Amazon.in:Customer reviews: The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 26 June 2019

I have read only 50-70 pages of it and I found this very very useful for general health of person. How tough asanas can be performed very easily and to avoid bad effects of performing wrongly, are explained very well. Easy to understand language.

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Great book of a great Practitioner!!!

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 24 May 2019

Verified Purchase

An effortful and conscious reflection of the work of lifetime...

2 people found this helpful

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Manjunatha

Five Stars

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 30 July 2018

Verified Purchase

very useful, explains the basics of yoga, in detailed in depth

One person found this helpful

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Manisha Shah

Five Stars

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 1 December 2017

He is a master....

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 5 August 2020

Good

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V.A.

Five Stars

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 8 February 2016

Please reduce the price....

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Auntie Teapot

The best yoga book I've ever used. Priceless. ❤️

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 20 June 2022

Verified Purchase

I adore absolutely this book. For me, it's the ACME of yoga books.

This book lives by my bedside and comes out weekly for my private yoga lessons and solitary study. It's so easy to read and understand, in under 250 pages, that any yoga student can benefit from it.

It humbly and concisely emanates the essence of yoga for every body, everywhere; that if you can breathe, you can do yoga, and that, through adapting yoga practices for each person's needs as they change from day to month to year, yoga can be a full life therapy for anyone. Wow. That blows my mind. Big Pharma can't say that!

Desikachar states clearly and methodically what yoga is, what it teaches, how to do it, and its benefits to body, mind and spirit, as taught to him by his own father Krishnamacharya (who also taught BKS Iyengar, the human rubberband!).
It does it without ego or ceremony; without the alarming bodily contortions or religious diatribe that put so many people off; enough of the Sanskrit terminology to be accurate, but no more than necessary, illuminating and explaining beautifully the benevolent and deeply wise teachings of the sage Patanjali believed to be thousands of years old (Sutra included), in such a way that yoga can be seen for what it is: a timeless science for the fullness of human health, prevention of illness, peace of mind and happiness in the soul.

The book demonstrates that asana/postures are only part of what Westerners think of as yoga, and puts them in their rightful place - as just one limb, but an important one - within the Eight Limbs of Yoga. There are photos of Krishnamacharya doing postures, but they aren't mindbogglingly gymnastic, and there are illustrative posture sequences that most yoga students will recognise and can do at home.

Please buy this if you're curious about yoga. It's so simple, erudite and brilliant. I think you'll like it. ❤️

One person found this helpful

Gracie

Interesting Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 9 December 2022

Verified Purchase

This book was used as a textbook for a course I am taking. The book was easy reading and very informative.

Winafew

Interesting reading, and a source for lots of pithy quotes.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 23 June 2015

Verified Purchase

In reading this book, I was first taken by the interview at its beginning. I began bookmarking quotes for transfer to my personal noebook (taken to each class), and soon found myself with nearly every other page bookmarked! The quotes available in this book are outstanding. And not just in the interview section.

There are many interesting points Desikachar makes in his approach to asana sequencing: the importance of breath, the importance of tailoring the pose (and the sequence) to the individual, the importance of resting before engaging in a counter pose.

One of my favorite quotes from this book (attributed to the Mahabharata) is
“Speak the truth which is pleasant. Do not speak unpleasant truths. Do not lie, even if the lies are pleasing to the ear. That is the eternal law, the dharma.” To my mind this is much more practicable to practice than “Always tell the truth”.

Another is
“We can never experience our real nature if we do not expose ourselves to change”.
I take this as at once being both a caution in life style, and also in becoming too comfortable in one’s yogic pursuits, including asanas and meditation.

Then we get to “The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali” with Translation and Commentary by T.K.V. Desikachar.

“If you tell a person who cannot find their own house that there is a pot of gold inside, they would be happier had they not had this information. What use is the gold if it cannot be found? It only causes pain. First they must find the house and enter it. Then there are many possibilities.”
I take this to mean that everyone must start at the beginning…everyone must find their own house [way, path].

His views on dualism: (3.35 “The mind, which is subject to change, and the Perceiver, which is not are in proximity but are of distinct and different characters.” as opposed to Reductionism are also presented in this book. This Dualistic approach is softened later
“Thus the mind serves a dual purpose. It serves the Perceiver by presenting the external to it. It also respects or presents the Perceiver to itself for its own enlightenment.”
leaving open the possibility of a more Reductionist interpretation.

This section of the book is the one I shall most refer to in future.

25 people found this helpful

EvaMarie

What I was looking for

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 1 July 2022

Verified Purchase

This book is exactly what I thought I would learn during my teacher training course. Sadly my course was more about Sun Salutations, some pranayama, and other things. The heart of yoga is in this book. This person explains everything beautifully, I feel touched by understanding the whole of yoga that goes beyond asanas but at the same time it covers asanas too . This book is more than I expected. 💞

5 people found this helpful

5 star		82%
4 star		12%
3 star		4%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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