Samatvam Yoga: A Paradigm for Deeper Sanity and Success

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This book represents an endeavour to demystify the glorious heritage of Yoga. It is a concise but lucid "manual" of Yoga Sadhana that encompasses the conceptual as well as the practical elements of this universal art, science and technology of living.
The first section of the book presents a simple but profound framework that communicates the essence of the Samatvam Yoga path. It makes Yoga practice and sadhana intelligible, even to the lay person. The second section explores the nature of the universe as well as the human being. The third section lays out the four pre-requisites for meaningful Yoga practice, by way of appropriate food and diet, lifestyle, attitudes and perspectives. The fourth section of the book explains the foundations of Yoga sadhana, by way of Yama and Niyama. The fifth section explicates the techniques of Asana Pranayama and Pratyahara in considerable detail. The last section deals with the actual sum and substance of Yoga, by way of Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi.

Aarti Maheshwari is the Director of Samatvam Academy, Gurugram. She completed the Certificate Program in Yoga Education from The Yoga Institute, Santa Cruz, Mumbai (2001), followed by the Yoga Instructors Course from The Vivekananda Kendra, Bangalore (2002), and a Basic Course in Ayurveda from Pune (2004). Aarti is presently empanelled as a Lead Examiner with the Yoga Certification Board, Government of India and is also a Visiting Yoga Expert at the Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga (MDNIY), New Delhi.
In her career of over 20 years, Aarti has taught Yoga extensively for Tata Motors, Siemens, Reliance Capital, Tata Communications, Ballarpur Industries, Wipro and Info media India. She has conducted numerous Yoga health and education camps for a diverse range of audiences such as children, housewives, professionals as well as the public at large. This includes a much-lauded seminar series at the NTL Institute of Applied Behavioural Sciences, USA.

Asha Asrani completed the Certificate Program in Yoga Education from The Yoga Institute, Santa Cruz, Mumbai in 1985. Over the course of the last nearly four decades, she has comprehensively researched and extensively taught the discipline of Yoga towards facilitating health, harmony and happiness for human society. Asha has also been a significant contributor to the journal Yoga and Total Health for over a decade.
Being an ardent Yoga sadhaka, Asha is equally at home in the conceptual as well as the practical dimensions of Yoga. Translating the wisdom of the erudite Yoga texts into a path for daily householder life is her key forte. Asha is an acknowledged expert in the Bhagavad Gita. She lives and teaches in Mumbai.

Yoga is one of the six darsana sastra, or the fundamental systems of Indian thought. It was systematized by the great sage Maharshi Patanjali, who defined the phenomenon as the arrest of the modifications of the mind.
The mind is the foremost asset of a human being, but also her greatest liability at times. The capacity to regulate the mind can potentially yield very intelligent solutions to all human problems. This is the promise that Yoga offers to the world.
Yoga is well-known as a series of disciplinary practices. But even more, it is a comprehensive science of life. People live placid and humdrum lives, even as Yoga promises a full existence.
The present book is written, keeping this eternal human quest of fulfilment in mind. It represents an endeavour to demystify, to the extent possible, the glorious heritage of Yoga that the ancient Vedic sages have bequeathed to humanity at large. This text is also an attempt to create a concise but lucid "manual" of Yoga Sadhana that encompasses the conceptual as well as the practical elements of this universal art, science and technology of living.
The book is structured into six sections. The opening section lays a deep foundation for this endeavour by exploring the nature of the universe as well as the human being that has emerged therein.
The first chapter employs the lens of Sankhya (another one of the darsana sastra) to delineate how the manifest world emanates from an unmanifest sub-stratum. The second chapter delves into the nature, and the constitution, of individual human being. The holistic nature of individual health and fulfilment is the subject of the third chapter, which also articulates a Yogic summary of how these can be attained. Taken together, these chapters set a comprehensive context for the Yogic frameworks and practices that follow in the later sections.