What happens when someone born inside the culture of Yoga meets the modern world with eyes wide open? This timeless conversation with my Gurubhai, R. Sriram, originally recorded five years ago, is as alive and necessary now as it was then.

Sriram grew up in South India, surrounded by music, temples, and traditional values. He also experienced Catholic schooling, English literature, radical theater, and many layers of spiritual and political questioning. This is a deeply personal account of growing up in the very society that Krishnamacharya and Desikachar came from, while still struggling to feel at home in it. We talk about what it means to be indigenous to this tradition, and how Sriram’s life became a bridge between ancient learning and modern experience.

When he met Desikachar in the late 1970s, he didn’t just begin to study Yoga. He entered a relationship that helped him live through the emotional and cultural complexity of his own story. Breath, practice, and shared understanding gave him a way to continue, to grow, and to teach. That path eventually took him to Germany, where he has taught since 1988 alongside his wife, the Indian classical dancer Anjali Sriram.

This conversation is a reminder that the teacher-student relationship is about being seen. It is about friendship, sincerity, and learning to live with all parts of who we are.

A Life Inside the Tradition – Sriram shares firsthand memories of growing up in the same world that Krishnamacharya and Desikachar belonged to.

Holding the Whole – His life shows how Yoga supported him through family customs, academic pressure, spiritual curiosity, and social questions.

Desikachar’s Openness – Sriram remembers how Desikachar welcomed real people with real conflicts and questions.

Voice and Breath – Chanting became a way to connect with his roots, express devotion, and care for his inner life.

Ongoing Search – This story speaks to anyone asking how to live in two worlds, and how to find peace without needing to erase anything.

Yoga in a New Culture – Sriram reflects on decades of teaching in Germany, how people first reacted to Yoga, and how that has shifted over time.

R. Sriram’s Website: https://www.yogaweg.de/r-sriram/

R. Sriram on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramsriramyoga/

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 access the course at https://www.heartofyoga.com

Support the Heart of Yoga Foundation.

This podcast is sustained by your donations.

There are times when the pain for the Earth is so strong it feels like it might break you. You may have felt it in your chest after seeing a forest cut down or watching the ocean poisoned. Rosalind talks about her years as an environmental activist and how being in constant contact with destruction led to exhaustion, grief, and a feeling of being stuck. She shares how Yoga became a way to meet those feelings, move through them, and reconnect with the energy to keep going.

Mark and Rosalind speak about allowing every stage of emotion to be felt — from numbness to fear, anger, pain, grief, and finally compassion. They talk about Yoga as a relationship with life, the body, and nature, and how that relationship can help us face reality without shutting down.

Eco Anxiety and Grief – Feeling sorrow and fear for nature is an intelligent response from Mother Nature

Natural Order of Emotions – Allowing numbness, fear, anger, pain, grief, and compassion to be felt brings healing and energy

Yoga as Relationship – Practice is about being with your own body and in intimacy with nature and life

Strength Through Feeling – Meeting and releasing emotions restores the energy to keep caring for the Earth

No Bypassing – Avoiding difficult feelings disconnects us from what is true and from our own humanity

Inner to Outer Change – Working with our own patterns and conditioning makes us more able to help create change for the Earth

Yoga for A Better World: https://www.heartofyoga.com/yoga-for-activists-1

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 access the course at https://www.heartofyoga.com

Support the Heart of Yoga Foundation.

This podcast is sustained by your donations.

What if real Yoga begins with feeling more alive, not just more flexible?

Ari is a Yoga teacher from Korea on a mission to investigate the depth of the Yoga tradition. She discovered a passion to bring the teachings of Krishnamacharya to Korea, along with her dear friend Ray and friends from the Gabbi community. This is a community of young people from Korea who are dropping out of corporate life and patterned conformism, in favour of finding their own path in life.

This conversation gets to the heart of the matter — what is Yoga, really? How can it be integrated into the lives of everyday people? The shift from conformity to autonomy is paralleled by the shift from yoga as performance to Yoga as intimacy with our own body and breath… the mystery of our own incarnation.

It’s a great interview because it is coming from the freshness of Ari’s own experience of Yoga, and feeling the breath and movement as one continuous intelligence. And it’s a good convo to listen to because both speakers are loving and respecting what the other has to offer.

Yoga Begins with You –The practice adapts to your life, not the other way around

Breath is the Guide – Let the breath lead the body and the mind will follow

Strength is in Softness – Inhale and exhale are a love relationship, each nourishing the other

Real Yoga is Personal – It doesn’t require tricks, brands, or poses; it requires honesty

Intimacy is the Path – Yoga returns us to real connection with life, with others, and with ourselves

Start Where You Are – A short, daily practice made just for you can change everything

Find Ari on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ari.yogatraveler

Support the Heart of Yoga Foundation: This podcast is sustained by your donations.

