The Heart of Yoga

Liliana Lakshmi and her husband Satya are renowned yoga teachers, whose influence extends from India to the Americas, and from Berlin to Bali. Liliana, born into tribal culture of indigenous shamans of Colombia was quickly able to understand the shamanic cultures of ancient India, their yogas of participation and the profound realization of their ancient cultures, both of India and the Americas. Liliana is the hope of humanity, and she will not be exploited by any mere belief systems or point of view. She embraces all life and all cultures in the samyama of truth, the spotlight of absolute reality. Liliana is a bridge for humanity of cultures, ethnicities, of East and West, and of ancient to modern. Mark shares some time with Liliana discussing their time together over the years and their mutual purpose to bring the Yoga of intimacy to the entire world.  They discussed the lost teaching of the Tantras that flourished for a thousand years prior to the 14th C. Liliana shares her early life in shamanic culture, and her eventual pilgrimages to India and Europe. In this episode you will hear... ''... I went to to see a doctor and ... I was asking ... how does it look if I want to remove these implants? And I remember ... he would tell me ''but you're a very young woman. You don't want to look like a man''...'' ''...There is a beautiful tribe in the north and I feel my ancestors land coming from there...they're quite famous because they have the ability to connect through space and time with all the tribes in another parts of the world...''   Follow this podcast for new episodes here: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS/XML If you feel moved to submit a question for a future episode, you can do so here: https://www.heartofyoga.com/podcast You can find more from the Heart of Yoga on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

Ernessa Bergman is a world-travelling Yogini, Mother and Biosynthesis / Somatic Body Psychotherapist who is currently living and working in Tel Aviv, Israel. She reflects on her long friendship with Mark at trainings around the world and her life as a mother and yoga teacher. In this episode you will hear... '' ...you torture yourself with the insanity of trying to get enlightened or something, or the insanity of trying to get to God. It is completely insane. It creates the separate self that is seeking.'' ''...In the heart, that's where it says you break your heart, you start to cry because you realize that everything you've been doing up until now, at least mentally ...consciously, has not been putting your attention in the place that can give you more joy..." "...This yoga of participation in the given reality, the power of the cosmos that is factually their condit. Just like it happened to you and you pass it on to every kind of person there, and you do it without drama, without theater. You just do it consistently and you just stood your ground. You bloom in your own garden..."   Follow this podcast for new episodes here: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS/XML If you feel moved to submit a question for a future episode, you can do so here: https://www.heartofyoga.com/podcast You can find more from the Heart of Yoga on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

In this enlightening discussion, Rosalind Atkinson, a yoga practitioner and scholar of English literature, delves into her journey merging the mystical poetry of William Blake with yoga practice. She shares her insights on the significance of personal experience over academia, the struggle between knowledge and societal expectations, and the mind-body connection. Atkinson also teases her upcoming project, 'Wardrobe Dharma,' which explores the interplay of fashion and spirituality, emphasizing the transformative nature of personal expression in understanding yoga and life.

What is natural movement for a human being?   In this episode we are graced with the presence of Anne-Tyler, yogini of the Americas and her profound story of evolving movement patterns from the strictures of ballet into the natural forms for a human body.    Mark and Anne-Tyler discuss learning to dance from a young age in the UK and developing her skills when moved back to the US, and how it wasn't obvious that ballet is a very unnatural way of movement. They discuss abuse of power in the world of ballet and the feeling of being replaceable at any minute.   Tapping into pure beingness sheds a light while still being in the trap. Learning how to breathe. Getting through the stranglehold of thought, seeking and performance. Returning to the truth, returning to the heart, returning to the breath and to nature. Real yoga for real people, not performance, not gymnastics.   ''I came here to disrupt patterns''. The breath enables the shedding of layers of old patterns and reveals one's true being. There is no denial or suppression in Yoga. Teaching people how to help themselves. Yoga as an empowerment and embodyment practise. Anne-Tyler's teachings and online gatherings are here at www.bloss-om.com or on social media @theecstaticblossom Follow this podcast for new episodes here: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS/XML If you feel moved to submit a question for a future episode, you can do so here: https://www.heartofyoga.com/podcast You can find more from the Heart of Yoga on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.  

