Way Of The Spiritual Yogi

This book is a collection of reflections, prompts, tools, and practical exercises to support your self-discovery, mental, emotional, physical well-being and healing in a sustainable way. What You'll Find Inside: ✔ An introduction to the myths in our modern understanding of the chakra system and alternative ways of thinking ✔ 7 chapters based on the ancient wisdom of the chakras to anchor your reflections and healing in various topics like emotional awareness, confidence, or belonging ✔ Everyday challenges & exercises to widen your understanding of your yoga practice and integrate seamlessly into your daily life ✔ Illustrations by artist Katya Uspenkaya Author's Note From a very early age, I’ve felt like the world was spinning too fast. I was always playing catchup and going against my inner, natural pace. Yoga for me became a way to connect with my intuitive rhythm. It has taught me again and again about what it means to simply be, with myself and with the world around me. After a while, I started wondering if I could stay as present in everyday challenges and happenings as I was when I was moving and breathing in my asana practice. I’d started on a yoga mat but my practice never felt quite powerful enough to infiltrate all areas of my life. Why was it so difficult to say no to things I didn’t want to do when I’d been learning about that in my physical practice? Why would I not let myself “flow” in my creative projects as much as my breath during meditation? This book is part of my journey of discovering how yoga can truly be a practice of every day, every hour, every minute. It is a collection of my attempts at putting together building blocks of awareness, so I always find pockets of connection whether I’m sitting on a loud train, cooking a meal, or deep into my email inbox. I hope you find comfort and ways to cultivate confidence through these pages. May the reflections and practice build the freedom and intuition you need to let the wonderful practice of yoga take the shape it needs to serve you and your communities. With love and curiosity, Ely

Before he was one of the most well-known yoga teachers in North America and an international hip hop artist, MC YOGI was a juvenile delinquent who was kicked out of three schools, sent to live at a group home for at-risk youth, arrested for vandalism, and caught up in a world of drugs, chaos and carelessness. At eighteen, fate brought him to his first yoga class. After discovering yoga, MC YOGI devoted himself to the practice. From traveling to India to study with gurus to living and learning with many American yoga masters, MC YOGI soaked in the knowledge that would revolutionize his entire life and put him on the path to healing, wholeness, and peace. Through technicolor stories of graffiti and guns, mystics and musicians, love, loss, and finding his soul’s purpose, MC YOGI’s journey is saturated in spiritual wisdom, illuminating the potential for transformation within us all.

Every human being on Earth longs and searches for true meaning and fulfillment. Unfortunately, most of us search in the wrong places and end up empty-handed. We won’t find true fulfillment in a fancy new car or lavish vacation. We will find it on the yoga mat, in the comfort of our own homes. The regular practice of yoga allows us to escape distractions, break patterns, examine our inner selves deeply, and ultimately find true contentment and joy. When the practice and teachings of yoga are combined with the teachings of A Course in Miracles, we find ourselves on the most fascinating exploration of self, leading us to what we have truly been missing all along. If you are ready for a simple and honest glimpse into this phenomenal practice of yoga, open the pages of this book, seek no more, and discover the life you have only seen in your dreams.

If you think that you have to retreat to a cave in the Himalayas to find the enlightenment that yoga promises, think again. In this second edition of Living Your Yoga, Judith Hanson Lasater stretches the meaning of yoga beyond its familiar poses and breathing techniques to include the events of daily life—all of them—as ways to practice. This edition includes three new chapters (Relaxation, Empathy, and Worship), a full index, and new interior and cover designs.Using the time-honored wisdom of the Yoga Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita to steer the course, she serves up off-the-mat practices to guide you in deepening your relationships with yourself, your family and friends, and the world around you.Inspiring and practical, she blends her heartfelt knowledge of an ancient tradition with her life experiences as a daughter, sister, partner, mother, friend, and yoga practitioner and teacher. The result: a new yoga that beckons you to find the spiritual in everyday life.

