Why do we do what we do? Isn’t everything we do, ultimately, to bring us happiness? Think about it. All our planning, all our actions, all our manipulations, all our accumulations, are so that we can just be happy. When we get what we want, really, how long does it last? Is there a way that we can be happy all the time? The drive to fulfill our desires, in practice, does not bring us lasting happiness; so, what can we do? There is one practice that is most essential in revealing the bliss of the Self—and that is meditation. This is the fundamental practice of mystics in all cultures that shows us the happiness that lies just behind the mind and shines its joyous radiance when the mind is at peace. If we will just spend some time every day in this sublime equanimity, we will get everything. The traditional path to the inner yoga of happiness, which is taught in yoga philosophy (Advaita Vedanta), is simply the practice of meditation. In this practice, we distill the inner caprice of thought down to simple stillness. As we get longer stretches of this stillness, we become acquainted with the fullness of our essential being. In this fullness arises spontaneous joy, contentment, and wisdom. This is the happiness that is always there in every moment. This book is a journal of clues along the way in the pursuit of enduring inner happiness, independent of outer circumstances. Also available from this author: Yoga Sutras: The Means to Liberation

After studying yoga in India and traveling all over the world with traditional Vedantic masters, Steve Ross returned to his hometown of Los Angeles with a broadened point of view of what yoga could be. He was surprised to find that yoga classes at home were missing the humor, joy, and celebration that fueled his Eastern studies. Instead of expanding and enhancing the joy of being, Western yoga classes focused obsessively on correcting body positions and developing a picture-perfect physique. Determined to keep his yoga practice true to cultivating bliss and inner radiance, Ross started his own yoga studio and has created a yoga movement in Los Angeles that is, to put it simply, revolutionary. Ross lives and teaches according to his belief that the secret to yoga is not obsessing over whether your feet are parallel or whether you can bend as far as the person on your left can, but about transcending the serious and allowing joy into your life, your body, your mind, and hopefully your yoga practice itself. It's about lightening up. In Happy Yoga, Ross reveals that everyone is inherently happy, but that our true self is shadowed and concealed by the layers of worry that, through habit, become our daily thoughts. In each chapter, he examines one of our seven greatest human fears -- depression, ill health, loss of love, career failure, war, death, and emotional stasis -- and uses yoga wisdom to explain how to strip away these worries to reach your core of calm radiant joy. By sharing his system of yoga postures, diet, meditation, music, supplements, and philosophy, Ross has effected profound physical and mental changes in both his life and the lives of his students. Ross's power is that he goes back to the source -- five thousand years of ancient yogic wisdom -- and decodes the abstract Eastern ideas for a Western audience. Happy Yoga is not just a set of movements and facts to consume, it is a way of shifting your awareness to bring the spirit of yoga into each movement, each meal, each relationship, each thought, and each breath. With love and joyful abandon, Ross offers us a new way to practice and live yoga. The result is profound calm, a dramatic release of anxiety and pain, and the realization that there really is nothing to worry about.

Find connection, calm and happiness. Yoga Happy is an essential companion to help you through life, whether you’re a complete yoga beginner or wanting to deepen your home practice. In this beautiful, full-colour book you will find everything you need to build your inner strength and resilience, and help you find calm, happiness and the resilience to navigate the modern world. Written by yoga and meditation teacher Hannah Barrett, who has helped hundreds of thousands of people both online and through her workshops and classes, Yoga Happy encourages you to incorporate key disciplines, thoughts and actions into your everyday life. No matter how little time or space you have, Hannah shows how you can find your energy, reduce stress at home or at work, get a good night’s sleep and learn to cope better with whatever life throws at you. This inspiring handbook will also guide you through short, illustrated yoga sequences adapted for all abilities, plus give you breathing techniques, meditations and other proven mindful practices that will help to nourish and support your mind and body.

Deepen your practice by learning the inner meaning of the asanas you practice, the slow, controlled breathing necessary for effective meditation, the power of sound in focusing the mind, how to improve your concentration, and how to connect every aspect of your practice to the Divine Source. Let Inner Yoga take you on a journey of self-discovery, exploring through yoga, the rich layers of consciousness in a warm, intimate, empowering journey inward.

Yoga Happiness: A Path for Transformation provides an insightful companion resource that propels you towards happiness transformation. Syntheses of ancient yoga principles and Eastern philosophies are easily defined to challenge our unwanted negative patterns.This guide provides you with a balance of yoga asanas and breathing exercises to help unify your mind and body and release unwanted tension. You will begin to feel more alive and more open as you become further enriched by Meditation and Visualisation practices.In this breakthrough approach, you are encouraged to draw on your own intuitio.

