Yoga Philosophy

Scholars are practitioners of academia. Many people, initially in the West and eventually globally, have had a millennium to imagine the knowledge and research that are data for academia, which is solely the creation of scholars’ studies. It is created…

From my perspective a scholar-practitioner is someone who consciously integrates into his or her scholarship the insights culled from engaging in the practices prescribed by the tradition he or she researches, publishes about and teaches.

My practice deeply informs my scholarship because I’ve become aware of the contemplative hermeneutics underlying the visual material and textual cultures of the traditions that I teach.

My daily practice is an essential aspect of life, no less important than eating, exercising, and sleeping. What the latter three do for the body, contemplative and other related practices do for the mind. They nourish, strengthen, and also provide rest. They help to bring the mind to a place of both stillness and strength, through which awareness is heightened, and thinking can be done with focus and clarity.

To live a life according to the wisdom of ecology is the most urgent task for humanity today. What can the philosophy of yoga contribute to this critical challenge? How can we develop an environmental ethics according to yogic principles? What would a sustainable ethics based on yoga look like?

What is queer dharma? How does it serve the greater good? How can it provide a path toward healing during this year of global pandemic and social unrest?

We live the experience of divine ecology because we are nature. We are of the earth and know ourselves through…

These traditions, which seem to indicate a fluid and mutable approach to gender identities—often rooted in the idea that gender can be exchanged or, ultimately, transcended, are of increasing interest to queer practitioners seeking to examine religious traditions that embody the performative nature of gender.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a masterwork of spirituality, psychology and philosophy, are attributed to Patanjali. Compiled a few hundred years before the Common Era, these teachings arose out of a most prolific and sophisticated civilization – ancient India.

My forthcoming considerations may be seen as situated in a tradition of apologetics, if we understand something different by that word.

This personal essay will focus on various issues which arise when one is a scholar-practitioner in a spiritual tradition.

Pramāṇa means right knowledge, a correct understanding of reality that can be acquired in one of three ways: sense perception, logic, and verbal testimony as the sources for the acquisition of valid knowledge.

This article discusses the history of the university, analyzes the challenge of modernity and post-modernity, and affirms the efficacy of integrating study and practice.

Mālā literally means “garland.” Japa mālās are a string of beads used to count mantras. They have been used for centuries in India as a spiritual tool for meditation and prayer.

Most of modern yoga is done with the Advaitic intention of oneness, even if its practitioners don’t know it! And though the boundaries have become so blurry over time that we accept the integration of these two systems without even questioning it, it is important to realize what a huge leap it originally was to incorporate dualistic yoga into the non-dualistic system of Advaita.