Customer Reviews

Yoga for Your Spiritual Muscles: A Complete Yoga Program to Strengthen Body and Spirit

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I am a former endurance athlete struggling with weight gain and back pain. I was given this book by a concerned friend. I thumbed through it, admired the exceptional quality, and placed it on my coffee table. When I could not even go for a long walk without pain, I started using the book, first choosing postures to address my spine. The benefits have been essentially immediate. It is well organized, light-hearted, and has proved to be a wonderful gift, indeed.

Yoga is becoming very popular these days, and yet there aren't very many books out there that present yoga as clearly or beautifully as Yoga for Your Spiritual Muscles. The message of this book is that yoga can help you develop not only your physical self but your inner self as well. I really like how the author lists specific inner qualities (like Peace, Compassion, Awareness, and 12 other "spiritual muscles") that you can develop and then provides complete chapters with postures, breathing exercises and meditations designed to enhance each "spiritual muscles".

This is by far the best yoga book I have ever encountered. The content, design, photography and overall feel of the book are superb. This book exemplifies everything yoga is and will be a tremendous asset to anyone wanting to start or go deeper into the path of yoga.

Rachel. Schaeffer has embraced, with considerable aplomb, an ancient subject often relegated to the "new age" bin. To the immediate benefit of those of us who are not card carrying politically correct, Ms. Schaeffer neither preaches nor patronizes- the operative word here is practical. The lovely presentation belies a simple, straightforward manual for effecting positive change in your life, period. This is the dog-eared keeper that gets sent to a brother, sister, or friend, maybe even a parent, in a fit of good will....

The idea behind this book is very different from the other yoga books I've read and seen. While it provides clear instruction in the postures and breathing techniques, everything is organized into chapters that focus on developing what the author calls "Spiritual Muscles." These Spritual Muscles are personal qualities that we all have and can develop using yoga. Another nice thing about the book is that you can start at almost any chapter. I started with the Confidence chapter and have been doing it for about a week. I'm kind of surprised to say that doing the postures in this one chapter has actually made me feel more confident in general. I just feel like I am more able to take on the challenges that come my way, in my everyday life. So I think that the author hit upon a unique and useful way to organize yoga. I recommend this book to anyone out there. I've been doing yoga for about five years and have taken classes and used other books and like this book best. I think that a total beginner could make good use of it, and I also believe that more experienced people will get something out of it too.

I have been yoga enthusiast for about 10 years and over this time I have taken classes in Integral Hatha, Kundalini, Iyengar and other forms of yoga as well as checked out various video and audio cassettes. Rachel Schaeffer's book entitled "Yoga for Your Spiritual Muscles" is a winner! YFYSM is a beautiful esthetically, is also immensely practical and is loaded with useful photographs. The book is unique and covers a wealth of postures, breathing techniques, anecdotal stories as well as good advice. Practicing yoga from this book works perfect within my busy lifestyle and I'm sure my copy will be dog-eared in no time. Perhaps the best thing about the book is its organization into chapters representing personal attributes such as energy, balance, focus, flexibility, etc. The grouping as such strengthens my intention around my inner work on my "spiritual muscles". Lastly, YFYSM is appropriate for all age groups and levels of experience.

I love this book. It is one of a kind. Easy to use. There are 12 spiritual muscles to work with. You can use the book in the order you wish. The author encourages you to make your own yoga posture. A treasure of a book.

This book is a great resource for developing a home practice, and learning about the spirtual benefits of yoga.