Veggie Blog

Ananda and Crystal Clarity Publishers are pleased to announce the online publication of the complete first edition of Paramhansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi.

Through this online version, we hope to make Yogananda’s spiritual classic freely available to seekers throughout the world. The print version of the 1946 Autobiography is available direct from Crystal Clarity Publishers through secure online ordering. We hope you enjoy this free gift of the first online edition.

Ananda was founded by Swami Kriyananda, a direct disciple of Yogananda. Kriyananda was inspired by his guru to start ‘World Brotherhood Colonies’. Ananda, and its sister colonies throughout the world, are the fulfillment of Yogananda’s dream. See Chapter 48, in this 1946 edition, to read Yogananda’s own words on World Brotherhood Colonies.

This is a verbatim reproduction of the original 1946 edition, complete with the original photos, many of them not seen since earlier editions. Although subsequent printings, reflecting revisions made after the Yogananda’s death in 1952, have sold over a million copies and have been translated into more than 19 languages, the few thousand of the original have long since disappeared into the hands of collectors.

Now, with this online version, the 1946 edition is widely available, with all its inherent power, just as Yogananda first presented it.

Book: Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda
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Weight Loss Plan: The Goal to Go For

Since excess weight puts you at risk of many health problems, you may want to try a weight loss plan to help avoid those risks and prevent disease.

But what should your long-term goal be? And what short-term goals should you set to help you get there? You have a better chance of reaching your goals if you make sure from the beginning that your weight loss plan is sensible and reasonable.

Here are some guidelines from the experts on choosing weight loss plans and goals.

1. Be realistic

Most people’s long-term weight loss plans are more ambitious than they need to be.

For example, if you weigh 170 pounds and your long-term goal is to weigh 120, even though you have not weighed 120 since you were 16 and you are now 45, that is not a realistic weight loss goal.

Your body mass index, or BMI, is a useful guide to whether you need to lose weight. The healthy BMI range, according to the National Institutes of Health, is between 18.5 and 24.9. If your BMI is between 25 and 29.9, you are considered overweight. A BMI of 30 or above is in the obesity range. BMI is only a rough guide, so ask your doctor what range is right for you.

From this point of view, you need a realistic target weight that brings you into a healthy BMI range for your height.

2. Set healthy objectives

Losing weight for the sake of vanity is psychologically less helpful than losing weight to improve your health.

You have made a big step forward if you choose a weight loss plan that includes exercise and eating right, so that you feel better and have more energy to do something positive in your life.

3. Focus on doing, not losing

Rather than saying that you are going to lose a pound this week, say how much you are going to exercise this week. That makes for a sensible weight loss plan.

Keep in mind that your weight over a week or two is not fully in your control, but your behaviour is.

4. Build up step by step

Short-term goals should not be pie-in-the-sky. This means that if you have never exercised at all, your first goal for this week could be to find three different one-mile routes that you can walk next week.

5. Keep up the self-encouragement

An all-or-nothing attitude only sets you up to fail. Learn to judge your efforts fairly and objectively. If you miss some of your goals, simply look ahead to next week. You do not need a perfect record.

After all, self-encouragement should be part of your weight loss plan. Otherwise, you may end up giving up.

6. Use measurable goals

Saying that you are going to be more active this month, or that you will really get serious this week, is not a goal you can measure and should not be part of your weight loss plan.

This is one reason why you should build habits into your weight loss process and focus on them. You should be able to count the minutes of exercise you do in order to succeed with your plan.

The bottom line is that many people make weight loss plans that remain just that, a plan. They have to put the plan into action by setting goals that motivate them to succeed.

Now, under the guidance of a qualified and well-known Iyengar yoga teacher, readers can reap the benefits of yoga with this gentle guide written specifically with today’s baby boomers in mind. Filled with clear instructions, including the use of yoga props and modified poses, plus crisp follow-along photographs, this book takes readers step by step through the asanas (poses) that can prevent or lessen ailments such as osteoporoisis, hip fractures and chronic pain.

What will I learn from it?

It promises clear instructions, including the use of yoga props and modified poses, plus follow-along photographs that take readers step by step through the asanas.

What does the book say about health problems?

The description says the poses “can prevent or lessen ailments such as osteoporosis, hip fractures and chronic pain”. That is the description’s claim, not a medical statement from us, so check with a doctor before starting if you have any of these problems.

Who is the author?

The title credits Suza Francina, and the description says the guidance comes from a qualified and well-known Iyengar yoga teacher as the author.

Who is The New Yoga for Healthy Aging meant for?

The Amazon description says it is a gentle guide written specifically with today’s baby boomers in mind.

Summary of the book description only, not medical advice.

What should I know about exercise and ageing before reading?

Starting later in life still counts. The NIA exercise page says older adults can benefit from three types of exercise: aerobic, muscle-strengthening and balance. WHO fact sheet on ageing and health frames the same idea at population level: staying active is part of healthy ageing.

Gentle yoga touches strength, balance and flexibility in one session, but the NCCIH page on yoga warns that older adults may need to be particularly cautious, since the rate of yoga injuries treated in emergency departments is higher in people over 65. Choose classes or guidance made for your age and mobility, use a chair or wall for support, and move slowly in and out of floor poses.

Talk with your doctor before starting, especially if you have osteoporosis, joint replacements, dizziness or heart disease.

