BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO YOGA - HOWARD KENT & CLAIRE HAYLER

RATING: C-

Although I am no longer a beginner, I decided to buy this book at the reduced cost of $2. It is a good basic guide, although I personally prefer something leaning more towards a specific Indian version than Yoga in general. The book does cover the whole eight limbs of Patanjali's Yoga sutras, although as usual the asanas, meditation, and pranayama get pride of place.

Of specific interest were some of the unnamed bends and stretches - I think these may be useful to slip in on days when I do two short sessions rather than one long practice. I find that reading Yoga books brings about a positive attitude and replaces the encouragement of a teacher that might be present were I not a home practitioner.

PASSAGE THROUGH INDIA - GARY SNYDER

RATING: C+

A retro travel journal complete with pictures.

If you are interested in how and where a couple of Westerners traveled a few decades ago, photos of various places in India, or the past of Allen Ginsberg, this would be of interest to you. I enjoyed learning how far places are from each other and what travel methods were around back then - in case I ever am lucky enough to visit for myself. Many of the places mentioned in the book would be places that I too would like to see, someday....

LETTING GO OF THE PERSON YOU USED TO BE - LAMA SURYA DAS

RATING: B

I found the references on karma and omniscience interesting in the first chapter. I agree that the more we learn from the bad bits of life the better - we should get rid of it asap rather than have it come back again and again until we do learn and correct ourselves!!Gradually learning what needs to be learned - rather than failing over and over can only be progressive.

The 'Ham-so' breathing exercise reminded me of the deity breathing I have been working on - the breath goes in and out different places though...

It was interesting to observe how far I had got in accepting loss already, compared to the old me. Unlike a Buddha, who recognizes ALL, I can only see SOME of the origins of my own karma - however, since taking he ACI course on karma and personal investigations a few years ago, I can find the origin of several things that crop up in my life - and people I formerly knew give me vision-memories of former lives I have shared with them from time to time.

It was interesting to read the chapter relative to the Medicine Buddha - as this has been something I have been working with over the past months. Again, the section referent to mindfulness meditation was also useful as this I also something I have worked with a LOT in the past. I am going to work on one of the exercises given in this book as a refresher. I was also interested to read the references to birds and nature towards the close of the book.

ALL YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT HAPPINESS, LIFE AND LIVING - HHDL/RAJIV MEHROTRA

RATING:B-

I would note that the dream state mentioned on page 8 can be attained with more ease while awake. I was interested to chart my progress over recent years on the 3-reliefs from suffering on page 16. The chapter on reincarnation was especially interesting. I enjoyed the mixture of simplicity and complexity throughout the entire book.

The book is basically a categorized grouping of Q&A between the author and HHDL. I would recommend the book to those interested in learning from HHDL and those wanting to re-read some of his pet topics.