They were just scholars of yoga and practitioners of yoga, so it was easy to acquire information. And ask questions! And they weren’t doing the swami, religious, or guru game. They were simple, straightforward people, and it was easy to enter into good relationships and clear communications. And they weren’t at all like these great gurus with their status and their hierarchy. We ate food on the kitchen floor, you know, on the concrete floor, and shared meals together. It is how do you do yoga! As a young man with my own quest and my own health issues at the time, they addressed them in very practical ways, you know. And he was very practical in his approach. He was born into a family of great teachers, and then went further from his family and found great teachers in Benares and in Tibet, the Himalayas. In my understanding, they had the technical matters of yoga well worked out, from Krishnamacharya’s study, a life-long study with his teachers. Mark Whitwell: Because it was very practical! Also, because it was very learned. Questioner: Why was this yoga of Krishnamacharya and his son Desikachar so helpful to you? Mark Whitwell: (smiles) Rupees! Not so much in those days. Questioner: How did you pay for the instructions?

And when Krishnamacharya wasn’t in the home, where I would visit once a day for an hour, an hour at a time, in the same room where Desikachar had his lessons with his father, I would study. Mark Whitwell: Well, I didn’t study with Krishnamacharya. What was it like to study yoga with the renowned master Tirumalai Krishnamacharya? Questioner: And how did you study yoga with Desikachar? And there I met a young man, Douglas (Rosestone), who took me to Desikachar in Madras with whom he was studying. I went to one famous ashram, called Ramanashram, the home of Ramana Maharshi, in Tiruvannamalai, the holy mountain in south India there in Arunachala. The first visit, no second visit a year and a half. Mark Whitwell: I stayed a year and a half.

Questioner: And how long did you stay in India? Actually nineteen, for a brief time and returned again. So, off I went to India to find my teachers. And, as just a young man, young teenager in New Zealand, with the usual sort of middle class life and offerings and the university, and this and that, didn’t seem quite enough. Mark Whitwell: As a young boy I was fascinated with yoga! The Beatles had gone to India, to Rishikesh, with their guru. Tell us something about your history with yoga. It’s a beautiful, beautiful earthly paradise. Mark Whitwell: I am Mark Whitwell and I am happy to be visiting Europe and Zagreb, and basking in the healing waters of the Adriatic Sea. Mark Whitwell (chants a prayer for the removal of obstructions in Sanskrit): Questioner: Would you, perhaps, like to chant something at the beginning of the interview?

The heart of yoga desikachar