Miracle of instruction!

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There is an interesting incident described in Tipitaka – a collection of Buddha’s discourses. Once Buddha was visiting the ancient city of Nalanda in Northern India. This city hosted one of the renowned Universities in the ancient world. It was like the Stanford, MIT, or Oxford of today. Students from all parts of the world used to throng this place to pursue advanced studies. 

 

Many great visiting scholars and teachers used to give lectures in that University about whatever they propagated. Often these teachers used to embellish their speeches with mystifying ideas and baseless claims much like what some of our modern Gurus do 😉 So, one of Buddha’s admirers namely Kevatta, suggested to Buddha that he should precede his discourses by a display of psychic powers by some of his disciples to impress the audience.

 

Buddha flatly refused to take that suggestion. He said that the right kind of instruction by itself is the biggest miracle. If the instruction is clear and practical, then there is no need to resort to cheap means. Anyone who follows the instruction would see its efficacy “right here and now”.

 

 

Today, I see many Yoga Gurus competing with each other to lure newer disciples. They come up with newer and more mysterious techniques just to attract more people. Some even talk about Nude Yoga, bathroom Yoga, sex Yoga and what not! This trend is becoming so common place that people have started anticipating newer and newer ‘forms of Yoga’ with lot of mystic frills attached to them.

 

What we tend to forget is that rather than inventing newer things, it is important to first understand time tested systems more deeply. That applies to Yoga as well. In contrast to what most people think, Yoga is not all about body postures and breathing exercises. It is not just restricted to health enhancement. Its scope is far beyond. It has many more beneficial facets. It has a history of several thousands of years. It is a fairly well-established science, albeit poorly understood. Only when we understand it fully, can we exploit its full potential. There is hardly any need to invent something totally new.

 

In my latest book on Yoga, I emphasize on his view. I go deep into various aspects of Yoga keeping in view its long history. I discuss Yoga from practical, scientific, philosophical as well as spiritual points of view. This is a reasonably big book running to over 400 pages in print and 11+ hours in audio. Instead of dealing with the subject in a piecemeal fashion, I cover all aspects of Yoga – a system that is not just restricted to Patanjali or his more modern successors but also the one that was well established thousands of years earlier.

 

The book traces the long history of Yoga that spanned over 5000 years beginning right from the Vedic times. The book covers the meditative techniques described in the Upanishads, those discussed in the Bhagavad Geetha, Buddhist meditative techniques, Patanjali’s Yoga, Hata yoga of later mystics, and the ones propagated by most modern Yoga teachers. In a graded and easy to understand fashion, full of anecdotes and illustrations, the book covers almost all questions that a Yoga enthusiast may encounter.

 

Let me quickly run through the entire content of this book.

 

The book is divided into 9 chapters each running approximately 1 to 1 ½ hours in audio. The book starts with some preliminaries and briefly captures the long journey of Yoga from the Vedic times to our times. It reminds us that Yoga is not all about body postures and health enhancements as we normally tend to think. Its scope is much wider and deeper.

 

While acknowledging the fact that everyone wants to be happy, the Chapter 1 looks closely at this innate longing in all of us and tries to understand this need both in practical terms as well as in highly philosophical sense. It also tries to convince how our notion of happiness has limitations and proposes a better way of attaining sustained happiness.

 

Since the entire book blends practice, science and philosophy of Yoga in a smooth way, the next chapter primes us with some brain science preliminaries that help in understanding Yoga from a completely scientific perspective. This is a very important background needed to understand each step of Yoga as we discuss subsequently. This chapter ends with stressing the need for tempering science with philosophical outlook since our current scientific understanding of the mind is far from complete. These philosophical ideas are discussed later in the book as and when needed.

 

Stress seems to be the major concern of most modern-day population. Stress not only has psychological ramifications but also is believed to be the root cause of most of our health problems. So, chapter 3 goes elaborately into understanding the cause of stress, how it affects us and also how Yoga can minimize our stress. In a series of simple steps, replete with interesting anecdotes and humorous stories, this chapter explains how we can nip the causes of stress in the bud. Though these steps look quite simple and are often ignored, they are by any means the most powerful and important aspects of Yoga. So, one needs to pay more attention to them.

 

Chapter 4 takes up the most popular aspect of Yoga namely the body postures. Though often touted as a panacea for all our health problems, it is a poorly understood aspect of Yoga. This chapter explains in neurological terms, how body postures actually help us in improving our health. In the process, it stresses on the right way of practicing body postures to ensure those benefits. The chapter concludes with a set of easy and very effective Yoga postures that can be practiced by anyone to improve health.

