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Yogi Blues: The Bhagavad Gita & The Yoga of Despair

huffingtonpost.com

Popular wisdom, from doctors and moms alike, is that yoga and happiness go hand in hand. Photographs and renditions of enlightened yogis often wear beatific smiles. So ingrained is this image, of the peaceful, blissful yogi, that sometimes even dedicated practitioners are lured into a false imitation of the state of brahma-nirvana (transcendence) or samadhi (trance), seeking to meet the expectations of a yoga culture that puts happiness up on a pedestal. But are “real” yogis immune to despair? Is despondency somehow antithetical to yoga? The premier treatise on Yoga philosophy, the Bhagavad Gita—a classic from ancient India—sheds some light on these questions and, in doing so, expands our understanding and appreciation for the human condition...

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