Traditions

Jagar comes from the Sanskrit root, jāgṛ, which means “to go on burning, to be awake, to be watchful and to awaken.” It refers to the first state of consciousness described in the Māṇḍukya Upaniṣad—waking (jāgrat). It’s distinguished from the two other states of the conscious mind—dreaming and deep sleep—by the quality of consciousness experienced.

A yantra is a meditative ritual device used in South Asian Tantric traditions. It is a blueprint of energy of a specific field of consciousness. Although yantras are sometimes described as representing a deity, each yantra is more than a symbol. A yantra is a literal matrix of divine consciousness.

Māyā: the very name conveys a sense of mystery. Cognate with the English word magic, māyā does, indeed, refer to something magical. Like magic, māyā involves the diversion of our attention from the real to the unreal, or from reality to the appearance of reality.

“Deity Yoga” as a phrase is mostly associated with Tāntrik Buddhism such as Vajrāyana, where identification with a chosen deity occurs through various rituals and visualizations. The phrase has been adopted in other traditions to mean numerous things, but here, we’ll explore it from the perspective of Nondual Śākta Tantra.

Māyā is “illusion,” a core concept in the Advaita Vedānta or “non-dual” school of Vedic thought. It’s key to understanding the way you construct the world through false perception. Māyā is thinking you’re separate from the Divine. Enlightenment is realizing this isn’t true.

My understanding of illusion is that we are its source. It is our own ignorance, interacting with the reality of existence, that gives rise to illusion.

Yogis and scientists alike assert that the external reality we take for granted as objectively fixed and forced upon us as passive recipients is more accurately conceived of as an active mental construction that is subjectively projected by us, based on unconscious and reified mental images and verbal designations along with tacit social consensus. Literally, the world is like an illusion.

Tsongkhapa established a relationship with Manjushri through the medium, Lama Umapa, who himself had encountered Manjushri in a visionary experience that changed the course of his life. Jinpa describes this relationship in depth in this book and provides important new insights on the way in which this collaboration provided new perspectives on classic texts, including Nagarjuna’s and Atisha’s teachings.

Bryant’s Bhakti Yoga opens up an area of study often overlooked by students of modern yoga in a way that makes it accessible and relevant.

If one of the marks of an effective spiritual text is its ability to challenge our assumptions, then The Lost City meets this demand.

In her book, Pranada Comtois, devoted practitioner and teacher of the bhakti yoga tradition, takes her reader on an educational and self-reflective journey through the subtleties of bhakti yoga philosophy and practice.

Tamil Kṛṣṇa bhakti is not a path of disembodied spiritual union; it is an imaginative, holistic, and embodied bhakti.