The Africans Who Mapped the Universe: Patanjali by Ajarn Shaman Shu
By Ajarn Shaman Shu (Robert S. Shumake) · Buddha University Press · On Google Play and Apple Books
Many yoga lineages trace themselves back to one text: the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. But who was Patanjali, and where did his science of the mind truly begin?
The Africans Who Mapped the Universe: Patanjali is a volume of the series by Ajarn Shaman Shu, who also publishes as Robert S. Shumake. It is a study of Patanjali, honored as the author of the Yoga Sutras, the classic map of the mind, meditation and liberation, and the source of the eight limbs of yoga.
Patanjali in two traditions
Tamil tradition holds that Patanjali is also one of the 18 Siddhars and an incarnation of Adishesha, the divine serpent. In this book, Ajarn Shaman Shu, with Shri Surya Nuranyana Swamikal, explores Patanjali's teaching and traces it back to what the book presents as the African roots of the inner sciences.
What the book explores
- Who Patanjali was in Siddha lineage, legend and history
- The Yoga Sutras: how a few short verses became the foundation of world yoga
- Stillness: the science of quieting the fluctuations of the mind
- The eight limbs of yoga, from ethics and posture to breath, concentration and samadhi
- The mind as Patanjali mapped it: awareness, attention and the obstacles to clarity
- The siddhis: the extraordinary powers described in the Sutras, and what they really mean
- The book's argument for an African thread running from the earliest inner sciences through the Siddhars to Patanjali.
Who it is for
The book is part history, part spiritual teaching and part reclamation. It is written for yoga practitioners and teachers, students of the Yoga Sutras and yoga philosophy, meditators and breathwork practitioners, and anyone curious about the book's argument for African origins in world spirituality.
Get the book
- Google Play Books: Patanjali
- Apple Books: Patanjali
- The Africans Who Mapped the Universe: Patanjali: He Wrote the Yoga Sutras, Stillness, the Mind and the Siddhis on robertshumake.co
robertshumake.co · Shiva University, Patanjali
About the author
Robert S. Shumake, publishing as Ajarn Shaman Shu, has lived two lives in one: the builder and the priest. In business, he rose from a Ford factory floor to become founding president and CEO of Inheritance Capital Group, a Black Enterprise-ranked private equity firm. He served as honorary consul for Botswana and Tanzania. In spirit, he received the name Ajarn Shaman Shu from the traditions that initiated him, including the Tamil Siddha line.
This page describes a book about a classical text. The African-roots thesis is the author's interpretation, presented as the book presents it. Reading about the siddhis is study, not a promise of any ability, and not initiation.