Georg Feuerstein (27 May 1947 – 25 August 2012) was a German Indologist specializing in the philosophy and practice of Yoga. Feuerstein authored over 30 books on mysticism, Yoga, Tantra, and Hinduism. He translated, among other traditional texts, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita.

Biography

Feuerstein was born in Würzburg, Germany. He moved to England to do his postgraduate research at Durham University and subsequently lived for 23 years in the United States. In 2004, Georg and his wife and spiritual partner, Brenda L Feuerstein, moved to Saskatchewan, Canada and in 2012 he became a citizen of Canada, where he died 25 August 2012 due to complications from diabetes. He was an early Life member of the Indian Academy of Yoga at Benares Hindu University.

Reception

Historian of religions Mircea Eliade called Feuerstein's The Philosophy of Classical Yoga, "one of the most profound and original contributions to the understanding of classical yoga". His books Tantra: Path of Ecstasy and The Deeper Dimension of Yoga have each been cited academically over 200 times. Yoga Journal described him as "one of the most highly regarded scholars on Hinduism in the West". One of its journalists, Holly Hammond, added that as well as being one of the most prolific of yoga scholars, he was "no dry academic; his scholarship is directly relevant to spiritual practice".