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Yoga, Power, And Spirit: Patanjali the Shaman
The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali is the classic text on the spiritual practice of yoga. Written more than 2,000 years ago, this work is a map to the fast track to enlightenment. They derive from an ancient oral tradition, when Devi, the Divine feminine, was worshiped. Yet, today, the Yoga Sutra is taught by priests and scholars from a masculine Hindu tradition that obscures the simple wisdom in it. Yoga, Power, and Spirit shows us that the Sutra is pre-Hindu, and that the power of Devi and enlightenment are available to us at all times, without guru, temple, or decades of study.
Yoga is the direct path to enlightenment. Patanjali taught that all knowledge was acquired directly from the Source. This book reveals how the power of Devi can guide the practitioner of yoga to sure and inevitable self-realization. Alberto Villoldo is a shaman who has practiced Yoga for 25 years, and embraced the way of the Divine feminine. He has traveled to the source of India's holy rivers in the Himalayas to rediscover the wisdom of the Sadhu, India’s ancient shamans. He brings to life the spiritual teachings of yoga in a pure, practical, and irreverent way—stripped of dogma and brimming with poetry and spirit.
Yoga is the direct path to enlightenment. Patanjali taught that all knowledge was acquired directly from the Source. This book reveals how the power of Devi can guide the practitioner of yoga to sure and inevitable self-realization. Alberto Villoldo is a shaman who has practiced Yoga for 25 years, and embraced the way of the Divine feminine. He has traveled to the source of India's holy rivers in the Himalayas to rediscover the wisdom of the Sadhu, India’s ancient shamans. He brings to life the spiritual teachings of yoga in a pure, practical, and irreverent way—stripped of dogma and brimming with poetry and spirit.
- GenresPhilosophySpirituality
167 pages, Hardcover
First published March 15, 2007
47 people are currently reading
185 people want to read
About the author
Alberto Villoldo
71 books355 followersBy his mid-20s Alberto Villoldo was the youngest clinical professor at San Francisco State University. He was directing his own laboratory, the Biological Self-Regulation Lab, investigating how energy medicine and visualization could change the chemistry of the brain.
One day in his biology laboratory, Alberto realized that his investigation had to get bigger instead of smaller; Alberto needed to find a system larger than the neural networks of the brain. The microscope was the wrong instrument to answer the questions he was asking. Many others were already studying the hardware – Alberto Villoldo wanted to learn to re-program the SYSTEM. Anthropological stories hinted that there were people around the globe who claimed to know such things, including the Inka in Peru, the few remaining “shamans” in today’s modern civilization.
As he did initial research into the Inka, Alberto decided that he needed to personally investigate the roots of the Inka civilization itself to collect the vestiges of a 5,000-year-old energy medicine known for healing through Spirit and light.
A few weeks later, knowing this investigation was not going to be a “part time” pastime or a brief sabbatical for a few weeks’ time, Alberto Villoldo resigned his post at the university.
University colleagues thought Alberto Villoldo was absolutely mad.
Not to be dissuaded, Alberto Villoldo traded his laboratory for a pair of hiking boots and a ticket to the Amazon. He was determined to learn from researchers whose vision had not been confined to the lens of a microscope, from people whose body of knowledge encompassed more than the measurable, material world that Alberto had been taught was the ONLY reality. He wanted to meet the people who sensed the spaces between things and perceived the luminous strands that animate all life.
Scattered throughout the remnants of this ancient Amazonian empire were a number of sages or “Earth Keepers” who remembered the ancient ways. Alberto traveled through countless villages and hamlets and met with scores of medicine men and women. The lack of a written body of knowledge meant that every village had brought its own flavor and style to the healing practices that still survived.
For more than 10 years, Alberto Villoldo trained with the jungle medicine people. Along the way, he discovered that his journey into shamanism had actually been guided by his personal desire to become whole.
In healing his own soul wounds, Alberto Villoldo walked the path of the wounded healer and learned to transform old pain, grief, anger and shame to sources of strength and compassion.
