Philosophy Articles
A Caregiver's Guide to Compassion: Taking care of an aging parent can be challenging… even exasperating at times. Here’s how one daughter found patience, forgiveness, and a fresh outlook in the process.
A Living Healing Tradition: By understanding yoga therapy’s philosophical foundation, we can apply the tradition’s practices to heal the whole person—addressing all nine dimensions of the human experience.
Awakening Kundalini: Swami Rama explains kundalini shakti.
Calming the Inner Storm: In these troubled times, stress is inevitable. Or is it? When we understand life from a yogic point of view, we can make a different choice.
Christianity’s Lost Legacy: Gnostics of the early Church believed in reincarnation, a direct experience of God, and the divine light in everyone. These teachings have more in common with yoga philosophy than with Christianity as practiced today.
City of Tents: Pilgrimage to the Maha Kumbha Mela: Seventy million people poured onto the Allahabad floodplain in January 2001. A pilgrim explains why, and what it was like to be among them.
City of the Gods: Journey to Allahabad in January when swamis, sadhus, and pilgrims gather for a timeless ritual celebrated at the confluence of three sacred rivers. Welcome to ancient India.
Contemplating Catastrophe: Painful as they are, natural disasters are an inextricable part of the world around us.
Craving Simplicity in a Complicated Age: Amazingly relevant today, this message is from the famous 19th-century preacher who also wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
Design by Intelligence: Where Science and Spirituality Converge: Yoga picks up where the separation of science and spirituality leaves off, encouraging us to explore the inherent intelligence in all things—and to draw our own conclusions.
Fuel and Flame: Experience rudra yaga.
Global Gathering: The Kumbha Mela offers spiritual seekers an extraordinary opportunity to heal their own hearts while restoring harmony to a troubled world.
Grace of the Ganga: Journey to the Kumbha Mela: A spiritual master contemplates the cultural and universal significance of pilgrimage, tracing the tradition—and his own memories—across India to the bank of a potently sacred river.
Hold Your Horses: Learn to rein in a distracted mind through the pivotal practices of pratyahara that allow you to unplug, replenish, and move forward.
How to Create a Positive Collective Consciousness: The Himalayan Institute’s Spiritual Head answers questions about the Maha Kumbha Mela of 2001.
I Am the Food!: A Curious Proclamation from the Taittiriya Upanishad.
India’s Matrix of Tolerance: It’s a rite of passage: a pilgrimage to India.
Inspiration from the Third Century: A young visionary brings together radically different religions and forms a new worldview of peace and unity.
Inspired Intention: The Nature of Sankalpa: The yoga tradition offers a profound formula for realizing your heartfelt desires—without asking you to change who you are.
Inward Bound: A renowned philosopher bridges the confusion between seemingly disparate Eastern ideologies, and charts a course for realizing our ultimate spiritual goals.
Joyful Abundance: How to Create It & Share It: Perhaps it’s time to pay more attention to yoga’s concept of wealth and to learn how you may become a steward and a source of prosperity. If so, welcome the goddess Lakshmi and what she stands for.
Know Thyself: Before you begin your daily meditation, befriend your mind and connect with your inner teacher through the process of earnest introspection.
Kumbha Mela: Origin and Significance: Collected below are both stories from the scriptures and personal narratives that detail trips to the 2001 Maha Kumbha Mela.
Legacy of the Sages: A comprehensive practice draws us into an ever-deepening realm of clarity and joy. The spiritual head of the Himalayan Institute explains.
Living Tantra: Part 1: Sex, drugs, and black magic? Tantra is infinitely more powerful than that. A modern master reveals the truth about this complex and controversial path.
Living Tantra: Part 2: Harness prana shakti—the inner divinity—with a potent tantric practice that will charge your mind with vitality, insight, and the power to heal.
Maha Kumbha Mela Q&A: Pandit Rajmani Tigunait answers questions about pilgrimage, elevated consciousness, and the pollution of sacred rivers.
Mantra Meditation: Video Lecture: With Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D.
Moonstruck: Deepen your understanding of the subtle effects of the season with observation of Earth's closest neighbor.
Our Planet, Ourselves: Discovering our interconnectedness
Pilgrimage 2001: Can We Change the Future?: Long, long ago, a demon named Shankhasura sent forth legions of mud-dwelling creatures from the bottom of the sea to capture the Vedas and thus destroy their content.
Pilgrim’s Progress : From an American ashram to the holy shrines of India, this pilgrim traces a winding path to higher Consciousness—one that eventually leads her back home.
Pratyabhijna Hrdayam 4: An individual, in whom Consciousness has contracted, consists of the universe in contracted form. —Pratyabhijna Hridayam, sutra 4
Purusha Sukta: Yoga introduces us to our deepest self—to the all-pervading Purusha (pure consciousness), which is our core being. One of the obstacles we face in meeting this subtle aspect of ourselves is our unfamiliarity with the concept of pure consciousness. What—or who—is Purusha? In what way does it involve me and the world around me?
Re-Enchantment: There is nothing unusual about a restaurant under a roadside pipal tree in Allahabad, a small city in northern India. But this tree was speaking to me; I'm sure of it.
Reincarnation and Rebirth: The power to shape our destiny in this life and beyond is a unique privilege available to those of us who understand the immense potency of our life force.
Science and Consciousness: Nondual philosophy sheds light on the inherent limitations of scientific inquiry.
Scripture and the Self: An audio recording with Sanskrit pronunciation by D.C. Rao.
Shiva Sankalpa Sukta: Audio: Listen to a powerful six-verse hymn from the Rig Veda.
Story from the Scriptures: The Kumbha Mela: There is a story, told in several of the Puranas, that tells how the Kumbha Mela originated.
Swami Rama: Video Lectures: Watch clips of Swami Rama discussing diaphragmatic breathing, happiness and peace, Sankalpa Shakti, and sitting still.
Sweet Forgiveness: Through practice, self-reflection, and letting go, yoga helps us move past old hurts that threaten to derail us.
The Dharma-Driven Life: Dharma—the virtuous path—means more than accepting the beliefs of a specific religion. To understand and fulfill our true dharma, we must learn how to cultivate a tranquil mind and a compassionate heart.
The Dharma-Driven Life: Dharma—the virtuous path—means more than accepting the beliefs of a specific religion. To understand and fulfill our true dharma, we must learn how to cultivate a tranquil mind and a compassionate heart.
The Gunas: The yoga tradition tells us that prakriti is an intermingling of three entities, or gunas, that are constantly shifting in relation and proportion to one another. They have differing qualities, and their activities either conceal or reveal the presence of purusha, which is the observer of their movements.
The Left Hand of Tantra: Pandit Rajmani Tigunait demystifies commonly misunderstood tantric practices.
The Living Science of Tantra: Pandit Rajmani Tigunait explains this yet vibrant spiritual science.
The Mysterious World of Khajuraho: The Himalayan Institute's Spiritual Head writes of the Khajuraho temple complex.
The Next Salt March: Turning Our Backs on Consumerism
The Yoga of Work: It's easy to overlook the life lessons our jobs provide. But if we perform out duties selflessly, we can accelerate our spiritual evolution. Gandhi mastered the art of joyful work—the Gita shows us how.
What is Happiness: The Upanishads show us how to recognize the source of true fulfillment.
Yoga Nidra: A practice to resolve and awaken to your true nature.
Book Two: Sutras 26 to 55: Audio recitation.
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