More than a century before Vedanta and Yoga became familiar parts of the American spiritual landscape, Ralph Waldo Emerson discovered in the wisdom of India a profound resonance with his own deepest intuition: that beneath the apparent separateness of life is an...
In the Integral Yoga Tradition, certain sacred sounds become woven into the rhythm of daily life. They are not reserved only for formal worship or special ceremonies; they accompany us through the ordinary and extraordinary passages of human experience. Among the most...
The Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville ground is charged. Once someone tells you to notice it, you cannot stop noticing it, and I mean this in more than a figurative sense. A practitioner who arrives with a settled enough mind can feel the field the way you feel a...
From Brave New World to the Wisdom of Vedanta To millions of readers, Aldous Huxley remains the author of Brave New World, the chilling 1932 vision of a society pacified by conditioning, consumption, entertainment, and chemically induced contentment. Yet the man who...
As a yogi, mainly in the Krishnamacharya lineage, and as a practitioner of Buddhist meditation for many years, Chip Hartranft’s work bridges the traditions of Yoga and Buddhism. His deep contemplation and study of the Yoga Sutras is evident in this interview,...
Questions about the origins of Yoga and whether Yoga is a part of the Hindu religion have arisen over the years in Yoga classes, teacher training programs and universities. In this interview, Dr. Graham Schweig, a scholar and a yogi, tackles these perennial questions....
According to Dr. Graham Schweig, there is an intimate relationship between the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. With his guidance, our readers are given insight into how to perceive the flowering of the Ashtanga or eight-limbed Raja Yoga system in the Bhagavad Gita....
Dr. David Frawley is regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on Ayurveda, Yoga and Vedic Studies. In this article, he offers an overview of the relationship between the teachings of Yoga and the Bhagavad Gita. He also discusses the Gita’s teaching of Yoga as...
Sri Swami Satchidananda was one of the earliest teachers of Raja Yoga in the West. On November 21, 1966, in New York, he lectured on this topic and answered these questions about the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The second sutra gives the aim of Yoga in a nutshell:...
Many sincere seekers encounter both Yoga and nonduality and wonder: Are these the same? Are they different? Does one contradict the other? At first glance, they can seem to point in opposite directions. Yoga speaks of discipline, purification, practice, and gradual...
snihyanti jantavo nityaṃ vairiṇo ‘pi parasparam | api svārthakṛte sāmyabhājaḥ sādhoḥ prabhāvataḥ || स्निह्यन्ति जन्तवो नित्यं वैरिणोऽपि परस्परम् । अपि स्वार्थकृते साम्यभाजः साधोः प्रभावतः ॥ Living beings, even eternal enemies (like the snake and mongoose), feel...
At the Vedanta Society of New York, Swami Sarvapriyananda recently addressed various topics including: How to understand Advaita’s Atman and the Buddhist doctrine of no-self? After enlightenment, why might one still show anger or other ordinary human reactions? How...
Understanding Enlightenment and Awakening For many, the terms enlightenment and awakening evoke the promise of extraordinary experiences. Referring to a concept that has intrigued and captivated truth seekers throughout history, these terms are often associated with...
On a recent Sunday morning I awoke to the sound of my wife’s voice shouting my name, followed by “Call nine-one-one! Call nine-one-one!” The garage on the property just beyond our backyard fence was ablaze. The 9-1-1 operator told me that fire engines were already on...
In this talk, Swami Sarvapriyananda (senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order, and spiritual director of the Vedanta Center of New York) shares the teachings of the great Jnana Yogi Swami Vivekananda on the true nature of the Self. The talk is based on the Vijnana Vedanta...
Many have argued whether the inner life or the outer life is our home; the reflective saying that the outer world is but an illusion while the pragmatic say that all the meditation you can muster won’t feed you. Each has its lineage. Socrates said, “The unexamined...