Yoga Books we Love
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Following these four simple rules in The Four Agreements can lead to so much personal growth and transformation in your life.
1. Be impeccable with your word (speak with integrity and say only what you mean)
2. Don’t take anything personally (let go of your ego)
3. Don’t make assumptions (it takes bravery, but you have to ask questions and communicate clearly)
4. Always do your best (if you do your best, there’s no room for regret)
Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life
If you think that you have to retreat to a cave in the Himalayas to find the enlightenment that yoga promises, think again. In this second edition of Living Your Yoga, Judith Hanson Lasater stretches the meaning of yoga beyond its familiar poses and breathing techniques to include the events of daily life—all of them—as ways to practice. This edition includes three new chapters (Relaxation, Empathy, and Worship), a full index, and new interior and cover designs.
Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience
Meditation is like a love affair with your innermost self. At times it can be ecstatic and entrancing, other times simple and still―and sometimes you might not even feel its profound effects until later.
Now with Meditation for the Love of It, Sally Kempton shares practical secrets to help us turn meditation into an unconditional embrace of the fullness of our experience―on and off the meditation cushion. With the gentle wisdom and compassion of one who understands the nuances of practice, she opens us to the joy of exploring the deep and mysterious inner landscape of the heart, mind, and body.
The Path of Practice: A Woman's Book of Ayurvedic Healing
"We are wellness. We are consciousness. That is our natural state. Disease is an imposter."
As one of the world's only female experts on the ancient Indian tradition of Ayurvedic medicine, renowned teacher Bri. Maya Tiwari has devoted her heart and soul to sharing the philosophy and methods that saved her from terminal cancer and redirected her life. Now, in The Path of Practice, she offers a short course in healing and living and reveals how she has gone back to the sources of Ayurvedic wisdom to reclaim time-honored, natural, and spiritual techniques for contemporary life.
The Creative Habit: Learn In and Use It for Life
One of the world’s leading creative artists, choreographers, and creator of the smash-hit Broadway show, Movin’ Out, shares her secrets for developing and honing your creative talents—at once prescriptive and inspirational, a book to stand alongside The Artist’s Way and Bird by Bird.
The Yamas & Niyama; Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice
The first two limbs of the eight-fold path of yoga sutras—the basic text for classical yoga—are examined in this spiritual guide to the practice of yoga. Foundational to all yogic thought, they are considered to be the guidelines to the yoga way of living that free individuals to take ownership of their lives, direct them toward the fulfillment they seek, and gain the skills to choose attitude, thought, and action. The first five guidelines are referred to as the yamas—a Sanskrit word that translates to "restraints"—and encompass nonviolence, truthfulness, not stealing, nonexcess, and nonpossessiveness. The last five are referred to as the niyamas, or observances—purity, contentment, self-discipline, self-study, and surrender. A self-study section at the end of each chapter may also be used by instructors for group discussion.
After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path
“Enlightenment does exist,” internationally renowned author and meditation master Jack Kornfield assures us. “Unbounded freedom and joy, oneness with the divine . . . these experiences are more common than you know, and not far away.”
But even after achieving such realization—after the ecstasy—we are faced with the day—to-day task of translating that freedom into our imperfect lives. We are faced with the laundry.
Drawing on the experiences and insights of leaders and practitioners within the Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Sufi traditions, this book offers a uniquely intimate and honest understanding of how the modern spiritual journey unfolds—and how we can prepare our hearts for awakening.
Do Your Om Thing: Bending Yoga Tradition to Fit Your Modern Life
Sometimes an hour-long yoga class is the only chance we get to connect meaningfully with our bodies and our minds during an otherwise hectic week. For a brief moment we’re able to let our worries melt away and feel relaxed, centered, and fully ourselves. Have you ever wondered how it would feel to bring that experience out of the yoga studio and into your everyday life?
In Do Your Om Thing, master yoga teacher and creator of the popular blog OmGal.com Rebecca Pacheco shows us how to do just that. The true practice of yoga, she says, goes deeper than achieving the perfect headstand—it is about bringing awareness and intention to every part of our lives. In her warm, personal, and often hilarious prose, Rebecca translates yogic philosophy for its twenty-first-century devotees, making ancient principles feel accessible, relatable, and genuinely rooted in the world in which we live today.
Embrace Yoga's Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice
Embrace Yoga's Roots explores the past's yogic traditions, brings them alive today, and preserves them for the future by examining what separates us, reflecting on our part, taking action for equity and moving toward liberation together. If you practice, teach or want to learn yoga integrating your ethics and values while respecting ancient yoga philosophy, you have found the essential guide to making that goal a reality.