In this episode, David turns the tables and interviews Mark. We dive into the roots of Mark’s life, growing up in New Zealand’s church and school systems, confronting injustice early on, and stumbling into my body through sport and the natural world.

David grills Mark on the long journey that led him to the heart of Yoga with his teachers Krishnamacharya and Desikachar.

This is a very personal conversation, going into the sincere “teachers” (aka friends)who helped Mark see through the spiritual industrial complex, and the simple, traditional yoga practices that smoothed out all the drama of spiritual India in the 1970s.

In other words, Yoga as intimacy with reality.

Early Awakening – A childhood moment on the lawn, sun on the back, revealing the body’s deep continuity with the cosmos.

Seeing Through Systems – From church to school to spirituality - recognising how society exploits us with the promise of a future salvation or success.

Real Yoga Is Empowering – the good stuff adapts to the individual, honors the breath, and returns us to our natural state of wholeness.

Teachers Who Transmit – Meeting Krishnamacharya and Desikachar brought a transmission of humility, scholarship, and direct experience, not guruism.

Yoga Is Relationship – the power of real and actual friendship that is equal and mutually felt and expressed

The Body Is God – Yoga reveals that the body is not separate from divinity, it is divinity. Not a metaphor!!

David’s Website: http://lenirvanawear.com

David on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/david22bali

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 access courses at https://www.heartofyoga.com

Support the Heart of Yoga Foundation if you can… you help us keep the lights on and the podcasts made listenable. This podcast is sustained by your donations.

What if the life you’re seeking is already unfolding beneath your feet? David Fardi's path from spiritual confusion to grounded clarity is a powerful reminder that real Yoga begins when we stop chasing and start participating in what is.

A Yoga teacher and founder of the men’s fashion brand Le Nirvana, David shares how he moved through disillusionment in Europe and neo-tantric circles to find a deeply embodied practice in Bali. His story touches on healing generational wounds, living in rhythm with nature, and discovering how simple breath and movement can reshape a life. David now teaches private sessions at Samyama Yoga and lives what he practices with devotion, artistry, and love.

The Power of Presence – Gathering in person allows for a deeper transmission of Yoga that even the best Zoom call can’t replicate.

Bali’s Blessing Culture – The spiritual fabric of Balinese daily life creates an environment of tolerance, beauty, and ease that supports deep practice.

Yoga Is Participation, Not Performance – Real Yoga is not information gathering; it’s direct participation in the reality of breath, body, and being.

Spiritual Friendship Matters – One-on-one connections made in gatherings often become lifelong support systems for practice and healing.

The End of the Separate Self – Gathering invites us into a recognition: there’s no fixed “me” to fix. There’s only reality unfolding through us.

We Are the Forest Dwellers – These gatherings are part of an eternal cultural process of Yoga; friends meeting in sacred spaces for wisdom to be lived and shared.

David Fardi’s Website: https://lenirvanawear.com

David Fardi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/david22bali

Le Nirvana on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lenirvanabali

All In-Person Gatherings : https://www.heartofyoga.com/all-in-person-programs

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 access the course at https://www.heartofyoga.com. Support the Heart of Yoga Foundation. This podcast is sustained by your donations.

What does it mean to begin Yoga now—right here, in your breath and body, with your life exactly as it is?

This talk, recorded during our teacher untraining in Bali, is a direct experience of the first four Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Together, we chanted, laughed, and explored what it means to practice Yoga in a way that’s grounded, personal, and alive. These Sutras are a living guide, not a doctrine. They point us to something we already are. Your life, your interests, your body in its natural context—this is where Yoga begins.

The Sutras Come Alive in Relationship – Their meaning emerges through the shared inquiry between teacher and student.

Yoga Begins Now – Each breath and step taken in presence is the real beginning of practice.

Yoga Means Direction with Continuity – Choose your direction and stay with it. This is how peace arises.

The Role of a Teacher – A true teacher supports your path, not their own agenda.

The Body Is Consciousness – Whole-body participation in reality is the essence of Yoga.

You Are Already the Power of the Cosmos – No improvement needed, only recognition and participation.

https://www.heartofyoga.com/

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 access the course at https://www.heartofyoga.com. Support the Heart of Yoga Foundation. This podcast is sustained by your donations.

What makes us leave home and come together in person to share Yoga?

In this episode, Mark and Rosalind reflect on hosting Yoga gatherings in Bali. They speak about the deeper meaning of these meetings, the beauty of Balinese blessing culture, and what it really means to offer something useful in a spiritual tourist economy.

