After he had a panic attack on live television, he went on a strange and circuitous journey that ultimately led him to become one of meditation’s most vocal public proponents.Here’s what he’s fixated on now: Science suggests that meditation can lower blood pressure, mitigate depression and anxiety, and literally rewire key parts of the brain, among numerous other benefits. And yet there are millions of people who want to meditate but aren’t actually practicing. What’s holding them back?In this guide to mindfulness and meditation for beginners and experienced meditators alike, Harris and his friend Jeff Warren, a masterful teacher and “Meditation MacGyver,” embark on a cross-country quest to tackle the myths, misconceptions, and self-deceptions that stop people from meditating. They rent a rock-star tour bus (whose previous occupants were Parliament Funkadelic) and travel across eighteen states, talking to scores of would-be meditators—including parents, military cadets, police officers, and even a few celebrities. They create a taxonomy of the most common issues (“I suck at this,” “I don’t have the time,” etc.) and offer up science-based life hacks to help people overcome them.The book is filled with game-changing and deeply practical meditation instructions. Amid it all unspools the strange and hilarious story of what happens when a congenitally sarcastic, type-A journalist and a groovy Canadian mystic embark on an epic road trip into America’s neurotic underbelly, as well as their own.

    In The Yoga Mind, internationally renowned yoga expert Rina Jakubowicz takes a simple, accessible approach to the complex origins of yoga philosophy. With clear, thoughtful guidance, The Yoga Mind offers everything you need to deepen your yoga practice and discover a meaningful way of life.Your complete resource for bringing yoga philosophy off the mat and into your life, The Yoga Mind includes: Clear explanations of core yoga principles that turn complex theories into memorable lessons Guided meditations and simple exercises that offer clear, tangible instruction for practicing each principle in your daily life A structured approach to vital yoga themes that brings clarity to crucial, but rarely understood, concepts Whether you read The Yoga Mind cover to cover or skip to a certain topic, you’ll find simple actions to incorporate the principles of yoga into a yoga practice that is meaningful to you.

    That is, this is a book that studies the wisdom of the garden and orchard, those places where all—death, sorrow, loss—is converted into what might, with patience, nourish us.

    Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years. Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.

    It integrates scientific and practical approaches providing a much-needed integrative perspective that complements existing yoga books for all levels and styles of yoga students. Serving up a collection of valuable insights gleaned from a lifetime of exploration, practice, study, and teaching by one of America’s pioneering and leading teachers of yoga, the book assists readers in making sense of the many discordant claims and teaching techniques that currently exist in the yoga world, freeing readers to pursue their own individual paths of yoga and personal practice. This is an essential text and reference for all yoga practitioners. The book first sets a context for an open-minded and evolutionary approach to yoga practice, and then explains the core principles of the many branches of yoga. A clear foundation is given for how the physical practices of yoga work to produce remarkable results of health and well being. The chapter Injury, Pain, and Healing shows how to prevent injuries and how to heal injuries should they occur. The reader is given a wealth of sophisticated of tools, insights, and anecdotes gleaned from a lifetime of practice and teaching to develop, hone, and tune his or her personal yoga approach. This book makes yoga come alive for the reader. The book concludes by going beyond the physical aspects to the heart of yoga. It illuminates and gives insight into the discovery of non-dogmatic forms and evolutionary approaches to meditation and spirituality. It presents a clear argument showing the pitfalls of regimented systems and how to make everything in daily life part of yoga practice and spiritual development. Ganga White gives us his unique and creative perspectives on a time-tested discipline for a healthy and vital life. Entertaining and thoroughly readable, this book offers a coherent explication of yoga, its philosophy and practice. White’s integrative views will inspire beginners and accomplished yogis to trust their inner wisdom and creatively reassess their practice. He is a great storyteller and gives us his personal and creative perspective, breathing fresh air into an ancient discipline. Yoga Beyond Belief offers an original, integrative approach to body, mind, and spirit that is practical, inspiring, and full of valuable insights to enliven and inform anyone’s yoga practice.

    Whether you are just beginning your journey or have been practicing yoga for years, Yoga Anatomy will be an invaluable resource-one that allows you to see each movement in an entirely new light.Leslie Kaminoff is a recognized expert and teacher in anatomy, breathing, and bodywork. He is the founder of the Breathing Project, New York City's premiere yoga studio dedicated to the teaching of individualized, breath-centered yoga practice and therapy.

    A populist rebellion against the established churches, it became the dominant religious force in the country.During the nineteenth century white evangelicals split apart dramatically, first North versus South, and then at the end of the century, modernist versus fundamentalist. After World War II, Billy Graham, the revivalist preacher, attracted enormous crowds and tried to gather all Protestants under his big tent, but the civil rights movement and the social revolution of the sixties drove them apart again. By the 1980s Jerry Falwell and other southern televangelists, such as Pat Robertson, had formed the Christian right. Protesting abortion and gay rights, they led the South into the Republican Party, and for thirty-five years they were the sole voice of evangelicals to be heard nationally. Eventually a younger generation of leaders protested the Christian right’s close ties with the Republican Party and proposed a broader agenda of issues, such as climate change, gender equality, and immigration reform.Evangelicals have in many ways defined the nation. They have shaped our culture and our politics. Frances FitzGerald’s narrative of this distinctively American movement is a major work of history, piecing together the centuries-long story for the first time. Evangelicals now constitute twenty-five percent of the American population, but they are no longer monolithic in their politics. They range from Tea Party supporters to social reformers. Still, with the decline of religious faith generally, FitzGerald suggests that evangelical churches must embrace ethnic minorities if they are to survive.

