The Importance of a Good Book
The last five months have been an immersion into self study and absorbing as many spiritual books as I possibly can. My reading list seems to be getting longer by the day and at times I find I have up to five books on the go!
The catalyst for this time of such dense reading was “The Path of Practice” by Bri Maya Tiwari. My roommate at the Anand Prakash Ashram recommended it so 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!
“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
“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. She undertook to heal herself 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.
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, 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.
