The Bible of Yoga

This book is a must buy for yoga teachers and serious practitioners of yoga. It is a very humble looking book and comes nowhere close to the beautiful, colourful yoga books with glossy pictures, but is quite the opposite when it comes to the content. It is quite in-depth as it describes a technique / asana with instructions, breathing, benefits, contraindications, chakras and variations. The practices are also aptly classified as beginner, intermediate and advanced, thereby letting us advance systematically.

Published by the Bihar School of Yoga, you can order the book on the net as well as get it from good bookstores.

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Living with the Himalayan Masters

I finished reading this book recently. It traces the life of Swami Rama (a great sage & founder of the Himalanyan Institute in the USA). I am reviewing this book because I feel it’s a good read for those connected as well as disconnected from yoga. The various incidences, various meetings and stays with his different teachers since childhood have been described such that everyone is bound to appreciate it. Its endearing the way this book touches upon various religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam), various geographical areas (Himalayas, north India, Tibet, north-east, central). Even a mention is there of the flora & fauna in the Himalayas. The enthralling beauty of the Himalayas is for everyone to capture in ones’ imagination with vivid descriptions in the book.

It’s a sneak peek into the lives of the sages who live deep in the Himalayas and are practically inaccessible to the world. They live in small dwellings, often changing after a few days or months. They live a nomadic life & fine-tune themselves to the conditions prevalent at various places. You’ll read about peculiar lives of some sages, the way they survive, what they eat, how they spend time, and miraculous feats they are capable of. A typical day in the life of a Himalayan sage would be like this – getting up at 4 am, meditation till 6:30 am, breakfast of raw milk & fruit given by villagers, meditation or a few practices, meeting with the disciples and common people, evening meal at 6:00 pm, again meditation or reading scriptures. Only 3-4 hours sleep per day. Isn’t it fascinating?

And in all the pages, with detailed narrations, it also shows how Swami Rama was transformed from a rebellious disciple to a great sage. The approach is quite simple, lucid yet powerful. I am quite ignorant when it comes to spirituality and philosophy. But those concepts have been explained with anecdotes from real life which makes the book an interesting read.

ps: i know i have been dilly-dallying about hardcore yoga (asanas) but will soon be doing it once i get hold of my husband to take a few pics.