'Yoga Taravali' English E-Book released today

On this Guru Pournami day, a new English E book is being released from us.

Sri Ramakrishna says, 'God is the guru of all the worlds. He is the One who teaches. What can a human guru teach? Unless God acts through him, a human guru cannot teach'.

A real guru is connected to the Lord and reflects only His light. I am not speaking about the false gurus who are everywhere, duping the gullible. How to recognize them? If what they do is different from what they preach, know them to be false. If they run after money, power and comforts, know them to be false. If they deviate freely from the ancient tradition, know them to be false. If they exhibit cheap miracles, know them to be false. If anybody claims that he is the incarnation of God, know him to be the biggest of all frauds.

Leaving the false gurus to their fate, let us on this day, remember with reverence the first guru of all worlds, Lord Siva, followed by the great rishis Vyasa and others, Buddha, Patanjali, Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Abhinava Gupta, Sri Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi and Jillellamudi Amma, who were the real teachers of the world.

It has been one year since our Telugu book 'Yoga Taravali' with my commentary was first released. Today, the same book is being released in its English version. It is good to remember that this book was authored by the great Adi Sankara. I consider myself blessed by being able to write a commentary on this seminal work.

Above all, Adi Sankara gave utmost importance to the experience of Advaita. So, he never touched the Yoga system. But, he wrote a small book in 29 verses, touching the most important practices of Yoga. If Sankara existed in 1st century BC as has been claimed by the Kanchi Mutt with documentary proofs, the age of this book is 2000 years.

In Indian Astrology, we have what are known as Yoga Taras or brightest stars. A constellation is named after the brightest star it has. So, to give an example, Aswini is not a single star, but a group of three stars with the name Aswini pointing at the brightest star of the constellation. Similarly, though there are innumerable techniques in the system of Yoga, some of them shine very brightly like the Yoga Taras of the constellations. That is why Adi Sankara chose this name for the title of his book which explains the best of the Yogic sadhanas. This is my commentary on the Acharyas' great narration in Sanskrit.

This book briefly touches upon the core techniques of Hatha and Raja Yoga systems. Interested seekers will do well to get initiated into them from a real guru to experience the results promised.

As usual I thank all my disciples who helped me in writing this book. My special thanks to Ganesh Alla from Detroit, USA, who very ably translated this book from Telugu to English, for the benefit of English readers. 

You can have this book from google play books, here.