Can travel be justified as Bali groans under the weight of tourism and the expansion of the concrete jungle? What are we doing here, and what are the potential

They discuss how seeking makes us vulnerable to exploitation, the nature of real practice, and the kind of intimacy that arises when people meet without pretense.

Themes

Bali as a spiritual gathering place and why people come here

Blessing culture: what is it and how does it work

How do we justify going to a Yoga gathering? Is it selfish?

The difference between information-gathering and experiential learning

Personal practice as the foundation of everything

The healing power of dear friendship grounded in Yoga

How do we welcome a genuinely wide range of people?

Key Quotes

“Yoga is participation in the given reality.”

“There’s no need to get to what you already are.”

“The gathering is the icing on the cake. Zoom is the cake—we already have it.”

“People come to Bali looking for something, even if they don’t know what it is.”

“There’s a relief in realizing there’s nothing to become. You already are.”

Key Takeaways

Place Carries Power – Bali holds a blessing culture that people can feel in their bodies.

Gatherings Create Intimacy – In-person Yoga opens a space for deeper relational presence.

Practice Starts with You – The daily rhythm of breath and movement is where change happens.

Transmission Is a Felt Thing – Yoga is shared in silence, in contact, in attention.

Seekers Need Care – Honest offerings matter in places shaped by spiritual commerce.

There Is No One to Fix – Yoga reveals freedom through untraining, not accumulation.

Learn more and register for future events at https://www.heartofyoga.com/bali-ytt.

This podcast is sustained by your donations. You can support the Heart of Yoga Foundation at www.heartofyoga.com/foundation

Imagine words so sincere, that the author appears as a close friend, speaking directly through time to the deepest part of who we are? This week, Dylan Giles joins Rosalind to share how reading Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” in a time of personal drift opened a direct experience of connection. Dylan describes nights spent under the Californian moon, feeling Whitman’s words as a living presence, breaking him free of rigid traditions.

In this episode I find out from Dylan about Whitman as mystic, and we use him to understand yogic ideas such as shaktipat, ishta, and guru parampara.

We explore how reading Whitman can lead to a shift from cleverness to sincerity in our own writing, the subtle ways we unconsciously believe we are separate from greatness, and the challenge of integrating moments of inspiration into daily life.

In this conversation we track the shift from being a FAN of a mystic like Whitman of William Blake, to being a fellow participant in the great mystery called life. With our artists and mystics holding our hands.

Subjects Explored

Meeting Whitman in a moment of drift and loneliness

The freedom of Whitman’s meterless, sincere poetry

Sensing Whitman’s living presence through reading

How sincerity cuts through patterned language

Moving beyond cleverness to honest writing

Recognizing unconscious beliefs of separation

Yoga as the way we integrate grace into our lives

Key Phrases or Quotes

“I was reading this and feeling from the page that Walt Whitman was directly communicating to me, like he was in the room.”

“True sincerity really moves me.”

“I felt as if his words were so sweet. I felt it in my heart that he was just around me somehow.”

“There’s erosion of spontaneous human expression. You sort of felt like you’d discovered a fountain of spontaneous human expression in a desert.”

“I realized he wasn’t different from me. We are made of the same stuff.”

Key Takeaways

Sincerity Creates Real Connection – Honest words carry a power that reaches others directly.

Poetry Reveals Yoga – Words infused with life transmit a sense of presence and unity.

Admiration Sparks Recognition – Seeing beauty in Whitman helps us see it in ourselves.

Yoga Grows in Integration – Grace opens possibilities, and Yoga helps us live them fully.

Spontaneous Words Are Alive – Breaking from scripts nourishes life and brings clarity.

We Share the Creative Force – The same life that moved Whitman moves through each of us.

Suggested Reading

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman – Explore the groundbreaking free verse poems that celebrate the body, nature, death, and the joy of existence.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake – A visionary work challenging traditional views of good and evil, exploring the unity of opposites, and the energy of life.

Timestamps

00:02:00 Intimate Yoga revealed in Whitman’s poetry during Dylan’s personal drift

00:04:00 Whitman’s presence felt through words alive and immediate across time

00:06:00 Scripted language blocking authentic, heartfelt human communication

00:08:00 Shaktipat-like realization ignited by powerful, sincere words

00:09:00 Shared creative power with Whitman dissolves illusions of separation

00:20:00 Radical embrace of body, sexuality, death, and life celebrated by Whitman

00:29:00 “What is the grass?” reflects on life, death, and universal connection

00:32:00 Eternal life recognized within finite human experience through Yoga

00:36:00 Bold authenticity inspired by Whitman’s lines urging courage beyond comfort

00:46:00 Body-soul unity illuminated in Blake’s vision of eternal creative energy

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 access the course at https://www.heartofyoga.com. Support the Heart of Yoga Foundation. This podcast is sustained by your donations.