Product Description

This is a totally revised Edition of Kundalini Tantra brought out by Yoga Publications Trust which has been formed as a separate entity exclusively for Publishing the Books brought out by Bihar School Of Yoga.Kundalini Yoga is a part of the tantric tradition. Even though you may have already been introduced to yoga, it is necessary to know something about tantra also. Since ancient times, the wise have realised that mind can be expanded and that experiences do not necessarily depend on the object. This means that if somebody is playing music, I can hear it, and if somebody has painted a picture, I can see it, but I can also see if there is no picture, and I can also hear if there is no music. This is also a quality of man's personality which has been ignored in the last 150 to 200 years. This Book presents a systematic and pragmatic approach to the awakening of kudalini, which arouses greater intelligence from it's sleep and you can give birth to a new range of creativity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22819 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-01
• Released on: 2001-06-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 453 pages

About the Author
About the Author .Swami Satyananda Saraswati was the disciple of swami Sivananda and became a wandering mendicant and he founded the International Yoga Fellowship in 1963 and the Bihar School of Yoga in 1964. He now lives as a paramahansa sannyasin.

His Books like Asana Prana Yama Mudra Bandha are familiar to Amazon customers..

Customer Reviews

Excellent for those who're already prepared
I've owned this book for several years. I started out with "A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya", by the same author. This book is meant as a companion volume to A Systematic Course to go more in depth and explain technical details that couldn't find the space in the 1000 paged coursebook. It includes all the kriyas in their entirety with the same verbiage given in A Systematic Course. The only difference is that Kundalini Trantra presupposes the reader that's intending to do the practice has already had several years of rigorous hatha yoga and meditation practice. In fact, preceeding the exposition on the kriyas is a stern warning that those who haven't had such a lifestyle for about that much time should avert from kriya yoga until they have.

A Systematic Course, by the same author, gives an excellent 3 years worth of systematically progressive yogic techniques and lays them out in a perfect way for daily practice. I followed it for 1.5 years before integrating the practice of kriya yoga with my daily sadhana, as laid out at the end of each section. I'm intensely grateful that I closely adhered to their guidelines. Had I not had a series of smaller "awakenings", I might wonder what the hell was happening to me sometimes. All for the persuit of God.

Someone advised elsewhere here that practicing kundalini tantra (which includes kriya yoga) without a qualified teacher could be dangerous. I would have to firstly raise the question of what constitutes a "qualified" teacher? Secondly, what kind of risk would people be willing to take from these practices that might be so dangerous? I think the only qualified teacher available to us in the west is our own self-practice and our own experiences, guided by the budding intuition that develops therefrom. As for the risky business of meditation - Anytime I leave my house or drive my car, I'm putting my life in great potential peril. But I do so because I've minimized my risk from many years of practice and practical experience gleamed from it, and because the rewards far outweighs the risk.

My ultimate recommendation: A great book for those who: are determined to gain self-enlightenment from kriya yoga and have had the hatha/concentration training; hatha yogis who want to move beyond the body; and those who simply are intensely curious about kriya yoga and its technical details.

Excellent, accurate, easy to understand reference for serious students
I am a personal growth coach who has been studying world religions for over two decades. I have a graduate education in integral psychology. This field studies psychology within the broader context of the world's wisdom traditions. I own over 800-900 books on philosophy and world religion and this one is special for a variety of reasons. Three of the most important are that it is easy to read, it comes from an authentic lineage and it includes quite a bit of in-depth information.

Unlike many books on Tantra or Kundalini written for Western audiences, this book has real substance and does a good job of explaining the philosophical foundation of this practice without adding a lot of unnecessary detail. It strikes a very nice balance between a traditional approach and one that takes into account the needs of Western students.

While I don't agree with every point in the book or take it as unquestioned truth, it certainly contributed to my understanding of this vast and complex topic. It also provided me with a lot of food for thought, good analogies for difficult concepts and useful practices.

This is real Tantra and geared toward serious practioners. However, it is useful for anyone looking for reliable information without buying ten different books and getting bogged down in a lot of detail and contradictory information from questionable sources. It presents Tantra from the Hindu point of view. If you are interested in the Buddhist perspective, then I highly recommend Lama Yeshe's "Introduction to Tantra."

I think it is very important to note that practicing Kundalini Tantra without a qualified teacher could be dangerous. At the least, you can have a minor spiritual crisis or some very uncomfortable psychological or emotional problems come up unexpectedly. In short, this is an area of study to approach with respect and the best tour guide you can find.

Kundalini Tantra
I do not think that this book is too advanced. If anything, it is refreshing that he divulges so many secrets of yoga. Swami Satyananda is a Guru. People meet Gurus and have wild experiences that inspire them to make fundamental changes in their lives. But most Gurus do not teach their students the actual practices that caused the Guru to be able to have such a magical impact on people. The refreshing thing about this book is that Swami Satyananda divulges many of those practices in detail. Of course, like anything else, you need to be balanced in some healthy routines in your life in order to make Kundalini Yoga a healthy experience. There are people who work too much, exercise too much, eat too much. If you do anything with balance, it can be healthy. In my own practice, I have found that Kundalini Yoga has been healthy when I have done it in conjunction with daily silent meditation in groups of people. I will spend 45 minutes in a silent meditation group and then go do my yoga. The silence balances out the energy that the yoga generates. And the contact with other people further balances it out. I can see how it might be unhealthy if someone was not doing silent meditation, or if they did not have a lot of group contact with people. But when you have those balancing influences, books like this are very empowering because they give invaluable perspective on the experiences that occur in the unfoldment of anyone's spiritual practice.