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Yoga Beyond the Mat: How to Make Yoga Your Spiritual Practice
While many engage in asana, the physical practice, yoga's most transformative effects are found in the realms of the spiritual and psychological. Yoga Beyond the Mat shows you how to develop a personal, holistic yoga practice to achieve lasting and permanent transformation. Join Alanna Kaivalya as she guides you through a complete range of topics, including This book shows you that yoga doesn't make your life easier; it makes you better at your life. Through ritual, meditation, journaling, asana, and other spiritual practices, Yoga Beyond the Mat provides techniques for developing a personal mythology and allowing the ego to rest, leading modern-day yogis toward what they have been the realization of personal bliss. "[Alanna] guides and inspires students and teachers alike toward their own liberation, with patience, generosity, and wholehearted enthusiasm."―Linda Sparrowe, former editor-in-chief of Yoga International and author of Yoga At Home "This is the book I dreamed of when I started my yoga path...[ Yoga Beyond the Mat includes] all the steps, tools, rituals, and wisdom for lasting bliss."―Dana Flynn, founder of Laughing Lotus Yoga "Alanna has pioneered a relevant, educational book; deep thinking and laced humor."―Ana T. Forrest, founder of Forrest Yoga and author of Fierce Medicine "Alanna reveals with great clarity and approachable language the nuances, shadings and shadows of this ancient ritual of wellness. I highly recommend it."― Dennis Patrick Slattery, PhD, author of Riting Myth "Alanna's rigorous scholarship interweaves with applicable and tangible to-do's that brings reality to your spirituality."―Jill Miller, creator of Yoga Tune Up® and bestselling author of The Roll Model "In today's hectic life, the revival of yoga-past when combined with soul centered engagement offers the remedy we seek...a breakthrough book."―Stephen Aizenstat, PhD, chancellor of Pacifica Graduate Institute "In this groundbreaking book integrating yoga, Jungian psychology, and personal mythology, Alanna Kaivalya recovers the spiritual dimension of yoga for contemporary Western practitioners."―Dr. Patrick Mahaffey, professor and associate chair of Mythological Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute and author of Evolving God-Images "Alanna writes with honesty and clarity about the quest to find self-knowledge and bliss, perfectly balancing skepticism and enthusiasm. The result is a practical guide to the history and philosophy of yoga, and a useful map to living an integrated, satisfying and richly meaningful life."―Dave Stringer, Grammy-nominated Kirtan artist "Drawing on yoga, psychology, mythology, and ritual, Alanna guides readers on a transformative journey toward self-awareness and 'personal bliss,' through an amazing array of practices. Yoga Beyond the Mat is like a library of ideas for studying your self."―Kaitlin Quistgaard, writer and former editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal
264 pages, Paperback
Published October 8, 2016
52 people are currently reading
191 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 18, 2017
I enjoyed this book.
March 9, 2017
I enjoyed the book a lot. Alanna Kaivalya is clearly very steeped in the yoga philosophy, but she modernizes it so it's relevant to today. Many yoga books seem like they're written for beginners, but this one is pitched to people who might consider themselves steady practitioners like myself. I underlined quite a number of points in the book, and starred some meditations I didn't feel like doing as I was reading but I plan to get back to. Highly recommended.
May 8, 2017
A user-friendly intro to mysteries beyond asana.
Some people who want yoga books want asana workouts and that's that. Others already know what specific path they're on, and want books about that. For the users who are somewhere in-between, ready to branch out spiritually but not quite sure how to go about it, this book is a good choice. Once you get out of the initial chapters, however, it becomes a book you DO more than a book you READ, and as such it may get checked out and right back in a few times if the reader decides it's not for them.
Kaivalya stresses the need for preparation and discernment before following a spiritual path, and makes suggestions for doing so. The practices proper include forgiveness, media fasts, seeing the sacred in others, relaxing judgment, creating sacred space, and a host of other practices designed to reveal what Kaivalya (and others) have called the inner light. She's not much of a rules person, but the few she has are pretty common sense: don't get weird, and try to be less of an asshole. Her point is that you go within to get right, but you don't try to drag other people along for the ride with you. In fact, she repeats it so often that anyone who doesn't get the point is probably not ready for genuine spiritual practice anyway; then again, they will most likely have stopped reading at the first talk of chakras or "inner light."
The book closes with a few short chapters on how to bring your practice back into the world you live in (we're not all cut out to be mountain gurus), and has suggestions for a variety of rituals, as well as a short reading list. There's a lot to chew on here for those ready and willing to do the work, so if you get the sense during the RA interview that the patron is more interested in soul than savasana, this is a good pick. Recommended for all medium-to-large religion collections.