After studying yoga in India and traveling all over the world with traditional Vedantic masters, Steve Ross returned to his hometown of Los Angeles with a broadened point of view of what yoga could be. He was surprised to find that yoga classes at home were missing the humor, joy, and celebration that fueled his Eastern studies. Instead of expanding and enhancing the joy of being, Western yoga classes focused obsessively on correcting body positions and developing a picture-perfect physique. Determined to keep his yoga practice true to cultivating bliss and inner radiance, Ross started his own yoga studio and has created a yoga movement in Los Angeles that is, to put it simply, revolutionary. Ross lives and teaches according to his belief that the secret to yoga is not obsessing over whether your feet are parallel or whether you can bend as far as the person on your left can, but about transcending the serious and allowing joy into your life, your body, your mind, and hopefully your yoga practice itself. It's about lightening up. In Happy Yoga, Ross reveals that everyone is inherently happy, but that our true self is shadowed and concealed by the layers of worry that, through habit, become our daily thoughts. In each chapter, he examines one of our seven greatest human fears -- depression, ill health, loss of love, career failure, war, death, and emotional stasis -- and uses yoga wisdom to explain how to strip away these worries to reach your core of calm radiant joy. By sharing his system of yoga postures, diet, meditation, music, supplements, and philosophy, Ross has effected profound physical and mental changes in both his life and the lives of his students. Ross's power is that he goes back to the source -- five thousand years of ancient yogic wisdom -- and decodes the abstract Eastern ideas for a Western audience. Happy Yoga is not just a set of movements and facts to consume, it is a way of shifting your awareness to bring the spirit of yoga into each movement, each meal, each relationship, each thought, and each breath. With love and joyful abandon, Ross offers us a new way to practice and live yoga. The result is profound calm, a dramatic release of anxiety and pain, and the realization that there really is nothing to worry about.

Discover the Supreme Joy in the original roots of yoga! In modern society, yoga has become an unstoppable avalanche. The well-being it brings is enormous, but this becomes even greater if we immerse ourselves in its essence, in its very core, in its original roots. And who better to guide us than Patanjali, the father of yoga? His Yoga Sutras are the way towards supreme happiness, step by step, day by day. Patanjali, however, lived centuries ago and it is not always easy to see how to apply his valuable teachings in an effective and relevant way. In these pages you will receive help from one of the great spiritual masters of our times, Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the wellknown spiritual classic, Autobiography of a Yogi. Thanks to Yogananda’s commentaries, you will find yourself able to apply each of Patanjali’s first thirty-one Yoga Sutras to your daily life, to your meditation, to the yoga asanas and to understanding yourself. Through an imaginary dialogue between Patanjali and one of his disciples, you will be presented with: Each sutra in the original Sanscrit with an English translation An explanation of the sutra’s deeper meaning Hints for experimenting with it in your meditations Instructions for applying it to the yoga asanas Inspiration for applying it to your daily life A guide for self-analysis for each sutra.

The book seeks to answer the following main questions: What is meant by happiness? What are the sources of happiness? What is meant by the well-being of man? What is the end in human life? When can we say that a man is successful in life? How can he be happy and successful? It is argued that happiness is not pleasure; it does not come through high income and consumption; beyond certain levels income and consumption cause dissatisfaction, unhappiness and alienation. The book upholds the Aristotelian view that happiness means living well – living a life of excellence. It discusses how moral judgment and habituation help the development of good life. It analyses paths of spiritual liberation, the highest state of human happiness. It also argues for a liberal state where people enjoy different negative and positive freedoms making possible flourishing of human diversities

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This unique book offers a framework for using yoga therapeutically to heal back and spinal problems. Combining detailed instruction on evaluation and treatment techniques with personal narrative and case studies, Yoga for a Happy Back bridges the gap between practicing yoga for better physical health and understanding the role of the mind-body connection in back pain. Utilising her vast experience as a physical therapist and yoga therapist, and the latest advances in the field, Krentzman advises on how to design therapeutic yoga classes for individuals with back pain. She includes information on creating class themes, and never before published sequences from the Purna yoga tradition for alignment based treatment of specific spinal conditions. With over 300 photos and illustrations, this book enables practitioners to access the benefits of yoga therapy for the treatment of orthopaedic dysfunctions and to promote general spinal health.