- Pages: 368
- Book Size: 7.25 x 9.5
- ISBN-13: 9780892817665
- Imprint: Inner Traditions
- On Sale Date: May 1, 1999
- Format: Paperback Book
- Illustrations: Includes 32-page color insert
• One of the great works on yoga, available for the first time in the United States.
• Full-color plates illustrate each chakra.
With the growing interest in energy medicine in the West, the ancient Hindu tradition of chakra meditation has become increasingly important to both healers and spiritual seekers. While new to us, the chakras have long been studied in the East, with the spiritual science of layayoga having the profoundest knowledge of these energy centers. The fundamental aspect of layayoga is the arousing of dormant energy within the body through concentration and breathing exercises and the movement of this energy through the chakras to achieve supreme consciousness. Unlike kundalini yoga, which starts with the lower chakras and moves energy upward, layayoga meditation starts with the Sahasrara, the spiritual chakra that crowns the aura, and brings energy down to spiritualize each chakra in turn. Layayoga has long been viewed as the most comprehensive and deeply researched examination of the chakras available in the West. Its detailed, illustrated look at each of the chakras and the various meditations and mantras that go with them makes it a must for serious students of yoga.
Foreword to the Second Edition
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
My initiation into Layayoga
Introduction
Part 1: Fundamentals of Layayoga
1 Layayoga and Ashtangayoga
2 Layayoga - Its Significance and Method
3 Kundalini - the Coiled Power
4 Mantra - Supra-sound Power
5 Bhutashuddhi - Purificatory Thought-concentration
6 Bhutashuddhi Pranayama - Purificatory Breathing
Part 2: The Chakras System
7 Introduction to the System of Chakras
8 The Waidika System of Chakras
9 The Tantrika System of Chakras
10 Exposition of the Chakras
11 Exposition of the Chakras (continued)
12 Location of the Chakras
Part 3: Concentration Practices
13 Physical Purification and Vitalization
14 Mental Purification and Rejuvenation
15 Posture, Breath-control and Sence-withdrawal
16 Practice of Dharana
17 Practice of Dhyana
18 Practice of Bhutashuddhi
Note on the Pronunciation of Sanskrit
Words and Mantras
Glossary Bibliography
Index
Georg Feuerstein, author of Lucid Waking
"This book is a testimony to [Goswami's] spiritual stature and tremendous scholarship, but also to the yogic heritage of India. Nowhere else on earth can one find such profound knowledge about esoteric anatomy and the subtle energetic work necessary to achieve full enlightenment. . . . an extremely valuable gift to all who endeavor to practice authentic Yoga."
Georg Feuerstein, International Journal of Yoga Therapy
“An extraordinary volume...the last word on the chakras and kundalini.”
--Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D., Founder-Director of the Yoga Research Center and author of The Shambhala Encyclopedia of Yoga
Tantra--a spiritual tradition centered on the use of the body to find enlightenment--has become extremely popular in the West, but at the heart of Tantra is the little-known practice of Layayoga. Layayoga focuses on the Tantric process of transforming the ordinary human body into a divine body in which every cell is awakened with consciousness. The fundamental aspect of Layayoga is the arousing of kundalini--dormant energy within the body--through concentration and breath exercises, and the movement of this energy through the chakras.
In Layayoga the adept learns not only to raise kundalini power from the base of the spine up through each chakra to the crown of the head, but also to then skillfully guide this power back to its home at the base of the spine. In the process the body becomes suffused with consciousness in a way not found in other types of Yoga. The result of the author's lifetime of yogic experimentation and the Sanskrit scholarship, Layayoga corrects many misconceptions about the chakras and nadis. Complete with meditations and mantras to accompany each chakra, it will allow serious students of Yoga to realize a previously unimagined level of enlightenment in which they are one with the supreme consciousness.
SHYAM SUNDAR GOSWAMI (1891-1978) was the founder of the Goswami Institute of Yoga in Sweden, the first Indian institution of its kind in that country. He was a disciple of the great yoga master Balak Bharati and also wrote Hatha Yoga: An Advanced Method of Physical Education and Concentration.
