Practical Yoga Psychology is a guide to applying the principles of yoga to understanding the human mind and character. The book relates the practice of yoga to the principles and practice of psychology. Psychology is a science that tries to understand how the human mind functions. It tries to explain individual human traits, the behaviour of a person, the way they relate to other people, their surroundings and the world in general. The character and behaviour of a person is studied not just for an abstract understanding but also to find ways in which each person can improve relationships, improve the way they interact with the world and thus enhance their life experience.The science of yoga studies the human soul. In the view of yoga, it is not the body and mind that experience life. It is the soul that undergoes all these experiences through the body. Yoga classifies the character of a person based on the three Gunas, Tamas, Rajas and Sattva.Tamas is inertia, Rajas is passion and action and Sattwa is purity and balance. Yoga also studies the influences of the various chakras on the body and mind of a person. The chakras are centers of concentrated energy. The book explains the core qualities inherent in each chakra.

You are not who you think you are! Here you can begin to re-educate yourself out of spiritual blindness and recognize your True Self-nature. Yoga psychology offers a discipline for freeing yourself from life's miseries. You are invited to enter a path of meditative concentration and self-inquiry leading to deep self knowledge. This path is founded on the proposition that you can truly be yourself, but that to be yourself you must first find and know yourself. When you have learned to let go of the delusions foisted on you by social conditioning you will recognize your inherent freedom from misery. Do not, however, think that this path is easy. Spiritual freedom requires that you face and come to terms with the roots of your spiritual ignorance. You must face and master your inner "demons".

A clear and easy to understand guide to the fundamentals of meditation.

This book discusses the profound philosophy and practical psychology behind yoga, beyond its popular body-culture aspect. It pays particular attention to the psychological principles involved and their implications for the consummate understanding of human nature. It explores the psychological aspects of yoga theory and practice and discusses the aphorisms in Patanjali’s treatise on Yoga with necessary commentary in current psychological terminology to make them intelligible to students of psychology and other interested readers. Importantly, the author draws out the implications of these aphorisms for future psychological study and research. The book discusses the author’s concept of yoga of nonviolence which brings in Gandhian ideas into the framework of yoga. The author’s own vast experience in creating interfaces of yoga research with practice also informs the discussions in this book. This authoritative and topical book by an eminent academic like Professor Ramakrishna Rao is of interest to scholars and students of diverse disciplines, including but not limited to psychology, philosophy and wellbeing research.

Integral Yoga Psychology is a new attempt to position the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother within the frame of yoga psychology, as an inquiry related to transpersonal and whole-person psychologies. This book contains 11 essays by leading scholar-practitioners of integral yoga, sketching its possibility-space as a psychology. It attemps this through a hermeneutics of the texts of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, as well as their own and their disciples' practices and experiences. It also makes a beginning at locating the field in its larger contexts, through comparative, qualitative and empirical studies, as well as probing the clinical possibilities of its models.

In the first part of this book, we will look at the foundational concepts of several yoga philosophies, especially pertaining to the nature of the mind. We will begin with the philosophy of Samkhya which explains the creation of the universe, enfoldment of cosmic consciousness, development of the individual soul, and to the rise of the operative faculties of the mind in perception, feeling, ego, memory and intelligence. In the second part, we will look at the tradition of yoga and its techniques to develop the aspirant to rise above physical and mental agitation and restraint which holds one back from emerging into higher knowledge of the self. In the third, we will look at the basic principles of ayurveda including its perspectives to establish balance and harmony of body and mental states. Through the universal principles of ayurveda, knowledge of ones physical and mental constitution can lead to continuum of health and restoration of disease into a balance state of individuals. Its goal is to achieve equilibrium between body and mind by the use of a number of disciplines diet, medicinal herbs, and detoxification and rejuvenator programs, breathe exercises, asanas, meditation, and lifestyle changes to maintain ones body and mental type. Ayurveda and Yogic traditions offer a profound and intuitive insight into the nature of mind, root cause of mental disease, mental afflictions, deep seated impression and subtle desire (vasana) which lead to mental bondage, unconscious (instinctive, habitual behavior), blockage in adversities, and unawareness in the play of misery and pain. Together, they can expunge mental impurities, transpire negativity, develop conscious awareness, control of thought movement, and sharpen concentration and meditation to bring about transparency into ones true existence. Through the cultivation of yogic disciplines one can attain liberation or peace of mind through the actions of moral and righteous behavior (Yama and Niyama), selfless service (Karma yoga), devotional practices (Bhakti yoga), will and meditation disciplines (Raja Yoga) and intuitive knowledge (Jnana yoga). These are not interdependent of one another but collectively move one towards the goal of all yoga in the attainment of self realization.

How the mind works according to the ancient yogic traditions, compared and contrasted to the approaches of Western psychology—by one of the greatest yoga scholars of our time. Georg Feuerstein begins the book by establishing the historical context of modern Western psychology and its gradual encounter with Indian thought, then follows this introduction with twenty-three chapters, each of which presents a topic--generally a point of correspondence or distinction--between Western and Eastern paradigms. These are grouped into three general sections: Foundations, Mind and Beyond, and Mind In Transition. The book concludes with a brief epilogue as well as three appendices, adding depth to the discussion of the ancient yoga traditions as well as an informative survey of yoga psychology literature. The Psychology of Yoga is a feast of wisdom and lore, assembled from a perspective possible only for one whose monumental scholarship has been tempered and leavened by practice.