Mark and his dear friend Patrick collude at the beach in Australia to discuss Patrick's life of Yoga and insight. They unpack the lie of "trying to get there" through Yoga. Get where? We are already here! Patrick breaks down the regular Australian conditioning of beer and sport, and relates how one sentence from a partner inspired a quest for change. They chart the murky waters of addiction to asana, and transforming it to participation in reality. Patrick teaches Yoga and Tai Chi in Australia, Sri Lanka and Fiji, and has been the heart and soul of Fiji teacher trainings for nearly a decade. His teaching is characterised by wisdom, humour and the unexpected. Explore Patrick's website at https://www.bodyawareness.com.au Follow our podcast for new episodes here: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS/XML If you feel moved to submit a question for a future episode, you can leave a recording here: https://www.heartofyoga.com/podcast You can find more from the Heart of Yoga on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

This podcast tells the story of Maja’s transition from social activism to Yoga revelation. How Yoga becomes the means to enacting the change we want to see. As Gandhi said.. “be the change you want to see.” In this conversation we hear once again the process to become an actual Yoga teacher in real life and community. From Sloviana Maja’s background and society has had its own traumas and horrific trials. Life has been difficult. Maja speaks of her personal victory in the midst of societal patterning, hostility and despair. As a government public health professional working in the struggles of social policy Maja has been conscientious and ambitious to improve the difficult conditions of the world. She speaks of how her Yoga has enabled her to do this, while transcending conflict with society and in herself.  Maja speaks of the various vehicles in which she has learned to teach Yoga effectively. At her work in very large groups of colleagues, in smaller intimate circles of friends, and in one-on-one private tuition.  Maja is the hope of humanity.

In this episode we are graced by world-friend & yogini without borders Manisha Lebel. Yoga Teacher, Naturopath, Herbalist & Wisdom Holder. Manisha and Rosalind discuss how Manisha's extensive yoga practice, teaching and academic research backgrounds resonated straightaway with the breath principles Mark was passing on. We talk about being an outsider, New Zealand colonial patterning, people pleasing (especially as women), and how we can cut through indoctrination and authoritarianism of all kinds and stand in our own ground.  We cut through the illusions of generational barriers to express our heartfelt gratitude for the friendship of each other. “Everything that I have been seeking is where I am”. Manisha describes experiencing the breath as the central feature in the Heart of Yoga practice, everything else falls away and loses significance. Not a rejection of life’s roles, but a releasing of projections on one’s self, and an acceptance of reality as it is. We discuss the falseness of the mind/body split and how the breath provides the doorway to realization that there is no such split between the heart, mind and body. “What an opportunity to live before we die”. A discussion about the pain that the body goes through during life and how this often makes us disassociate the mind from the body to avoid feeling pain. Manisha teaches both private and group sessions in her communities in rural NZ, and she talks about making relationship and breath the centre of every teaching occasion, and how this changes our relationships. And how, exactly? We talk about moving away from the commercial Yoga industrial complex, and learning to deal in diverse forms of exchange. Beyond the money economy. Manisha also tells the story of how she met Mark for the first time, and the profound effect that meeting had on her. We also touch on the resonance of the yoga wisdom with Māori culture. Follow this podcast for new episodes here: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS/XML If you have a question for a future episode, you can record it here: https://www.heartofyoga.com/podcast You can find more from the Heart of Yoga on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

How do we make the shift from practitioner to teacher? Who should become a teacher? How do we make sure we don't become "One more monkey" in the yoga industrial complex? How to keep the heart in yoga? Mark interviews Andrew about his experience of this process and emergence from the middle-class massage into a life of meaning, play, & subversive subtlety as a practitioner & teacher. Andrew talks about his current project offering yoga in high schools for both students and teachers, drawing on his own experience as a disillusioned teenager chafing against the restrictions of school and family.  They discuss getting free of the search for an intangible distant realm of happiness, or a distant god, and instead coming home to the local and our immediate environment in time and space. Mark and Andrew talk about the natural movement to wish to share yoga after feeling the doors it has opened in one's own life, and how this gradually becomes the most important thing in one's life. How do we find teaching opportunities? When shoudl we teach? What if no-one is interested? What if they just want stimulating gymnastics? Mark and Andy also discuss the resonance between aspects of yoga and of the indigenous Māori culture of Aotearoa / New Zealand.  Follow this podcast for new episodes here: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS/XML If you feel moved to submit a question for a future episode, you can do so here: https://www.heartofyoga.com/podcast You can find more from the Heart of Yoga on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

