3 Review(s)

This book consists of five essays that have been revised from previous writings and include recent work of mine on Classical Yoga. Throughout these essays, I have challenged the often held radically dualistic and isolationistic interpretations of Yoga and suggest that as classically envisioned Yoga does not lead to the condemnation, abandonment or mere transcendence of embodied and material life, but to an enhanced engagement with the world, the world. Rather than approach Patanjali's Yoga-Sutra from the perspective of dualistic metaphysical assumptions (often derived from classical Samkhya), I have pursued a reading of the Yoga-Sutra that privileges the experience of yoga overmetaphysical abstractions. Drawing from the classical tradition, these essays explore how Yoga can culminate in a balanced integration of the spiritual, ethical, and material dimensions of life that incorporate a clarity of awareness with the integrity of being and action.