Integral Yoga Media is please to offer the newly mastered audio recording “Swami Satchidananda Teaches the Pūjā Ślokas.” These prayers are used in daily pūjā, a service of devotion. At Chidambaram (the Mahasamadhi Shrine of Sri Swamiji), the pūjā is offered to the...
OM is a letter and a word. It is also a sound or resonance. There are three sounds in OM, known as “matra” (vowel diacritics): ‘a,’ ‘u,’ and ‘m.’ When ‘a’ and ‘u’ merge, they form ‘o,’ and when ‘m’ is placed alongside ‘o,’ it forms OM. Thus, all sounds of all...
It is a tradition in Integral Yoga that after daily meditation we repeat Shanti mantras, or peace prayers. These prayers are a beautiful way to end one’s formal meditation sitting and are a spiritual support in that they are affirmations of peace. The Yoga tradition...
We know that mantras can help us feel calm and focused, but why are they so effective? Recent research studies show that mantra chanting has a wealth of physical, mental and emotional benefits. Not only is it a beautiful spiritual practice helping us feel grounded and...
To hear Dr. M. A. Jayashree chant the Yoga Sutras in Sanskrit is to be transported to the time when this great text was transmitted in the oral tradition. Her melodious voice, flawless pronunciation and classical articulation of the Sanskrit, replete with meaning and...
An Interview with M.A. Jayashree, PhD To hear Dr. Jayashree chant the Yoga Sutras in Sanskrit is to be transported to the time when this great text was transmitted in the oral tradition. Her melodious voice, flawless pronunciation and classical articulation of the...
To truly comprehend the depth and profundity of “OM,” we have to go back to the ancient Indic texts known as the Vedic literature, to the seed-mantra, Omkara. But before this, it might be worthwhile to know that OM is not a sectarian sound, nor is it peculiar to Hindu...
There are many good online resources for looking up Sanskrit words, finding books on the subject and finding help with pronunciation. We’ve listed some of the best and classic resources on the language. Dictionaries/Pronunciation Guides 1. The Monier-Williams Online...
Among the many marvelous gifts of the Sanskrit language is a rich spectrum of terminology that defines with impeccable precision a world of vision and clarity that opens through Yoga and meditation. Without this, the already difficult journey to self-knowledge could...
From the perspective of Yoga, all life ultimately merges into samadhi. It could be said that samadhi is the essence of yoga, In the Yoga Sutras, samadhi is defined, "tad evaathamaatraanirbhaasam-svaruupa-shuunyam iva samaadhih" that (consciousness, engaged in...
The primary characteristic of a sacred language is that the purpose for which it's being used is discovering one's own true nature. Sanskrit is so highly developed and refined as a tool for serving this purpose...
What makes a language sacred is how we use it. If a language is used to discover the sacredness of life, it becomes a sacred language. Whether or not a language is sacred is determined by who is using it. This in turn has a great deal to do with whether a language is...
The "certainty of freedom" is a striking concept. Although the concept of spiritual freedom expressed through a word such as "liberation" exists in the English language, the actual meaning as we hear it is quite abstract, somehow foreign to the reality of our day to...
Many of the universal chants sung in the Integral Yoga Institutes, as well as the ancient Yogic scriptures, are in the Sanskrit language. ''He who knows my grammar knows God," said Panini, the great Sanskrit grammarian and philosopher of ancient India. ''He who would...
From Patanjali's perspective in his Yoga Sutras, there is ultimately one problem in life; not perceiving the difference between the transparent, luminous and reflective quality (guna) of the mind with its perceptual field known as sattva, and my true nature as "I"...