Ipswich Public Library

Yoga and the quest for the true self, Stephen Cope

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Yoga and the quest for the true self

bibliography

45070191

Stephen Cope

Millions of Americans know yoga as a superb form of exercise and as a potent source of calm in our stress-filled lives. Far fewer are aware of the full promise of yoga as a 4,000-year-old practical path of liberation--a path that fits the needs of modern Western seekers with startling precision. Now Stephen Cope, a Western-trained psychotherapist who has lived and taught for more than ten years at the largest yoga center in America, offers this marvelously lively and irreverent "pilgrim's progress" for today's world. He demystifies the philosophy, psychology, and practice of yoga, and shows how it applies to our most human dilemmas: from loss, disappointment, and addiction, to the eternal conflicts around sex and relationship

Prologue: Viveka's tale -- The discovery of the royal secret -- Waking up is hard to do -- To the mountaintop -- Brahman: ecstatic union with the one -- Shakti: the play of the divine mother -- The self in exile -- You are not who you appear to be -- A house on fire: the identity project -- The suffering of the false self -- From the unreal to the real -- Encounters with the mother and the seer -- The twin pillars of the reality project -- Equanimity: on holding and being held -- Awareness: on seeing and being seen -- Awakening the witness -- The spontaneous wisdom of the body -- Riding the wave of breath -- Listening to the voice of the body -- Meditation in motion -- The royal road home -- The rose in the fire -- The triumph of the real -- Yoga metaphysics with a light touch