The Study and Practice of Yoga (Vol 1)

by Swami Krishnananda

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This book is a compilation of the 110 lectures delivered by Sri Swami Krishnananda on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali in the year 1976. This first volume focuses on the Samadhi Pada, the first chapter of the Yoga Sutras. It is an incisive and thought-provoking analysis of the subject. The book defines the special meaning of the word 'yoga' as used by Patanjali, discarding the narrow denotation of the word in common parlance. It is worth nothing that the book is not about Hatha Yoga and the asanas as we know them, but about the philosophical basis of these as expounded in the Yoga Sutras.

Table of Contents:

1. The Aim of Yoga
2. The Foundation of the Discipline in Yoga Practice
3. A Broad Outline of the Stages of Yoga
4. Individuality and Consciousness
5. The Practice of Being Alone
6. Spiritual Life is Positive, Not Negative
7. Initial Steps In Yoga Practice
8. The Principle of Self-Affirmation
9. Perception and Reality
10. Self-Control: The Alpha and Omega of Yoga
11. The Integrality of the Higher Self
12. Sublimation - A Way to Reshuffle Thought
13. Defence Mechanisms of the Mind
14. The Indivisibility of All Things
15. Harmony with the Essential Make-up of Things
16. The Inseparability of Notions and the Mind
17. Objectivity is Experience
18. The Dual Process of Withdrawal and Contemplation
19. Returning to Pure Subjectivity
20. The World and Our World 
21. Returning to Our True Nature
22. The Life and Goal of Our Existence
23. The Internal Relationship of All Things
24. Affiliation With Larger Wholes
25. Sadhana—Intensifying a Lighted Flame
26. The Gunas of Prakriti
27. Problems are a State of Mind
28. Bringing About Whole-Souled Dedication
29. The Play of the Gunas
30. The Cause of Bondage
31. Intense Aspiration
32. Our Concept of God
33. What Divine Love Is
34. Surrender to God 
35. The Recitation of Mantra
36. The Rise of Obstacles in Yoga Practice
37. Preventing the Fall in Yoga
38. Impediments in Concentration and Meditation
39. Concentrating the Mind on One Reality
40. Re-Educating the Mind
41. Becoming Harmonious with All
42. How Feelings and Sensation Work
43. Harmonising Subject and Object 
44. Assimilating the Object
45. Piercing the Structure of the Object
46. The Barrier of Space and Time
47. The Rise from Savitarka to Nirvitarka
48. Encountering Troubles and Opposition
49. The Rise to Savichara and Nirvichara
50. The States of Sanada and Sasmita
51. Sat-Chit-Ananda or God-Consciousness.

About the Author:

Swami Krishnananda was born on the 25th of April, 1922 into a highly religious and orthodox Brahmin family, and was given the name Subbaraya. At an early age, he had become very well versed in the Sanskrit language and its sacred texts. The longing for seclusion pulled him to Rishikesh, where he arrived in the summer of 1944 and met Swami Sivananda, who initiated the young Subbaraya into Sannyasa on the sacred day of Makara Sankranti, the 14th of January, 1946, and gave him the name Swami
Krishnananda.

Swami Krishnananda is a highly respected philosophical writer, especially on metaphysics, psychology and sociology. Swamiji's books are known the world over as excellent presentations of answers to the daily questions that arise in the day-to-day confrontations of a human being. Swami Krishnananda was the General Secretary of The Divine Life Society from 1961 until 2001. Swamiji was a direct disciple of His Holiness Swami Sivananda, founder of this Institution. Swamiji attained Mahasamadhi in 2001.