The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice Book

"Remember that yoga is a practice of observing yourself without judgment." 

In this very difficult period, I have to say that one of my life lines is my yoga practice. After I turn off my laptop at the end of the work day, I roll out my mat, put on some good music and for about 45 minutes, I practice a series of asanas, and, linking movement and breath, I bring myself to a steady and calm place (and yes, I know that is a luxury, and I am very, very grateful for it). Over the past few months, I had grown to really love my daily yoga, even when it felt like a bit of a chore; now I am so glad to have developed this habit, as it is proving helpful on so many levels.

There are tons of books on yoga out there, and it can definitely be tricky to pick the good ones from those that are vacuous and silly. My dad had recommended a few, but he has a bias for books published thirty or even forty years ago (around the time he started getting into yoga), and that now feel painfully dated. Don't get me wrong: there is still some good stuff to be found in books like "Light on Yoga" (), but they show their age. "The Heart of Yoga" was on my father's recommendation list, but this one is far from outdated.

If you want to truly understand yoga, and not just the inexplicably well-coiffed yoga influencers on Instagram, you should read this book. Desikachar offers a clear, approachable text on yoga as much more than a fitness regimen - and how to approach it in a way that fits each individual practitioner. Even if I am not new to yoga, I learned so much about its nature and how to enrich and deepen my practice with this book. The fact that it's written in an open-minded and very down-to-earth way is wonderful: there isn't an ounce of preachiness or judgmental attitude in Desikachar's writing, which makes this book perfect for anyone interested in yoga, no matter what they experience and background is. "We begin where we are and how we are, and whatever happens, happens."

I was very interested by the section on how to build an asana practice: I practice yoga at home, and I enjoy taking yoga flows apart and see why the sequences are constructed the way they are. Desikachar gives a very comprehensible explanation on the mechanics of combining asanas into a smooth flow, starting with "warm up" poses, combining poses with the proper counterpose, how to sequence them and select them based on the effect hey have on the body, and so on. This is especially helpful, as I dislike formal yoga classes at the best of time - and seeing how we aren't allowed to go to yoga class anymore anyway, people looking to practice on their own can use this section along with a guide such as "Hatha Yoga Illustrated" () to build their own custom sequence for their personal practice.

Desikachar's approach is flexible, but not sloppy: he wants to give aspiring yogis a strong, traditional base that they should explore thoroughly and carefully before letting their creativity run amok, but he clearly understands the fact that different bodies have different needs and different limitations. A section of the book is dedicated to variations on asanas to help people reach certain yoga goals my making changes and adjustments to make their practice truly their own.

The final section is Desikachar's translation of and commentary on the Yoga Sutras, the foundation text that yogis base their practice on. It is a great and concise introduction to the Yoga Sutra, and the commentary makes clear links between the scared texts and the teachings discussed in the first parts of the books.

You will not learn how to do asanas with this book, but you will gain a very important insight on how to turn a physical practice into a balanced practice that involves body as much as breath and mind. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in yoga (though the liberal use of sanskrit terms might confuse beginners a bit: but fear not, there is an index at the end of the book).

"In yoga we are not creating something for others to look at. As we perform the various asanas we observe what we are doing and how we are doing it. We do it only for ourselves. We are both observer and what is observed at the same time. If we do not pay attention to ourselves in our practice, we cannot call it yoga."