A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya, Swami Satyananda Saraswati. Yoga is not an ancient myth buried in oblivion.It is the most valuable inheritance of the present.It is the essential need of today and the culture of tomorrow. Swami Sivananda Sarswati. This book is the most comprehensive text ever published on yoga. It contains a complete course of 36 structured lessons on all the practices of integral yoga. The lessons were compiled from the teachings given by Swami Satyananda Saraswati and are useful as a practical and theoretical guide for all levels of yoga teachers and aspirants. The book presents a synthesis of yoga in a scientific and systematic manner. The different branches of hatha yoga, mantra yoga, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga and kriya yoga are progressively introduced with special emphasis on practice, theory and application in daily life. Includes line drawings,diagrams and colour plates. The depth of knowledge this book contains provides the link between you,the practitoner of yoga and an experienced guide and teacher.This link is your sadhana(spiritual practice),the beginning of your inner transformation,spiritual awakening and realization of higher ideals in life. The techniques covered in this book have their basis in the ancient vedic (tantric and yogic) shastras and were handed over the centuries from guru to disciple. Now in an age when travel and communication have become almost instantaneous affairs and there are more efficient methods of disseminating wisdom than the human voice and ear,we wish to offer these transcendatal instruments of grace to all who have eyes to read and ears to hear.
Swami Satyananda Saraswati was born 1923 at Almora (Uttaranchal) into a family of farmers. His ancestors were warriors and many of his kith and kin down the line, including his father, served in the army and police force. However, it became evident that Swami Satyananda had a different bent of mind, as he began to have spiritual experiences at the age of six, when his awareness spontaneously left the body and he saw himself lying motionless on the floor. Many saints and sadhus blessed him and reassured his parents that he had a very developed awareness. This experience of disembodied awareness continued, which led him to many saints of that time such as Anandamayi Ma. Swami Satyanada also met a tantric bhairavi, Sukhman Giri, who gave him shaktipat and directed him to find a guru in order to stabilize his spiritual experiences. In 1944 at the age of nineteen, Swami Satyananda met his guru Swami Sivananda and came to live at Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh. In 1947, he took the vow of sanyasin or monastic renunciation and became a swami. He served in different departments at the ashram for over 12 years. He did physical labor, edited the ashram's Hindi journal, wrote various articles and composed poems in both Hindi and Sanskrit. He wrote a translation and commentary in the English language of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad by Swami Sivananda. Upon leaving the ashram in 1956, he wandered throughout India, Afghanistan, Nepal, Burma and Ceylon for the next 7 years, extending his knowledge of spiritual practices. He eventually found his way to Munger, in the province of Bihar. After establishing himself there, in 1963 he founded the International Yoga Fellowship and the Bihar School of Yoga a year later. He lectured and taught globally for the next twenty years and authored a number of books which are considered among the most revered in the field of yoga and yogic philosophy, and remain popular to this day. In 1988, he retired from active involvement in teaching and handed active work of his ashram and organization to his senior disciple Swami Niranjanananda. He lived in seclusion as a Paramahamsa Sannyasin performing higher spiritual and vedic sadhanas. Paramahamsa Swami Satyananda took "Sajeeva Samadhi" at his ashram in Rikhia, Jharkand on December 5th, 2009.
Sophia Returning: The Path to Planetary Tantra, In this fascinating DVD, John Lamb Lash, comparative mythologist and author of the classic book, Not In His Image, offers an examination of the truths hidden deep within the ancient Gnostic sects of Europe. Two thousand years ago the Pagan religion of Gnosticism was one of the world's largest religious belief systems. The Gnostics held a deep reverence for the earth in all its wonder and beauty. In contrast to the teachings of the patriarchal and monotheistic religious traditions, the Gnostic creation mythos was centered upon the compelling story of the Wisdom Goddess Sophia. This knowledge, which offers us new insight into the power of the earth as a vital living being, has been brought forth today as a fundamental part of the Gaia theory.
