Yoga

200 pages

NZ$32.95 incl. postage

US$35.95 incl. postage overseas

Conspicuously absent from current teaching is Yoga as the union of polarities and its obvious implication to the male and female union within and without

– the nature of life itself

Hatha Yoga is tantric practice. While Vedantic Brahmans – the caretakers and contemporary proponents of Yoga – borrowed tantric practices to develop their religious aspirations to transcend this world, they denied the essential purpose of Yoga to link the mind to the wonder of our own condition.

Tantric traditions also confused Yoga with religion in their attempt to conquer nature or to go ‘beyond’. Meanwhile, the idea of ‘tantric sex’ has become popular without its context and catalyst – an actual yoga practice designed for each person.

The historic predominance of monastic order and other worldliness – mainly Christian and Buddhist – created elitism in society that severely diminished the perceived value of the individual. The householder life was devalued and the mutuality between man and woman eliminated. Humanity still suffers this persuasive life denial, the search for truth as ‘other’.

However, at this time in evolution individuals may understand and heal by enjoying the wonder of life moving in each one of us as body, breath and relationship.

Mark Whitwell puts a spotlight on these issues to restore and efficient and complete Yoga for everybody.

At last the truth about Life and Being in a book. Whitwell affirms Life as Yoga of Heart, and Yoga as an extension of Life... Stop trying. Start being. This simple concept is the Yoga of Heart... it affirms Life at all levels and gives the reader the confidence to be what they were born to be. A glorious philosophy for the Yogi and non-Yogi alike. It is an indispensable companion for any yoga practice, anywhere, anytime,. Whitwell celebrates modern life with ancient truths.

Los Angeles Whole Life Times

Unlike 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 individualised 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.

American Baby Magazine

Written with rare eloquence, detail, wisdom and humour, Yoga of Heart is a profound and irresistible invitation to infuse our yoga practice with passion, joy and heart. This is not just another book, but a journey. Take it.

Micheline Berry, Founder Zen Dancing, Yoga teacher Sacred Movement Yoga

Clearly articulated with passion, compassion, extensive knowledge and warm humour, Mark Whitwell compels students and practitioners at any level to experience the joy of Yoga as empowering, life-affirming and liberating, NOW.

Susan Swan, Director Positive Yoga and Hamsa Yoga.

New Zealander Mark Whitwell, who has spent many years in India, reinterprets the ancient message of yoga at greater length: be yourself – don’t struggle for others’ goals or cultural imperatives. We should do yoga for the pleasure of our systems relaxing and filling with energy, not a struggle for a future result. He is against institutions which exist for their own benefit and believes innate perfection already exists in us; we only have to find it.

Otago Daily Times

Excerpt...

Life comes as mutual opposites in union. Everything can be seen to be operating in this miraculous scheme including the regeneration of life. The very power, mystery and condition of life are in the union of male and female. It has created our own form and moves us to embrace another. It is not difficult to access this power because it is our own condition. We each are capable of realising our extraordinary nature by enjoying our own mutuality.

In each one of us, mutuality is utterly in place and has unique expression. Yoga of Heart is about accessing our natural state by practicing mutuality. It is also about understanding that male fear throughout history has created cultures that socially diminished the male/female union, although nature will not be stopped! We can then remove what restricts us. This is done by very natural practices of body, breath and relationship that simply acknowledge the mutual links of life. Here is our freedom and understanding of life. It is freely given and in everyone’s grasp. In mutuality, in an accord with ourselves and another we realise the heart or the ultimate mystery of life.

... In the passion of this understanding there was also anger at the way spiritual insights have been used as instruments of power. The grossest recent example happened on September 11, 2001. God and notions of exclusive access have justified the slaughter of peaceful societies throughout history. I am angered by the way spiritual understanding or healing systems that are supposed to help people are turned into the products of mere business, controlled by an elite and deemed to be believed as necessary in the social mind.

They are used to create wealth by convincing suffering people that they need to be helped by dubious practices, beliefs and membership. Anger resolves into compassion when we see the universality of this social form. Its victims and perpertrators, who can be the same person, suffer this uninspected cultural deception, unaware that there is an alternative way of being. What religion and yoga seeks is not absent from our natural life, and healing for each person is a much simpler matter. All that anyone requires is a little mutuality with their experience. I offer Yoga of Heart as a document of change, so that each one of us can enjoy the peace and power of life established in us as mutuality.

Our future lies with young people who have finished with the life-denying and socially divisive ideas of the past, who are free to embrace their own life and not attempt to merely squeeze themselves into limiting cultural definition. Their embrace of life will restore the mutuality of man and woman as the nature of life. The female force that is nurturing, receptive and accepting will take its equal place in social life. The extreme imbalance of male force that is about acquisition and control will be corrected in ourselves and in society. This is not something that we have to wait for. Mutuality of male and female is the nature of our own condition already established This mutuality is available to everyone and we can have it now and in our own lives with a little practice.

The author (second right) with Yoga students in Southern India