Four stages of yoga

THE FOUR STAGES OF YOGA is an anthology of stories and conversations that encompass the journey yogis take from birth to the last moments of life. Here, we see how Vedic India's classic Four Ashrams of Life are experienced in the context of a yoga community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Just as Vedic myths have been carried down through eons to entertain and enlighten us, the true stories and visions encompassed herein speak to the very heart of living yoga in an everyday world. The first stage includes stories of childbirth and how yogis can draw a spiritual soul into their family, to rites of passage for children and how yogic schools for young adults help instill and deepen compassion. During the creation of a unique yoga college come stories of visits with the Dalai Lama at his home in McLeod Ganj, as well as experiences with yogis, rishis and mystics throughout India.

In the second stage of life we explore how householder relationships evolve; conscious work for those with monastic tendencies; how Vedic astrology can assist our lives as well as how yogis approach love, romance and celibacy and the mysticism that surrounds a yogic marriage ritual. In the third stage we are introduced to how yogic couples, singles and monastics are living their lives in creative new ways. The fourth stage offers reports of those embracing the Vedic sannyas vows and how they live their lives during this remarkable and powerful stage of surrender and transcendence. Conversations with rishis, yogic psychics and those experiencing this cycle provide a lens that offers hope and satisfaction for the last stages of life and the final preparation for death and the afterlife.