Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way - Creating Happiness with Meditation, Yoga, and Ayurveda

I have gone through other books ( B. K. S. Iyengar , Georg Feuerstein , Swami Prabhavananda ) and some audio cassetes on the Yoga Sutras. This is by far the best book on the subject. The sutras are beautifully explained in layman terms with ample annotations. The sutras in samadhi pada and sadhana pada are covered extensively.

Whenever there was a discrepency in the translation among different authors (such as sutras 18,19,33 of sadhana pada, which have been interpreted very differently) I found the translation and explanation in this book to be most logical, intuitive and complete.

Swami Satchidanandas book on the Sutras is one of the best for digging into the background and foundations of the Sutras, and his commentary, unlike Iyengars and most other eastern commentaries, is clear, simple and easy to understand.

A Complete Manual of THE ORIENTAL BREATHING PHILOSOPHY of Physical, Mental, Psychic and Spiritual Development. Yoga is divided into several branches, ranging from that which teaches the control of the body, to that which teaches the attainment of the highest spiritual development. In the work we will not go into the higher phases of the subject, except when the "Science of Breath" touches upon the same. The "Science of Breath" touches Yoga at many points, and although chiefly concerned with the development and control of the physical, has also its psychic side, and even enters the field of spiritual development....

The Doctrine
And
Practice of Yoga

Swami A. P. Mukerji
[ZHINGOORA BOOKS]

Raja Yoga
by Yogi Ramacharaka

An early 20th century book on mental focus, repackaged as Raja Yoga.

The Yogi Masters are hot satisfied if the Candidate forms merely a clear intellectual conception of this Actual Identity, but they insist that he must feel the truth of the same¿must become aware of the Real Self¿must enter into a consciousness in which the realization becomes a part of his everyday self¿in which the realizing consciousness becomes the prevailing idea in his mind, around which his entire thoughts and actions revolve.

Autobiography of a Yogi is an autobiography of Paramahansa Yogananda (January 5, 1893–March 7, 1952) first published in 1946. Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, into a Bengali family. Autobiography of a Yogi introduces the reader to the life of Paramahansa Yogananda and his encounters with spiritual figures of both the East and West. The book begins with his childhood family life, to finding his guru, to becoming a monk and establishing his teachings of Kriya Yoga meditation. The book continues in 1920 when Yogananda accepts an invitation to speak in a religious congress in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He then travels across America lecturing and establishing his teachings in Los Angeles, California. In 1935 he returns to India for a yearlong visit. When he returns to America, he continues to establish his teachings, including writing this book. The book is an introduction to the methods of attaining God-realization and to the spiritual thought of the East, which had only been available to a few in 1946. The author claims that the writing of the book was prophesied long ago by the nineteenth-century master Lahiri Mahasaya. It has been in print for over sixty-five years and translated into at least thirty-three languages by Self-Realization Fellowship. It has been highly acclaimed as a spiritual classic including being designated as one of the "100 Most Important Spiritual Books of the 20th Century." According to Project Gutenberg, the first edition is in public domain and at least five publishers are reprinting it and four post it free for online reading.

