In the higher civilizations of ancient, Vedic India, the great spiritual teachers known as "rishis" created the Four Ashrams (or stages of life) as a way for people to instill their lives with deeper meaning. These four stages were designed to bring people more inner peace, happiness, and greater health and longevity. In this book, a Western yogini brings the Four Ashrams to life for the modern day. The Four Stages of Yoga highlights stories and conversations that encompass the journey yogis take from birth to the last moments of life. Though yoga philosophy has been around far longer than most realize, the deeper nuances of its effects on our own lives is revealed in this modern day expose. Here, we see how Vedic India's classic Four Ashrams of Life are experienced in the context of a yoga community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Just as Vedic myths have been carried down through eons to entertain and enlighten us, the true stories and visions encompassed herein speak to the very heart of living yoga in an everyday world. The first stage includes stories of childbirth and how yogis can draw a spiritual soul into their family, to rites of passage for children, and how yogic schools for young adults help instill and deepen compassion. During the creation of a unique yoga college come stories of visits with the Dalai Lama at his home in McLeod Ganj, as well as experiences with yogis, rishis, and mystics throughout India. In the second stage of life we explore how householder relationships evolve; conscious work for those with monastic tendencies; how Vedic astrology can assist our lives as well as how yogis approach love, romance, and celibacy; and the mysticism that surrounds a yogic marriage ritual. In the third stage we are introduced to how yogic couples, singles, and monastics are living their lives in creative new ways. We read stories of how yogis develop devotion, personal experiences with great souls like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and how married couples and singles can live more fulfilling lives. The fourth stage offers reports of those embracing the Vedic sannyas vows, and how they live their lives during this remarkable and powerful stage of surrender and transcendence. Conversations with rishis, yogic psychics, and those experiencing this cycle provide a lens that offers hope and satisfaction for the last stages of life, and the final preparation for death and the afterlife.

Using yoga to manage the challenges of cancer and its treatment • Explains how to create a safe home yoga practice that addresses the specific physical needs, risks, and emotions of cancer patients and survivors • Includes 53 yoga poses and 9 practice sequences that use movement and breathing to reduce and manage treatment side effects • Reveals how current research supports the physical and psychological benefits of yoga to aid recovery and reduce risk of recurrence • Written by a cancer survivor and certified yoga teacher For those faced with a cancer diagnosis and the journey of doctor-led surgery and treatments, yoga offers a way to regain control of your body and take an active part in your recovery and long-term health. In this easy-to-follow illustrated guide, yoga teacher and cancer survivor Tari Prinster presents 53 traditional yoga poses that are adapted for all levels of ability and cancer challenges. She then applies the movements and breathwork of these poses to address 10 common side effects and offers 9 practice sequences for varying stages of treatment and recovery. Sharing her own story as well as those of cancer survivors and yoga teachers with whom she has worked, Prinster explores how yoga can be used to strengthen the immune system, rebuild bone density, avoid and manage lymphedema, decrease anxiety, detoxify the body, reduce pain, and help the body repair damage caused by the cancer and conventional treatments. She reveals the research that supports the physical and psychological benefits of yoga as an aid to recovery and in reducing the risk of recurrence. Explaining how yoga must be tailored to each survivor, Prinster gives you the tools to create a safe home yoga practice, one that addresses your abilities, energy level, and overall health goals. Through personal stories, well-illustrated poses, and sample practices for beginners as well as experienced yoga practitioners, Prinster empowers survivors to create their own wellness plan in order to regain their independence and their physical and emotional well-being.

The powerful practice of yoga, with all its diverse approaches and time-honored traditions, meets twelve-step recovery. Those in recovery who yearn to connect more fully in the suggested "prayer and meditation" of Step Eleven will welcome this delightful book from a fresh voice in recovery literature. Kyczy Hawk's experiences of addiction and recovery make her a relatable, compassionate guide to an integrative practice that addresses the threefold aspects of addiction―body, mind, and spirit―for a new experience of recovery and of physical and spiritual health.

Mahamudra meditation is simultaneously the most profound of meditative disciplines and the most accessible for modern practitioners. Traditionally passed orally from teacher to disciple, mahamudra instructions point the meditator to the innate perfection of every experience. When it first appeared in 1986, Mahamudra: The Moonlight - Quintessence of Mind and Meditation was the first presentation in English of a major Tibetan Buddhist work on meditation. This classic guide was composed in the sixteenth century by an eminent lama of the Kagyu school and is so comprehensive and practical that it is still widely used today as a manual. Divided into two major sections, it presents first the common approach and then the mahamudra approach to tranquility (shamatha) and insight (vipashyana) meditation.

Now in its second edition, Instructing Hatha Yoga is a comprehensive guide to developing the knowledge and qualities of a confident and truly qualified yoga instructor. The updated edition includes revised poses complete with instructions, a web resource, and sample children’s and prenatal classes.

The 21 Stages of Meditation clarifies the process and outlines the steps toward your own progress in meditation. Defined by Yogi Bhajan and elucidated by Gurucharan Singh, "The 21 Stages of Meditation" is a key work in deepening your understanding and experience of meditation. Ranging from Upset and Boredom to Humility, Graceful Enlightenment and the Sage, explore these stages and the three distinct meditative journeys, which culminate in the pinnacle of contemplative awareness, the Stage 21st, also described as The Infinite Pulse. This is an essential book for those interested in deepening their process of meditation and their experience with Jappa Yoga.The teachings presented in this book have been developed with love and care and genuine reverence. Yogi Bhajan said, "Now we are entering the Age of Aquarius and we have to have the science of mind totally brought into a geometry so that you can understand this is depression, this is expression; this is what you are doing and this is what you have to do. So for that reason, we are trying to create all this work for you." Every living thing has its own time to grow from a seed to its innate maturity. May it provide a foundation for elevation and enlightenment to all who love meditation.