 

What is the use of a healthy body if we cannot achieve what we want in life? Most of the time our failure to achieve much in life stems from lack of focus. Only a focused mind can enable us to realize our full potential. In chapter 5, the book suggests a long list of techniques, all very simple and practical, that help us in sharpening our mental focus. Side by side, it explains the neuroscience of how these techniques not only sharpen our concentration but also how they help in minimizing stress. Further, the chapter goes into the details of how a focused mind helps in advanced stages of Yoga practice.

 

The main focus of Yoga is meditation. How one can go about practicing this most important aspect of Yoga is explained in Chapter 6. As usual, this chapter lists a series of simple meditation techniques along with step by step instructions. Side by side it also dispels many of the misconceptions regarding the process of meditation which could often be stumbling blocks and unnecessary detours.

 

Most people have weird ideas about what happens when one mediates for a prolonged period of time. This is fueled by the mystic language often employed by many a modern Yoga teacher to capture a wider audience. But Yoga texts are very clear about what happens when one meditates and also various milestones that one encounters. Many of these can be objectively verified using modern gadgets like brain scanners. This is the topic of Chapter 7. The chapter ends with neuroscience-based explanation of various meditative experiences, completely demystifying some of the often wrongly understood notions.

 

To facilitate a smooth transition from science to spirituality, Chapter 8 starts with questioning the validity of limiting our notion of mind to brain. In the process, it introduces several alternate ways of looking at the mind that seem to fill in the gaps left behind by our current scientific research. These theories also have a potential to explain one of the mysteries of our existence namely the phenomenon of rebirth. While acknowledging rebirth as a definite possibility, this chapter outlines scientific studies done in that direction.

 

All our endeavors in life are finally targeted to some definite purpose or goal. Though health enhancement and stress reduction are often seen as the goals of Yoga, that would definitely be a myopic view. Yoga has much bigger goals beyond these mundane aspirations. Chapter 9 traces back the history of Yoga to explore the real ‘ultimate’ goal of Yoga. That goal has far reaching consequences, not just limited to the individuals practicing Yoga, but to the society as a whole or rather the entire existence, both animate as well as inanimate. That is the tone with which this book concludes.

 

For a discerning reader, this is a quite informative book providing deep insights into all aspects of Yoga. For a scientifically oriented person, the book may provide lot of pointers to look for in a quest to study Yoga in a formal scientific way. For a spiritually disposed person, this book captures the essence of Yoga in its entirety, along with all related ideas, reassuring the path he or she has taken. At the same time, for an ordinary Yoga enthusiast, it helps in clearing lot of misconceptions and provides a strong base to practice Yoga, guiding at each step.

 

 

This book is available in e-book format in most online stores. On amazon you can find paperback as well as hardcover copies of the book. On select stores such as amazon, audible, apple, audiobooks, Kobo, you can find the complete book in audio format as well.

 

On amazon/audible the book has been ‘whisper sync for voice enabled’. What it means is that if you buy e-book as well as audiobook on amazon/audible you can do ‘immersive reading/listening’. In simpler terms, you can synchronize your reading of the e-book with listening of the same simultaneously. Amazon software highlights each sentence in the e-book as you listen to it in the audio. That apparently gives an ‘immersive experience’! This feature is supposed to work on some versions of kindle device as well as on kindle simulator apps. Maybe it is a worth experience to try it out. Amazon further subsidizes the price to less than 1/2 if you buy both e-book as well as audiobook.

 

I am aware that not all are subscribed to audible. Nor the price tag of $25 is convenient for some people. So, I have split the entire audiobook into 9 parts and made them available on almost every platform. Even many libraries provide these parts as a series at a relatively low cost. These parts are almost independent of each other and you can selectively buy any of them if you choose to. But I would recommend listening to all parts in the specified sequence to completely appreciate the book in its entirety. Some inter-dependencies between various parts are inevitable.

 

Now, finally the link to explore where this book is available and to preview/purchase various formats of the book. It is a single link, quite easy to remember, namely https://books2read.com/UltimateYoga. Just check this link and it will show you most places where this book is available, tailored to your specific region of the world. Please note however, that some retailers may not provide the audiobook in some countries.

 

I hope that this book will not only answer all your questions about Yoga but also will provide a completely new insight into this wonderful science called Yoga. Make it a point to read/listen to this book during the long year end holidays. It could also be a good idea to gift it to someone you love. I am sure, either way you will find it highly enriching.