The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker’s Guide to Extraordinary Living
February 22nd, 2010
Extraordinary, guide, Living, Seeker's, Wisdom, Yoga Posted in Yoga | 5 Comments 
- ISBN13: 9780553380545
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
For modern spiritual seekers and yoga students alike, here is an irreverent yet profound guide to the most sophisticated teachings of the yoga wisdom tradition–now brought to contemporary life by a celebrated author, psychotherapist, and leading American yoga instructor.
While many Westerners still think of yoga as an invigorating series of postures and breathing exercises, these physical practices are only part of a vast and ancient spiritual science. For more than three millennia, yoga sages systematically explored the essential questions of our human existence: What are the root causes of suffering, and how can we achieve freedom and happiness? What would it be like to function at the maximum potential of our minds, bodies, and spirits? What is an optimal human life?
Nowhere have their discoveries been more brilliantly distilled than in a short–but famously difficult–treatise called the Yogasutra. This revered text lays out the entire path of inner development in remarkable detail–ranging from practices that build character and mental power to the highest reaches of spiritual realization.
Now Stephen Cope unlocks the teachings of the Yogasutra by showing them at work in the lives of a group of friends and fellow yoga students who are confronting the full modern catastrophe of careers, relationships, and dysfunctional family dynamics. Interweaving their daily dilemmas with insights from modern psychology, neuroscience, religion, and philosophy, he shows the astonishing relevance and practicality of this timeless psychology of awakening.
Leavened with wit and passion, The Wisdom of Yoga is a superb companion and guide for anyone seeking enhanced creativity, better relationships, and a more ethical and graceful way of living in the world.
From the Hardcover edition.
The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker’s Guide to Extraordinary Living
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:45 am
I didn’t like this book for a few reasons.
First, The writing style is very flat and boring despite the pedantic use of impressive-sounding words.
Second, it adds nothing of value to the yoga literature, and failed to inspire this reader to pursue yoga.
Third, the cases provides as examples are so uninteresting that it really takes away all interest to continue on the path of yoga.
Fourth, one gets the feeling that this is the new style “trendy” yoga, rather than the old style spiritual path, because of absence of any genuine guru. The author is definitely not a guru, but to give him credit, does not represent himself as one either.
Fifth, well, the absence of eastern mysticism really takes the taste away…
Rating: 1 / 5
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:28 am
I would love to someday take a class in person from Stephen Cope. I can only imagine how well he could impart information in person, given how well he can write. His discussion of complicated yogic philosophies is easy to read and absorb the first time through. This book is an excellent place to begin one’s studies of the Yoga Sutras.
Rating: 4 / 5
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:25 am
An easy to read, deep and personal account of the exploration of yogic principles and how they apply in everyday life. I found it hard to put down and marked just about every page for later review and pondering.
Rating: 5 / 5
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:49 am
I’ve participated in yoga courses for quite a few years now on and off, –some excellent and some not so great, depending on the instructors. I have an excellent teacher now and she is about to offer a new course in meditation and yoga. This is the text for it. I am excited to be learning more about what yoga is all about on spiritual/philosophical/meditative levels. This book is easy to read and offers insights about yoga for the average Westerner and how it can both simplify and enrich your life and help you understand more about yourself and others, how you can become more mindful in your daily life. Life in the 21st century is crazy, fast-paced, and full of pressures, stresses, and negativity (war, global warming, worries about the economy). Yoga is one of various paths to greater understanding, serenity, clarity, and wisdom. Earlier this year I took a course called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction which included some yoga as well as meditation, and other exercises for reducing stress. This course resulted in my wanting to learn more about what is behind yoga and meditation, their history, to understand more about their modern-day and past expert practitioners. I guess the only thing that bothers me at all about the book is all of the unfamiliar terms that are introduced that I can’t get fixed in my mind, but perhaps taking the course will help with that, or perhaps that doesn’t matter so much. The book is easy to read and understand and is very informative and insightful.
Rating: 4 / 5
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:30 am
I had read this and the companion book on Yoga published in 1995 by Stephen Cope. The two books together opened my mind to its own working, the importance of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra even for today’s seeker ( after the Maharishi wrote it 2,000 years back), and above all clarified some of the aspects of Raja Yoga through recent psychological research. Together, they would even convince a skeptic about the need to stop (Nirodha), and become a seeker ( Sramana) in his own way to get the benefit of yoga, as he interprets it.
Rating: 5 / 5