Bali, Holy Mountains, & the Great Recycling Program
The Heart of Yoga
What if aging isn’t a problem to solve but a feature of being human? What if what’s falling apart is doing exactly what it’s meant to do? Sarah Jessop is a dear friend, fellow mariner, Yoga teacher, artist, and mystic based in Witchcliff, Western Australia. She’s been coming to Bali since she was 21, when she first left Australia with a little bit of money and no idea what she was in for. We talk about what it means to be welcomed into a living culture, the ways tourists sometimes misunderstand Bali, and how Balinese society holds itself together through invisible threads of...
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You Are The Beauty with Sofie Chi and Mark
The Heart of Yoga
You’re locked in a cell, in handcuffs, with no way out. Not just physically, but mentally too. That’s where Sofie Chi found herself, and it’s also where her daily Yoga truly began. In this conversation, Sofie speaks about being detained and how, in that moment of intense restriction, she turned to her breath and body. From within that birdcage-like balcony, she began participating in the given reality, and it changed everything. Sofie is a teacher from Austria of Polish descent who travels the world sharing Facial Rejuvenation. Her story and presence bring deep clarity to the question of...
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The Yoga of Music with Tony Glausi and Mark
The Heart of Yoga
For Mark Whitwell, music was always a temple. In the jazz clubs of New York such as Village Vanguard, Blue Note, and Sweet Basil, he felt the power of true presence. In this conversation, Mark is joined by Tony Glausi, a trumpet player and composer who carries the living jazz tradition with profound originality. Over the course of a month practicing together in Bali, a friendship formed through daily Yoga, shared breath, and an unshakable love for music. Tony opens up about the journey that brought him here. From his roots in a large Mormon family to years of exploring Buddhism, psychedelics,...
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The Beauty of Om with Sybille and Rosalind
The Heart of Yoga
OM is the mantra of all mantras, the expression of perfect perfection of life that is happening as every person and every form of the cosmos. Including you, the reader. Pronunciation of OM reveals this to the whole body and mind. This conversation is between two devotees of the OM: Sybille is a Yoga teacher, student of Sanskrit and the wisdom traditions, mother, historian, and co-founder of Hatha Vinyasa Parampara Studio in Mainz, Germany. She is also a lover of the vibration of the OM. We explore the beauty of Om, its sonic completeness, and how Sanskrit, practiced rather than merely...
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The Freedom to Feel: An Interview with Yogini Jin Hee Kim
The Heart of Yoga
Grief is love. Fear, anger, pain and grief are biological functions that resolve into compassion for all. Rather than fixation on my one dominant emotion, we develop an emotional intelligence. We predict the next emotion that is more fundamental than our present emotion. By this intelligence, we come to compassion. It is our own intelligence. We are born with it. We saw an extraordinary Yoga transformation occur over one year. Jin Hee Kim, (or Jinny) is a yogini from Korea and Melbourne. Over the past year, she has gone through a powerful journey of loss, realization, and return. Jinny...
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In the World, Not of the World with Maartje Hesseling
The Heart of Yoga
Can Yoga be real in the corporate world? Can we live from the natural state while moving through meetings, deadlines, and the everyday push of professional life? In this conversation with my good friend and dedicated practitioner Maartje Hesseling, we speak about what happens when Yoga becomes a daily reality. Maartje lives in Switzerland and works at a high level in the corporate world, but over the last three years, she has quietly come into a steady rhythm of practice. We talk about how that shift has changed her life, not by chasing self-improvement, but by staying close to what she...
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Om Shanti - Not Provoked? Andrew Raba and Rosalind Atkinson
The Heart of Yoga
What does it really mean to be not provoked? I called in my dear friend Andrew Raba for this one, because he’s the final and complete master of Shanti, obviously never disturbed by anything ever. Well, not quite. But we did want to talk about this phrase from the tradition: Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. It’s something we’ve both chanted a thousand times, but the meaning that’s really stuck with us is one we learned from Mark, “not provoked.” Andrew shared so honestly about a moment where he lost it in front of a whole group of students. A group of teenage boys showed up to Yoga class,...
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Why Yoga? An Interview with Rosalind
The Heart of Yoga
Today I speak about an insight that freed me from a deep presumption carried since childhood. I saw that I am allowed to enjoy life. That recognition lifted the sense of guilt I had lived with for simply being. Social expectations and spiritual ideals can push us to keep working on ourselves to be better, more vulnerable, or more mindful. Yet in Yoga there is no such requirement. The mind is not a problem. The mind moves in all directions so the body can be alive in its total context. Yoga is intimacy with what is already the case. This is about the natural freedom of life itself. The body,...
