“The posture of yoga is steady and easy. It is realized by relaxing one’s effort and resting like the cosmic serpent on the waters of infinity. Then one is unconstrained by opposing dualities.” (page 56)

This is a translation and brief commentary on Patanjali’s yoga sutras by Barbara Stoller Miller. She’s a well-respected scholar of Eastern religions and Sanskrit, but I wasn’t impressed by this book. The translation was adequate and at times, it was good. But the commentary was vague, overly pedantic and often painful to read.

As a westerner studying these scriptures, I’m looking for something very specific in a commentary: I want to understand. I also want to be inspired. There are probably a hundred commentaries on the yoga sutra that do what this one does: vaguely explain what Patanjali meant. But I’m discovering that a commentary that actually helps a student understand the yoga sutras and apply the philosophy to day-to-day life is very rare indeed (and of great value!)

The yoga sutras themselves are very brief – an English translation could be printed onto a few pages. The sutras were meant as a guide, to help a realized teacher pass on the knowledge of yoga philosophy to students; a kind of shorthand. I suppose that’s why commentaries like Miller’s frustrate me so much. What Patanjali said is generally agreed upon. What’s required of a commentator is to provide further background and explanation.

One last beef with this book: the heart of the book is in the second chapter. The Yamas (restraints) and Niyamas (observances) and poorly translated – this surprised me. I had ot refer to another book to understand what she was referring to. To add insult to injury, she didn’t offer the Sanskrit names. Most students of yoga are familiar with these, so the omission is almost offensive.

The only thing I liked about this translation is it was short. But it still took me a week to slog through the 83 pages. No recommended.

“There’s another reason why we breathe with out-breaths first, and then in-breaths. The first breath we ever took, as we came ouf of our mother’s womb, was an in-breath. And the last breath that people take, lying on their deathbed, is an out-breath. Yoga, as it was meant to be by the ancient masters of India and Tibet, is a protest against this normal way of things. We don’t need to get old the way we do, they say. We were meant for life and not for death. Let the last breath come out first and then let us breathe in – let us live. Let the inner winds flow free into the central channel, and sing there always.” (page 30-31)

I spotted this little book at a local yoga studio and decided to check it out at the library. It’s a straightforward book of yoga – it offers step-by-step instruction for a simple, gentle yoga practice. The postures and the techniques in the book are not very difficult – any beginning yoga student can attempt them. The sequence of postures is different from many other ‘Tibetan’ practices I’m familiar with.

The book was written by a group of teachers – 31 in total – during the course of a three-year long retreat in the Arizone desert. The group included Tibetan scholars, monks, nuns and yoga specialists from various traditions (Astanga, Iyengar, Jivamukti, Bikram, Shivananda and others). The authors present postures that should be familiar to any student of yoga, along with a few new ones that are specific to Tibetan Heart Yoga. The book is written in a clear and simple way – understandable to just about anyone, regardless of yoga experience.

The practice in the book differs in that it is deeply meditative and offers specific opportunities for developing compassion and ‘giving’ during each posture. The techniques are based on the Tibetan Buddhist practice of ‘Tonglen’ in which the meditator ‘breaths in’ negative emotions or states and ‘breath out’ positive ones in order to alleviate the suffering of other beings. I enjoyed this aspect of the book very much. With some adaption, I could use this technique in some of my classes.

The book and the practice is centered around ‘opening the heart.’ I found the instructions for backbends and spinal work clear and powerful. I’ve been searching for ways to better describe the technique and purpose of backbends and this book gave me some great ideas. I also liked the emphasis on working safely. Although alignment was not a focus in this book, elements of it came through clearly in the instruction.

The breath techniques in the book are different from typical yoga practice. Like the quote above describes, the out-breath is emphasized – a breath cycle starts with an exhalation. I’ve been experimenting with this in my own yoga practice and meditation and I like it. I find it helps me release a longer, less hurried exhalation.

My only complaint about this book is that it’s not long enough. I wish the authors had included enough material for a full hour of practice and more postures.

“When the girls were reseated the way Mallory wanted them and had settled down, I said, “Okay, when we broke off, we’d just heard about the mongrel races. What exactly were these?” This was an easy one, and Gilda of the stringy dark hair stuck up her hand first. “These were the non-evolved races. There were hordes of these non-quite-human types who were black and yellow and brown and red – and every mixture”“(page 115)

This is a short book and an easy read – I blazed through it in less than a day. But the subject matter is so compelling that I found myself going back and reading sections and even entire chapters over again.

