Royal Yoga is the highest and most important of the yoga traditions—an all-embracing path to personal transformation that reaches beyond any approach to wellness and healing that exists today. Whatever you are doing to enhance your life, Royal Yoga can bring you more of everything you want; it brings every experience, no matter how small, into the light. By learning to live in the light, you deliberately and consciously accept your true self as a being of infinite possibilities, unfettered by worry or self-doubt. Royal Yoga is the highest and most important of the yoga traditions—an all-embrracing path to personal transformation that reaches beyond any approach to wellness and healing that exists today. Whatever you are doing to enhance your life, Royal Yoga can bring you more of everything you want; it brings every experience, no matter how small, into the light. By learning to live in the light, you deliberately and consciously accept your true self as a being of infinite possibilities, unfettered by worry or self-doubt. THE PRACTICES OF PEACE Don’t create stress for yourself and others. Look for areas of agreement instead of areas of discord. Take responsibility for your own anger and resentment. Don’t unleash them on other people. Get out of the habit of blaming others. Be aware of your impulse to judge, criticize, and get offended. Don’t indulge in the impulse whenever possible. Distance yourself from hostile people and hostile situations. Vor allem den ersten Teil der ersten Hälfte fand ich sehr erhellend. Hier skizziert Deepak Chopra einen Weg aus dem Negativ-Zyklus der Gedankenspirale hin zu einem positiveren Selbst- und Weltbild.

Royal Yoga is unique in that it seeks to make everyday life ideal. There is infinite bliss available to your true self. Whenever you experience less bliss, no bliss, or actual pain and suffering, only one thing has changed, how close you are to the light. This concept defines the entire Yoga system, no matter how complex its traditions are in India. We can cut through the complexity by focusing on just one goal: living in the light. To use a traditional image from Yoga, imagine that the Absolute is sending arrows of light into the created world. Consider that the highest values in life, including love, compassion, creativity, empathy, beauty, truth, and spiritual inspiration, are what the arrows carry to our world. This is a good start for practicing contemplation. Sit quietly and let your mind go to an experience of one of those values just listed. Feel the lightness, vibrancy, joy, and fulfillment your experience contained. Let these subtle feelings expand and settle in your awareness. You are learning the truth of the Yogic saying “This isn’t knowledge you learn. This is knowledge you become.” In the second half of the book, yoga teacher Sarah Platt-Finger focuses on the asanas. She lost me a bit with some of her discussion of subtle energy (e.g., nadis, chakras, gunas, vayus, bandhas), but her presentation of 54 poses was mostly understandable. The poses are grouped into categories such as simple standing poses and forward bends with the intention that you can create a well-rounded practice by choosing one or two poses from each category. Each pose includes a drawing or two, an overview, how-to, benefits, therapeutic applications, and helpful tips, including cautions and modifications. My main frustration with this section is that the drawings didn’t always match up with the text. As an example, the how-to section might describe a twist to the left, while the drawing shows a twist to the right.Living in the light, that’s where we all want to dwell. No one does this better than Chopra. This is an amazing gem of a book that combines Deepak Chopra’s wisdom, teachings and roadmap on how to get there in thirty days. He explains the concept of Royal Yoga and the benefits of shifting your mind to living in the light. Actually, he explains we are all living in the light, just not all the time. There are six chapters, you work on each for five days and the weekend is spent reflecting. He breaks down each aspect of life and how your awareness can grow in each area. He then connects it to Yoga. This isn’t too out there and woo woo, but rather Chopra is practical and relates each idea clearly and logically. A ground-breaking guide to the philosophy and practice of yoga from master of modern meditation Deepak Chopra.

I experience my body as a flow of awareness. I experience my body as a flow of awareness. Your body isn’t a machine, even a miraculous machine, but a storehouse of infinite knowledge. If we look at any process in the body, from a cell dividing to reproduce itself to the immune system repelling an invader or the digestive tract extracting energy from food, a vast amount of knowledge is on display. No process is mechanical. The body’s knowledge is alive, flowing, and conscious. Royal Yoga is the highest and most important of the yoga traditions--an all-embrracing path to personal transformation that reaches beyond any approach to wellness and healing that exists today. Whatever you are doing to enhance your life, Royal Yoga can bring you more of everything you want; it brings every experience, no matter how small, into the light. By learning to live in the light, you deliberately and consciously accept your true self as a being of infinite possibilities, unfettered by worry or self-doubt. You control your mental activity. You can generate thoughts, feelings, and impulses that are evolutionary. You are the one who gives them meaning, and therefore the whole world as you perceive it has meaning. No meditation practices would ever work if dhyana weren’t a natural tendency of the human mind. To love, create, be kind, act selflessly, experience wonder, and feel inspired are totally human and natural. They are made possible by dhyana, the impulse to transcend.In the Second Part, of this wonderful book, I believe, is where his Co-Author, Sarah Platt-Finger gives illustrations of Yoga Poses, followed by a written Overview of each yoga pose. Next is a written step-by-step How-to: with written sequential directions on how to do each yoga pose physically. Next, comes a written explanation of the Benefits of each yoga pose. Next, the Therapeutic applications of the yoga pose are described. Lastly, there is an explanation of Helpful Tips to each yoga pose.

Reach your highest potential and a deeper understanding of self with Deepak Chopra’s groundbreaking guide to the philosophy and practice of Yoga. Der zweite Teil der ersten Hälfte wird dann immer abstrakter und spiritueller. Das ist dann eher was für Fortgeschrittene. Living in the Light is part philosophy, part physical yoga book focusing on Royal yoga. To “live in the light” means to live a conscious life.

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You see everyday life as a lucid dream, incredibly vivid but an illusion. You can improve the dream without getting trapped in it. Viele hilfreiche Tipps und Gedeankenanstöße. Alles basierend auf antiker Yoga-Lehre, die hier für die Moderne aufbereitet wird. Das ganze ist dann auch relativ konkret in einem sechs Wochen Programm zusammengefasst mit Aufgaben, die man jeden Tag selber machen kann. In the first half of this book, Deepak Chopra explains the eight limbs of Raja Yoga and presents a six-week program for conscious living and self-realization. Each week focuses on a different stage of transformation, presented as themes such as Social Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence. There are five lessons within each week, one for each weekday with weekends off for integration. Each lesson begins with an affirmation and discussion, followed by an exercise. Many lists are provided, making the material easy to understand and implement. What I love about this book is that it is written for both beginners, and experienced Yoga practitioners. My favorite part is that these can be done on my own, in the comfort of my own home, and knowing that I will get stronger with practice. Another aspect of this book is all of the multi-faceted information it gives about our breathing. It explains in great detail the different ways in which we all breathe, and what each type of breathing means. It gives you proper instructions on the healthiest way we should breathe, and detailed descriptions on how to build up endurance. I am so grateful that I found this terrific resource, and I plan on following it for the rest of my life. It is valuable, and terrifically insightful, and can be incorporated into what I already do to workout. It also gives inner calm, peace and light.