In this penultimate installment of this series on “The Science of Yoga,” Eddie Stern takes us for a further tour of the brain and its relationship with the kleshas, as taught in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The Limbic System, Raga and Dvesha The limbic system is in...
I wondered if I could look to Western neuroscience for clues on how, by working directly with the nervous system, we could pave a pathway to samadhi. I had an inkling through my studies of the autonomic nervous system—and in particular of homeostasis (the body’s...
In this column, Rev. Dale Ann Gray offers reflections on the yamas and niyamas of the Yoga Sutras, incorporating insights from classical Nondual Yoga. In this article, she unpacks the first yama, ahimsa (non-violence, non-harming). In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,...
In his translation and commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Swami Satchidananda gives this introduction to the five kleshas: “Sri Patanjali gives the obstacles (kleshas), which will then be explained one by one. The order is significant: because of ignorance of...
In this new column, Dale Ann Gray offers reflections on the yamas and niyamas of the Yoga Sutras, incorporating insights from classical Nondual Yoga. In this article, she offers an overview on the distinctions between the dualistic philosophy of Patanjali’s Yoga and...
Patanjali called the things that cause us to suffer kleshas, or obstructions. He named five of them. The first, avidya, is that we do not fully know who we are. Avidya is often translated as ignorance. The ignorance it refers to is that, while we might know a lot...
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