A foremost Ashtanga Yoga teacher tells you “everything you ever wanted to know from a yogi” in this guide for beginners and experienced practitioners alike (Huffington Post) Go inside the philosophy, history, and practices of a popular and athletic type of yoga—with step-by-step instructions and gems of wisdom for starting your own journey to self-realization Ashtanga Yoga has become extremely popular in recent years. Here, Kino MacGregor—a disciple of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the great modern guru who developed Ashtanga Yoga—gives a comprehensive view of the practice, demonstrating how Ashtanga is fundamentally a path of spiritual transformation and personal development. MacGregor delves into the history and tradition of Ashtanga Yoga and reveals how its philosophy manifests in contemporary lifestyle and dietary choices. She also explains the essential connection of breath, posture, and gaze that is the core of the practice. Her clear, step-by-step instruction of the Ashtanga Yoga Primary Series—including standing, seated, backbending, twisting, hip-opening, and closing postures—is a wonderful initiation for those who are new to the practice, and it will motivate experienced yogis toward perfection of the form. Throughout, MacGregor shares her own personal yoga journey and her devotion to yoga as a path of self-realization in a way that will inspire all practitioners.

An inspirational 30-day yoga and lifestyle program that will challenge your mind, body, and spirit--by one of the most dynamic and high-profile contemporary Ashtanga yoga teachers, Kino MacGregor. “The brave heart of a yogi is defined by actions that make the world a better place.” Live with authenticity, practice patience, let go of negativity—these are some of the core tenets of a yoga lifestyle, on and off the mat. Yoga is about much more than twisting yourself into shapes—the heart of this ancient practice is an inner journey, one of reflection, spiritual awakening, and ultimately a calm, clear mind. The Yogi Assignment is a 30-day introduction to these life-affirming and simple, yet revolutionary, principles. Led by master teacher Kino MacGregor, this journey will challenge and uplift your body, mind, and spirit. Each day offers a practice and meditation that will help you confront your emotional, physical, and mental limitations and inspire real change in your life. MacGregor is a fierce, loving guide who encourages you to look deeply within to find your wellspring of inner strength and courage.

Many thousands of Yoga practitioners yearn to explore the spiritual dimensions of the poses they practice every week. Spiritual Yoga fills a gap left by most modern Yoga manuals, which explain about bodily alignment, but leave out Yoga's higher dimensions: energy-control, meditation, and inner enlightenment. Now, Nayaswami Gyandev McCord shares these spiritual teachings as originally imparted by the great Yoga master, Paramhansa Yogananda (author of Autobiography of a Yogi), and Yogananda's direct disciple, Swami Kriyananda.

A history of yoga’s transformation from sacred discipline to exercise program to embodied spiritual practice • Identifies the origin of exercise yoga as India’s response to the mania for exercise sweeping the West in the early 20th century • Examines yoga’s transformations through the lives and accomplishments of 11 key figures, including Sri Yogendra, K. V. Iyer, Louise Morgan, Krishnamacharya, Swami Sivananda, Indra Devi, and B. K. S. Iyengar • Draws on more than 10 years of research from rare primary sources and includes 99 illustrations In The Path of Modern Yoga, Elliott Goldberg shows how yoga was transformed from a sacred practice into a health and fitness regime for middle-class Indians in the early 20th century and then gradually transformed over the course of the 20th century into an embodied spiritual practice--a yoga for our times. Drawing on more than 10 years of research from rare primary sources as well as recent scholarship, Goldberg tells the sweeping story of modern yoga through the remarkable lives and accomplishments of 11 key figures: six Indian yogis (Sri Yogendra, Swami Kuvalayananda, S. Sundaram, T. Krishnamacharya, Swami Sivananda, and B. K. S. Iyengar), an Indian bodybuilder (K. V. Iyer), a rajah (Bhavanarao Pant Pratinidhi), an American-born journalist (Louise Morgan), an Indian diplomat (Apa Pant), and a Russian-born yogi trained in India (Indra Devi). The author places their achievements within the context of such Western trends as the physical culture movement, the commodification of exercise, militant nationalism, jazz age popular entertainment, the quest for youth and beauty, and 19th-century New Age religion. In chronicling how the transformation of yoga from sacred discipline to exercise program allowed for the creation of an embodied spiritual practice, Goldberg presents an original, authoritative, provocative, and illuminating interpretation of the history of modern yoga.