The original name of the Wisdom Insights was Renovatio Sutras. Outside of this book they are being referred to by their original name. So, you will see that name on the bookmarks, greeting cards, and prints that are sold. In this appendix, I give a brief explanation of how the original name came about.
One of the books that I read and felt a deep connection to when I started walking down my spiritual path was Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. The term sutra comes from the Sanskrit meaning verses. Most people when they hear the word yoga think of the physical poses, but there are more aspects to yoga than just the poses: self-contemplation and a higher level of perception of one’s self and the world around us is just one of them. Pantanjali is credited with pulling together in one place these reflections and publishing them. The yoga sutras are collections of sayings on Vedic doctrine dating from about 200 CE onward. I loved how this knowledge was distilled into a very brief verse. Since the sutras were originally written in Sanskrit, they had to be translated into English, and then that distilled sentence had to be elaborated on with a commentary. In the first two books that I bought, I struggled a bit with the author’s translations of the sutras, and even more with their commentaries. Then, I stumbled across a translation and commentary that resonated with me. In this translation, I found that I could immediately connect to the ancient wisdom. It was because of this book that I developed a deep connection to the verses.
One evening I was watching the movie The Island, with Ewan McGregor, and in it one of the characters had a boat called Renovatio. The character explained that it is the Latin word for “rebirth.” I paused the movie and had one of those moments in which I questioned, “Wait, what was that; what was just said?” In that moment, I reflected on the six years that I had studied Latin from when I was eight years old (I was terrible at it, but did gain an interest in Roman history), and I felt a strong connection to the word renovatio, not only from those early experiences learning Latin but also because it seemed to summarize how the insights helped me to change my perception of myself and the world around me—for me, it was like a rebirth. I knew then that I had to call my insights the Renovatio Sutras.