Living Yoga: Creating a Life Practice
Christy Turlington
So you want to learn tantra yoga?
Start at the door that fits you. All three lead to tantra, and from there to the texts themselves.
None of these books is required for the training. They are what I hand people who ask where to begin.
Start here
I'm new to yoga
Yoga will make your life nice.
How not to hurt yourself doing asanas
Don't believe everything this book says.
Anatomy of Hatha Yoga
H. David Coulter
Then learn to breathe
What the breath does, told as a story.
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
James Nestor
or
I'm into spirituality
Hope you aren't afraid of nude art
Tantra for beginners.
Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy
Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger
You've been lied to about chakras.
Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan
Kurt Leland
Every great tradition, read for what it is trying to say.
The World's Religions
Huston Smith
or
I prefer the scientific approach
Yoga is the science of union
So start by understanding wholeness.
Wholeness and the Implicate Order
David Bohm
Understanding consciousness is essential too.
The Idea of the World
Bernardo Kastrup
Bonus round
What will this mean for science?
The Turning Point
Fritjof Capra
Many basic assumptions have to be abandoned.
The Science Delusion
Rupert Sheldrake
Why what you see is an interface, not the world.
The Case Against Reality
Donald Hoffman
The same point, with a sense of humour.
The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
Alan Watts
You're ready for tantra
A collection of excellent essays on tantra.
Shakti and Shakta
Sir John Woodroffe
Side roads
Bonus round
Bonus round
The first three hundred pages are the introduction. The rest is the traditional texts.
The Serpent Power
Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon)
Today's map
Today's map
The clearest modern account of the Trika and Kaula lines.
Tantra Illuminated
Christopher D. Wallis
Why the bad name?
Why the bad name?
They wrote about tantra before they had read one.
Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion
Hugh B. Urban
Still not afraid of nude art?
Still not afraid of nude art?
Temple art as metaphysics, not an erotic tour.
The Tantric Way: Art, Science, Ritual
Ajit Mookerjee and Madhu Khanna
What is the relevance of this?
On the surface, this is Gestalt psychology, but it gives a nice answer why you should find your potential, your dharma.
Born to Win
Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward
Side roads
The theory behind it
The theory behind it
Transactional analysis, from the man who made it.
Games People Play
Eric Berne
And why it matters
And why it matters
A person can endure a great deal if life has a why.
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl
Congratulations! The studies have finally begun.
Learn The Vedic Code
Divine Initiation
Bhagavan Shri Shanmukha Anantha Natha
Side roads
Bonus round
Bonus round
The same, the Buddhist version.
Third Eye of the Buddhist
Bhagavan Shri Shanmukha Anantha Natha
Mantra, prana
This is how the science of mantra works.
The Garland of Letters
Sir John Woodroffe
And the same said in traditional form, in more detail.
Parā-trīśikā-Vivaraṇa: The Secret of Tantric Mysticism
Abhinavagupta, translated by Jaideva Singh
The fifty letters, in scholarly detail.
Vāc: The Concept of the Word in Selected Hindu Tantras
André Padoux
I bet you've now realised
You have to learn Sanskrit.
Introduction to Sanskrit, Part One
Thomas Egenes
You can also learn it the traditional way.
Devavāṇīpraveśikā: An Introduction to the Sanskrit Language
Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman
There is a lot of mathematics behind the science of mantra.
The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus
René Guénon
Trika, Kaula and the corpus
The traditional texts themselves.
Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra, with traditional commentary.
Yogasūtrabhāṣyavivaraṇa of Śaṅkara
T. S. Rukmani
The most cited text of kaula tantra.
Kulārṇava Tantra
Introduction by Arthur Avalon, readings by M. P. Pandit
Wholeness and implicate order, in traditional form.
Spanda-Kārikās: The Divine Creative Pulsation
Jaideva Singh
Beautiful shaiva tantra.
Śiva Sūtras: The Yoga of Supreme Identity
Jaideva Singh
Hatha yoga texts
The traditional sources for physical yoga: asana and the rest.
The best known of the three.
Hatha Yoga Pradipika
Svātmārāma, translated by Brian Dana Akers
Practice, step by step.
The Gheranda Samhita
Translated by James Mallinson
Practice inside its philosophy.
The Shiva Samhita
Translated by James Mallinson
Traditional medicine
Indian traditional medicine.
Ayurveda & Acupuncture
Frank Ros
The heart of the eight branches. The classical text itself.
Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdayam
Vāgbhaṭa, translated by K. R. Srikantha Murthy
Chinese traditional medicine.
The Web That Has No Weaver
Ted J. Kaptchuk
Around the path
Body, history, myth and mind: the reading that sits beside the tradition.
Body and breath
Breathe through the nose, and see what changes.
Body, Mind, and Sport
John Douillard
Connective tissue is continuous. Here is the map.
Anatomy Trains
Thomas W. Myers
The research behind the web.
Fascia: The Tensional Network of the Human Body
Edited by Robert Schleip, Thomas W. Findley, Leon Chaitow and Peter A. Huijing
Why a body is not a stack of bricks.
Biotensegrity: The Structural Basis of Life
Graham Scarr
History
The pre-modern sources, in translation.
Roots of Yoga
James Mallinson and Mark Singleton
How modern asana was built. Know the argument; I disagree with part of it.
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice
Mark Singleton
Vivekananda, Theosophy and the making of modern yoga.
A History of Modern Yoga
Elizabeth De Michelis
1896, and the moment asana was left behind.
Raja Yoga
Swami Vivekananda
The classic study. Still worth reading.
Yoga: Immortality and Freedom
Mircea Eliade
Myth
The goddesses and the diagrams, read as metaphysics.
Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
Heinrich Zimmer
Cyclic time, and how we lost it.
The Myth of the Eternal Return
Mircea Eliade
The diagram as a map of the cosmos.
Yantra: The Tantric Symbol of Cosmic Unity
Madhu Khanna
Mind and meditation
Jung's 1932 seminar on a text from The Serpent Power, for better and worse.
The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga
C. G. Jung
Two psychologists take meditation seriously.
On the Psychology of Meditation
Claudio Naranjo and Robert E. Ornstein
Where research on meditation began, and where it stopped.
The Relaxation Response
Herbert Benson
Choiceless awareness, in his own words.
Freedom from the Known
J. Krishnamurti
Shankara, short and clear.
Crest-Jewel of Discrimination
Shankara, translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood
In the training I tell you which sentences are the tradition's, which come from research, and which are mine. Ask me for the source. That is my job.
Yoga Teacher Training
Places are open for the next group.
2,500 euros at once, or 2,900 in six payments
I will write back with how the training runs, the day and time of the live sessions, and the earliest date you can start.
Asking reserves nothing and commits you to nothing. You decide after my reply.
I use what you send to answer you about the training, and send letters only if you tick the box. Privacy