More on this blog: Can Yoga Cure Illness? What Yoga Can and Cannot Do, and How Athletes Use It and Making Yoga a Lifetime Habit: How to Keep Going When Life Is Busy

Book: The New Yoga for Healthy Aging by Suza Francina
View this book on Amazon (affiliate link: we may earn a commission at no cost to you)

Completely restructured to focus more on the how-to components of yoga, this step-by-step guide replaces photos with all-new two-color line illustrations that not only show readers what the various yoga postures look like, but how to get in and out of them easily and painlessly. Non- intimidating and easy-to-follow exercises show readers just how fun and relaxing yoga can be.

Is it a starting point for newcomers?

The description calls the exercises “non-intimidating and easy-to-follow”, and says they show how fun and relaxing yoga can be.

Who is behind The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Yoga?

The book is credited to Joan Budilovsky in the title.

What is inside the book?

It replaces photos with all-new two-color line illustrations that show what the postures look like and how to get in and out of them “easily and painlessly”.

What does The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Yoga cover?

The description presents it as a restructured, step-by-step guide that focuses on the how-to side of yoga.

Everything above comes from the book description on its Amazon page.

How much can you learn about yoga from a book?

A book is a good place to meet the vocabulary, the shapes of the poses and the idea behind each movement. Line drawings and step-by-step instructions can show you where to place hands and feet, and you can read at your own pace. What a page cannot do is watch you. The NCCIH yoga and safety page says that learning yoga without supervision has been associated with increased risks, and it recommends practising under a qualified instructor.

A sensible approach is to read first, try each pose slowly and stop at the first sign of strain. Breathing is as important as shape: the Harvard Medical School yoga article describes hatha-style classes as opening with breathing exercises, moving through postures and ending with rest. Follow that shape at home and keep the effort level where you could still speak in short sentences.

Check with a doctor first if you are pregnant, have high blood pressure, glaucoma, joint disease or a recent injury. Beginners should avoid extreme practices such as headstands until they have supervised guidance.

Related reading on this blog: What Is Yoga? and Before You Start Yoga: Warm-Up, Breathing and Listening to Your Body

Book: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Yoga by Joan Budilovsky
View this book on Amazon (affiliate link: we may earn a commission at no cost to you)

The old version of this post opened with a list of modern worries (stress, a sedentary lifestyle, toxins in food and air) and then said that yoga “was developed over 5,000 years ago in India,” that it “predates all other religions,” and that its “holistic benefits” suit everyone. The history is more interesting, and less certain, than that. This rewrite looks at what yoga means, where it first appears and what the evidence does not show.

What does the word “yoga” mean?

The old post is right that yoga is a Sanskrit word connected with the idea of union, and that it is often explained as “to join” or “to yoke.” The Bhagavad Gita, one of the best-known Indian texts, defines it in several ways, including equanimity and skill in action. In many traditions the aim is a union of the individual self with a universal self, which is how the old post described it. That is a spiritual goal, not something research can measure, and today many people practice yoga for exercise and relaxation instead.

How old is yoga?

The old claim of 5,000 years cannot be proven. In the introduction to their scholarly collection Roots of Yoga, the historians James Mallinson and Mark Singleton write that before about 500 BCE there is very little evidence in South Asian texts or archaeology for systematic, psychophysical techniques of the kind the word “yoga” later came to describe. The Rig Veda, the oldest Sanskrit text (dated to the fifteenth to twelfth centuries BCE), points to visionary meditation, and a hymn to a long-haired sage suggests an ascetic tradition like that of later yogis. But they call it “entirely speculative” to claim that the Vedic texts show evidence of systematic yoga practice.

Some older books also point to a carved seal from the Indus Valley civilization as showing a figure in a yoga pose. Scholars such as Geoffrey Samuel, Andrea Jain and Wendy Doniger now describe that reading as speculative, so it cannot be used to date yoga. A fair summary is that yoga-like practices go back well over two thousand years, and that the precise starting point is unknown.

Where is yoga first written about?

Ideas about yoga appear in the early Upanishads, philosophical texts from the first half of the first millennium BCE, and in the Bhagavad Gita, which the old post alludes to when it talks about yoga as a path. The Yoga Sutras attributed to Patanjali are the best-known classical text, and our guide to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras explains why the date is debated. Much later, texts on hatha yoga describe the postures and breathing methods that most Americans now think of as yoga. According to Mallinson and Singleton, by the late eighteenth century hatha yoga techniques held a “virtual hegemony” across many yoga-practicing traditions in India.

Is yoga a religion?

The old post said that yoga is a spiritual path but that you do not have to make an ethical decision to practice, and that people of any background can take part. Britannica’s article on Hinduism is similar: yoga may be atheistic or theistic and may adopt various philosophical or religious principles. Practiced in a gym or studio, yoga is usually taught as exercise and relaxation, but you can ask a teacher how much spiritual material their classes include. See the Britannica entry on yoga in Hinduism for more background.

What did the old post get wrong?

The claim that yoga “predates all other religions” is not something history can support, and the line that yoga “purifies” the mind and body with “cleansing thoughts and food” should not be taken as a health claim. Yoga is not a cure or a detox; see how yoga became popular in America and what the numbers show and yoga explained: what it is and what the research supports for what studies do say. If you want to try it, start with a beginner class and a qualified teacher, as the NIH advises.

Origins of Yoga