Yoga and Tantra: History, Philosophy & Mythology PDF Download
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Author: Tova Olsson
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass
ISBN: 8120843150
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 107
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Book Description
The stories about how old yoga is as a practice, where it originated from and who it belongs to are as many as they are conflicting. Yoga practitioners often have to navigate through a jungle of information in order to seek answers to their questions. What exactly is the goal of yoga? Is it relevant for contemporary yoga practitioners to study the Yoga Sutra? What do the various Indian gods and goddesses really symbolise? And what do yogic and tantric traditions have in common? This book offers its readers a clear overview of the origin and historical development of yoga and tantra and an in-depth understanding of the various philosophical systems and concepts used under the name "yoga philosophy". The book also provides insight into how the classical literature often referenced in yoga can be understood contextually, i.e., how it relates to and reflects the time and place it originated in. As well as how yogic mythology and its many deities can be used to put words on an inner experience or shed light on aspects of ourselves. The book is a must-read for yoga teachers, curious practitioners, as well as knowledge seekers. About The Author: TOVA OLSSON is a yoga teacher, religious scholar and writer. She has been published in scientific journals and lectures internationally on the history, philosophy and mythology of yoga and tantra. She holds an MA in history of religions from Gothenburg University and is currently working on her PhD at Umeà University.
Author: Tova Olsson
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass
ISBN: 8120843150
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 107
Get Book Here
Book Description
The stories about how old yoga is as a practice, where it originated from and who it belongs to are as many as they are conflicting. Yoga practitioners often have to navigate through a jungle of information in order to seek answers to their questions. What exactly is the goal of yoga? Is it relevant for contemporary yoga practitioners to study the Yoga Sutra? What do the various Indian gods and goddesses really symbolise? And what do yogic and tantric traditions have in common? This book offers its readers a clear overview of the origin and historical development of yoga and tantra and an in-depth understanding of the various philosophical systems and concepts used under the name "yoga philosophy". The book also provides insight into how the classical literature often referenced in yoga can be understood contextually, i.e., how it relates to and reflects the time and place it originated in. As well as how yogic mythology and its many deities can be used to put words on an inner experience or shed light on aspects of ourselves. The book is a must-read for yoga teachers, curious practitioners, as well as knowledge seekers. About The Author: TOVA OLSSON is a yoga teacher, religious scholar and writer. She has been published in scientific journals and lectures internationally on the history, philosophy and mythology of yoga and tantra. She holds an MA in history of religions from Gothenburg University and is currently working on her PhD at Umeà University.
Author: Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D.
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834825457
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
A leading yoga researcher offers a clear and lively introduction to the history, philosophy, and practice of the Tantric spiritual tradition Tantra—often associated with Kundalini Yoga—is a fundamental dimension of Hinduism, emphasizing the cultivation of “divine power” (shakti) as a path to infinite bliss. Tantra has been widely misunderstood in the West, however, where its practices are often confused with eroticism and licentious morality. Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy dispels many common misconceptions, providing an accessible introduction to the history, philosophy, and practice of this extraordinary spiritual tradition. The Tantric teachings are geared toward the attainment of enlightenment as well as spiritual power and are present not only in Hinduism but also Jainism and Vajrayana Buddhism. In this book, Georg Feuerstein offers readers a clear understanding of authentic Tantra, as well as appropriate guidance for spiritual practice and the attainment of higher consciousness.
Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691017648
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 564
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Book Description
In this landmark book the renowned scholar of religion Mircea Eliade lays the groundwork for a Western understanding of Yoga, exploring how its guiding principle, that of freedom, involves remaining in the world without letting oneself be exhausted by such "conditionings" as time and history. Drawing on years of study and experience in India, Eliade provides a comprehensive survey of Yoga in theory and practice from its earliest foreshadowings in the Vedas through the twentieth century. The subjects discussed include Patañjali, author of the Yoga-sutras; yogic techniques, such as concentration "on a Single Point," postures, and respiratory discipline; and Yoga in relation to Brahmanism, Buddhism, Tantrism, Oriental alchemy, mystical erotism, and shamanism.
Author: Geoffrey Samuel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139470213
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 429
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Book Description
Yoga, tantra and other forms of Asian meditation are practised in modernized forms throughout the world today, but most introductions to Hinduism or Buddhism tell only part of the story of how they developed. This book is an interpretation of the history of Indic religions up to around 1200 CE, with particular focus on the development of yogic and tantric traditions. It assesses how much we really know about this period, and asks what sense we can make of the evolution of yogic and tantric practices, which were to become such central and important features of the Indic religious scene. Its originality lies in seeking to understand these traditions in terms of the total social and religious context of South Asian society during this period, including the religious practices of the general population with their close engagement with family, gender, economic life and other pragmatic concerns.
