Wisdom in the Heart of Yoga | Joe McClernon

Podmasana: Spirituality, Awareness & Enlightenment

Jan 28 2026 | 00:03:51

00:00 / 00:03:51

Episode • January 28, 2026 • 00:03:51

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Show Notes

Joe McClernon walked into Yoga Patch at 49 seeking stretching tips for his osteoarthritis. He found The Heart of Yoga by TKV Desikachar and realized: "This is exactly what I had needed for a long time. Perhaps all my life." In 2013, he created Slow Flow with Joe for students who felt intimidated by yoga. Then June 2019: stage four prostate cancer. Gleason 10. Doctors gave him 1.5-5 years. His first thought: suicide. His wife saved his life. Six years later, Joe teaches yoga, volunteers at the cancer center, and embodies choosing life and love daily. Full episode releases next week.

Topics: Stage four cancer survival, prostate cancer, Gleason score 10, cancer and yoga, why not me, choosing life, Slow Flow with Joe, TKV Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga, yoga for osteoarthritis, trauma-informed teaching, hands-off teaching, classical music in yoga, eight limbs of yoga, yoga sutras, chemotherapy with positivity, Hawaiian shirts, cancer center volunteer, hope and healing, living with terminal illness, quality of life, positive attitude, fitness and cancer survival, cancer support, patient advocacy, why me vs why not me, facing mortality, grace under pressure, carpentry to yoga, social services background, assisted suicide decision

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Chapters

(00:00:00) - "The Heart of Yoga"

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Joe, you write that when you discovered the Heart of Yoga by TKV Desikachara, it felt like exactly what I had needed for a long time, perhaps all my life. Those were your words. What was it about yoga philosophy, beyond just the physical practice that felt like coming home? What did you recognize in yourself? [00:00:21] Speaker B: Well, that was very interesting. I picked that book up almost accidentally. I bought another book that had the Yoga sutras in it, Yoga Sutra that I heard one of the teachers talking about. And I asked, what's that? And so she showed me the book she was reading. She was a very young woman. And I read that book. It didn't really connect with me. It seemed a little. A little bit, I don't know, a little out there for a guy like me who was pretty grounded and I thought described as grounded, but it was kind of mystical and magical kind of writing in it, and it didn't do much for me. But when I bought that book, he, you know, it popped up online, wherever I bought it, that you might also like this book. And I think maybe they even threw it in for half price or something, and it happened to be the heart of yoga, so I went ahead and got it. So when I didn't like that first book about the Yoga Sutra, I picked up the Heart of Yoga, discovered it had the Yoga Sutra in the back of it, as translated by Mr. Dev's father, Krishnamacharya, who of course is many people call the father of modern yoga. And boy, it's just so concise and so down to earth. And all the rest of the book. [00:01:28] Speaker B: It just seemed like how I thought or how I wanted to think, how I wanted to see the world. But it never really quite jived with anybody else I knew or anything else I was introduced to. I was brought up in a church setting. My father was very religious, my mother a little less. So none of that ever really quite worked for me. I didn't really dislike it particularly, but it just wasn't for me. But this book just kind of just the con. The precision of it. The sutra itself, of course, is very concise and short, and it just. I just could. I just could connect with it. And it was kind of seemed like, yeah, it seemed like who I was for the first time. I saw somebody else, some other group of people that thought kind of the way I did. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's a book, as I understand, that's often in teacher trainings, you know, and so I. It's interesting to hear that you had such a strong connection with it. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't realize that. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so was there anything beyond its approach to the sutras that also connected with you? [00:02:31] Speaker B: Well, I think that. Well, it describes the eight limbs of yoga, and those also seemed very clear to me. Breathwork being the only thing that really seemed novel, even though I never had seen these writings before or heard anybody talk about these types of writings before. But just the sense of community, the interaction with an attitude toward the things outside yourself, the world around you, the yamas, the niyama, your relationship with yourself and how you treat yourself, and your attitude towards yourself. You know, I won't go through all of them probably right now, but you get the idea. It all just. It just made perfect sense to me. And then, of course, he just goes through all the different parts of yoga as he saw it, as he learned it from his father. And again, very precise, very down to earth to me. It all just made perfect sense to me. These are things you can do to try to improve your lot in life, to make yourself a little happier. There's no, really without any mysticism that you might find in religion or any. Any number of other types of philosophies and things like that. So I guess that would be my best answer to that. It's just you almost have to read the book, which I have many times, and I still study it, and it's kind of my go to. I never really read too many other books about yoga. I did pick up a few other ones on recommendations, but I never found anything yet that I could connect to. Like I do the Heart of Yoga.

Wisdom in the Heart of Yoga | Joe McClernon

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Chapters

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