Ancient Scriptures, Modern Ethics:
Translating Yoga Philosophy For 
The Modern Global Citizen
Graham Schweig, PhD
 Sunday March 25th, 2012
11:00 am - 5:00 pm

Sharing in the life of the Heartfullness

There are sacred places deep within ourselves, deep within our hearts, and sacred places within others that remain secret

Graham M. Schweig, PhD - Ancient Scriptures, Modern Ethics: Translating Yoga   
                                                               Philosophy for the New Globalized World

There is a dimension of Yoga that is rarely explored. For it requires a life of meditation, and an intimate relationship with the Sanskrit language and the secrets of Yoga it communicates. It is this world of Yoga in which Graham Schweig has been dwelling for over forty years. 

Graham is well-known for making the inner teachings of the Secret Yoga, Bhagavad Gita and other texts of Yoga easily accessible. Through his insights, sense of humor and his knack for putting workshop participants at ease amid Sanskrit verses and sometimes challenging philosophy, he creates an atmosphere more of the heart than of the head.

It all began at the age of fourteen. Graham explored the timeless visions of life, of love, and the nature of immortality as illumined by the saints and sages of antiquity. At this early age, he became a vegetarian and took his various practices of Yoga so seriously that he dropped out of high school in order to receive training in Yoga. At this time, when many traditional teachers from India were arriving on the shores of America in the latter half of the '60s, he began and evolved his practice and understanding of Yoga. Graham's experiences in Yoga were enhanced by his many travels to India, to its sacred sites and holy persons, especially when he lived there for a year experiencing ashram life.

It was the sacred Sanskrit texts on Yoga that most attracted Graham, and his gentle probings of these powerful writings allowed him to connect with their deeper messages. Graham discovered that the very language of Sanskrit texts on Yoga contained a certain self-illuminating power, if accessed through meditation as well as scholarship, that would disclose extraordinary visions and experiences that are already resonating at the core of our being and from deep within our hearts. After three decades of mining their inner teachings and embedded secrets, and after earning his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Yoga traditions and comparative religion, Graham's eagerness to share them with the Western world led to his unique translation work. 

Today, Graham continues to mine Sanskrit gems from sacred Yoga texts, making their rare beauty and profound messages tangible to all hearts desirous of discovering the treasures of Yoga. He discovered the Secret Yoga as he was writing and translating for his first book entitled, Dance of Divine Love: India's Classic Sacred Love Story, published by Princeton University Press. The exquisite poetry and philosophy of this famous work of the Bhagavata Purana revealed how divine love dances eternally within the hearts of all souls, and is indeed that sacred dance for which we all long. The discovery that the greatest yogis, who were women known as the Vraja Gopikas, exemplified, through their living a life of Yoga, how to enter that eternal divine dance within their hearts at the deepest level of Yoga meditation and at the same time as the selfless unremitting dedication of their hearts in all of life. This is the highest samadhi, and it is this ultimate state of Yoga to which, knowingly or unknowingly, all forms of Yoga aspire. 

Since his teens, Graham had been reading and seriously studying many different translations of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most comprehensive classical writings on Yoga. It was only in the last few years that he produced his own translation and illumination of the text, entitled, Bhagavad Gita: The Beloved Lord's Secret Love Song, published by HarperOne. Graham points out that this famous text is certainly not a "song" or gita in the ordinary sense, but it is a song issuing forth from the very heart of the divine. As Graham states, "In every case, Yoga is not just something we do, something that we practice. Rather, Yoga is something that happens to us, something that is truly given to us. Each one of us experiences this in our own way, and the sacred texts on Yoga reveal this in the most compelling and inspiring ways." As he thus describes in his work, "Yoga is the mutual loving embrace between the human and the divine." We learn that there is a divine yearning in each of our hearts, and that there is a divine calling, a "secret song," a song of divine love coming to each one of us from deep within our hearts, that is ultimately revealed to us through Yoga practice. And this is the essential focus within The Secret Yoga seminars that Graham teaches

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