theseekingspirit

I recently attended a talk by Swami Sarvapriyananda in Sydney titled "Oneness in a Divided World." He covered a remarkable amount of ground — consciousness studies, neuroscience, references to philosophers like Karl Popper and David Chalmers — before finally arriving at the Advaita Vedantic view of oneness. It was a fascinating talk, and it left me thinking about the parallels between Advaita Vedānta and Yoga, and how each tradition arrives at its own view of oneness. Every contemplative tradition, it turns out, eventually arrives at the same question: who is doing the looking? Advaita Vedānta and Yoga both begin here, in the space between the seer and everything that is seen. But they arrive at different destinations — and understanding exactly where and why they part ways turns out to matter more for practice than for philosophy. The Advaita Vedantic Vision of Oneness Advaita Vedānta's method for approaching this question is called dṛg-dṛśya-viveka — discriminatio...

  In January 2025, I set out to read 25 books in 2025 (It had a a good ring to it!). Now in December, after having read the last page of book number 25, I feel a elated. Reading is not an easy endeavor in 2025. You have to resist the call of YouTube, Streaming channels, Cinema halls, Sports and Social engagements to stay the course.  From a humble book from a Zen Monk in January, to a humbling one on the the Cosmos, my reading journey was interesting.  I have shared summaries for each of the 25 books (they are also in chronological order). I have tried to capture the 'big idea' of the book and why is it worth your time.  I have also added a Netflix style 3 point summary, for those who want to grab and go... Book readers are a dying breed, and I am not sure how long we will be reading in the age of AI. If any of these inspire you to pick up a book in 2026 (and not let AI summarize it for you), please leave a comment below. Alternatively if you have read something tran...

A few years ago, my Yoga practicing friend asked me why he should read the Yoga Sutras when so much modern information was available about Yoga. He was learning the āsanas from a teacher, and having heard about the Sutras from me asked me why does he need to learn a bunch of Sanskrit verses written more than 2000 years ago? My immediate answer to him that Sutra's are an "exercise for the mind" just as āsanas are the "exercise for the body" didn’t seem to satisfy him. I searched for better answers and came up with several arguments to counter all the busy people and sceptics. I hope one or more of these will resonate with you. Before I launch into the reasons, a brief history on the Sutras.  Yoga Sutras are 195 verses 1  (aphorisms to be precise) that were composed more than 2000 years ago by the sage Pata ñ jali. These Sanskrit verses, that essentially fit into two A4 pages, describe an entire philosophy of Yoga. The commentaries on these sutras written by s...