Sagebabies

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky, The True Story of 3 Lost Boys from Sudan.

Sad.  That is all I have to say about this book.  I can’t imagine one of my children going through what thousands of Children and parents had to endure in Sudan.  No words, really, can describe my reaction to this book except sadness.

Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda

Path of Fire and Light, Vol. 2, A Practical Companion to Volume 1, Swami Rama

Path of Fire and Light, Vol. 1, Advanced Practices of Yoga, Swami Rama

Path of Fire and Light covers the main topics of Pranayama, Svarodaya (The science of breath), Dhyana (meditation), and Kundalini. It covers in great detail the philosophy and science of these paths of yoga. This book is for the advanced practitioner and also for the extremely dedicated. I found the information extremely interesting and I learned so much. But putting some of these practices into a context that would fit my life is a bit more tricky. I’m glad for the information and I am sure when I am further along on my yoga path I’ll be able to incorporate some of the ideas into my life. It is a good reference manual. I’m looking forward to reading volume II.

Seven Systems of Indian Philosophy, Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D.

Well, this book is a heady read. I thought the introduction and beginning chapters were very helpful. What is Indian Philosophy, the first chapter, helped me get an overview and history – a way to put things into perspective. The first chapter, Buddhism, was very cool to read. Then the next few chapters were so dense that I skipped to Chapter 6, Yoga: Practical Disciplines for Knowing the Self. I came away with a better understanding of Indian philosophy from this book but also realized I’m not quite ready for such a dense and deep knowledge of the subsystems.

Healthy at 100, John Robbins

Healthy at 100 Website

I’ve been a huge fan of John Robbins for a while and this book blew my mind! Robbins explores four groups of people who live to be one hundred years old. Not only do people from these four cultures live to be 100, but they live with health and vitality in both mind and body. This is an inspirational book that changed my ideas about growing old and settling for being on medication or stuck at home on the couch crippled with arthritis and other medical ailments.

Yoga Mala, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois

Sri K. Pattabhi Jois is the man who brought Ashtanga Yoga to the modern world. He is responsible for training people from the West in this yoga tradition and for bringing light to an ancient form of meditation and way of life. I’ve only been practicing Ashtanga yoga for a few months but this book helped put some of the philosophy of yoga in terms I could understand. Yoga isn’t just asana (poses). It’s so much more.

Some quotes from that book that were meaningful for me:

“What then is yoga? The word has many meanings: relation; means; union; knowledge; matter, logic; and so on. For now, let us say that the meaning of yoga is upaya, which means path, or way which we follow or by means of which we can attain something.”