From the Amazon, Alberto Villoldo trekked the coast of Peru, from Nazca, the site of gigantic markings on the desert floor that depict power animals and geometric figures, to the fabled Shimbe lagoons in the north, home to the country’s most renowned sorcerers. Then, in Lake Titicaca – the Sea on Top of the World – Alberto Villoldo collected the stories and healing practices of the people from which, the legends say, the Inka were born.
Through it all, Alberto Villoldo discovered a set of sacred technologies that transform the body, heal the soul, and can change the way we live and the way we die.
These ancient teachings and understandings explain that a Luminous Energy Field (LEF), whose source is located in infinity, surrounds us. The LEF acts as a matrix that maintains the health and vibrancy of the physical body.
Today, Alberto Villoldo is a best-selling author and founder in the world-renowned Institute of Energy Medicine, The Four Winds Society. In all of his teachings and writings, Alberto shares the experience of infinity’s easy ability to heal and transform us, to free us from the temporal chains that keep us fettered to illness, old age and disease.
Over the course of two decades with the shamans in the jungles and high mountains of the Andes, Alberto Villoldo would discover that we are more than flesh and bone, that we are a
One day in his biology laboratory, Alberto realized that his investigation had to get bigger instead of smaller; Alberto needed to find a system larger than the neural networks of the brain. The microscope was the wrong instrument to answer the questions he was asking. Many others were already studying the hardware – Alberto Villoldo wanted to learn to re-program the SYSTEM. Anthropological stories hinted that there were people around the globe who claimed to know such things, including the Inka in Peru, the few remaining “shamans” in today’s modern civilization.
As he did initial research into the Inka, Alberto decided that he needed to personally investigate the roots of the Inka civilization itself to collect the vestiges of a 5,000-year-old energy medicine known for healing through Spirit and light.
A few weeks later, knowing this investigation was not going to be a “part time” pastime or a brief sabbatical for a few weeks’ time, Alberto Villoldo resigned his post at the university.
University colleagues thought Alberto Villoldo was absolutely mad.
Not to be dissuaded, Alberto Villoldo traded his laboratory for a pair of hiking boots and a ticket to the Amazon. He was determined to learn from researchers whose vision had not been confined to the lens of a microscope, from people whose body of knowledge encompassed more than the measurable, material world that Alberto had been taught was the ONLY reality. He wanted to meet the people who sensed the spaces between things and perceived the luminous strands that animate all life.
Scattered throughout the remnants of this ancient Amazonian empire were a number of sages or “Earth Keepers” who remembered the ancient ways. Alberto traveled through countless villages and hamlets and met with scores of medicine men and women. The lack of a written body of knowledge meant that every village had brought its own flavor and style to the healing practices that still survived.
For more than 10 years, Alberto Villoldo trained with the jungle medicine people. Along the way, he discovered that his journey into shamanism had actually been guided by his personal desire to become whole.
In healing his own soul wounds, Alberto Villoldo walked the path of the wounded healer and learned to transform old pain, grief, anger and shame to sources of strength and compassion.
From the Amazon, Alberto Villoldo trekked the coast of Peru, from Nazca, the site of gigantic markings on the desert floor that depict power animals and geometric figures, to the fabled Shimbe lagoons in the north, home to the country’s most renowned sorcerers. Then, in Lake Titicaca – the Sea on Top of the World – Alberto Villoldo collected the stories and healing practices of the people from which, the legends say, the Inka were born.
Through it all, Alberto Villoldo discovered a set of sacred technologies that transform the body, heal the soul, and can change the way we live and the way we die.
These ancient teachings and understandings explain that a Luminous Energy Field (LEF), whose source is located in infinity, surrounds us. The LEF acts as a matrix that maintains the health and vibrancy of the physical body.
Today, Alberto Villoldo is a best-selling author and founder in the world-renowned Institute of Energy Medicine, The Four Winds Society. In all of his teachings and writings, Alberto shares the experience of infinity’s easy ability to heal and transform us, to free us from the temporal chains that keep us fettered to illness, old age and disease.
