3 Books to Deepen Your Understanding of Yoga

Having a good yoga teacher - a true mentor - makes all the difference in growing as a student of yoga, but we don’t always get that luxury. I personally went to yoga classes for years before I found a true teacher.However, in the meantime I still desired to learn more, and therefore turned to books. Those years of independent which have since developed into guided study allowed me to read countless books, and I have come to identify 3 as the most impactful texts for a comprehensive understanding of yoga.

1. True Yoga by Jennie Lee

This might be the single best book for any aspiring yogi to read. Offering the reader daily practices, questions for self-inquiry, and inspiring affirmations, Jennie Lee explains the 8 limbs of yoga as outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras in a modern, relevant context. She gives examples of how each limb can be practiced at work, in relationships, while parenting, or even while at the grocery store -- helping the reader to see that one need not live in solitude in a cave in order to reach the ultimate goal of yoga: self-realization. The Sutras themselves are a sacred text of yoga (I recommend the version translated by Sri Swami Satchidananda), but True Yoga helps the reader to contextualize and integrate the sutras into their daily life.

2. An Ordinary Life Transformed - Rev. Stephanie Rutt

If you’ve practiced yoga for any length of time, you’ve probably heard of The Bhagavad Gita -- another sacred text in the yogic tradition. That is a text worth reading in and of itself. If you are reading the Gita without guidance of a teacher, however, it can quickly become overwhelming in its poetic density. This is where An Ordinary Life Transformed comes in. In this text, Rev. Stephanie Rutt breaks down and offers a commentary on each of the slokas (sections) of the Gita, showing the reader how to apply it to modern life. One thing I loved about this book is that it still contains the Gita, so you walk away from it having read the Gita AND having received a scholarly perspective on how to actually apply the message.

3. Eastern Body Western Mind - Anodea Judith

Of all the books on my yoga bookshelf, this is the one I refer to most often. Anodea Judith, both a psychologist and yogi, explains the chakra system in terms of western psychology -- connecting, for example, Erik Erikson’s stages of development to yoga’s chakra system. You’ll find helpful charts, detailed, understandable descriptions, and incredibly relevant real-world examples all throughout this text. I promise that you will walk away from this book understanding chakras, psychology, and people (including yourself) on a new level. This book brought the chakras from the abstract world into the conceptual world for me. A great follow-up read is Judith’s Chakra Yoga which details how the chakras are impacted by asana (postures) in yoga practice.

While having a trusted teacher / mentor truly helps, there is so much we are able to do on our own. You might just be surprised by how much you can learn from reading these 3 books alone.

Brooke Davidson