The Hatha Yoga Pradipika

by Brian Dana Akers

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An Indian yogi named Svatmarama wrote the Hatha Yoga Pradipika in the fifteenth century C.E. In writing the text, Svatmarama drew on his own experience and on older works now lost. Over the last half millennium this book has established itself as the classic work on Hatha Yoga.

Learn about: chakras, kundalini, yoga, hatha yoga, asanas, pranayama, mudras, bandhas, meditation, shakti, nadis, neti, bindu and siddhis.

Contains the original Sanskrit, a new English translation, and photographs of all the asanas. This is a book written for the student of Yoga and translated in English by Brian Dana Akers.

Eight Sample Verses excerpted from 'The Hatha Yoga Pradipika' by Svatmarama, Brian Dana Akers:

• Yoga succeeds by these six: enthusiasm, openness, courage, knowledge of the truth, determination, and solitude.
• Success is achieved neither by wearing the right clothes nor by talking about it. Practice alone brings success. This is the truth, without a doubt.
• When the breath is unsteady, the mind is unsteady. When the breath is steady, the mind is steady, and the yogi becomes steady. Therefore one should restrain the breath.
• As salt and water become one when mixed, so the unity of self and mind is called samadhi.
• He who binds the breath, binds the mind. He who binds the mind, binds the breath.
• Center the self in space and space in the self. Make everything space, then don't think of anything.
• Empty within, empty without, empty like a pot in space. Full within, full without, full like a pot in the ocean.
• Don't think of external things and don't think of internal things. Abandon all thoughts, then don't think of anything.

About the Author:

Brian Dana Akers began practicing Hatha Yoga at age twelve, started learning Sanskrit at seventeen, and worked in publishing from the age of twenty-three.

Reviews:

"There is a certain magic at work here—as if Svatmarama has projected himself through time, expressing himself through Akers" - Woodstock Times, August 29, 2002

"Written over five-hundred years ago, the text is considered by many a seminal work on the practice of Hatha Yoga." - Kalamazoo Gazette, June 22, 2002

"Beautifully printed and translated. Wonderful pictures, too." - Indology, September 8, 2002