Illuminating Our True Nature | Free Book

Illuminating Our True Nature | Free Book

Steven Lv12
Yogic Practices for Personal and Collective Healing
Publisher:Shambhala
Published:June 2024
ISBN:9780834845664
Title:Illuminating Our True Nature
Author:Michelle Cassandra Johnson
Imprint:Shambhala
Language:English
Number of Pages:208
Dissolve hurtful patterns and emotional hardship through the five yogic points of suffering, or kleshas.

Includes powerful and practical meditations, mantras, asanas, reflection questions, and more, to reduce our suffering—and the suffering of others.


We all get stuck in hurtful patterns that continue to create more suffering in our lives. In yoga philosophy, these patterns are known as the five kleshas. In this wise, practical guide, Michelle Cassandra Johnson offers us a path toward developing a deeper understanding of them and how they hijack us emotionally.

The five kleshas are: ignorance (avidya); overidentification with ego (asmita); attachment to desire or pleasure (raga); aversion or avoidance (dvesha); and fear of death or letting go (abhinivesha). Each one leads us to create tendencies and karma that move us away from realizing and remembering our true nature and seeing ourselves as separate from one another and the planet. In yogic terms, this perpetuates a constant cycle of pain for us all.

Readers will learn to:
  • deepen their connection with self and others;
  • look at their relationship and attachment to pleasure and aversion to discomfort;
  • notice more fully how their actions affect others;
  • meet each moment as it arises and ride the waves of life as they come;
  • and much more

Johnson offers us a way to find a sense of clarity, groundedness, and equanimity within ourselves by working through the kleshas one-by-one using asana, pranayama, mudra, mantra, reflection questions, and meditation.

In The Press

“The demand for healing tools has never been greater in these critical times. Illuminating Our True Nature provides a comprehensive framework for connecting with ourselves through yoga. This profound work guides us toward personal healing and illuminates a path toward healing on a collective level, making it an essential resource for our current moment.”
Dianne Bondy, author of Yoga Where You Are
 
“Through her deep philosophical study and sharing of vulnerable lived experiences, Michelle Johnson offers meaningful tools for understanding and navigating the kleshas, afflictions that cause suffering, while steering the reader back to the path towards liberation.”
Tejal Patel, yoga teacher, podcaster, community organizer
 
“With remarkable generosity, Michelle Johnson equips us with the essential tools to take deliberate and compassionate action, facilitating positive change not only within ourselves but also within our communities and the broader world. This is an important book that should be read by anyone seeking liberation and desiring that same liberation for all.”
Seane Corn, author of Revolution of the Soul
 
“In this immediately useful book, Michelle serves as a compassionate guide to help you alleviate your personal suffering. When you do that work, you can then remove obstacles to our collective liberation.  Her approachable writing explains what could be opaque and inaccessible in clear language that will directly help you to help yourself—and everyone around you.”
Sage Rountree, PhD, E-RYT500, author of The Art of Yoga Sequencing and Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses

“Michelle Cassandra Johnson offers a powerful and unique perspective on the kleshas— five poisons rooted in ignorance that obscure the mind and close the heart. She asks us to consider not only how they cause suffering in our own lives, but how they contribute to systems of oppression. Her wise and compassionate counsel, coupled with practices of deep reflection, is the medicine we need to bring us home to our true nature and, in doing so, work toward the liberation of all beings.”
Linda Sparrowe, author of The Women’s Book of Yoga and Health and Yoga Mama


About the Author

MICHELLE CASSANDRA JOHNSON is an activist, social justice warrior, author, anti-racism consultant and trainer, intuitive healer, and yoga teacher and practitioner. She has led dismantling racism work in many settings for over two decades and has a background and two decades of practice as a clinical social worker. Michelle’s work centers on healing from individual and collective trauma, coming back into wholeness and aligning the mind, body, spirit, and heart. She has a BA from the College of William and Mary and an MA in social work from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She is the author of We Heal Together, Finding Refuge, and Skill in Action.

  • Title: Illuminating Our True Nature | Free Book
  • Author: Steven
  • Created at : 2024-10-22 18:45:38
  • Updated at : 2024-10-26 18:49:44
  • Link: https://novels-ebooks.techidaily.com/211241912-9780834845664-illuminating-our-true-nature/
  • License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
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Illuminating Our True Nature | Free Book