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You Are the Movement of Life, End of Story
The Heart of Yoga
What if life is already complete, already whole, already free? My dear friend Jana Wirth, a yogini and physiotherapist in Mainz, Germany, speaks about the moment she realized she was free to enjoy her life without guilt. That simple recognition lifted years of conditioning and opened space for ease and joy. Together we speak about her path through physiotherapy, Yoga, and the ways these two streams meet in her daily work. Jana describes her steady commitment to practice, the challenges of cultural expectation, and the simple joy of merging with life as it is. I loved hearing how she no longer...
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Victory Over the Usual Life with Kalena Hynes
The Heart of Yoga
What happens when Yoga brings you to life? When the suffering and heaviness that seemed endless begin to wash away, and what is left is natural beauty and creativity? When I first met Kalena she was a solo mother, a frustrated artist caught in family strife and difficulty. Life felt miserable and heavy. Through daily Yoga practice, she found relief. She began painting for ten minutes a day and what poured out of her was beauty. Her painting and ceramics now flow as the movement of life and her recent Holy Waters exhibition has become a balm for others. This conversation is the story of victory...
info_outlineThis talk was recorded live at a workshop in the Swiss town of Saanen. A very interesting place for yoga and spiritual history and the transmission from East to West! Among the ‘himalayas of the north’, Mark is unravelling the core of modern spiritual systems and the search for enlightenment.
Summarising the teachings of Krishnamacharya, Desikachar, and the radical honesty of U.G. Krishnamurti, this episode presents Yoga as an intimate participation in what is real—life itself.
Subjects…
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J Krishnamurti, UG Krishnamurti, BKS Iyengar, and the history of the Saanen Valley
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Why the ideal of a “perfect person” has deeply disempowered humanity
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How Yoga has been distorted by systems of effort, hierarchy, and branding
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U.G. Krishnamurti’s radical realization and the myth of spiritual seeking
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The social hoax of striving, self-improvement, and enlightenment fantasies
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How true Yoga arises spontaneously from intimacy with breath, body, and life
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The feminine principle and restoring our natural intelligence
Key Phrases:
“The Guru has no followers. The Guru has friends to help.”
“Stop looking. Start living. Your Yoga is the living of it.”
“No more gymnastics. No more spiritual gymnastics. Yoga is just your participation in life.”
Gratitude to Moritz Kuebler who recorded this, and our host in Saanen, Stephanie Iseli.
Resources Mentioned:
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Teachings of T. Krishnamacharya and T.K.V. Desikachar
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The lives of J. Krishnamurti and U.G. Krishnamurti
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The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice book
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History of Theosophy and the Saanen Valley gatherings
Timestamps:
[00:00:00] Opening invocation: You are the power of the cosmos
[00:03:00] Stephanie’s story and how Yoga found a home in Saanen
[00:08:00] Mark shares the deeper purpose of the gathering
[00:11:00] What makes a true Guru: no more than a friend, no less than a friend
[00:16:00] The myth of spiritual hierarchy and the problem of “perfection”
[00:23:00] Why modern Yoga and meditation have become systems of disempowerment
[00:27:00] Reframing the idea of enlightenment as a harmful distraction
[00:32:00] U.G. Krishnamurti’s “calamity” and the end of seeking
[00:39:00] The mind is for relationship—not for searching
[00:44:00] Healing trauma through natural breath and spontaneous Yoga
[00:49:00] Revisiting the Yoga of Krishnamacharya and the legacy of Desikachar
[00:55:00] The Saanen gatherings and spiritual history of the valley
[01:02:00] The rejection of modern Yoga branding and spiritual consumerism
[01:10:00] A new view: Yoga as participation, not performance
[01:17:00] The body is intelligence, the breath is healing
[01:25:00] Embracing life without effort: no more spiritual goals
[01:32:00] How to practice a Yoga that serves your real life
[01:38:00] Preparing to receive a personal, breath-centered practice
“You are the beauty. You are the intelligence. You are already in perfect harmony with life. You don’t need to seek it—you need only participate in it.”
Learn more and stay connected at https://www.heartofyoga.com
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