Sitting Comfortably by Swami Saradananda
Description
Meditation practice can be blocked by aches and pains felt while sitting. This allows the jittery mind to take up residence, and leads to the feeling of "not being good at meditation". Sitting Comfortably explores the physical issues that may arise while sitting, from painful knees to tight hamstrings.
Swami Saradananda shows how yoga preparation, breathing and adapting postures can help to strengthen the body to be able to maintain a sitting meditation. She invites us to understand how the mind can easily be distracted, like a puppy, and that physical discomfort can often be this distraction in disguise. This is the only book to focus on the physicality of a formal meditation practice.
Helping prepare the body for the mindful practice of meditation, so that mind and body are in synchronicity. It will be an invaluable reference guide for students of mindfulness, yoga, Buddhism, as well as New Age traditions. The book is broken down into 8 chapters, including: Overcoming obstacles to meditation; The art of sitting for meditation; Stretches/yoga poses that can help you sit comfortably; Breathing exercises (pranayama); Diet and lifestyle; Off your cushion and into the world.
Beautifully illustrated throughout, this is the ultimate guide to preparing to meditate.
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Secrets of Prana, Pranayama & Yoga Asanas by Swami Narayananda
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Second Hand / Antiquarian
Published: Narayanananda Universal Yoga Trust, Rishikesh 1967 (2nd revised edition)
Condition: Good, dust jacket unclipped, in protective cellophane wrapper. Slight stain on front and back endpapers, possibly due to sellotape on previous cellophane wrapper. Binding firm, pages clean and unmarked.
Sonic Liturgy: Ritual and Music in Hindu Tradition - by Guy. L.Beck
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Sonic Liturgy: Ritual and Music in Hindu Tradition builds on the foundation of Guy L. Beck's earlier work, which described the theoretical role of sound in Hindu thought. Sonic Liturgy continues the discussion of sound into the realm of Hindu ritual and musical traditions of worship.
Beginning with the chanting of the Sama-Veda alongside the fire sacrifices of the ancient Indo-Aryans and with the classical Gandharva music as outlined in the musicological texts of Bharata and Dattila, Beck establishes a historical foundation for an in-depth understanding of the role of music in the early Puja rituals and Indian theater in the vernacular poetry of the Bhakti movements in medieval temple worship of Siva and Vishnu in southern India, and later in the worship of Krishna in the northern Braj region. By surveying a multitude of worship traditions, Beck reveals a continuous template of interwoven ritual and music in Hindu tradition that he terms "sonic liturgy," a structure of religious worship and experience that incorporates sound and music on many levels.
In developing the concept and methods for understanding the phenomenon of sonic liturgy, Beck draws from liturgical studies and ritual studies, broadening the dimensions of each, as well as from recent work in the fields of Indian religion and music. As he maps the evolution of sonic liturgy in Hindu culture, Beck shows how, parallel to the development of religious ritual from ancient times to the present, there is a less understood progression of musical form, beginning with Vedic chants of two to three notes to complicated genres of devotional temple music employing ragas with up to a dozen notes. Sonic liturgy in its maturity is manifest as a complex interactive worship experience of the Vaishnava sects, presented here in Beck's final chapters.