Yoga Philosophy

From my perspective a scholar-practitioner is someone who consciously integrates into his or her scholarship the insights culled from engaging in the practices prescribed by the tradition he or she researches, publishes about and teaches.

My practice deeply informs my scholarship because I’ve become aware of the contemplative hermeneutics underlying the visual material and textual cultures of the traditions that I teach.

My daily practice is an essential aspect of life, no less important than eating, exercising, and sleeping. What the latter three do for the body, contemplative and other related practices do for the mind. They nourish, strengthen, and also provide rest. They help to bring the mind to a place of both stillness and strength, through which awareness is heightened, and thinking can be done with focus and clarity.

To live a life according to the wisdom of ecology is the most urgent task for humanity today. What can the philosophy of yoga contribute to this critical challenge? How can we develop an environmental ethics according to yogic principles? What would a sustainable ethics based on yoga look like?

What is queer dharma? How does it serve the greater good? How can it provide a path toward healing during this year of global pandemic and social unrest?

We live the experience of divine ecology because we are nature. We are of the earth and know ourselves through…

These traditions, which seem to indicate a fluid and mutable approach to gender identities—often rooted in the idea that gender can be exchanged or, ultimately, transcended, are of increasing interest to queer practitioners seeking to examine religious traditions that embody the performative nature of gender.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a masterwork of spirituality, psychology and philosophy, are attributed to Patanjali. Compiled a few hundred years before the Common Era, these teachings arose out of a most prolific and sophisticated civilization – ancient India.