Some people who want yoga books want asana workouts and that's that. Others already know what specific path they're on, and want books about that. For the users who are somewhere in-between, ready to branch out spiritually but not quite sure how to go about it, this book is a good choice. Once you get out of the initial chapters, however, it becomes a book you DO more than a book you READ, and as such it may get checked out and right back in a few times if the reader decides it's not for them.
Kaivalya stresses the need for preparation and discernment before following a spiritual path, and makes suggestions for doing so. The practices proper include forgiveness, media fasts, seeing the sacred in others, relaxing judgment, creating sacred space, and a host of other practices designed to reveal what Kaivalya (and others) have called the inner light. She's not much of a rules person, but the few she has are pretty common sense: don't get weird, and try to be less of an asshole. Her point is that you go within to get right, but you don't try to drag other people along for the ride with you. In fact, she repeats it so often that anyone who doesn't get the point is probably not ready for genuine spiritual practice anyway; then again, they will most likely have stopped reading at the first talk of chakras or "inner light."
The book closes with a few short chapters on how to bring your practice back into the world you live in (we're not all cut out to be mountain gurus), and has suggestions for a variety of rituals, as well as a short reading list. There's a lot to chew on here for those ready and willing to do the work, so if you get the sense during the RA interview that the patron is more interested in soul than savasana, this is a good pick. Recommended for all medium-to-large religion collections.
September 4, 2020
Perhaps it's because I've read so many books about yoga and yoga philosophy this year that this one just felt been there done that. It tries to do a bunch of things...halfassedly. There's a bit about chakras, a bit about the yamas and niyamas, and a bit about Western astrology, all while suggesting that we create a personal practice and commitment. I mean, that's really it. She suggests that to make yoga a spiritual practice you need to...make it a practice. As in do it. Her 'exercises' feel like they're heavily borrowing from New Age guided meditations and seminars. And the end just...lost me, where she's suggesting rituals at the new moon and full moon that you can find in any basic New Age Witchcraft Lite book.
I've long resisted the 'white women are ruining yoga' line, because without women, let's face it, yoga studios would be empty and yoga wouldn't have had the foothold to grow bigger, but...I see it now. This is New Agey stuff smushed onto yoga in the shallowest possible way. I'm not against crystals or celebrating moon cycles or any of that stuff...but that's not yoga. I'm not averse to creating a practice, MYSELF, that combines the two, but this prepackaged stuff? It's like buying Hydrox cookies--you want the real thing but you end up with this knock off someone is telling you is real.
I should add, I checked this book out because I got so many advertisements from her about yoga training, and I wanted to check her out, and see what she was offering. She's definitely in the high end of yoga teacher trainings, and I wanted to see what people were willing to pay several hundred bucks A MONTH for.
Turns out...this? My money's staying right in my pocket.
I've long resisted the 'white women are ruining yoga' line, because without women, let's face it, yoga studios would be empty and yoga wouldn't have had the foothold to grow bigger, but...I see it now. This is New Agey stuff smushed onto yoga in the shallowest possible way. I'm not against crystals or celebrating moon cycles or any of that stuff...but that's not yoga. I'm not averse to creating a practice, MYSELF, that combines the two, but this prepackaged stuff? It's like buying Hydrox cookies--you want the real thing but you end up with this knock off someone is telling you is real.
I should add, I checked this book out because I got so many advertisements from her about yoga training, and I wanted to check her out, and see what she was offering. She's definitely in the high end of yoga teacher trainings, and I wanted to see what people were willing to pay several hundred bucks A MONTH for.
Turns out...this? My money's staying right in my pocket.
December 3, 2023
Really enjoyed this book. Felt like it wasn’t necessarily geared towards beginners but still not overly heavy in context as some books may feel. Highlighted and saved a lot of pages to reference back to fit my personal practice as well as to share with my students.
June 11, 2018
Introduced a lot of yoga philosophy with *just enough* Sanskrit. Excited to go back through and take notes on what pieces I want to start applying to my personal introspective practices.
January 9, 2019
Good advice on practical elements how to incorporate yoga more into the threads of your life.
April 7, 2019
I had a hard time getting immersed in the book which is unfortunate because the subject matter is intriguing. Simply didn’t resonate with me however.
April 28, 2022
clarity
Loved reading this book. It’s a definite re-read! Living in the moment and being true to yourself first is a key tool gleamed from this book. Be free. Be true. Be you.
Loved reading this book. It’s a definite re-read! Living in the moment and being true to yourself first is a key tool gleamed from this book. Be free. Be true. Be you.
July 10, 2022
I skimmed a lot and took what I needed from it and left the rest.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews