Yoga and Buddhism in the life of a contemporary person

The theme of this book is Yoga and Buddhism as a way of life. It is a small selection of texts that Květoslav Minařík wrote during three decades as answers to the questions and problems of those interested in the spiritual life and spiritual teachings. Květoslav Minařík chose and prepared those texts for translation in 1973.

Excerpt:

Those who constantly strictly adhere to the commandments of yama and niyama, will achieve a transformation of the qualities of the natural emotional states. They will qualitatively advance in the order of creation, rise above the sphere of beings who are suffering and unhappy into the sphere of beings living harmoniously. Then they will even cross the boundary of the physically limited beings and reach the sphere of the supersensory existence. By that, they will prove for themselves, that they can and have to solve the problem of an unhappy life only by putting the transformation, or change of thought and feeling, into practice. They will realise that, by the constant moral purification and hygiene understood in the sense of niyama, they are raising themselves among gods, into the sphere of pure and blissful experiencing, to the place where their intuition itself suggests to them an idea of the highest happiness.
 

Contents:

Foreword to the English translation
Introductory note
On Yoga in general
1. Yoga
2. Yogic practice
3. Yoga and intellect
4. Yoga for everyone
Explanation for the mystical practice
1. Why to develop joyful mood
2. Why to concentrate
3. Why to concentrate on feet and legs
4. A Warning
5. Nirvana
On Breathing practices and pranayama
Yoga and health
1. Foreword
2. Issue of health
3. Field of interest of yoga
4. Directing and effects of the essences
5. Issue of nourishment
6. The significance of breath
7. Hatha yoga
8. Conclusion
Yoga and mental health
Four outcomes of the spiritual effort
Eight comments
1. Aim of Yoga
2. The Spiritual leader
3. Overcoming of sexuality
4. ‘The Lie’ as a hindrance
5. Immortality
6. Path of development
7. The Role of sexual awakening
8. Elements in mysticism
On the mystical development
An Impression from Bratislava
Relationship between the mystical development and knowledge
Problematic issues of spiritual development
Mysticism and the problem of sexuality
The Greatest hindrance
The Mystical path by means of transformations of elements
On four Buddhist jhanas
From Hradec Kralove
Initiation and self-initiation
On the higher Buddhist jhanas
Speculation and reality
Glossary of terms
References