The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living

I started reading this and the author immediately centers on his crush on a quintessential has-never-had-any-problems young beautiful male attorney he met at a yoga retreat--someone whom he feels everyone wants to be. The attorney encounters some minor life issues and recovers through--you guessed it--yoga. Anyone privileged enough to assign importance to these sorts of experiences (which are not problems) is not what I would consider a spiritual guide. If there is other material in this book that has to do with yoga, I didn't catch it because I was distracted by the classist nonsense.

Stephen Cope has become a writer I will follow for several reasons. This book has changed my life regarding yoga and its power to change us. His writing is comprehensive and inspiring - and actually, down right mind-blowing in what he brings to the reader. I will read more if his work. Thank You Stephen Cope.

I ordered this book before I did my yoga teacher training, since it was on the recommended reading list.It's a fascinating book that reads almost like a novel. I started reading it, then actually started over when I was just a few pages in so I could get a highlighter and mark the passages that really sang to me.The best part of this book, for me, was learning about metta meditation. Doing that meditation was the first time I was really able to let myself sink into a meditation, and it taught me an appreciation for and interest in further study of meditation.You might not find this book interesting if you're not into yoga. I would definitely recommend it, certainly for any yoga teacher or aspiring yoga teacher.

I started hot yoga six months ago for back pain and it has changed my life. Now, I want to have a deep understanding of it and started to study at home in addition to spending a session almost every day at my local studios.After googling for "best yoga books", "great yoga books", and "yoga books"...this one kept on appearing at the top of many lists, so I decided to purchase it. The book is great, reads like a novel and is highly recommended for those who are looking to increase their knowledge of yoga off the mat.

I've participated in yoga courses for quite a few years now on and off, --some excellent and some not so great, depending on the instructors. I have an excellent teacher now and she is about to offer a new course in meditation and yoga. This is the text for it. I am excited to be learning more about what yoga is all about on spiritual/philosophical/meditative levels. This book is easy to read and offers insights about yoga for the average Westerner and how it can both simplify and enrich your life and help you understand more about yourself and others, how you can become more mindful in your daily life. Life in the 21st century is crazy, fast-paced, and full of pressures, stresses, and negativity (war, global warming, worries about the economy). Yoga is one of various paths to greater understanding, serenity, clarity, and wisdom. Earlier this year I took a course called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction which included some yoga as well as meditation, and other exercises for reducing stress. This course resulted in my wanting to learn more about what is behind yoga and meditation, their history, to understand more about their modern-day and past expert practitioners. I guess the only thing that bothers me at all about the book is all of the unfamiliar terms that are introduced that I can't get fixed in my mind, but perhaps taking the course will help with that, or perhaps that doesn't matter so much. The book is easy to read and understand and is very informative and insightful.

This is my second time around reading this book. With a little age and wisdom behind me, it takes me much deeper and answers the questions I couldn't have answered before without experiencing life a bit more. The author does get a bit technical from a psychology point of view, but it is in the stories of the individual people and their struggles to find an authentic, peace filled way to live that we learn and grow from it. I don't doubt that at some point I will revisit these stories again in the future.

Great beginner book for those interested in yogic thought and building foundational understanding of yogic tradition. Great for new teachers and students who want to understand the search for wholeness not just how to do poses.

In his book, "The Wisdom of Yoga," Stephen Cope has created a small masterpiece. He has not tried to answer questions about man's place in the universe or or the existence of an external world. He has, however, by means of telling vignettes from the lives of people he knows well and insightful comments about what must be one of the most gnomic series of insights into the practice of Yoga, given the average reader a sence of what it is to become involved in the practice of Yoga and some of its life-changing potential. In addition to this, he has included illustrations from other belief systems, specifically Buddhist thought and Christianity that provide a wider context for his practice. The Yoga practioner, as well as the average person who would like to learn a little about Yoga, could both benefit from the wonderful book.

I’ve just read three of Stephen Cope’s books in succession and loved them all: The Great Work of Your Life, The Wisdom of Yoga and Deep Human Connection. They each offer a valuable distillation of more complex works enabling the lay reader, like me, to absorb truths that I otherwise may not have accessed. Stephen has a beautiful writing style and peppers his own thoughts and other quotes with stories that make his writing come alive. Each of the books I have is beginning to look rather battered as I have a tendency to keep referring back to them.

This book was very refreshing I am usually so drawn to facts and non-fiction. Whereas this book is a story of friends on the path of self discovery. The disclosure of each person's patterns and blocks gives you a great perspective of the range of people and issues which can attract you to yoga.The book itself is a sweet discription of what mindfulness is and the various stages in which you fall deeper into practice and peace.I felt like this book was really reaffirming. Nice read.

Loving it

Excellent book for all those wanting to know about yoga . Highly recommended

Always a wonderful read from Stephen Cope.