    It serves as a reminder to the reader that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible.

    Forget the bucket lists that have us escaping our everyday lives for exotic experiences. How, Ann wondered, do we find joy in the midst of deadlines, debt, drama, and daily duties? What does the Christ-life really look like when your days are gritty, long and sometimes even dark? How is God even here? In One Thousand Gifts, Ann invites you to embrace everyday blessings and embark on the transformative spiritual discipline of chronicling God's gifts. It s only in this expressing of gratitude for the life we already have, we discover the life we've always wanted, a life we can take, give thanks for, and break for others. We come to feel and know the impossible right down in our bones: we are wildly loved by God.Let Ann's beautiful, heart-aching stories of the everyday give you a way of seeing that opens your eyes to ordinary amazing grace, a way of being present to God that makes you deeply happy, and a way of living that is finally fully alive. Come live the best dare of all!

    His views go beyond any particular religion, doctrine, or guru. This book extracts the essence from his teachings in The Power of Now, showing us how to free ourselves from “enslavement to the mind.” The aim is to be able to enter into and sustain an awakened state of consciousness throughout everyday life. Through meditations and simple techniques, Eckhart shows us how to quiet our thoughts, see the world in the present moment, and find a path to “a life of grace, ease, and lightness.”

    By the time of her death, in 2002, it was being practiced everywhere, from Brooklyn to Berlin to Ulaanbaatar. In The Goddess Pose, New York Times best-selling author Michelle Goldberg traces the life of the incredible woman who brought yoga to the West—and in so doing paints a sweeping picture of the twentieth century. Born into the minor aristocracy (as Eugenia Peterson), Devi grew up in the midst of one of the most turbulent times in human history. Forced to flee the Russian Revolution as a teenager, she joined a famous Berlin cabaret troupe, dove into the vibrant prewar spiritualist movement, and, at a time when it was nearly unthinkable for a young European woman to travel alone, followed the charismatic Theosophical leader Jiddu Krishnamurti to India. Once on the subcontinent, she performed in Indian silent cinema and hobnobbed with the leaders of the independence movement. But her greatest coup was convincing a recalcitrant master yogi to train her in the secrets of his art. Devi would go on to share what she learned with people around the world, teaching in Shanghai during World War II, then in Hollywood, where her students included Gloria Swanson and Greta Garbo. She ran a yoga school in Mexico during the height of the counterculture, served as spiritual adviser to the colonel who tried to overthrow Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, and, in her eighties, moved to Buenos Aires at the invitation of a besotted rock star. Everywhere she went, Indra Devi evangelized for yoga, ushering in a global craze that continues unabated. Written with vivid clarity, The Goddess Pose brings her remarkable story—as an actress, yogi, and globetrotting adventuress—to life.

    Foundational to all yogic thought, they are considered to be the guidelines to the yoga way of living that free individuals to take ownership of their lives, direct them toward the fulfillment they seek, and gain the skills to choose attitude, thought, and action. The first five guidelines are referred to as the yamas—a Sanskrit word that translates to "restraints"—and encompass nonviolence, truthfulness, not stealing, nonexcess, and nonpossessiveness. The last five are referred to as the niyamas, or observances—purity, contentment, self-discipline, self-study, and surrender. A self-study section at the end of each chapter may also be used by instructors for group discussion.

    He reveals what is real and what is illusory, in the process exposing moves that can harm or even kill. Five years in the making, The Science of Yoga draws on a hidden wealth of discovery, drama, and surprising fact to cut through the fog that surrounds contemporary yoga and to show—for the first time—what is uplifting and beneficial and what is delusional, flaky, and dangerous. At heart, it illuminates the risks and rewards.Broad describes yoga as a burgeoning global industry that attracts not only curious scientists but millions of true believers and charismatic hustlers. He takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of unknown yoga that goes from old archives in Calcutta to world capitals of medical research, from storied ashrams to spotless laboratories, from sweaty yoga studios with master teachers to the cozy offices of yoga healers. In the process, he shatters myths, lays out unexpected benefits, and offers a compelling vision of how the discipline can be improved.

    The Yoga Sutras, a foundational text of yoga philosophy and practice, written by the guru Patanjali over two thousand years ago, are made up of 196 aphorisms that offer potent teachings on how to deal with loss and pain, and guidance on how to lead a healthy and fulfilling life. Kelly DiNardo and Amy Pearce-Hayden offer an enjoyable entrée to this yoga training for the mind and spirit by introducing a sutra or group of sutras on a related theme, providing a brief commentary, and then offering writing prompts to allow you to reflect on and apply the meaning of the sutras to your life. The book is at once an introduction to the classical philosophy, a quick guide for students and teachers, and an active self-study that helps you to engage with the wisdom in a deeply personal way.

    One big difference noticed by students of Yin Yoga is the long-held, passive nature of the posture, which gives time for a deeper journey to unfold, a journey into the meditative aspects of yoga, a bridge to living life mindfully.Clark presents comprehensive information on how to do the practice, including a deep look inside over two dozen Yin Yoga postures showing the benefit of the pose, how to get into and out of the pose, contraindications and warnings for those who may have trouble with particular aspects of the posture, and other important information. The benefits are explored in three main sections: the physiological benefits, the energetic benefits and the mental/emotional benefits.