In the early 1970s, I was in the dance department at the University of California, Berkeley, and right when I passed from my apartment to the campus, there was the Integral Yoga Institute. I went in there, long story short, to take a Yoga class. The postures were...
Raja Yoga Now: The Master’s Touch
It was in September 1970 that I first met my spiritual master. It was a time when many great Gurus were being drawn to the West, attracted by the awakening aspiration of the youth. Several hundred of us had gathered at a rustic site in the mountains of California for...
The Spirit of Ahimsa: Creating a More Loving World
Many people are concerned about the violence in our society and about the threat that violence poses to the very existence of our planet. Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word that means non-violence. Following ahimsa doesn’t simply mean not killing. We cannot live without...
My Journey with Dr. King and the Spirit of Ahimsa
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, had he lived, would have turned 91 this year. He did not call himself a yogi but he lived his life and led the civil rights movement with a deep dedication to the spirit of ahimsa, or nonviolence. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the son of...
Patanjali’s Words: Ahimsa
Rev. Jaganath, Integral Yoga Minister and Raja Yoga master teacher, has spent a lifetime delving into the deepest layers of meaning in Patanjali’s words within the Yoga Sutras. Our series moves ahead to sutra 2.35. With this sutra, Patanjali begins to map out how the...
A Yogic or Sattvic Diet
To fully understand Swami Satchidananda’s teachings on the relationship between Yoga and diet, specifically, the psychological and spiritual benefits of a vegetarian/vegan diet, it’s important to know something about the three gunas, or the qualities of nature. The...
Vegetarianism & Ahimsa
Diet plays a very important part in people’s lives. Food not only makes the body, it makes the mind. It has a direct connection to the attitudes of the mind. Today we do not think much about the different qualities of food and its effect on the mind. In Yogic...
Creating a Culture of Nonviolence
Sample from the Winter 2006 issue of Integral Yoga Magazine An Interview with Arun Gandhi Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said of Mahatma Gandhi: “Gandhi was inevitable. If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision...
Vegetarianism and the Yoga Sutras
Sample from the Spring 2009 issue of Integral Yoga Magazine. By Sharon Gannon In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali lays out an eight-limbed plan for liberation called Raja Yoga. The first limb is called yama, which means restraint and includes five ethical restrictions:...