The Yoga of Relationships: A Practical Guide for Loving Yourself and Others

Unlike the western approach (5 love languages), where a love is fabricated by certain techniques without understanding our inner being. Sri Amrita Desai's approach is a practical inside out approach from Santana Dharma. It begin with reality check and inner journey of questions: what is my expectation with relations in outside world? Why am I expecting or desire for those expectation? So on so forth.The book is based on Patanjali's Yama and Niyamas - the most important yet highly ignored part of yoga in west.The actual sutras of Yama and Niyama are one or two line each. We need enlighten guru like Sri Desai to exemplify those sutra for our times. This book is exactly about that.

this teacher who has many gifts has yet to master the very things he pontificates.unfortunately for a neophyte they might be persuaded into thinking that there is real experience behind these bumper like sticker professions of how to interact with people.when one is constantly sitting on a throne( this amrit desai), elevated above the longtime ,seasoned practitioner there is a clear indication that there is no equal relationship.when one (this man) is needing to be saluted coming and going in a room like a president of a small country,when he gets impatient if one is standing in his sight line ( this happened to me) and he becomes indignant because its my path(!), one wonders, i know i have and did what kind of relationship do we actually have.at the ashram it was kind of slave ,master relationship and now in salt springs,fla. it is similar. the most significant relationship that this man and his family can write confidently about (and should) is how to make money and more money and keep it all in the family.there are better books out there. it is equal to many .

Phenomenal book. A must read for anyone in a relationship which is pretty much everyone. Gets to the heart of the matter. I have purchased a copy for my parents and plan on buying for my kids.

This is required reading for a training I have enrolled in. Otherwise probably would not read it

One of the best books ever on the simple truths of relationship with yourself, others, work and food. I highly recommend this for everyone. I bought it for all my friends for the holidays

Best relationship book I’ve ever read. I highly recommend it!

Learned tons from this book as my therapist recommended it to me. Have it on my bookshelf and just love this book

Yoga is defined as the union of the individual soul with the cosmic soul and the state of oneness with the higher self, so the yoga of relationships is about the double union between self and source and self and other. While we are born knowing our connection to source, we lose it through constant abrasion against the reality of our parents, peers, and surroundings. We then spend much of the rest of our lives trying to recapture this feeling of connection. Yogi Desai suggests that we use our relationships as mirrors to reflect back to us who we think we are, and may be attracted to another person because we like the image we think they see. These relationships with people, food, entertainment, substances may give us some temporary pleasure and relief from pain or fear, but they also may lead to addictions and dependencies. The most important relationship in our lives is the one we have with ourselves, and unless we love and accept ourselves, how can we expect others to love and accept us?"Understand that in all significant relationships, we project our own unmet emotional needs and desires onto those we love.”When life moves on and people change, we lose our anchor. We become fixated on holding on to the past because we fear the unknown that lies ahead. The only way to move forward and create a new future for ourselves is to release anger and adopt forgiveness – and that includes forgiving ourselves.There is a section about our relationship to food that many will resonate with. Yogi Desai points out that we often use food to fill our inner emptiness, a sign of spiritual starvation. We have distorted the basic function of food as a source of nourishment and made it primarily a source of pleasure. He urges us to return to the design of Mother Nature, treating food with respect and gratitude. To end spiritual starvation, start by feeding the soul. On a practical basis, he suggests eating half as much and chewing twice as long.The final chapter talks about love as union, and he already defined yoga as union, so the yoga of relationships is really the practice of rekindling the awareness of our union with the divine and of our essence as love. With this as our foundation we can move forward into any relationship with trust and joy.This is a small book with some profound (and possibly hard-earned) wisdom about relationships, and provides valuable food for thought.

A must read!