The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living » (Reprint)

Stephen Cope is a psychotherapist, senior Kripalu yoga teacher, and author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. He is currently Senior Scholar in Residence at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts.

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.

Publishers Weekly

Psychotherapist and longtime resident teacher at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Mass., Cope applies the compassionate insights made in his book, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, to this guide to the Yogasutra. Attributed to Patanjali, a second-century sage, the Yogasutra barely mentions the physical postures now identified as yoga. But the 196 trenchant entries, scholars say, contain the body of wisdom gleaned by those who sought, through direct experience, the inner workings of body, mind and spirit. This wisdom tradition (raja yoga), Cope says, is as effective today in diagnosing and healing "ordinary unhappiness" as it was centuries ago. Drawing parallels between ancient yogis and Buddhists and Western theologians, philosophers and poets, Cope argues that the yogis uncovered the roots of fear, illusion and self-deception. He focuses on the eight limbs of yoga (ethical behaviors, disciplines, postures, breathing practices, sense withdrawal, concentration, meditation and enlightenment) to demonstrate their effects in the lives of modern practitioners. Readers will readily identify with at least one of the challenges discussed -be they failed relationships, dysfunctional families, unrealized ambitions and compulsive behaviors. Beginners will find it helpful to read the Yogasutra, provided in an appendix, before diving into the personal stories and Cope's sympathetic commentaries. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Introduction     xiii
Prologue: Seekers, Then and Now     xxi
The Problem of Ordinary Unhappiness
Jake: The Quest for the Firebird     3
The Secret Strength of Disillusionment     13
Close Encounters with Mind     21
Quiet Desperation     36
Illumined Mind in Everyday Life
Maggie: The Search for Authentic Self-Expression     55
Tying the Puppy to a Post     61
Explorers of Inner Space     76
Karma and Character: The Bondage to Pattern
Susan: Filling the Hungry Heart     89
The Roots of Suffering     95
The Laws of Cause and Effect     109
The Web of "I"     122
The Freedom in Skillful Action
Kate: The Invisible Suffering of Delusion     143
The Hidden Power of Restraint     148
Practice the Opposite     170
At the Still Point of the Turning World     186
Breath, Trust, and the Transmutation of Hunger     206
Meditative Transformations of Self
Rudi: Living at Ease in the World     227
The Vision of Sameness     231
Shiva's Dance: Insight and Dissolution     245
The End of Striving     263
Yoga and Buddhism     275
The Yoga-Sutra inEnglish   Chip Hartranft     283
Glossary     293
Notes     296
Acknowledgments     305
Index     307