Yoga Vade Mecum

Yoga is a stress management champ with ancient biotech techniques for slowing aging by kindling mental and physical fitness. Yoga has remedies for ailments and for providing the prophylactics. It promotes objectivity and happiness. YVM tables the evidence for these claims by way of clinical research highlights.

Yoga is a stress management champ with ancient biotech techniques for slowing aging by kindling mental and physical fitness. Yoga has remedies for ailments and for providing the prophylactics. It promotes objectivity and happiness. YVM tables the evidence for these claims by way of clinical research highlights.

This is a comprehensive treatise on the effective practice of the Yoga of Integral Transformation as propounded by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The book is an outcome of what has been shaped on the anvil of long practice, deep reflection, and inner experience. Combining the clear, analytical thought of a scientist with the psychic insightfulness of a sadhaka, Prof. Mukherjee has produced a book that is at once lucid and profound. Its comprehensiveness, authenticity and compactness will make 'The Practice of the Integral Yoga' an ideal companion and an outstanding vade-mecum for the practice of the Integral Yoga.

Today yoga is a thoroughly globalised phenomenon. Yoga has taken the world by storm and is even seeing renewed popularity in India. Both in India and abroad, adults, children and teenagers are practicing yoga in diverse settings; gyms, schools, home, work, yoga studios and temples. The yoga diaspora began well over a hundred years ago and we continue to see new manifestations and uses of Yoga in the modern world. As the first of its kind this collection draws together cutting edge scholarship in the field, focusing on the theory and practice of yoga in contemporary times. Offering a range of perspectives on yoga's contemporary manifestations, it maps the movement, development and consolidation of yoga in global settings. The collection features some of the most well-known authors within the field and newer voices. The contributions span a number of disciplines in the humanities, including, anthropology, Philosophy, Studies in Religion and Asian studies, offering a range of entry points to the issues involved in the study of the subject. As such, is of use to those involved in academic scholarship, as well as to the growing number of yoga practitioners who seek a deeper account of the origin and significance of the techniques and traditions they are engaging with. It will also-and perhaps most of all-speak to the growing numbers of 'scholar-practitioners' who straddle these two realms. Further resources and supporting material are available to view at www.yogainthemodernworld.com

How the mind works according to the ancient yogic traditions, compared and contrasted to the approaches of Western psychology—by one of the greatest yoga scholars of our time. Georg Feuerstein begins the book by establishing the historical context of modern Western psychology and its gradual encounter with Indian thought, then follows this introduction with twenty-three chapters, each of which presents a topic--generally a point of correspondence or distinction--between Western and Eastern paradigms. These are grouped into three general sections: Foundations, Mind and Beyond, and Mind In Transition. The book concludes with a brief epilogue as well as three appendices, adding depth to the discussion of the ancient yoga traditions as well as an informative survey of yoga psychology literature. The Psychology of Yoga is a feast of wisdom and lore, assembled from a perspective possible only for one whose monumental scholarship has been tempered and leavened by practice.

This book offers translations of the 'Yoga Sūtra' of Patañjali in English, French and Dutch, as well as a commentary from the perspective of a practicing Buddhist. The 'Yoga Sūtra' of Patañjali is a remarkable short text of about 1200 words, codifying the best yoga practices in 195 Sanskrit aphorisms. Yoga became one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy. In contrast to Jainism and Buddhism, it always kept close to the 'Vedas'. These crucial scriptures speak of three paths to freedom from ignorance and the suffering it brings: Ritual, Mystical Devotion and Yoga. The 'Yoga Sūtra' of Patañjali turned Hindu Yoga systematic and close to direct yogic experience. Besides a critique of the eternal substances of seer (the self) and seen (Nature), the commentary also identifies correspondences between Jhāna Yoga and the various types of union (samādhi) mentioned by Patañjali and compares constraint (the application of concentration, contemplation and union) with the Nine Stages of Calm Abiding.

How did an ancient Indian spiritual discipline turn into a $20+ billion-a-year mainstay of the global wellness industry? What happened along yoga's winding path from the caves and forests of the sages to the gyms, hospitals and village halls of the modern West? This comprehensive history sets yoga in its global cultural context for the first time. It leads us on a fascinating journey across the world, from arcane religious rituals and medieval body-magic, through muscular Christianity and the British Raj, to the Indian nationalist movement and the arrival of yoga in the twentieth-century West. We discover how the practice reached its present-day ubiquity and how it became embedded in powerful social currents shaping the world's future, such as feminism, digital media, celebrity culture, the stress pandemic and the quest for an authentic identity in the face of unprecedented change. Shearer's revealing history boasts a colorful cast of characters past and present, who tell an engaging tale of scholars and scandal, science and spirit, wisdom and waywardness. This is the untold story of yoga, warts and all.

The popularisation of Buddhism, yoga and meditation, public curiosity about shamanism and Sufism, and the recent craze for Kabbalah all demonstrate the appeal of foreign religious traditions to a wide audience in advanced industrial societies. Strange and enticing, their perceived otherness seems to lend them authenticity and to nourish hopes for the discovery of mysteries and hidden truths. This book uncovers the historical and socio-cultural logics that organise practices of bricolage.