Because of my studies in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, this book held a special fascination for me. It explores reincarnation in a world historically very different from ours. The author, Daniel Quinn, emphasizes that he has no belief in reincarnation, but I found his rendering of it raised some compelling questions.

Mallory, the survivor of an automobile accident, comes out of a coma with a peculiar form of amnesia – she believes she is someone else. She believes she is deaf and reads lips, even though she has fully functional hearing. She is terrified by the people around her. Jason Tull, a trust fund kid with a interest in reincarnation, believes that she has fallen into an identity from a past life. He contacts her and offers to help.

I found parts of the book puzzling and the main character was stilted and bizarre (but I supsect that was the whole point). I’m not going to give a further synopsis because to give away the plot would dim some of the book’s power.

Suffice to say, this is a book that will make you think. Long and hard.

“People who live beside moving water have been given the gift of living light, and even if they never come to recognize it as such, any other light, no matter how clear or billiant , is pale and static to them, leaving them with a sense of loss, of vulnerability, as if they have suddenly found themselves without clothes.”(page 83)

I’m greatly fond of Pat Conroy’s novels – his book ‘Beach Music’ is one of my all-time favourites. I’ve always been fascinated books about the lowcountry of South Carolina. When I noticed that this book took place outside of Charleston, I thought I might like it, even though I’d never heard of the author.

Now, I’m going to seek out some of her other books because I really enjoyed this one.

This isn’t great literature or anything, but it’s like a good gun-dog – it does the job it’s supposed to do with unfailing instinct and great

enthusiasm. The book tells the story of Emily Parmenter, the daughter of an plantation aristocrat mother and a father who is keen to improve his prospects and those of his children. He raises and trains Boykin Spaniels and Emily grows up with a love of the dogs and an extraordinary gift for communicating with them.

When a troubled Charleston debutante comes to spend the summer with her family, Emily’s father sees it as an opportunity to show his daughter another life. But the young woman is hiding a double life and Emily must come to terms with her past and her future.

I enjoyed the characters in this book and although the story was shaky in spots, the book was definitely a page turner. I was untroubled by the darker aspects of the story. Conroy uses similar plot devices in his stories. Her descriptions of the lowcountry were vibrant and engaging. For anyone who enjoys books abou the American South, this is a great read.

This book is an incredible page turner. From the very first chapter, I was drawn into this incredible world, filled with fascinating characters and pulse-quickening events.

The author takes this story and breaths incedible life and energy into it. By chapter 3, I genuinely cared about the characters. By the middle of the book, I could barely put it down. And as I finished the epilogue, I felt a strange sadness come over me – like I was saying goodbye to a group of friends.

I watched the film and thought it was good, but the movie doesn’t do the book justice. Readable historical non-fiction is rare and this book reads like a novel – better than a novel, because you know that these are real people and real events being recounted (complete with footnotes!)

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. A must-read!

This film commanded my attention and stayed with me long after I left the theatre. It has inspired passionate conversations with my friends and long, interesting trains of thought. It wasn’t perfect, to be sure, but it was compelling and intense and definitely worth seeing.

It’s challenging to translate a complex story into a two-hour movie. The cinematography in this film was lovely, the acting was good and the film moved along well, kept me interested. But if I hadn’t read the book, I wouldn’t have really understood what was going on.

“Most of us who start out on the yoga mat do not realize that, if we dedicate ourselves to practice, it is only a matter of time until the mat becomes an altar.”(page 269)

I picked up this book years ago, during yoga teacher training, but never managed to get more than a few chapters into it. Perhaps I was too absorbed in my own journey at the time, but this month I read the book from start to finish and truly enjoyed it. The book is part authobiography, part a history of Kripalu and part yoga philosophy primer.

The author, Stephen Cope, went on a three-month-long retreat at the Kripalu Yoga Center back in the days of Amrit Desai, resident guru. Cope’s retreat extended to encompass his year-long sabbatical from his phychology practice and eventually developed into a 10-year residency at Kripalu. Cope documents the early days of Kripalu and its downfall, when Desai was forced to resign.

Cope tells this story from his own perspective, but interspersed with carefully explained concepts from the philosophical tradition of yoga, quotes from common yoga scriptures and antidotes about other residents (composite characters with names changed).