Functional Anatomy of Yoga: A Guide for Practitioners and Teachers
This book enables both the casual reader and the seasoned practitioner to understand and implement the anatomical structure and function of the body in yoga. Written with a conversational tone, the book delivers the complex subject of human anatomy in a way that is both provocative and clear. The underlying theme of the book is integration.
Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity
Develop a powerful practice of deep relaxation and transformative self-inquiry with this essential guide to yoga nidra, accompanied by downloadable audio meditations.
Yoga nidra is a practice devoted to allowing your body and mind to rest while your consciousness remains awake and aware, creating the opportunity for you to tap into a deeper understanding of yourself and your true nature. At its heart, yoga nidra is about waking up to the fullness of your life. In Radiant Rest, Tracee Stanley draws on over twenty years of experience as a yoga nidra teacher and practitioner to introduce the history of yoga nidra, mind and body relaxation, and the surprising power of rest in our daily lives.
More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament
An indispensable resource for women of all ages, this is a guide to help us better connect to ourselves, to value ourselves, to love ourselves, and ultimately, to be ourselves."
—Chelsea Clinton
Positive body image isn’t believing your body looks good; it is knowing your body is good, regardless of how it looks.
How do you feel about your body?
Have you ever stayed home from a social activity or other opportunity because of concern about how you looked?
Have you ever passed judgment on someone because of how they looked or dressed?
Have you ever had difficulty concentrating on a task because you were self-conscious about your appearance?
Our beauty-obsessed world perpetuates the idea that happiness, health, and ability to be loved are dependent on how we look, but authors Lindsay and Lexie Kite offer an alternative vision. With insights drawn from their extensive body image research, Lindsay and Lexie—PhDs and founders of the nonprofit Beauty Redefined (and also twin sisters!)—lay out an action plan that arms you with the skills you need to reconnect with your whole self and free yourself from the constraints of self-objectification.
The Inner Work: An Invitation to True Freedom and Lasting Happiness
This is the holy grail of self-help books! If you are looking for a book to motivate you, re-inspire you, and are yearning for a life-changing personal transformation, this book is for you!
The Inner Work will take you on a hero’s journey through the uncharted depths of your subconscious mind to understand your shadows and unlock the greatness of your full potential. Through the uprooting of limiting beliefs and transcendence of themes of consciousness which perpetuate suffering, true freedom and lasting happiness will finally be revealed. By process of radical self-analysis and a practical three-step method, The Inner Work invites you to let go of your struggle with life. If you are a human, and you want to be happy, this book is for you.
Wheels of Life: A User’s Guide to the Charka System (Llewellyn’s New Age)
Wheels of Life takes you on a powerful journey through progressively transcendent levels of consciousness. View this ancient metaphysical system through the light of new metaphors, ranging from quantum physics to child development. Learn how to explore and balance your own chakras using poetic meditations and simple yoga movements―along with gaining spiritual wisdom, you'll experience better health, more energy, enhanced creativity, and the ability to manifest your dreams.
Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga
The sages of Tantra have known for centuries that when you follow the path of Shakti―the sacred feminine principle personified by the goddesses of yoga―these gifts can manifest spontaneously. Yet most of us, women as well as men, have yet to experience the full potential of our inner feminine energies. When you know these powers for what they are, they heighten your capacity to open spiritually, love more deeply and fearlessly, create with greater mastery, and move through the world with skill and delight.
Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence
Matthew Sanford's inspirational story about the car accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down is a superbly written memoir of healing and journey—from near death to triumphant life.
Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation
Stephen Mitchell is widely known for his ability to make ancient masterpieces thrillingly new, to step in where many have tried before and create versions that are definitive for our time. His celebrated version of the Tao Te Ching is the most popular edition in print, and his translations of Jesus, Rilke, Genesis, and Job have won the hearts of readers and critics alike. Stephen Mitchell now brings to the Bhagavad Gita his gift for breathing new life into sacred texts.
The Bhagavad Gita is universally acknowledged as one of the world's literary and spiritual masterpieces. It is the core text of the Hindu tradition and has been treasured by American writers from Emerson and Thoreau to T. S. Eliot, who called it the greatest philosophical poem after the Divine Comedy. There have been more than two hundred English translations of the Gita, including many competent literal versions, but not one of them is a superlative literary text in its own right.
The Artist's Way: 25th Anniversary Edition
The program begins with Cameron’s most vital tools for creative recovery – The Morning Pages, a daily writing ritual of three pages of stream-of-conscious, and The Artist Date, a dedicated block of time to nurture your inner artist. From there, she shares hundreds of exercises, activities, and prompts to help readers thoroughly explore each chapter. She also offers guidance on starting a “Creative Cluster” of fellow artists who will support you in your creative endeavors.