Product Description

Yoga is well known for its power to create a healthy body, but few realize the emotional and spiritual benefits. In The Secret Power of Yoga, world-renowned Yoga expert Nischala Joy Devi interprets Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the principles at the basis of Yoga practice, from a heart-centered, intuitive, feminine perspective, resulting in the first translation intended for women.

Devi’s simple, elegant, and deeply personal interpretations capture the spirit of each sutra, and her suggested practices offer numerous ways to embrace the spirituality of Yoga throughout your day

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75621 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-20
• Released on: 2007-03-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
“This sweetly voiced explication of the Yoga Sutras is disarming in its simplicity . . . I read it smiling.” —Sylvia Boorstein, author of Pay Attention, for Goodness’ Sake: The Buddhist Path of Kindness

“A dynamic new interpretation . . . that will make this wonderful ancient teaching accessible to modern readers and useful in their daily life.”
—David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri), author of Yoga and Ayurveda

“Truly life changing. A book to be read again and again.”
—Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D., P.T., author of A Year of Living Your Yoga

About the Author
Nischala Joy Dev is a renowned Yoga expert who has been teaching internationally for more than thirty years. She is the author of The Healing Path of Yoga, which is regarded as the definitive guide to the subtle use of body and mind in healing and stress management. Visit her website at www.abundantwellbeing.com.

Customer Reviews

Sutras from a feminine perspective
Although most of us view yoga as simply a physical discipline, there is a far more spiritual dimension to it. The entire philosophy of yoga has been contained in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Sutra is Sanskrit for "thread" - the sutras are a collection of terse aphorisms threaded together, laying out the whole of yoga.

Translations of these sutras have been done by males over the years and although there are some wonderful books on the subject (Iyengar's "Light On the Yoga Sutras" for one), I have found these books to be rather dry. Well known yoga instructor, Nischala Joy Devi has written an entirely new and feminine perspective on these ancient proverbs. Devi writes in an almost poetic manner and substitutes words that are 'negative' with a more heart centered counterpart. For example, for Aparigraha which is often translated as non-greed, Devi uses "awareness of abundance". This is a very nurturing viewpoint that makes the sutras "friendlier" and more easier to relate to. Meditations and practices are sprinkled throughout to help intergrate the vibe of the sutras into your heart.

She covers books one and two of the sutras and did a brief scan of book three. I am somewhat hopeful that she is intending on covering books three and four (she didn't mention book four at all) in a further volume, but until then, this is enough food for thought for now.

Lovely Translation...
This book is truly a gem. It discusses the Sutras from a heartfelt perspective lacking in most other translations. It will compliment any other reading of the Sutras you have done, and will add a whole other dimension. A must-have for any complete yoga library.

Translation from someone who can't speak the language?
I applaud insights into the Yoga Sutras, but what I don't appreciate are "translations" that really are not. Devi even declares in the book that she can't read Sanskrit(!). So why is this a translation? It's an interpretation, not a translation. To that effect, this is a translation that does not adhere to the language at all.

Devi also omits roughly half the sutras. So basically we have here an inaccurate, incomplete version of the yoga sutras. That's not a translation.

Her justification for the book is the claim that her female students didn't connect with the sutras as they have been translated by others (we'll just assume most of those translations have been made my men, since most published translations are). So she "translated" the Sutras to make it a "feel-good" book for women. Does this strike anyone as insulting? It's a sad irony that a feminine perspective of the sutras sacrifices exactness for good feeling, taking away the power from the reader.

It's not that the book is bad - the core of the sutras are present. What's not present is Patanjali's words as he wrote it.