Beacon Yoga Centre

The Philosophy, Psychology and Practice of Yoga by Swami Venkatesananda, read by Sobha Day

 

“Wisdom is a simple thing and one must see it directly – not think about it. Thinking about wisdom is a waste of time , like thinking about food at lunch time. Hence in India, Yoga and Vedanta are known as darshana– direct seeing or experience.” Swami Venkatesananda

This book contains a series of nineteen talks given by Swami Venkatesananda to the students of the Yoga-Vedanta Forest Academy of the Divine Life Society (headquarters of Sivananda Ashram  Rishikesh, India) in 1980. Yoga students from all over the world came each year, and for three months undertook intensive sadhana. Central to that sadhana was the course at the Academy given by a distinguished yogi.  ​

 

​Venkatesananda returned to the ‘mother’ Ashram every year for these three months and often presented the keynote course at the Academy. 

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“This three-month course is the beginning of an adventure. After this course you must be so utterly dissatisfied that for the rest of your life you must be looking for confirmation or better understanding of what you have learnt here.”​ Swami Venkatesananda

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Our Reader is the Ashram’s Patron and Venkatesananda Scholar, Sobha Day.​

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It’s an awesome experience to dive deep into a Master’s teaching. Being given the opportunity in these times of Corona to record, study, contemplate, read out aloud to myself a wisdom teaching, that keeps revealing, revealing, revealing – whoa! 

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These talks are not a tame affair and require a great deal from the listener but I would urge you to keep in mind Swami’s words: “Whatever the speaker says, the hearer must understand very clearly. Then, when you also work as hard as I work (not merely listen and go away) it is possible for us together to understand the philosophy, the psychology and the practice of yoga.” 

Every Thursday a new recorded talk (15-20 minutes)
will be placed on our website.