Yoga Memoir

In the fugue of deep meditation, Jaya Devi tumbles outdoors into a muggy south Florida dawn. Sliding on a pair of orange flip-flops, she cuts across a dirt path skirting the ashram lawn. She glances down as a fat black snake slithers up her bare leg, wrapping itself tight. Astonished, she pauses, exemplifying the yogi’s art of non-reaction, breathing and assessing. Here, we enter into the wild wisdom-experience of a modern yogi who uses each moment as fuel for personal transformation.

When her mother died, Brown ran as far away from yoga as she could until a running injury left her needing the very thing she was running from. It was there - on the mat - that she processed her grief and found her mother again. As she went deeper into the poses, she discovered she was more like her mother than she thought. Through it all, she found a deeper understanding of the practice, of the breath, and of the life her mother lost too young.

Play It Forward details the remarkable journey of Joan Barnes, founder and former CEO of Gymboree, and how she learned to align her inner life with outward success. Forty years ago Joan Barnes founded a play center in a church basement with $3,000. Determined to enable women to achieve personal and entrepreneurial success, Barnes led Gymboree to become an innovative leader in a new industry: activity-based early childhood development.

In story format, US Marine Corps veteran and yoga teacher Rishi Eric Infanti outlines the parallel of his marine corps experiences and his journey as a yoga teacher. He threads the eight limbs of yoga from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and his seven-week exposition to Mysore, India, to deepen his understanding and practice of yoga, Ayurveda, and fine art as vehicles for healing.

In 1968, the Beatles trekked to a remote, mysterious, and beautiful part of India known as Rishikesh, or the valley of the saints. For literally thousands of years, this remote riverside valley has been a magnet for advanced yogis, mystics, and seekers of truth. In 1968, it was the absolute zenith of all of this and the pop world as well. It was here the Beatles wrote dozens of now iconic songs while meditating at the feet of the lauded spiritual master.

The author of this astonishing audiobook first became involved in the practice of devotional yoga at fifteen in 1970. Since that time Sripad Jagannatha Das has traveled the world in pursuit of his goal of self-realization through the Vedic tradition. Spending many years in India under the tutelage of many advanced devotees, Das has now reached the venerable age of sixty-nine and his quest to teach is stronger than ever. In this touching-spirited memoir, the yogi recalls his walk on the yogic path and how the deep divinity of bhakti yoga has colored his life.

Rotten Minerva lays out a new framework for being “spiritual” while existing in this crazy material reality. In it, author Kelli Hastings sets forth her personal ideology of life with the help of movie quotes, scientific references, and citations to religious scriptures—all interspersed with hilarious stories of her own misadventures on the spiritual path.