The Autobiography of a Yogi takes the reader on a journey into the spiritual adventures of Paramahansa Yogananda. The book begins by describing Yogananda's childhood family life to his search for his guru, Yukteswar Giri, to the establishment of his first school, Yogoda Satsanga Brahmacharya Vidyalaya to his journey to America where he lectured to thousands, established Self-Realization Fellowship and visited with Luther Burbank, a renowned botanist to whom this book is dedicated. The book then takes you on Yogananda's return visit to India in 1935 where he encountered leading spiritual figures such as Therese Neumann in Bavaria, the Hindu saint Ananda Moyi Ma, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir C. V. Raman, and Giri Bala, "the woman yogi who never eats." The reader then returns to the West with Yogananda where he continues to establish his teachings in America including writing this book. The preface was written by Walter Evans-Wentz, an Oxford scholar of anthropology, a writer who was a pioneer in the study of Tibetan Buddhism and an author of The Tibetan Book of the Dead and Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa. In the preface he wrote, "His unusual life-document is certainly one of the most revealing of the depths of the Hindu mind and heart, and of the spiritual wealth of India, ever to be published in the West." Yukteswar Giri, Yogananda's guru, told him about a significant prediction made by Lahiri Mahasaya, Yukteswar's guru. Yukteswar heard him say, "About fifty years after my passing," he said, "my life will be written because of a deep interest in yoga which the West will manifest. The yogic message will encircle the globe, and aid in establishing that brotherhood of man which results from direct perception of the One Father." In 1945 fifty years after Lahiri Mahasaya's passing in 1895, the Autobiography was complete and ready for publication. Autobiography of a Yogi is the most popular of Yogananda's books. According to Philip Goldberg, who wrote American Veda, "... the Self-Realization Fellowship which represents Yogananda's Legacy, is justified in using the slogan, "The Book that Changed the Lives of Millions." It has sold more than four million copies and counting ..." and it has published the book into 33 languages. In 1999, it was designated as one of the "100 Most Important Spiritual Books of the 20th Century" by a panel of theologians and luminaries convened by HarperCollins publishers.

Henry Warner Bowden wrote that this Autobiography introduced meditation and yoga to many Westerners. Autobiography of a Yogi has inspired people, such as Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Walter Isaacson, a biographer, records that Jobs "first read [it] as a teenager, then re-read [it] in India and had read [it] once a year ever since." George Harrison, lead guitarist of The Beatles, received his first copy of Autobiography of a Yogi from Ravi Shankar in 1966 and "that was where his interest in Vedic culture and Indian-ness began." Elvis Presley reportedly visited the Self-Realization Fellowship in the late 1960s, commenting to Brother Paramananda, a monk who had left an acting career to devote his life to the fellowship, "Man, you made the right choice. People don't know my life or that I sometimes cry myself to sleep because I don't know God."  Gary Wright, who wrote the song Dream Weaver, wrote: "In 1972, my friend George Harrison invited me to accompany him on a trip to India. A few days before we left, he gave me a copy of the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Needless to say the book inspired me deeply, and I became totally fascinated with Indian culture and philosophy. My trip was an experience I will never forget." The actress Mariel Hemingway says that she was introduced to the Autobiography of a Yogi by Peter Evans, a direct disciple of Yogananda. She was "mesmerized by the Autobiography of a Yogi and loved the whole great Hindu tradition of spiritual seeking ..." The actor Dennis Weaver gave a copy of the book to Linda Evans, saying that it had changed his life. Evans says that "Because of Dennis I took the first step in what would become a life long spiritual journey." Andrew Weil, director of the program in Integrative Medicine at University of Arizona, wrote the book Eating Well for Optimum Health. He mentioned reading the Autobiography of a Yogi which he said, "awakened in me an interest in yoga and Indian religious philosophies." He continued, "It is filled with wondrous tales from an exotic land, none more amazing than that of Giri Bala, 'a woman yogi who never eats.'" The work has also attracted less favourable comments. Srinivas Aravamudan has described its contents as "miracle-infested territory" whose "single most memorable feature ... is a repetitive insistence on collocating the miraculous and the quotidian. ... The autobiography is an eclectic directory of sorts that might be dubbed a hitchhiker's guide to the paranormal galaxy". Aravamudan notes the "aggressive marketing" of the Yogoda Satsang and Self-Realization Fellowship, that Yogananda himself "worked the mass media" and used a technique described as Guru English. He notes that Yogananda was the collator of the testimonials that purport to validate the miracles described, which appear at a rate of around one per page. According to Chris Welch, Tales of Topographic Oceans — a concept album recorded by Yes, the progressive rock group — was inspired by "a lengthy footnote on page 83" of Autobiography of a Yogi. The footnote describes four Shastric scriptures that cover religion, art, social life, medicine, music and architecture. James Dudley, in his book Library Journal: Autobiography of a Yogi, wrote: "Yogananda's masterly storytelling epitomizes the Indian oral tradition with its wit, charm, and compassionate wisdom.