Book Review: The Path of Practice by Bri. Maya Tiwari
“An extraordinary book . . . [that] illuminates the wonderful truth of who we are. . . . As a result, we heal our bodies and our lives on the deepest levels.” ~ Christiane Northrup, M.D., Author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom
We are busy preparing for our 2019 Menopause, Wellness & Vitality Workshops. The workshop day is a content rich experience with plenty of time for discussion. We provide an extensive handout packed with information and includes a recommended reading list.
One book on the reading list is “The Path of Practice” by Bri Maya Tiwari. This is one of my all-time favourite books and is a powerful book for women interested in self-healing, self-care and practical lifestyle changes.
I discovered this book several years ago when my roommate on a Yoga Teacher Training course at the Anand Prakash Ashram recommended it. I headed off to one of the many bookstores on the banks of the Ganges in Rishikesh to purchase a copy. It is probably the best 295 rupees I have ever spent!
“The Path of Practice” is an honest sharing of Maya’s experience of healing from her diagnosis of ovarian cancer at the age of 23 to her journey using Vedic healing practices to heal herself. She undertook self-healing through meditation, the healing of her ancestral heritage, sound healing, silence, creating sacred space, breathwork and food sadhana. This was a deep process taking Maya from America to Rishikesh where she became a practising Vedic monk devoted to developing and sharing her knowledge of healing techniques.
May the universe never abuse food.
Breath is food. The body eats foods.
The body rests on breath.
Breath rests on the body.
Food is resting on food.
The one who knows this
becomes rich in food and great in fame.
– Taittiriya Upanishad (11.7)
The book is an easy to follow, step by step guide which is part auto-biography and part healing manual. For me the book gave me many “aha” moments, enabling me to journey deeper into my yoga practice and understand some of the practices that I was intuitively being drawn to. We were practicing many of the sadhanas at the Ashram so it was useful to be practicing as well as intellectually understanding the processes. Our sadhanas included full moon ceremonies to bask in the essence of the moon to heal shakti prana (feminine energies), holding ancestor ceremonies on the banks of the river Ganges, attending fire puja (rituals) to burn away impurities, chanting for healing and eating a sattvic (pure) diet.
“We are wellness. We are consciousness. That is our natural state. Disease is an impostor” – Bri Maya Tiwari
This book is designed for women by a woman but it does not preclude men. Maya states that this book is a “course in healing and in living.” She maintains that “all pain is a reminder that we have strayed from the natural rhythms of life,” and this book acts to guide us back. An easy to follow programme containing a wealth of knowledge and the depth of experience. It’s a profound read and calls us to get in tune with deeper universal rhythms.
This informative book is an enlightening read and a useful book to dip into for ongoing guidance. The practices can be incorporated into our daily life in order to live a more harmonious and healthy life. This book is a valuable tool at peri-menopause and menopause when we are being called to take stock, to review our habitats and to pay more attention to self-care.
“This is one of the simplest introductions to a step-by-step practice of sadhana for the uninitiated…. Her methods incorporate the healing nature of sound, food and breath and are easy to understand and follow to be in tune with natural rhythms.” – Book Reviews
