Leanne Whitney, PhD, is author of Consciousness in Jung and Patanjali. She is a transformational coach and also teaches yoga philosophy to yoga teachers. Her website is https://leannewhitney.com/.

Here she discusses the meaning of the Sanskrit terms yama, niyama, pranayama, asana, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi — as well as related concepts such as drishti, kaivalya, samskara, vriti, samyama and avidya. She points out that the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali can be read from either a dualist or non-dualist point of view. From the non-dualist point of view, everything is brahman or consciousness. Enlightenment, therefore, is not something to be achieved. It is already everywhere. We play hide-and-go-seek with ourselves.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is a past vice-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology; and is the recipient of the Pathfinder Award from that Association for his contributions to the field of human consciousness exploration.

(Recorded on November 22, 2019)

Published on December 22, 2019