Dave Deluca - Sacred Jewels of Yoga: Wisdom from India’s Beloved Scriptures, Teachers, Masters, and Monks

In all nations there are minds which incline to dwell on the conception of the fundamental Unity. This tendency finds its highest expression in the religious writing of the East, and chiefly in the Indian Scriptures; in the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Vishnu Purana.

From every sentence of the Upanishads deep, original and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest spirit. In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. They are destined sooner or later to become the faith of the people.

Mystical states of mind in every degree are shown by history, usually though not always, to make for the monistic view. The paragon of all monistic systems is the Vedanta philosophy of Hindostan.

I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmological philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial.

India is the mother of religion. In her are combined science and religion in perfect harmony, and that is the Hindu religion, and it is India that shall be again the spiritual mother of the world.

In all the world there is no kind of framework within which we find consciousness in the plural. This is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals. But it is a false construction the only solution to this conflict, in so far as any is available to us at all, lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishads.

When I read the Bhagavad Gita and reflect about how God created this universe, everything else seems so superfluous.

Mankinds origins can be traced to India, where the human mind got the first shapes of wisdom and virtue with a simplicity, strength and sublimity which has frankly spoken nothing, nothing at all equivalent in our philosophical, European world.

When we read the poetical and philosophical monuments of the East above all, those of India, which are beginning to spread in Europe we discover there truths so profound, that we are constrained to bend the knee before the philosophy of the East, and to see in this cradle of the human race the native land of the highest philosophy.

The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of lifes wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant, I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of the Semitic race, may draw the corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human a life again I should point to India.

The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. It is one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed; hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity.

The apparent multiplication of gods is bewildering at the first glance, but you soon discover that they are the same GOD. There is always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendent God includes all possible gods.

The Bhagavad Gitais the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.

Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India.

New World Library
14 Pamaron Way
Novato, California 94949

Copyright 2011 by Dave DeLuca

An earlier version of this book was published under the title Spiritual Jewels.

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sacred jewels of yoga : wisdom from Indias beloved scriptures, teachers, masters, and monks / compiled and edited by Dave DeLuca.

p. cm.

An earlier version of this book was previously published under the title Spiritual jewels.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-60868-040-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Yoga. 2. Sacred booksYoga. 3. IndiaReligion. 4. Philosophy, Indic. 5. Hindu philosophy. I. DeLuca, Dave.

B132.Y6S313 2011

181'.45dc23 2011019874

First printing, August 2011

ISBN 978-1-60868-040-5

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

New World Library is a proud member of the Green Press Initiative.

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T his anthology is meant to give lovers of yoga a reference book in which they will be able to easily find cherished passages from some of the most revered yoga scriptures and commentary in Indias history. Because yoga is one of the oldest living religious words, and because over the millennia it has had so many different and even contradictory meanings, I wanted to present yogas most important source scriptures and teachings in the clearest and most accessible way possible: in one-page passages where readers can experience for themselves the original and highest intent for the word, the wisdom, and the practices of yoga.