What emerges is Cope’s personal journey of transformation through his yoga practice. Cope emphasizes that there are many paths which he illustrates these through the stories of his fellow residents and examples from yoga lore.

He’s neither overly judgmental, nor overly praising of Kripalu. Through his eyes, I was able to understand how one might come to venerate and love a guru. But Cope also highlights the limitations and dangers of the guru-disciple relationship. His open-eyed explorations of Kripalu allows the reader to experience Cope’s doubts and his insights.

I enjoyed the book very much. My one criticism is the frequent mention of sometimes difficult-to-understand psychological concepts. I found these parts of the book long-winded and boring, but the stories and examples always brought me back. Overall, it’s a good book and worth the read.

A caution to those who may not have a background in yoga philosophy: Cope provides a overview of concepts in the Appendix. It’s worth reading before you delve into the book.

“Avidya is the cause of the fatal epistemic dichotomoisation into subject and object that Yoga seeks to remove.”(page 62)

I picked up this book really wanting to like it. I mostly enjoyed Feuerstein’s ‘The Yoga Tradition’ though I found it a bit dry. Because Feuerstein is a Sanskrit scholar, I had looked forward to a concise and lively commentary on the sutras.

Instead, Feuerstein delivers an overly scholarly, pedantic and negative acadmic rant, criticizing the work of past commentators and even questioning the authorship of the sutras. I was uncomfortable with the author’s frequent negative comments about previous commentators, some of them very prominent scholars. Feuerstein seems unable to accept that the Sutras are vague and could be open to different interpretations. He’s disrespectful of previous scholarship on this scripture and this detracted significantly from the book.

But my greatest issue with this translation is the author’s poor writing and his over-use of extremely big words. The leading quote for this review is but one example. As a survivor of graduate school, I pride myself on a decent vocabularly. But I was stunned to find myself referring to the Sanskrit words in order to decipher the meaning of some of Feuerstein’s English ones!

When the Sanskrit makes more sense than the English, you know it’s probably a poor commentary!

By the way, the quote at the top? Here’s a rough translation in regular-people’s-English:

“Avidya, ignorance, is that which causes one to seek idenitity with the physical body rather than the true Self and Yoga helps the seeker to understand that body and Self are separate.”

I read this book on the challenge of a friend. I had recently panned a book intended for young adult readers (a ‘Lizzie McGuire’ book) and she mentioned enjoying the ‘Sweet Valley High’ books when she was younger. I promised her that I would read one.

Overall, I was impressed by the book. It’s not great literature, but it was decently written. I would not hesitate to let a child read this series – it’s harmless good fun.

The Sweet Valley Series is difficult to find at my local library. Many of the earlier books are so old that they have been damaged or lost. The volume I mananged to find (book 2 of the series) was a ‘large print’ addition, which seemed odd. Are there many elderly people reading books written for pre-teens?

It was a quick read, well-written and the story flowed along at a good clip. It’s your standard good-against-evil story, but set in a valley-girl California suburban high school. ‘Evil’ is personified by Jessica Wakfield and ‘Good’ by her twin sister Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is sweet and kind and very, very nice to everyone. She keeps her room clean. She works hard in school. She views other people in terms of their good qualities. She tries to help out wherever she can. She has a humble, decent, boy-next-door boyfriend whose popularity and success as the school basketball star don’t stop him from being generous and kind to the school geek, Winston Eggbert. Elizabeth is nice to the geek too.

I can totally dig a heroine who’s nice to geeks.

Jessica is cruel and catty. She’s shallow and thinks of other people only in terms of what they can do for her or how she can use them. She’s obsessed with her appearance, her popularity and status. She has an over-developed sense of entitlement. Her room is messy and studying is clearly not on her agenda. She’s dishonest. She’s unkind to poor Winston who, cruely, is in love with her. In short, she’s a bitch.

The scariest thing about Jessica is that I’ll bet there are at least a few overamibitious, shallow teenage girls who actually liked and related to the Jessica character.

The plot of this one is simple: Enid, best friend of Elizabeth, has a secret. Jessica finds out (by snooping in her sisters room), reveals it (to Enid’s boyfriend, causing great heartbreak and tears) and then convinces Enid that Elizabeth was in fact the culprit (this seems to be a recurring theme in this series).

Elizabeth finds out and thwarts Jessica’s plan in such a way that everyone is happy about it except Jessica. In the final chapter, even Winston, the geek, is smiling.

Good wins out over evil. All’s well in the universe. Until Book #3, of course!