Yoga and the Jesus Prayer

Thomas Matus compares the yogic realization described by the Tantric Yogis of Hinduism and Buddhism with the personal testimony of a great Eastern Christian mystic, Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022). The convergence of their narratives in a shared symbolic language points to an 'analogy of experience' between them. On the basis of this analogy, Matus suggests that the awakening of hidden energies in the body - the 'kundalini experience' - can be understood as a fulfillment of the life of faith in Jesus. In this revised edition of his pioneering study of 1984, Matus goes beyond a purely theoretical reflection and offers both an account of his own experience as a Christian yogi and a clear description of the yogic rites and techniques into which he was initiated more than fifty years ago.