Interviews on Sutra Journal

Interviews

Christopher Tompkins on the Origins of Vinyasa

November, 2015 by Vikram Zutshi

Well, to date I don't know of a single publication on the history of yoga, including the recent BRILL Encyclopedia entry on Yoga, which has recognized and accurately depicted the fundamental and critical place of Yoga in the thousand year long tradition of Tantra, so revolutionary for its major contribution to the yoga tradition, including the Hatha based innovation of non-seated Asana sequencing. Instead Western scholarship in particular has simply skipped over it, and has... read more

Mark Dyczkowski in Conversation

February, 2016 by Lea Horvatic

Dr. Mark Dyczkowski is one of the world’s foremost scholars on Tantra and Kashmiri Trika Shaivism and has lived and worked in India for close to forty years. Both a scholar and a practitioner, he was initiated by the great Indian teacher Swami Laksmanjoo in the year 1976. He has an undergraduate degree from Banaras Hindu University and a Ph.D. from Oxford University, where he researched Kashmir Shaivism under the guidance of Professor Alexis Sanderson. read more

Interview with Gopi Krishna on Consciousness and Kundalini

October, 2015 by Pandit Gopi Krishna

This interview with Gopi Krishna was conducted in New Delhi in the mid-1970s by a reporter for a UNESCO publication in India.

The mystical vision is like the awareness gained by one when awake. I must make this clear, with all the emphasis at my command and in full conformity to what has been as emphatically stated by mystics of the past that the objective world disappears, like a phantom, in the illuminating blaze of mystical consciousness. read more

Interview: Anneke Lucas - Liberation Prison Yoga

August, 2015 by Vikram Zutshi

Sutra Journal Editor Vikram Zutshi interviewed Anneke Lucas on her compelling life story and powerful work at Liberation Prison yoga. What followed was heart rending, uplifting and humbling. Without much further ado, here is their conversation ... read more

Tibet's Secret Temple: Body, Mind and Meditation in Tantric Buddhism

January, 2016 by Ian Baker and Vikram Zutshi

Beyul are places where the physical and spiritual worlds are said to intersect and where meditative and yogic practices are said to be most effective. Located in remote regions of the Himalayan mountain range, beyul are also places known for their extraordinary bio-diversity and physical beauty. The biggest lesson that I learned from staying for extended periods in several such hidden-lands is that wild and untamed landscapes can open us to dimensions of experience that are often overlooked in more tempered read more

Interview with Christopher Chapple

November, 2015 by Sutra Journal

Chris Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Loyola Marymount University. He served as Assistant Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions and taught Sanskrit, Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism for five years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook before joining the faculty at LMU. He co-founded LMU’s program in Asian and Pacific Studies, chaired the Department of Theological Studies for five years, and served as Associate Academic Vice President... read more

Malathi Iyengar on Dance, Yoga and Rasa

January, 2016 by Lea Horvatic

Malathi Iyengar is a Los Angeles based choreographer, dancer, teacher, writer, and visual artist. Iyengar holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Choreography and Performance from University of California, Los Angeles. Iyengar studied Bharatanatyam (classical dance of India) with guru Narmada of Bangalore, India and choreography and improvisation under the mentorship of Marion Scott. read more

Daniel Odier in Conversation

March, 2016 by Lea Horvatic

Daniel Odier is a Swiss author and screenwriter and a prolific writer on Eastern religious traditions, especially Tantra, had a mystical initiation from a tantric dakini, Lalita Devi, in Kashmir. Odier also received dharma transmission from Jing Hui, abbot of Bailin Monastery and dharma successor of Hsu Yun, using the name "Ming Qing". He founded the Tantra/Chan centre in Paris, which operated from 1995 to 2000, and has taught courses on Eastern spiritual traditions at the University of California. read more

In Conversation with Dr.Jeffery Long - Dharma, Religion and Politics

November, 2015 by Vikram Zutshi

Rather like maya in the teaching of Shankara, it is both real and unreal. The American academy of South Asian Studies and of religion in South Asia is not a monolith. It is extremely diverse. It is not uncommon for scholars to pursue this field of study because, like me, their lives have been transformed in positive ways by these traditions. read more

