yoga inspiration
Quotes from our Yoga Teacher Mark Whitwell from different teaching events that took place all over Europe between 2005-2020
(some of the statements have been somewhat rephrased as remembered)
On YOGA:
Yoga is the primordial practice of embracing Life. It’s not an imposition on body and mind.
Yoga is the primordial religious practice of embracing your life.
Yoga is intimacy with Life.
Yoga is something you do in response to the grace of your guru. Yoga is not trying to get closer to God or guru; it’s just the relationship that we have.
The Source and the seen are One.
Yoga is your easy participation in the given reality.
Yoga is to yoke, all into One.
Yoga is the catalyst that brings out all your powers.
Yoga is the union of opposites.
Yoga is the deprogramming of social patterning that is on us.
Yoga is the only solution to humanity’s problems.
There must be a Yoga in the faith systems to actualize the ideals of religion, and they are anciently given.
Yoga is embracing the fact that you are the beauty of the Cosmos.
You don’t need Yoga.
Yoga is your direct participation in this wonder of Life that you altogether are.
Yoga is not just therapy or a life-style. Yoga is a spiritual practice and it is anciently given.
If motherhood is not Yoga, then nothing is!
The whole of Yoga is a devotional practice.
About TEACHERS:
A good Yoga teacher is a decent person.
A student must be liked and respected by the teacher.
Guru is not a social status or personal identity, but a healing function in society.
There are no brands of yoga; Yoga is only one.
Guru empowers you to be your own teacher.
About TEACHING YOGA:
You don’t have to duplicate anything.
The actual friendship will never go!
Claim your own life and teach your Heart out!
Step up and teach!
If you love Yoga and understand Yoga, you can teach it.
Try, make mistakes, and get better in your teaching.
Be the force of nature in your local community.
Teach only what is good for your students.
Teach your Heart out and don’t let anything hold you back!
There is no need for a teaching unless there is a burning question.
Relationship is the principal Yoga. You teach when you are asked by your teacher to teach.
About OURSELVES:
You are here to enjoy your life.
Don’t be in reaction to society.
The one thing you can depend upon is beauty. You are the beauty of reality!
You are not the emptiness that you feel; it’s just fullness coming through. Your Yoga is facing the emptiness, or fullness coming through.
The power of the Cosmos has a unique expression, and it’s you!
You don’t do Yoga; Yoga does you!
Bloom in your own garden instead of blooming in someone else’s garden.
I want you to be a yogi.
You are the unspeakable beauty of the natural world.
Love and freedom – you are that!
We do Yoga to enjoy ourselves, not to improve ourselves.
About ASANA:
Asana is the participation in your breath.
Bandha is supporting asana.
Bandha is strength in the base of the body, receptivity in the crown and love in your Heart.
Asana is the primary spiritual practice, not ritual.
Asana allows for pranayama to happen.
Asana is a spiritual practice, and it is meditation.
Place the bandha as the central feature of asana, non-obsessively, but as bhakti, in the polarity of
hatha yoga.
About BREATH:
Trust your own breath, Yoga and Life!
Breath is the central feature of asana, if not the purpose of asana.
The only meaning of spirit is breath.
About MANTRA:
OM is the absolute condition of reality.
Let the sound of mantra surge through your whole body.
About MIND:
The mind follows the breath and is linked to its source, the whole body.
There is no mind before Life.
Yoga links the mind to its source, the whole body.
Peace is in the natural condition of man. Yoga is living it.
The mind is not a separate entity imposed on life, but it is an instrument that serves consciousness, that which we are, whatever Life generally is.
About EMOTIONS:
Relax. Be in Life as Life.
Love fails only when you fail to love.
The practice of Yoga is the enactment of compassion for ourselves in the natural union of polarities that we are.
Yoga is the action of kindness to ourselves and others.
Every emotion is valid and necessary in life. And the sequence of emotions is this: numbness, fear, anger, grief and compassion.
Yoga must not be obsessive.
Religion is to re-align with reality.
Just swim in the One Reality, you are not drowning!
Life is relaxed embodiment.
Yoga is the primordial practice of feeling the depth of Life.
Be untroubled, be finished with fear!
The fundamental emotion is compassion/kindness for everybody and everything.
Just plunge into your relational life.
About PRACTICE and STRENGTH:
I hold you to your practice!
Turn your asana into a strength that is receiving.
Yoga is strength receiving; strength that is receptive.
Strength receiving is your natural state.
Work, but don’t struggle in your practice.
Make sure that your Yoga is NOT a duplication of patterns.
Do your Yoga at your home.
Practice Yoga intelligently within your limits.
Practice Yoga to remove the restrictions that prevent your Life from happening.
Do your Yoga and live your Life!