Beginning the Heart of Yoga | Mark Whitwell
Mark Whitwell | Heart of Yoga
“If you’re feeling confused, trying to figure out whether or not
you have free will, or whether or not you exist
or whether or not you should meditate or do nothing,
or whether to believe this teacher or that teacher,
simply wake up right now from these mental conundrums.
Stop. Look. Listen. Hear the traffic, the birds, the wind.
Feel the breathing. Nothing special.
Just the extraordinary miracle of what actually is.”
Joan Tollifson
— Waking Up Now: The Simplicity of What Is
“Tension is who you think you should be.
Relaxation is who you are.”
— Ancient Chinese Proverb
Alive as Life
This livingness, this Life is here, now. You are here because everything is here. You are here because the sun is here; without the sun where would you be? Without your mother and father where are you? The secret of the universe is in you as you.
It’s all just one thing happening.
Now, can you see why there are no steps to be taken? What you are is not different from its Source. It is an absolute condition. Your body is not different from God. Your questions of meditation or yogic method, or religious method or whatever else are over.
Now, you can begin Heart of Yoga, Yoga of Life.
If pain is anywhere in your body, your own yoga practice will take care of it as move daily with Life’s energy as it is Given. No obsessiveness or issue arises around your practice; you simply do it because it is your choice and your pleasure.
The brilliance of the whole is appearing as the individual — as you.
Enjoy Life — your body, your inherent relatedness to others and to everything. Enjoy your Yoga practice, not as somebody else’s yoga with a prescribed motive, but your own yoga because it feels good and natural to you. There is no medium to Life or God, thus no mediators are required. The end of this story is the beginning of your own guideless guide. You are it!
Though shrouded in words like good/bad, pleasant/painful, connecting/stress-releasing and so on down the endless list of opposites which is the only list our minds can use — sex is quite simply an expression of the One through two, who hope in the very expressing to become one. So the mystery of Love, Life, God and Sex reveals itself when we let go of any expectation or description and simply fall into that place in our heart center where all opposites merge. Then, something beyond words takes place.
Heart of Yoga is the integration of the whole body with everything existing. The intimacy with our own life system is established and we feel that the head is not independent from the heart, the trunk is not independent from our base, and our bodies are strong yet responsive. Not only do we understand strength receiving, we are strength receiving. Relaxed and open, above merges with below, male with female. It is not a self-conscious effort, it just happens when we practice our daily yoga and our regular sex.
Then, when we engage our partner, likewise, we feel strong and responsive — relaxed in our natural state of being as opposed to seeking or becoming something else.
Each moment of “sex” — the word does not do justice to the reality — in this context is so pleasurable that we relax any urge to get anywhere. It’s all full and sufficient. This kind of sex moves through us in waves; we feel as if our spine merges with our partner’s.
Master Ujjayi breath. Practice alone; then practice together. Use your new mastery of ujjayi as a means to be present first with yourself and your body, then as the way to find the same presence and awareness with another. Introduce breath into your own simple yoga practice; then try practicing together. Practice for a few weeks with or around each other, with no expectations, no goals. Just open hearts.
Without a daily yoga practice, the body and mind are not prepared or “tuned” to hold sufficient energy to allow you to stay in your body and be present with your partner. The energy of Life that yoga calls “prana” is exactly the same energy that fuels intimate sex. When you have found a rhythm in your yoga practice you will likely discover a new rhythm in your sexual practice. And what a joy!
Then sex can arise in the context of all else — breathing, living, relating — and then it takes on it most potent role. It moves from being about self and another to relationship and mutuality. Now sex can become a powerful connecting bridge between two intimates that, when crossed or when both sides truly merge, may reveal not two. That is why it is said that a lovers bring each other to God.
If so, words are the last thing you need or want.
*We made the heart of Yoga online immersion course so that you can get everything you need to practice your Yoga at home. Asana, pranayama, meditation and life as a seamless process.
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