Review: THE COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF YOGA

The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga by Swami Vishnu-devananda is a comprehensive guide to traditional Hatha yoga.

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I was impressed with how much information this book contains! In the first pages of the book, Vishnu-devananda enumerates the 8 limbs of yoga, and the succeeding chapters each focus on one of the different limbs. This book includes bodily cleansing, asana demonstrations, diet, meditation, pranayama, and MUCH more.

The first half of the book is mostly about physical preparation and technique, while the latter chapters focus more on philosophy, specifically that of Vedanta philosophy. Vishnu-devananda does an excellent job of illustrating his points. Personally, I was not familiar with a lot of the practices and philosophy but the author does a thorough job of explaining himself, in more than one way. Each new concept is enforced by others found in previous pages, and he provides ample metaphors and anecdotes for getting his point across.

Overall, this is a FANTASTIC book. I will definitely be revisiting it in my future. There is so much information, including photographic demonstrations of over 100 asanas and it even has training tables in the back that are organized by age and overall physical health.

Review: THE 8 HUMAN TALENTS

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A while back my friend let me borrow The 8 Human Talents by Gurmukh, and I finally finished it about a week ago. The book focuses on Kundalini Yoga & Meditation and the 8 chakras. Before reading this book I thought there were only 7 chakras, but Kundalini Yoga views people as having 8 chakras. The author tells how each of the chakras plays a role in 8 basic human characteristics.

To break it down:
Root chakra controls your acceptance.
Sacral chakra controls your creativity.
Navel chakra controls your commitment.
Heart chakra controls your compassion.
Throat chakra controls your truth.
Third-eye chakra controls your intuition.
Crown chakra controls your boundlessness.
Aura chakra controls your radiance.


For the most part, I liked how the book was set up. Each chapter focuses solely on one chakra. The author provides meditations and breathing exercises to bring each chakra back into balance and provides examples of how they become unbalanced and how they are all connected. One thing I really enjoyed about the book was that she offered the "shadow" side of the chakras as well. For example, guilt is the shadow emotion to the second chakra, where our creativity is housed. If we're feeling guilty for any reason our creativity is what suffers.

The part about the book I didn't like was the anecdotes she provided. I found most (if not all) of them very unbelievable and exaggerated. Once I hit the middle of the book I just skimmed through the anecdotes because it became very predictable and tiresome. There was also a massive lack of references and sources. The author says that "studies show" X results for Y case, but doesn't back it up. It just seemed like she was making up statistics to prove her point. It was almost like she was trying too hard to mix the very spiritual aspects of yoga and science, which I don't believe is always possible or appropriate.

The bottom line is that I found this book pretty inspirational. It's full of self-acceptance, self-love, and self-respect. It offers lots of encouragement. By far what I enjoyed most about the book is the meditations and breathing exercises. As frustrated as I was with the "bulk" of the book, I will probably purchase my own copy so I can always have the chakra-specific exercises on hand.

we are not our habits

I've been going through a lot of changes lately; physically, mentally, and emotionally. I've uncovered many hidden aspects of myself I've been too scared to face. And I've started working toward changing them and bettering myself.
Something that's been coming up a lot in my reading is the idea that we are not our habits. Our habits, both negative and positive, are called samskaras in Sanskrit, and Patanjali assures us in the Yoga sutras that they do not define us. They're just habits. And habits can be changed.
This ties back to my (still inconsistent) meditation practice. I've been meditating on my bad habits a lot lately. I've been doing tons and tons of self-reflecting on the habits and patterns that don't serve me. I've been trying to "own" my bad habits, instead of projecting them onto others, so I can truly overcome them. That just means being completely aware of the nasty parts of myself that hurt me and others.
I've been starting with something small, that I've been aware of for a long time, but haven't ever really tried to fix. And that's my bad habit of procrastinating. I'm a professional procrastinator; a postponer of action. Not acting and procrastinating are basically synonyms. I'm not proud of it, but I'm owning it. Every night I check-in with myself to see where I successfully overcame procrastination and where I fell short (and always staying non-judgemental and compassionate toward myself). When I check-in I also set intentions for me to tackle the next day. Taking a calm, slow, conscious approach has been incredibly helpful. I don't feel overwhelmed, or that I'm not doing "enough". I'm working at a pace that serves me, and I think the past 2 weeks have been the most productive of my life! And that is the most encouraging feeling of hope I've had in a long time.

:)

on meditation

Elena Brower on meditation.

This finally makes sense to me! I'm seriously lacking in my meditation practice; something about it has always eluded me. I've had trouble truly grasping it. My monkey brain, obviously, is seriously flighty. I've been giving this huge amounts of consideration lately and have generally been thinking about how beneficial a steady meditation practice would be for me right now [and always]. Reading that short piece by Elena pushed out the last little bit of haze in my mind concerning meditation. She's brought the heart into the picture! Lucky for me, I spend a lot of time in my heart as it is. [People have told me before that I actually feel too much. Is that possible as a human? To feel too much? I'm not sure about that...] I've always understood meditation as a quieting of the mind. Reaching that stillness seems easier when I consider what my heart is doing while my mind is slowing down. Elena's approach makes so much sense to me. I literally felt a breath of fresh air and renewed inspiration after reading her wise words.

:)