Mark Whitwell on the Teacher Student Relationship in Yoga

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Is the Yoga Teacher a Special Person? Mark Whitwell on the Teacher-Student Relationship in Yoga [interview]

In the early 1990s Mark Whitwell was taking a walk on a beach near Madras with his teacher Desikachar and his wife Menaka. He had just finished compiling material for Desikachar’s first book. But they didn’t know what the title should be. Suddenly, Desikachar declared,  

“The Heart of Yoga!” 

The heart of yoga, Desikachar explained, is not the poses, the practices, or the philosophy, but the relationship between the teacher and the student. Without a relationship of mutual affection no yoga transmission can occur. 

A year later, Mark delivered the first copy of the book to his teacher.

The Heart of Yoga: developing a personal practice (1995) is now a set text on yoga teacher trainings around the world.

In this interview, I sat down with Mark to explore the teacher-student relationship in yoga; what equality in teaching settings looks like; what the purpose of the relationship is; and how to be a good yoga teacher.

Andrew Raba: You’re fond of saying that the yoga teacher is “no more than a friend, and no less than a friend.” Can you expand on this principle? 

Mark Whitwell: The intimacy found among friends – be they formally recognized as teachers or not – is the transformative means of yoga. This equal relationship is the necessary means of yoga transmission and personal empowerment of another. Trust in another enables trust in ourselves and trust in life. 

When a student comes to a teacher, trust is already established simply because they have come believing that something is there for them. It is the teacher’s responsibility not to exploit that trust and to teach only what is useful and relevant to each person. 

Many people who consider themselves teachers or therapists are wounded personalities who use their teaching as a strategy to maintain control of others. Useful teaching can only happen when there is no psychological strategy or social agenda at all. 

When you feel you are in safe hands, something happens. 

Andrew Raba: Why is this understanding so rare in today’s world in which there are so many spiritual teachers who claim positions of social power?

Mark Whitwell: The phenomena of spiritual transmission has occurred up until now in the social dynamic of disempowerment. Therefore, it’s not really ‘spiritual.’ It’s a kind of love transmission that actually makes you sick and bound. 

Civilization and our present society is built upon this pervasive patterning. The model of the perfect person implies that everyone else is not yet perfect. 

My friend U.G. Krishnamurti’s life was a crack in this very fixed presumption of society—a crack in which the light gets in! U.G. embodied an alternative model for all interaction and for spiritual transmission which was utter ordinariness and friendship.  

Andrew Raba: Can you give an example of how Desikachar related to his students in this way?

Mark Whitwell: Often when arriving for a private yoga lesson with Desikachar he would say something like, 

“Is there anything? Or shall we go to the beach? Or shall we just gossip?” 

Two things are going on here. 

Firstly, a teaching transmission depends on a sincere inquiry from the student. If a sincere dialogue arises between friends, that could be considered a teaching. Otherwise, there is no need for a teaching! Because life itself is doing a perfect job of nurturing and sustaining us. 

Humanity has been civilized, burdened and controlled by the imposition of teachings on Life that Life does not need. If you suggest to a person that they need a teaching you only confuse the person and put them on a linear struggle toward some future ideal or improvement. 

Secondly, asking if we should go for a walk on the beach or gossip is indicative of his profound commitment to egalitarian friendship as the context for teaching transmission. 

Andrew Raba: Who can be a Yoga teacher? 

Mark Whitwell: There are only three qualifications to teach yoga. 

First, you have a good teacher yourself, so you know first-hand what the function is.

Second, you practice yourself, so you are in the direct embrace of life yourself. 

Third, you care about others because you are cared for by your own teacher. You know what it is to love. 

When you practice yoga daily for yourself, your presence in your community becomes a source of nurturing, healing and empowerment for all because you develop the strength to receive others. To be received is to be loved, and in love life flows. 

Relieved of trying to be something you are not, your simple presence frees another to feel that relief, too. Then you fit a practical yoga to their needs.

The best teacher is the Acharya, one who has had victory over their own difficulties. Our difficulties have uniquely qualified us to be helpful to others who must go through the same troubles, especially in the areas we have passed through ourselves.

Andrew Raba: There is a lot of suspicion in the world today around spiritual teachers. Is the yoga teacher or the guru still necessary today?   

Mark Whitwell: The word guru is deep in the traditions. Guru means heavy. It is a necessary intervention. Necessary because it is required to reduce or remove a person’s negative patterning. It's an important function of Mother Nature like a wave and the ocean. Two people coming together for transmission and transformation. 

A mess has been created however, around the guru function. It has been toxified by those claiming to be gurus within the mistaken idea of the patriarchy that it implies status and authority. 

It's a heavy thing to be in the fire of relationship with another, and collectively we haven't been given the skilful means to do it, so it's avoided. But an actual relationship between two people is how yoga works. It must be there to restore natural life. 

We need our gurus. In every town and village. We need people willing to be the wave or the ocean for others.

End of interview

If you want to learn the principles of home Yoga practice that Mark discusses in this interview you can join the 8-week online immersion by donation at www.heartofyoga.com/online-immersion.

Author Bios

Mark Whitwell teaches the heart of yoga at workshops and trainings around the world. He is the author of four books including the Hridayayogasutra (2004), Yoga of Heart (2004), The Promise (2016), and most recently God and Sex: now we get both (2019). Mark Whitwell’s apps Ipromise and The Yoga Promise have allowed thousands of people to begin an actual yoga practice for themselves at home. Find out more about Mark at www.heartofyoga.com. 

Andrew Raba is a scholar and Yoga Teacher from Wellington, New Zealand. He holds a MA in the visionary science fiction of Philip K. Dick from Victoria University of Wellington.