Reimagining the Mahabharata: In Conversation with Karthika Naïr

January, 2016 by Vikram Zutshi

The more I look at the past, the more I feel that multiplicity of perspectives and guidelines and divergence of thought is not a modern phenomenon as we often pigeonhole it. And absolutisms and binaries can be very reductive; they are also more often the non-practitioners’ predilection. Most of the dancers and choreographers I know are keener on collaborating, on finding ways of entering each other’s worlds than in drawing up hierarchies. read more

Marshall Govindan on Thirumandiram and the Tamil Yoga Siddhas

July, 2016 by Vikram Zutshi

Marshall Govindan (or Yogacharya M. Govindan Satchidananda) is a Kriya Yogi, author, scholar and publisher of literary works related to classical Yoga and Tantra and teacher of Kriya Yoga. He is the President of Babaji's Kriya Yoga and Publications, Inc., and the President of Babaji's Kriya Yoga Order of Archaryas, a lay order of more than 25 Kriya Yoga teachers operating in more than 20 countries. read more

An Interview with Ray Maor on Living without Food

January, 2016 by Virochana Khalsa

A Breatharian, unlike most people think, is a person that uses mostly energy as his primary source of energy. This is the reason why a Breatharian does not feel hunger or thirst. A Breatharian can eat or drink if he chooses to and most Breatharian I am familiar with do eat or drink, only in small quantities and not out of a necessity. They will mostly eat or drink for social situations like being with the family or on holidays. read more

HER Farm: Fighting Domestic Abuse in Nepal

November, 2015 by Sutra Journal

Her Farm started out as a home for women and their children, who needed a safe-haven to escape domestic abuse. It was Sunita’s idea and based on her own life experience. Her parents were hoping for a son, but got a daughter, which isn’t a joyous occasion in Nepal. A daughter represents a future dowry to pay, and a daughter cannot perform burial rites under Hindu law, to ensure proper passage of parents from this life. read more

Asko Parpola on The Roots of Hinduism

July, 2016 by Vikram Zutshi

In this article Prof. Parpola engages in a wide ranging discussion with Vikram Zutshi, Dr. Debashish Banerji and Dr. Jeffery Long on several fascinating topics related to his ouevre. read more

Subhash Kak in Conversation

July, 2016 by Vikram Zutshi

Subhash Kak is an Indian American computer scientist. He is Regents Professor and a previous Head of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University – Stillwater who has made contributions to cryptography, artificial neural networks, and quantum information. read more

Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: In Conversation with Sudhir Kakar

January, 2016 by Vikram Zutshi

At the beginning of my practice in India, I was acutely aware of the struggle within myself between my inherited Hindu-Indian culture and the Freudian psychoanalytic culture that I had recently acquired and in which I was professionally socialized. My romantic Indian vision of reality could not be easily reconciled with the ironic psychoanalytic vision, nor could the Indian view of the person and the sources of human strengths be reconciled with the Freudian view... read more

Waking, Dreaming, Being: In Conversation With Evan Thompson

December, 2015 by Vikram Zutshi

The central idea is that the self is an experiential process, not a thing or an entity. How we experience having or being a self, including experiences we may have of losing or transcending the self, depends on our mode of consciousness - whether we’re awake and attentive, lost in thought, falling asleep, dreaming, having a lucid dream, deeply asleep, having an out-of-body experience, meditating in the waking or lucid dream states, or experiencing dissolution at death. read more

"The Last Queen of Kashmir" Rakesh Kaul in Conversation

May, 2016 by Vikram Zutshi

Conversation with Rakesh Kaul, the author of the novel "The Last Queen of Kashmir" about the life of little known 14th century Queen Kota Rani, who ruled the lands in the face of adversity. read more

A Conversation with Chogyal Rinpoche (podcast)

January, 2016 by Phillip Goldberg and Dennis Raimondi

Chogyal Rinpoche was born in Nepal in 1985. At the age of five, he entered into monastic life at Rumtek Monastery, founded by the 16th Karmapa. He earned a Khenpo degree in Buddhist Philosophy and spent many years studying meditation and Vajrayana ritual practice. Today, he travels the worldteaching Buddhist philosophy and meditation and helping others through non-profit organizations he founded, such as the Sertshang Orphanage Home in Kathmandu, the Music Academy for underprivileged children in Indi read more

