It is well known that the practice of yoga asanas can promote physical health. Less widely known is how these exercises can contribute to emotional well-being, psychological growth, and spiritual understanding. In this book, Swami Sivananda Radha, one of the most prominent leaders of yoga in America today, explains the broader nature and purpose of the yoga asanas. Each posture is like a symbolic gesture that creates a specific effect on the mind and invites reflection on a psychological or spiritual quality. Working with metaphor, symbolism, imagery, and visualization, Swami Radha explores twenty-two of the most common asanas and guides the student to discover their inner meaning and gain a deep appreciation of the power of yoga as a tool for self-transformation. Swami Radha has definitely emerged as the leading interpreter of Hatha Yoga from within that tradition.- Georg Feuerstein, author of Structures of Consciousness This book is an experience not tobe missed. - New Age Retailer Swami Sivananda Radha approaches Yoga as an art--the asanas being a poetic bodily expression of that art. Each of the asanas is presented as a symbolic gesture, unifying body, mind and breath. As one sinks more deeply into each asana, it becomes a mudra, a sacred expression of a deep inner truth. -North American Board for East-West Dialog Swami Sivananda Radha was initiated into the sacred order of Sanyas in 1956, becoming the first Western woman Swami. She is the founder of Yasodhara Ashram in Canada, the Association for the Development of Human Potential in the U.S., and many urban centers, called Radha Houses, in North America and Europe. Her books, Kundalini Yoga for the West, Realities of the Dreaming Mind, Mantras: Words of Power, and From the Mating Dance to the Cosmic Dance are also published in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese.