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Mark in Fiji Nov / Dec 2009

1 October, 2009 by heartofyogaretreats

Learn a personal Yoga practice for Life, Love and Intimacy.

This year 2009 Mark Whittwell is teaching two retreats in gorgeous Fiji:

27 Nov – 4 Dec  09     Garden Island Resort,   Taveuni
7  Dec  -  13 Dec 09    Daku Resort,    Savusavu

Transform Your life without struggle:  This is Real Yoga experienced and taught form the heart.

The retreats are suitable for everyone from beginners to experienced Yogis and Yoga teachers.  The way Mark teaches is very holistic and intuitive:  He begins his sessions with an extensive dialogue with the students, where everyone has the opportunity to learn from each other’s experience, share and question.  Mark is dedicated to help students find an actual, natural personal Yoga practice, Yoga that is right for You.

Find more details on locations and Booking from:  www.heartofyogaretreats.com

http://heartofyogaretreats.wordpress.com/

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Mark says:  ”If you can breathe, you can do Yoga.”


Retreats 2009:

Garden Island Resort, Taveuni,

Fiji

27th Nov – 4th Dec 2009

The award-winning Garden Island Resort is known for its excellent diving, professional and friendly dive operation, ocean front rooms with excellent views, wonderful staff and gorgeous lush tropical surroundings.

Taveuni is known for its rich diversity of marine, bird and plant life. Because of its thriving eco-system it is one of the most significant islands in the South

Pacific.

Fiji is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand. It is comprised of 332 islands, of which approximately 100 are inhabited.

Accommodation

Garden island Resort has modern Ocean View guest-rooms.

The larger, more luxurious Ocean View Garden guest-rooms are newly remodeled and furnished in 2009, each with King beds and bedrooms leading out to the private porch with private outdoor Spa. All rooms are equipped with essential amenities to ensure your utmost comfort and are located right on the water’s edge giving you sunning views over the straits and to the nearby islands.

US$ 1,800.00 p/p  Ocean View Room

US$ 2,250.00 p/p  Ocean View Garden Room with Private Spa

including: daily Yoga, accommodation, meals, excursions

Fiji map: Viti Levu, Vanua Levu and TaveuniGarden Island Resort

Daku Resort, Savusavu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

7th – 13th Dec 2009

Savusavu calls itself the Hidden Paradise – and with good reason. It’s away from the rush of commercial vacationland, bus tours and international hotel chains.

Located on Fiji’s second largest island, Vanua Levu, Savusavu is a 50 minute very scenic flight from Nadi. You’ll land on a beautiful little airstrip by the sea. Daku Resort is about 8-10 minutes from the airport. From Daku you can take a beautiful 25 minute walk a along the sea to Savusavu town – or just a three minute taxi ride.

Accommodation

All of the traditional bures (cottages) at Daku

Resort look out over the gardens and onto Savusavu Bay. Daku Resort has 5 single Ocean View bures, 2 family Double Bures and one Ocean View Family Bure.

Each single Ocean View Bure has a bedroom with a double bed and an extra single bed, with a private bathroom and covered deck. There is a bar fridge and tea and coffee making facilities in each bure, and an overhead fan.

US$  1,436.00 p/p  including daily Yoga, a massage treatment,  meals, accommodation, excursions and local flights

Daku beach

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Esalen Talk 8/13/09

15 August, 2009 by markwhitwell

Mark speaks recently at Esalen, California. His friend John Patrick was visiting. He had moved in his life from praticing as a monk in a religious order to become a yogi. Mark discusses the dissociation of meditation (as if it it is something you can do as a separate practice) from its Yoga context. “The Buddha was a Yogi, not a meditator” The pervasive doctrinal social influence to abide as witness consciousness diminishes the value of experience and creates conflict with ordinary experience including and especially sex, the the extreme intelligence of ordinary Life. The Buddhist, Vedantic or Christian monastic life, going within, has destroyed the value of the individual and all natural relationship. “It is intimacy we want, not enlightenment.” The very concept of enlightenment is only a power mechanism, a hoax that has destroyed humanity’s inherent intimacy with life. Yoga is a the return to intimacy for everyOne. Yoga is direct embrace of reality, which is only nurturing, abundance and continuity. Yoga is the embrace of all ordinary experience, not merely to be aware or witness experience. Then we spontaneously feel the Source of all experience.