Mark Baron on Collecting Early Lithograph Prints of Hindu Gods

March, 2016 by Vikram Zutshi

India’s Hindu god and goddess prints go back about a hundred and fifty years. Our collection focuses on the first fifty years, starting with mid-19th century woodblock prints from Calcutta. We have a large collection of 19th century lithographs, many hand-colored, from early Calcutta publishers/presses. read more

Sanskrit in the Mughal Court

December, 2015 by Vikram Zutshi and Audrey Truschke

Audrey Truschke’s work concerns literary and historical interactions between members of the Sanskrit and Persian traditions in Mughal India. Her current project investigates the literary, social, and political history of Sanskrit as it thrived in the Mughal courts from 1560 to 1650. read more

A Conversation with Dr. Richard Miller

October, 2015 by Vikram Zutshi

Yoga Nidra is an ancient and comprehensive approach to meditative self-inquiry, awakening, and enlightenment that leads to the fundamental realization of our essential nondual nature that we share in common with all of life. The aim of this practice is to enable us to realize, or awaken to the Mystery that all life - sentient and insentient - arises from and into which it dissolves and remains not-separate. read more

Conversation with Rabbi Rami Shapiro (Podcast)

March, 2016 by Philip Goldberg and Dennis Raimondi

Rabbi Rami is an ordained rabbi who describes himself as “a freelance theologian making my living writing and talking.” A boundary crosser, he draws from all the world’s spiritual traditions, and his path has gone through Zen and Vedanta Hinduism in addition to his ancestral Judaism. read more

Sally Kempton (podcast)

December, 2015 by Philip Goldberg and Dennis Raimondi

Sally Kempton was a well-known journalist in the early 1970s when she met Swami Muktananda and began working closely with him. She was initiated into the Saraswati order of monks and taught in the Siddha Yoga lineage as Swami Durgananda for 20 years. After leaving the monastic life in 2002, she became a highly popular teacher, workshop leader and author whose books include Meditation for the Love of It, Awakening Shakti and Doorways to the Infinite. We spoke about her fascinating life and work... read more

On Krishna: Interview with Artist Keshav Venkataraghavan

October, 2015 by Bhagavad Gita, Mirabai, Keshav

You are the primal God, the ancient Spirit, You are the supreme resting place of all the universe, You are the knower, the object of knowledge, and the supreme state. All the universe is pervaded by you.

Includes Interview with Keshav - Our understanding of art is to view it as a whole, not just painting, but the entire gamut of the fine arts – like sculpture, dance, music, architecture, etc. It is to make the artist complete in every sense of the term. read more

Yogacharya Ellen O’Brian (Podcast)

December, 2015 by Philip Goldberg and Dennis Raimondi

Yogacharya is the Spiritual Director of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment in San Jose CA. Ordained to teach by Roy Eugene Davis, a direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, she is the author of several books, a frequent speaker at conferences worldwide, a leader of service projects and host of The Yoga Hour on the Unity FM network. We spoke about her work, her unique background and her observations of the contemporary spiritual scene. read more

A Conversation with Charles Tart (podcast)

November, 2015 by Philip Goldberg and Dennis Raimondi

Charles T. Tart. Dr. Tart is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, and is renowned for his research on consciousness and parapsychology. One of the founders of transpersonal psychology, he is the author of many books, including Altered States of Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychologies. His most recent book is The End of Materialism. We spoke of science and spirituality and the many lessons he’s learned over half a century of research and scholarship. read more

A Conversation with Christopher Chapple (podcast)

November, 2015 by Philip Goldberg and Dennis Raimondi

Dr. Chapple is a professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The author of numerous academic articles and books, he has taught Sanskrit, Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, and in 2013 established the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies program. We spoke about his own spiritual history, his distinguished academic career and his experience creating the first ever masters degree program in Yoga Studies. read more

Interviews

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