Picture courtesy of KYM Archives
Religiousness in Yoga
TKV Desikachar
Lectures on Theory and Practice
Chapter by Chapter Study Guide Compilation
‘Religiousness in Yoga: Lectures on Theory and Practice’, by the University Press of America, is a transcript of recordings of a one month Yoga Programme in Colgate University in 1976, published in 1980.
Unlike the later redacted edition, re-published in 1995 as the ‘Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice’, it captures the evolution of the retreat with the days lectures and Q & A dialogues as they alternated between ‘lectures on the principles and purposes of Yoga and discussions related to the practice of Yoga with special reference to the postures and the breathing techniques’.
TKV Desikachar, in his forward to the original version wrote:
“These lectures and discussions, printed words put before persons I might never meet,
are but reflections of that deeper result that grew out of a living face-to-face encounter.
Coming to learn of Yoga only through reading leaves much to be desired.
Yet, something worthwhile about Yoga might be shared through the medium of the printed word.”
Over the past five years a study guide to Religiousness in Yoga has been posted in a chapter by chapter progression. Each chapter was supported with added textual verse and word cross-references. The chapter posts were preceded with illustrative quotes reflecting the content of that particular lecture or discussion. All were offered to support a deeper linking with the teachings within these lectures and Q & A sessions.
All in all it has been a longish project, nevertheless one within which it has been for me, as if listening to him speaking. He had such a knack of saying something that could go ‘straight to press’. Though here my thanks also goes to the editors, especially the late Mary Louise Skelton and their efforts and priorities in preserving the essence of Desikachar’s style. This direct transmission, nurtured from within the ancient succession of oral teachers, is seemingly a dying flame within the embers of India’s old school traditions.
Thus finally we have reached the point where the eighteen chapter by chapter study guides can be offered as a single compilation. So below are PDF download links to two different compilation print options. This is further supported by links listing the eighteen chapters as either individual PDF’s or individual posts.
In the first link the Religiousness in Yoga Study guide is offered as a single PDF in a US letter format and in a layout that supports double sided printing whilst preserving the chapters as separate documents.
In the second link below that, is the same compilation in an A4 format.
The third link below that, lists the eighteen chapters as single PDF’s.
The fourth link takes you to the individual posts for each chapter, within which you have live links to the various references to particular verses in the Yoga Sūtra, along with live links to the Romanised Saṃskṛta glossary with its textual cross references and associated posts around that particular word.
1. View or Download the Study Guide Compilation of Chapters One to Eighteen in PDF US Letter version
2. View or Download the Study Guide Compilation of Chapters One to Eighteen in PDF A4 version
3. View or Download the Study Guide as individual PDF’s for each of the Eighteen Chapters
4. View the Study Guide as individual Posts with live links for each of the Eighteen Chapters