''How to find a good yoga teacher?  How do you find a teacher that you trust, and can generate a connection with? Not only that, but find a teacher that does not see themselves in a position of power and does not have your monetary value as student in their ’business’ as a priority?"  In this episode Mark and Rosalind talk about this most basic of questions, along with the even more basic questions of why we would even want a yoga teacher, and what that is anyway.  Some aspects we cover: - The origins of yoga as a practice of mutual respect and care for others and the community, without authority and power. - the change in student-teacher relationships to power dynamics and business interest as the norm - The three qualifications of a good yoga teacher according to Krishnamacharya. - Cultism in spiritual practice; how to sense someone who is driven by social hierarchy, power and money.  - The use of knowledge as a means to create seniority and power in the modern world of spiritual practice. And the contrasting experience had by Mark with his teachers Krishnamacharya and Desikachar. - “Yoga is not a salvation cult”. A good teacher should not be promising any method or secret knowledge that will get you to where you think you want to go. Any promises of this nature should be treated with caution as the promise is most likely more of a product to be sold than a spiritual practice. - A conversation about the ironic inflexibility of modern yoga, how it pushes people into predefined patterns regardless of the differences between individuals, and how this is a reflection of the patterning seen in modern society. - What to look for: the breath as THE central element of asana practice. The unity of body, mind and breath must be present from the first moment of the yoga lesson, yet is often not given precise or any attention in modern yoga teaching. - “You don’t do yoga, yoga does you”. Participating in the flow of life and being in the moment, as opposed to using spiritual practice to try and get somewhere you think you need to go, and how a good teacher can help thwart the latter tendency. - Yoga as a method to release the mind from habitual thought. A symptom of modern living that affects most people in negative ways. Yoga can be a way to free yourself of unnecessary thought and be in the world's beauty. To find out if we know a good teacher near you, please email studio@heartofyoga.com Follow this podcast for new episodes here: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS/XML If you feel moved to submit a question for a future episode, you can do so here: https://www.heartofyoga.com/podcast You can find more from the Heart of Yoga on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.  

A conversation between Rosalind and Alesha Keen, yogini & important teacher of the UK. Alesha is breaking new ground in England, drawing upon her decades of experience across yoga, psychotherapy, and numerous other modalities from West and East to help individuals "bloom in their own garden."  In our wide-ranging discussion, she offers us her first-hand yogic perspective on the initiations into embodied wisdom through our life, including the profound gateway into eldership of the menopause. Some of the other things we discussed: - The need for Yoga to be adapted to our bodies and lives as we ourselves and our needs change  - Benefits of Yoga one-on-one as opposed to group classes  - The barriers to Yoga created by its confusion with fashion, gymnastics and exercise, and how it can intersect with our already-pressured body image.  - The journey with yoga and menopause and how the latter has demanded a refinement in asana and breath - How both Yoga and the initiation into wisdom of peri-menopause and menopause call us to slow down and listen to the body...  - Ageism and loss of intergenerational relationships... looking at some examples of reverence for the "wisdom of years" in non-western cultures. - we discuss the unfortunate public perception of yoga as reflected in Ricky Gervais' new show 'Afterlife' and the painful yoga parody in it, and how to work with this - The initiation that is motherhood is also woven into our discussion!  You can find more information about Alesha's work and teaching at www.aleshakeen.com and www.aleshakeenconsciousliving.uk Follow this podcast for new episodes here: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS/XML If you feel moved to submit a question for a future episode, you can do so here: https://www.heartofyoga.com/podcast You can find more from the Heart of Yoga on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.