Author: Imma Ramos
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0500480621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A captivating study of the ancient Indian movement that has influenced and intrigued the world for more than a millennium. The Tantras, a set of sacred manuscripts that emerged in India from around the sixth century CE, detail rituals for attracting spiritual, worldly, and supernatural power. These rituals, which focus on the power of fierce gods and goddesses and center around yoga, self-deification, sexual rites, and the consumption of intoxicants, became an integral part of the meditations and philosophical practices of Tantric Hinduism and Buddhism. This book examines the philosophies, core beliefs, and artistic expressions of Tantra, and its impact on religious, cultural, and political landscapes across the globe. In tracing the history of the movement, author Imma Ramos reveals Tantra’s origins and continued relevance in India, as well as its redefinition as it was adopted by Western popular culture during the 1960s. Tantra: enlightenment to revolution accompanies a major exhibition at the British Museum, and is illustrated extensively with masterpieces of sculpture, painting, print, and ritual objects from India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, dating as far back as the eighth century CE.
Author: Daniel Simpson
Publisher: North Point Press
ISBN: 0374722684
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 169
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Book Description
A succinct, approachable guide to the origins, development, key texts, concepts, and practices of yoga. Yoga is practiced by many millions of people worldwide and is celebrated for its mental, physical, and spiritual benefits. And yet, as Daniel Simpson reveals in The Truth of Yoga, much of what is said about yoga is misleading. For example, the word “yoga” does not always mean union. In fact, in perhaps the discipline’s most famous text—the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali—its aim is described as separation: isolating consciousness from everything else. And yoga is not five thousand years old, as is commonly claimed; the earliest evidence of practice dates back about twenty-five hundred years. (Yoga may well be older, but no one can prove it.) The Truth of Yoga is a clear, concise, and accessible handbook for the lay reader that draws upon abundant recent scholarship. It outlines these new findings with practitioners in mind, highlighting ways to keep traditions alive in the twenty-first century.
Author: David Gordon White
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691190453
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 661
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Book Description
As David White explains in the Introduction to Tantra in Practice, Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices that seeks to channel the divine energy that grounds the universe, in creative and liberating ways. The subsequent chapters reflect the wide geographical and temporal scope of Tantra by examining thirty-six texts from China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet, ranging from the seventh century to the present day, and representing the full range of Tantric experience--Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and even Islamic. Each text has been chosen and translated, often for the first time, by an international expert in the field who also provides detailed background material. Students of Asian religions and general readers alike will find the book rich and informative. The book includes plays, transcribed interviews, poetry, parodies, inscriptions, instructional texts, scriptures, philosophical conjectures, dreams, and astronomical speculations, each text illustrating one of the diverse traditions and practices of Tantra. Thus, the nineteenth-century Indian Buddhist Garland of Gems, a series of songs, warns against the illusion of appearance by referring to bees, yogurt, and the fire of Malaya Mountain; while fourteenth-century Chinese Buddhist manuscripts detail how to prosper through the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper by burning incense, making offerings to scriptures, and chanting incantations. In a transcribed conversation, a modern Hindu priest in Bengal candidly explains how he serves the black Goddess Kali and feeds temple skulls lentils, wine, or rice; a seventeenth-century Nepalese Hindu praise-poem hammered into the golden doors to the temple of the Goddess Taleju lists a king's faults and begs her forgiveness and grace. An introduction accompanies each text, identifying its period and genre, discussing the history and influence of the work, and identifying points of particular interest or difficulty. The first book to bring together texts from the entire range of Tantric phenomena, Tantra in Practice continues the Princeton Readings in Religions series. The breadth of work included, geographic areas spanned, and expert scholarship highlighting each piece serve to expand our understanding of what it means to practice Tantra.
Author: Rajmani Tigunait
Publisher: Himalayan Institute Press
ISBN: 9780893891589
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 172
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Book Description
Describes authentic tantra, the different spiritual paths and how tantra combines yoga, meditation, ayurveda and other disciplines.
Author: Georg Feuerstein
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834844400
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 473
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Book Description
The ever-increasing popularity of Yoga and related practices makes a desktop reference like this indispensible. With over twenty-five hundred entries and extensive illustrations, it combines comprehensiveness with accessibility. The book is arranged and written in a manner that will inform rather than overwhelm the lay reader, while at the same time offering valuable references for the professional researcher and the historian of religion. This new edition includes information about contemporary Yoga teachers. It also provides fuller descriptions and illustrations of Yoga poses, and features additional cross references.
Author: Uma Dinsmore-Tuli
Publisher: Pinter & Martin Limited
ISBN: 9781906756604
Category : Hatha yoga
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
In this courageous and radical book, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli explores the sexual politics of yoga from a perspective that sees women's spiritual transformation as the most revolutionary force.
