Mark Whitwell

Mark Jeffrey Whitwell (born May 17, 1949, New Zealand) is a yoga teacher and author in lineage of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. His early tutelage with Krishnamacharya “the father of modern yoga” and decades of study with his son T.K.V. Desikachar led to his work in putting the traditional principles of yoga into contemporary education, remarrying yoga to its wisdom origins. Mark Whitwell’s work represents collaboration between the yogacharya Krishnamacharya and his contemporary and friend Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti , both of whom he met in 1973. Mark has written several books translating yogic philosophy into contemporary language .

Education in Yoga
He traveled in India for many years meeting known and unknown yogis and gurus. At the ashram Ramana Maharshi he met Douglas Rosestone an American student of T.K.V. Desikachar. Mark was brought to Madras to meet Krishnamacharya and his son Desikachar. Impressed by the sincerity and scholarship of the family he spent the next 8 years making pilgrimages to India for practice and study with the Krishnamacharya family.
The Krishnamacharya practices were complimented by Mark’s philosophical training with U.G. Krishnamurti. U.G. had studied yoga with Krishnamacharya for three years in Madras, after which time he said that the effort of yoga as a linear goal orientated practice had an adverse affect on the body and life energy. U.G. modified and demonstrated yoga as participation in the given reality of life and not an effort towards an abstract ideal.
In 1991 Mark was brought to the U.S. to teach. He was astonished to find what was being represented as yoga in the U.S. This realization led to a period of living in India with T.K.V. Desikachar at which time he documented the yoga principles of Krishnamacharya.
From 1991-1995 Mark prepared T.K.V. Desikachar’s book The Heart of Yoga , Developing a Personal Practice, a summary of Krishnamacharya’s yoga scholarship, which remains a seminal text for students around the world.
Heart of Yoga
In 1995 Whitwell founded Heart of Yoga which works to put the principles of the Wisdom Tradition brought forth by Krishnamacharya into the brands and styles of yoga that have been popularized. The hallmark of the Krishnamacharya’s yoga philosophy is that there is right yoga for everyone. Heart of Yoga teaches that when these principles are added to existing yoga styles it makes them entirely personal, efficient, powerful, and safe. The Heart of Yoga teachings describe yoga as intimate connection to life.
Bibliography
Yoga of Heart, 2005, Lantern Books
The Promise of Love, Sex and Intimacy, 2012, Atria

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