Group Book Review: Modern Yoga Studies – II
But yoga is known to be of two kinds.
The first is considered the yoga
of non-being. The other is the great yoga, the very best of all yogas.The yoga in which one’s own essence
is known to be empty, free from all
false appearances, is named the yoga
of non-being. Through it, one sees the self.The yoga in which one discerns the self
as eternally blissful, free from blemish,
and united with me is called
the great yoga of the supreme lord”.
Īśvara Gītā 11, 5-7. (transl. Andrew J. Nicholson)
David Gordon White’s The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali: A Biography (Princeton University Press 2014) – part of Princeton’s “Lives of Great Religious Books” series – may seem a little out of place here. However, given that many contemporary Yoga movements (and commentators) see the Yoga Sūtra as the ur-text from which all yoga springs – and often claim a direct chain of transmission to it – I thought it was worth including. Continue reading »
