Yoga - Wisdom and Practice

Through the writings, experiences, and philosophy of the world’s greatest yoga guru and teacher, discover what yoga can do for you.

B.K.S. lyengar Yoga Wisdom and Practice offers an uplifting series of beautifully presented asana, demonstrated step by step, and all accompanied by Iyengar's guiding voice. He passes on wisdom drawn from ancient yogic texts and from the lessons of his own life journey. and shares his insights into the physical and spiritual rewards you can gain from the practice of yoga.

Yoga Wisdom and Practice is filled with gems extracted from the eight volumes of my Astadala Yogamala, covering yogic knowledge (vidya) and experienced wisdom (buddhi) for those who love and live in yoga. Yoga came to me by chance. It soon made me accept it as a choice. Practising day in, day out to absorb and maintain the subtle transformations brought about by each asana and each breath, I re-acted and re-adjusted in each asana to experience the zenith — a single state of uninterrupted flow of attention and awareness.

We are all born with inquisitiveness. This makes us seach for ways to live this God-given life with honour and dignity. Though I initially practised asana and pranayama using the body and mind compartmentally, later I began to associate (samyoga) these differentiating movements to integrate (samyama) every part of the gross body with an even flow of energy. Such an intensive internal penetration of intelligence towards the causal body through the subtle inner body encourages the dormant consciousness to spread and touch the frontier of the soul - the inner layer of skin. Thus, yoga uses the body — the container — to touch the content — the soul. In order to make the soul "ring its bells" within each cell, | had to stay in each asana for a long period. Though | was explicitly involved in asana and pranayama, I knew in my heart of hearts that the other petals of yoga were implicitly involved and operating.

The body is finite and mortal, but the soul is infinite and eternal. I worked the soul (jivatma) to engulf its frontier — the body — by using the five elements of nature with their infrastructures, namely, earth, water, fire, air, and ether with smell, taste, form, touch, and vibration. Thus balanced evenly, the body is divinely united with the divine Soul as a divine union.

**Contents and Sample Pages**