Over the course of two decades with the shamans in the jungles and high mountains of the Andes, Alberto Villoldo would discover that we are more than flesh and bone, that we are a
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 26, 2021
”The yogi of the Sutras abhors excessive ritual and ceremoniousness. She disdains confining religious forms and breaks their patriarchal rules. She practices pranayama, or deep cyclic breathing; asana, the specific postures of yoga; and ekagata, or singlemindedness. These practices bring her to the direct experience of her True Self.”
May 30, 2023
This book opened my eyes to the amount of background and philosophy that is behind Yoga. Each move and each breath has meaning, and important lessons about life are taught in a meaningful way.
Although it did not inspire me to begin practicing Yoga, I am definitely more open to the art. This book will be one to read again.
8/10
Although it did not inspire me to begin practicing Yoga, I am definitely more open to the art. This book will be one to read again.
8/10
April 25, 2020
This book has been with me through tough weeks. Out of the blue, I couldn’t sleep. For days and days. I became on the edge, disturbed by the closing of a door or a simple cough and started to hear voices in my head. It was my mind running multiple trains of thoughts at the same time. To ease it, I went to the nearby park, laying down on the grass and enjoying the breeze and the shadows of the trees. Interestingly, the twittering of birds was actually making me so comfortable. I continued to walk then I found a nice tree to sit under. A cat approached me. Never in my life a cat approached me. They would always be on the edge and observing me from far, but this time it was different. Maybe because I was very calm, restless, and more importantly, uncalculating. I had a bottle of water with me and tried to water the cat, but it was greedy so I told it to go away.
I started looking at and admiring the soil, and I remembered how Buddha was enlightened while sitting under a tree and observing an ant. I felt like the world was peaceful, that it deserved all the peacefulness it was eager for. I started reading this book. I love the approach of the translator. No dogma, no bullshit, only the pure essence of the philosophy as it was intended, but with a modern lexicon. For example, in one part he wrote it as thus: “Practice samyana and you will have gained mastery over all the elements of creation: earth, air, fire, water ... space-time”. See what I mean when I said he’s keeping the essence of the wisdom, removing the dogma, and using a modern lexicon that our minds can relate to? The translator is a genius. The book is about the mind. That it is much more powerful than we are sometimes. That the only thing that can fool you is, you. That you can relax and enjoy yourself even amidst the suffering. Hell, I mean I was drowning in my pain, yet I was calmer than ever, yeah I can relate to the philosophy.
I started walking back home. All of a sudden, two fighter jets cut pass the air above me. They looked and sounded so aggressive and efficient and effective. We live near the military base and for the last few days some long-distance missiles where shot at my city Riyadh from Yemen south of us, so it seems our military is warming up just in case. I got so angry, but it was an anger without passion or energy, it was discontent. “Why all the hatred and misery”, I said under my breath. I felt like I was feeling all the pains of the world, something unusual to my personality; I never cared about world hunger or of the sort. I arrived home and took a shower. I’m taking so many showers since I started losing the sleep, sometimes up to 3 showers a day. They’re a leisure and an escape. While under the shower, I started thinking of Kurd, the musical scale. I understood it and felt it truly at that moment. It’s a scale admitting the sorrow of life, but not failing to enjoy it.
——
I just realized how naive I was, thinking I’m patient with my desires, that I’m master of my world. Yet when it comes to tastes and sensations, I overdose and sometimes eat what I’m trying to limit myself from eating. Don’t you face it sometimes? Aiming at something but failing here and there? Did you ever cheat on your diets? Having one more cigarette or bear? I think that is ok, as long as you don’t feel hopeless. Progress, is what matters after all!
I started looking at and admiring the soil, and I remembered how Buddha was enlightened while sitting under a tree and observing an ant. I felt like the world was peaceful, that it deserved all the peacefulness it was eager for. I started reading this book. I love the approach of the translator. No dogma, no bullshit, only the pure essence of the philosophy as it was intended, but with a modern lexicon. For example, in one part he wrote it as thus: “Practice samyana and you will have gained mastery over all the elements of creation: earth, air, fire, water ... space-time”. See what I mean when I said he’s keeping the essence of the wisdom, removing the dogma, and using a modern lexicon that our minds can relate to? The translator is a genius. The book is about the mind. That it is much more powerful than we are sometimes. That the only thing that can fool you is, you. That you can relax and enjoy yourself even amidst the suffering. Hell, I mean I was drowning in my pain, yet I was calmer than ever, yeah I can relate to the philosophy.