Esalen baths

Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Celebration, Enlightenment, God Realization, Goddess, Non Dualism, Nurturing, Source, Tao, The Natural State, UG Krishnamurti, devotion, friendship, hatha yoga, healing, krishnamacharya, mother, mother love, tantra, yoga, yoga of heart, yoga therapy | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

April 22 Talk Available

25 June, 2009 by markwhitwell

Hi everyOne. My friend Emmanuel has been recording talks from place to place. Here is a sample.

Picture 2

Posted in yoga | 5 Comments »

I am a coconut tree

25 May, 2009 by markwhitwell

I was in Taveuni, Fiji when I suddenly realized that I was a coconut tree. Firmly rooted on earth with a strong upright trunk, curving and beautiful. Then soft receptive unfurling in all directions from above, the form of all life. The unfolding tips so tender, and overlapping. I was touched to see this the obvious form of of all life, strength that is utterly soft and receptive. Of course this natural state of Grace is denied by the dominance of the male aspect that is not receiving, not surrendering to the feminine. That idea has even been demonized by male doctrine. Yet it is the way we realize our source aou natural state of Grace.Ha tha Yoga quickly restores us. Simple receiving, inhaling into the strong aspect of the system. I hope everyOne will learn this and realize they are the beauty and intelligent form of the masterful coconut tree.. or a lotus bloom, or a human wonder fullness… in utter union with Reality, which is nothing but nurturing, abundance, continuity, regeneration, healing. Even pain and death is nurturing and healing… come to Omega next week if you can.

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You have a virus!

12 March, 2009 by markwhitwell

The attempt to change your self in terms of any social idealism, god realization, enlightenment, peace, love, whatever it is, invades the body like an intractable virus. It is an imposition of mind on this wonder full organism, this utterly perfect life that you are. There is truly nothing you can do about it except know that you have the virus and wait for life to heal you. Life heals all disease in time. It can be painful, but pain IS the healing. You can also practice the yogas of intimacy in the meantime. That will heal you too.
Stop looking start living.

Posted in Enlightenment, God Realization, devotion, hatha yoga, healing, yoga | 1 Comment »

MAN’S HEAVEN HAS CREATED A HELL OF THIS ABUNDANT PARADISE

10 January, 2009 by markwhitwell

U G Krishnamurti said that to me over and over again. I saw the photo images of the bloody crying children and grown ups in Gaza. So to everyOne right now. everyWhere STOP please. Enjoy your life. Right now enjoy what is Given, the deep profound intimacy with everyThing. Please stop dramatizing  the generational abuse that  pervades society and societies in conflict with each other. Stop. stop enjoy your Life. Even this pain is part of mother nature’s nurturing force. She is saying stop, heal,  rest.. please. Please stop. It is amazing to me the anti war film in animation that just came out of Israel. Thank you to those kind brave men ex Israeli soldiers who made that film. Please see it and collectively OK? all of us right now…  stop!

Posted in Heaven, Paradise, UG Krishnamurti | 7 Comments »

REMINDER.. What is Yoga. AND you can do it. Actual and Natural, Daily. Not obsessively

7 January, 2009 by markwhitwell

Hello everyOne. Have a peace full 2009. Do this for yourself and our suffering world. It will catch on. I like R.E.M. last album Accelerate… full of 2 minute songs like the early days of pop. First track is… Living Well is the best Defense.
I am so glad Michelle and Barack will be in the White House. You could not have made it up. Would have been a good movie. A black couple with a Islamic name ruling America. It is the worst of times and the best of times.
I just wanted to remind everyone of the basic stuff. Here it is…
Yoga is the natural means of every person’s direct participation in the nurturing source of life. Through intimate relationships of every kind we realize this healing force, because life is about relationships. In Hatha Yoga,  ha is masculine and tha is feminine.

Hatha Yoga has come out of the vast ancient tradition of Tantra, which is non-dual in its philosophy and based on the understanding that the source of life cannot be separate from the ordinary seen conditions of life. An asana practice is participation in the union of all opposites: left/right, above/below, front/back, inhalation/exhalation, inner/outer, spirit/form. All these opposites contain the male/female equation of life already in perfect union. Hatha Yoga is strength that is receiving.

Three of the most important relationships in my life have been with my teachers, U.G. Krishnamurti, Krishnamacharya and my mother. They were perfect examples of the complete mutuality of male and female character, absolutely strong yet totally receptive at the same time.

Krishnamurti used to tell me, “A yogi is genderless.” He believed that both genders are entirely active and neither one is dominant. Krishnamacharya’s view was that the non-dual practice of yoga is necessary to be intimate with life in every way. My mother taught me that we are all loved and cared for, and we love and care even if the limitations of our circumstances seem to be suggesting otherwise. She had a caring tangible emotional connection to all things.

All of my teachers helped me understand that in our culture, the feminine aspect has been devalued, due to the prevailing social patterns of male control. Men lose out too because it is as much a denial of men as it is of women. Motherhood and intimacy have suffered, and we have very little sexual wisdom in contemporary life. Yoga philosophy is totally the opposite. By embracing experience, we will know the source of experience.

If we really practice Hatha Yoga in all its aspects, we become more interested and able to receive life. The whole body is where opposites have perfectly merged. Sometimes it is felt as a measureless depth, an actual location to the right of the physical heart, the portal between source and seen conditions. It is the first cell of life where spirit took form as the union of male and female, and from which the whole spine and cakras flower.

The left/right, above/below, within/without, male/female qualities of life are already in union. I saw this in all of my teachers, but especially in U.G. Krishnamurti. He was a living example of how spiritual transmission can only occur in equal and mutually chosen friendship, not in the more common social dynamic of teacher/student power inequity. This mutuality is one of the vital transforming functions of yoga.

When we understand that we do not have to look for god or truth, yoga begins. The substance of reality comes bubbling through, and the current of life flows through us. We find this nurturing force in our natural state and all our relationships. We do not have to sacrifice our own health and pleasure to save this world. In fact, it gives us the kind of energy we need to work tirelessly to ease the needless suffering everywhere.

Posted in Non Dualism, Nurturing, Source, UG Krishnamurti, friendship, hatha yoga, krishnamacharya, mother love, tantra, yoga | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

VOTE !

8 October, 2008 by markwhitwell

Like it or not America is a cultural, social, economic leader in this world. This privilege and responsibility is not going to go away even in the present economic decline. Yoga for example has spread all around the world due to the sincere interest that developed in America in recent decades. I consider it our duty as aware participants in world community to make available, along with everything else spiritual and Yoga education to all people everywhere. This brings peace and nurturing to individuals and communities. It changes our world at a grass roots level and restores the understanding that we are all One Life irrespective of national or religious identity. Please vote in this crucial time to ensure that the most responsible and conscious leadership arises, so that we may finish the job America has started. Mark Whitwell

Posted in yoga | 1 Comment »

It is just What is. You Don’t have to Realize anything.

30 September, 2008 by markwhitwell

 

 YOU ARE LOVED YOU ARE NURTURED

AND YOU LOVE AND YOU CARE this is the Natural State

There is no need to try to realize anything in the conventional spiritual effort of Yoga and meditation or philosophy. It is just a matter of seeing how things are, what is actually happening, what is actually the case. Not spiritual language and not poetry but really how things are. Then we just relax into that. Reality is a nurturing abundant, always regenerating healing force. Your body is the unfolding, blooming effulgence of nurturing source. If reality is a nurturing force then everything happening in reality is nurturing, including pain. Pain is the healing. It is the regeneration and new growth. In this understanding we have a new grateful relationship to pain as she does her work. We can accept pain, we can face pain and are no longer blinded in an attempt to get rid of pain through yoga and meditation and all religious attempt and denial of the real situation, the natural state, which is a nurturing abundance, motherhood.

 

Your Yoga is to engage the real, the ordinary conditions of Life in the intimate embrace of Life. This is the embrace likewise of nurturing source. It is not about trying to manipulate the mind in trying not to feel pain, stepping back from experience as awareness, as the witness only or some such religious nonsense. It is intimacy we need, not enlightenment and it is indeed possible to learn how to do an actual Yoga that is right for you. It is about perfect connection to reality in every way.

Teachers who spontaneously  who are born or fall into peace are said in the Yoga Sutra not to be the best teachers because they do not understand Yoga or the individualized process of Yoga. It even says such people are dangerous. Through their charm and power they mislead humanity with their idealism and hopeful ideas. It is not to deny that some folk with a predisposition for non attachment find them selves in a deep state of carefreeness. That is interesting for sure. But we have had a long history of such people describing their experience and think up ways that everyone else can have it. But they do not understand Yoga. They do not understand the ordinary life and the process of moving from restriction to intimacy, suffering to freedom. Further more some have been completely dishonest about it and claim to be in a state they are actually not in. They make the claim as a power mechanism. It is hard to find someone who actually understands yoga that is right for you.  That is why we are here.

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In ancient culture of Yoga everything was known to be arising from motherhood taking form as everything. Everything is her, known as Shakti and by many names and forms, yantras and mantras and human form. There is some ancient poetry that describes the Mother Source as a bee that comes out of the Hridaya, the first cell of life that is created when your mother and father surrendered to each other. The Hridaya blooms in all directions to form your perfect body. This is of course is literal. You start off as one cell from which the whole body grows. It is just that you come from this primordial power that creates all existence. You are presently sustained by this delicious nurturing. And your decline and death perfect nurturing of mother reality. Like a bee Shakti moves among the petals of your lotus heart that blooms as the whole body as she constantly arranges the petals in Life’s perfect appearance as you. At death mother source goes back in to the inner ovary of the lotus, which then folds up and dissolves.

Some speak of this as the subtle body or life energy or prana body as if it is different from the gross body but it is not. Without the subtle there is no gross, so they are the same. Your body is perfectly nurtured. You are loved and cared for. And you love and care. This is the natural state.

Posted in Enlightenment, God Realization, Goddess, Non Dualism, Nurturing, Source, krishnamacharya, personal yoga practice, yoga, yoga therapy | 6 Comments »

Toronto Yoga Festival

15 September, 2008 by markwhitwell

I was so pleased to participate at the recent Toronto Yoga Festival. It was a gathering of local teachers and students with a few other teachers visiting Canada. It was a very successful experiment in creating a conference that transcended the commercialism and fake celebrity that has surrounded yoga education. The venue was low cost and beautiful, a ballet school not an expensive hotel conference center. The teaching was sincere and the mix of local teachers and visiting teachers created a rich mix of people offering support, information and spirit resource to each other. It was a kumbha mela! I see that this model will become the new form of Yoga Conference that will flourish around the world. It does not take a huge commercial challenge, just sincere people getting together to share. It will give a lot more opportunity for people to get a genuine Yoga education, not the commercial marketing of the brands and styles of yoga forced on a gullible public. As UG used to say, “shoddy spiritual goods sold in the market place!” With the economic down turn, expense of travel etc we must offer a Yoga education at costs that people can afford. As the secular world becomes less and less attractive and consoling we can dive deep into our sacred intimacy with Life. It is such a better and easier option that in time will correct the secular mess we are in. So please think about creating your own Yoga festival in your town. Invite some good teachers to meet your local teachers and offer classes at moderate cost. I was so pleased to meet the local teachers and students. Michael Stone a wonderful teacher from Toronto made this curious statement, “When you look at the river it is the river looking at the river.” Hellaluiah! I knew exactly what Michael was talking  about and knew that he did too. The wonder and powers of the natural universe are of course  our condition too. The nurturing flow of life, extreme intelligence, beauty, perfect harmony is active in everyOne of us, in us as us. .It is our natural state and birth right to enjoy. Like no other time this depth of feeling is  possible. It is our personal and public peace even in the midst of the pain of a “world gone wrong.” Yoga was developed in ancient wisdom culture to gentlly reveal what we already have.

Posted in Enlightenment, God Realization, Nurturing, The Natural State, krishnamacharya, personal yoga practice, yoga, yoga therapy | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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