The Heart of Yoga – Details, episodes & analysis

What if aging isn't a problem to solve but a feature of being human? What if what's falling apart is doing exactly what it's meant to do?

Sarah Jessop is a dear friend, fellow mariner, Yoga teacher, artist, and mystic based in Witchcliff, Western Australia. She's been coming to Bali since she was 21, when she first left Australia with a little bit of money and no idea what she was in for. We talk about what it means to be welcomed into a living culture, the ways tourists sometimes misunderstand Bali, and how Balinese society holds itself together through invisible threads of connection.

Sarah speaks so honestly about what it's been like to age, to shift from student to teacher, to feel the tug between visibility and invisibility, and to stay true in the face of frog Yoga and downward dogs with goats. This one gets into the heartbreak and humor of being alive, being a woman, and remembering that life is already working, even in the compost pile.

Bali is a Living Culture – The Balinese aren't performing for tourists. They're living their culture, and we're being invited into it.

Ageing is Sacred – Watching the body change is confronting, but it's also part of how life keeps moving and renewing itself.

Breath is What People Really Want – When Yoga is centered in breath and simplicity, people feel the difference. They stay.

Self-Doubt Still Comes Up – Even seasoned teachers wonder if they'll be eclipsed by trendier offerings, but truth finds its people.

Everything is the Practice – Even the pain of losing what you thought you were is part of Yoga. It all belongs.

Life is a Recycling Program – We're made of star stuff, Einstein's hair, and dinosaur toenails. Nothing is ever lost.

Sarah Jessop on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahjessopyoga 

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.

You're locked in a cell, in handcuffs, with no way out. Not just physically, but mentally too. That's where Sofie Chi found herself, and it's also where her daily Yoga truly began. In this conversation, Sofie speaks about being detained and how, in that moment of intense restriction, she turned to her breath and body. From within that birdcage-like balcony, she began participating in the given reality, and it changed everything.

Sofie is a teacher from Austria of Polish descent who travels the world sharing Facial Rejuvenation. Her story and presence bring deep clarity to the question of beauty, how it's been distorted by culture, and how Yoga reveals that we are the beauty itself. This episode moves through trauma, power structures, aging, sexuality, and what it means to be truly intimate with life. Sofie speaks from direct experience and with real humility. I'm grateful to walk this path alongside her.

Yoga in Crisis - True practice begins when there's no escape from mental and physical restriction.

The Body is the Cosmos - Real Yoga is participation in the beauty and unity of life itself.

Beauty Is Not Performance - We are not meant to chase beauty. We are it, inherently and already.

Aging with Integrity - Aging is not a decline but a return to natural wisdom and strength.

Sexuality as Presence - Intimacy begins with the breath, the body, and receptivity to life.

From Comparison to Compassion - We must unlearn the societal patterning that pits women against one another.

Sofie Chi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/starfaceyoga 

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.

Food is something we all have to engage with, and yet it carries so much confusion, control, and even fear. We sit with this theme of the Yoga of eating, the Yoga of food, and look at how our relationship with food shows our relationship with life itself.

We remembered Krishnamacharya's words that most Yoga problems are food problems. We talked about how simple meals in Bali surprised people with their ease and nourishment, and how the food culture in Sicily points us back to honest ingredients and natural ways of living. For us, eating is a sacred action, an offering to the fire of life within. It is the participation in what is already whole. Food is never about chasing happiness or perfection, it is about joining with life, directly and simply.

Food and Yoga – Eating is participation in life's nurturing force.

Simplicity – Honest ingredients and straightforward meals bring real nourishment.

Pleasure – Food is enjoyable, but deeper joy comes from intimacy with life.

Sacred Action – Eating can be seen as offering to the fire of digestion.

Cultural Habits – Food problems reflect our fears and patterns of control.

Ayurveda – Each person's constitution asks for a unique way of eating.

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.

Every mother is the first Guru, the one who transmits life to her children. My friend and Yogini Vivian Clemens shares how Yoga revealed to her that the nurturing force of reality was always within her. We speak of Yoga motherhood and the unity of existence. Vivian shares her own story of moving from fear and suffering into freedom through daily Yoga practice and how that change has shaped her daughters,  her teaching, and her way of being in the world.

Vivian lives in the German Alps where she teaches Yoga to her local community and online. She is co- translator into German of my book, Hridaya Yogasutra. We speak of bringing children into Yoga,  the grace of suffering, and the recognition that Yoga is participation in the nurturing force of the cosmos. This is a story of motherhood Yoga and the healing of generational pain through the direct experience of unity.

Yoga and Motherhood – The first Guru is the mother and children receive Yoga through her daily practice.

Generational Healing Through Yoga – Daily Yoga practice ends cycles of trauma and opens space for health and freedom.

The Grace of Suffering – Pain can be a powerful motive that brings sincerity to Yoga practice and real transformation.

Unity of Life – Yoga reveals that body, breath, and cosmos are one movement and that life itself is love.

The Nurturing Force of Reality – Each person is the Shakti, the mother force that cares for and sustains life.

Yoga as Community and Sharing – Teaching is the simple act of sharing practice and experience in family and in the local community.

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 happens when we understand the guru not as an identity but as the nurturing function of Mother Nature itself? The guru is the force of caring, the universal means of transmission that arises in real relationships. It is never a social status or a personal claim. It is no more than a friend and no less than a friend.

This talk explores how the word guru has been toxified in recent decades and how it can be purified again. The guru is not an authority figure but the natural current of friendship, affection, and Yoga shared between actual people. When that relationship is present, transformation becomes possible.

Guru is Heavy – The word guru means heavy, a powerful influence that can alter the course of life.

Beyond Ego – What is often called ego is only association, never a fixed identity.

Transmission Through Relationship – Yoga, Buddhism, and Christianity all point to the same heart: the relationship between teacher and student.

Three Qualifications to Teach – You need a good teacher, your own practice, and genuine care for others.

Purifying Guru and Sex – Both must be healed so that teaching and intimacy are clear, respectful, and free of misuse.

Living as Beauty – The beauty of nature is the same beauty that stands in your own body as your actual condition.

Self-Paced Online Yoga Teacher Training: https://www.heartofyoga.com/recorded-online-teacher-training 

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 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.