The Pure Heart of Yoga: Ten Essential Steps for Personal Transformation

I haven't read many yoga books, and I am only a very occasional yoga dabbler, but this book deepened my perspective on the practice beyond the obvious wellness benefits and helped me to understand that a disciplined and comprehensive practice with a teacher and community can be, as the subtitle indicates, "transformational." Mind and body are nicely linked in a very readable discusssion of the "ten essential steps": Intention, Attitude, Posture, Breathing, Archetypes, Energy Centers, Concentration, Locks and Seals, Psychological Blocks, and, Emotional Transformation. A Catalog of Yoga Poses and a Sanskrit Glossary add to the very practical impact of this inspiring book.

This book not only thoroughly and easily explains how yoga can transform your life but it also gives many specifics as to how you can bring these elements to your own life, and to your own yoga practice. It has pictures of poses too, but that is clearly not where the emphasis is in this book. The explanation of poses is fairly brief (although certainly clear) because you can eventually become the pose by letting go of expectations and opening to your intentions and the moment. I hope this book can help to deepen people's understanding of yoga.

Wow, what an awesome book! As a yoga teacher, I have read a lot books on yoga and studied with some of the more "famous" yoga teachers, and with all that training, I have never come across some of the concepts that are highlighted in this book. With so many pose books available that focus solely on alignment and breathing, there seems to be a real need for a book like the Pure Heart of Yoga that offers insight into why we practice yoga and how poses can be used as tools to transform our lives. I've experienced how yoga has transformed my life and see it working it's magic every day in my student's lives, but I have never heard it explained so well until now. I think that the authors real gift is breaking down some the more advanced concepts of yoga philosophy in a way that is easy to understand and apply to modern life. The ideas are universal and non-dogmatic, and the exercises at the end of each chapter have given me a new perspective on my life and my practice. I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in personal growth and/or yoga. The concepts are accessible to beginner students (how I wish this book was around when I was a beginner student) and are also deep enough to keep advanced students and yoga teachers interested and engaged!

For anyone who desires more than poses from their yoga practice this book is essential. It's perfect for both students and teachers who want to include yoga philosophy in their classes. When I began studying these principles I not only felt much better physically, but also experienced a giant transformation in my personal life too. These teachings honestly changed my life. I especially love applying them to my family and work.

This is one of the best books I've read for freeing a yoga practice from the mat, from the body, and integrating it into every aspect of a person's life. This isn't a pose book, and it isn't a sutras text, though it has many elements of both. This book is more of a portable, ongoing yoga seminar. It's written in a style that's not merely descriptive, it's very interactive. You'll be asked questions and -- as you read the case studies -- you'll actually be working together with the yoga students in the book. As a reference, it's not positioned as a replacement to other texts in your existing yoga library, but it will certainly complement all those other books. True to its title, it speaks to the core of yoga -- the person, the connections, the stillness of mind, the union -- and improves what you have. For those considering the path of the yoga teacher, the book also serves as an excellent foundational text, and a gateway from yoga practitioner to yoga teacher. This book will inspire you to deeper breaths and deeper thoughts. Namasté