deity, guru, spouse, the whole body and its entire elemental world of tangible and intangible dependent conditions are arising in the one absolute condition of reality. It is all love. Life is Only about relationship. Only. The mind is for relationship Only. The mind is not for seeking. Seeking puts thought structures in the mind that obliterates the mind’s ability to notice that it is indeed arising from the heart of life as a function of life. It is the relating mechanism of life.