I started walking back home. All of a sudden, two fighter jets cut pass the air above me. They looked and sounded so aggressive and efficient and effective. We live near the military base and for the last few days some long-distance missiles where shot at my city Riyadh from Yemen south of us, so it seems our military is warming up just in case. I got so angry, but it was an anger without passion or energy, it was discontent. “Why all the hatred and misery”, I said under my breath. I felt like I was feeling all the pains of the world, something unusual to my personality; I never cared about world hunger or of the sort. I arrived home and took a shower. I’m taking so many showers since I started losing the sleep, sometimes up to 3 showers a day. They’re a leisure and an escape. While under the shower, I started thinking of Kurd, the musical scale. I understood it and felt it truly at that moment. It’s a scale admitting the sorrow of life, but not failing to enjoy it.
——
I just realized how naive I was, thinking I’m patient with my desires, that I’m master of my world. Yet when it comes to tastes and sensations, I overdose and sometimes eat what I’m trying to limit myself from eating. Don’t you face it sometimes? Aiming at something but failing here and there? Did you ever cheat on your diets? Having one more cigarette or bear? I think that is ok, as long as you don’t feel hopeless. Progress, is what matters after all!
February 13, 2009
Beautiful use of verse and adaptation of Patanjali's sutras. You can take a long time or short time in completing this book -- it depends on how you digest this kind of information. It would be nice to have commentaries on some of the passages: why the author chose certain words... Maybe even commentary on the significance of the change. The author says that he wanted to bring the feminine voice into the sutras; that is the purpose of this book. I think it would be ideal to have Patanjali's sutras available to you when reading this.
October 3, 2025
Read once and study for a lifetime
I took a course by Dr. Alberto Villoldo and another teacher based on this book. I picked up the book and each day I’ve read the lesson and it may take a lifetime to understand and apply them. I will follow what a college professor told me to do when reading a book. Read the book from cover to cover then wait a week and read it again, then in three, six and 12 months. If you do this you will get the most out of a book or whatever you are working on learning.
I took a course by Dr. Alberto Villoldo and another teacher based on this book. I picked up the book and each day I’ve read the lesson and it may take a lifetime to understand and apply them. I will follow what a college professor told me to do when reading a book. Read the book from cover to cover then wait a week and read it again, then in three, six and 12 months. If you do this you will get the most out of a book or whatever you are working on learning.
April 1, 2018
This is the kind of book one can and should read over and over again. Beautiful
April 8, 2019
Very enlightening introduction to the history of not only yoga, but the dogma and doctrine that can come with it. Excellent interpretation of the sutras in modern English.
August 14, 2010
A very consise book about Patanjali. Helps the reader understand how Yoga is not just about the asanas, nor just about prana (breath).
I like Villoldo; I think he's well trained with excellent teachers worldwide, and is able to make the connections between the different "schools" and philosophies.
This book helps practioners of Yoga understand how it came from a Shamanic background, and that those Shamans traveled to Siberia and across the Bering landmass to become the Shamans that are living in the Americas today.
I like Villoldo; I think he's well trained with excellent teachers worldwide, and is able to make the connections between the different "schools" and philosophies.
This book helps practioners of Yoga understand how it came from a Shamanic background, and that those Shamans traveled to Siberia and across the Bering landmass to become the Shamans that are living in the Americas today.
February 11, 2008
Daily Read, Simple translation of Patanjali. Good for meditation and practice. To help live by yoga.
January 21, 2009
Yoga Sutras - beautifully translated.
October 20, 2015
Beautifully written
Articulating a timeless text the writing draws the reader gently through great truths with out being trite or overly self conscious
Articulating a timeless text the writing draws the reader gently through great truths with out being trite or overly self conscious
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews