Word yoga sounds familiar. Unfortunately, our image of yoga lacks in original wisdom
We regard it as fitness exercises. However, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (authority on yoga) calls exercises as peripheral. We benefit from exercises, but lose out prodigious, gratuitous, liberating vision that yoga is... that banishes misery rooted in our way of thinking
We misconceive yoga as union or unification. By nature, unification is suspect and short-term. It can disintegrate any time ... All activities and achievements are deficient in this regard and, ultimately, dispensable.
What Yoga extols is: right perspective, or knowledge of Self (called Purusha-khyati) Otherwise, life is wasted in wrong direction Any action done for self (i.e., selfishly) without knowing Self is bound to be frustrating ... Refer to first chapter titled Confuse Self and Suffer.
However, knowledge of Self is incomplete without knowledge of non-self... Latter knowledge includes recognition of quasi and virtual character of life In that knowledge, friend-foe, own-alien distinctions are blurred. ... That is Kaivalya (monism).
This underlies the whole gamut of concepts and approaches like Vairagya (detachment), Ashtanga Yoga (Eight-limbed Yoga), Samadhi (resolved mind), Viveka (repudiation of non-self); Ishvara-pranidhana (Surrender to God), Sattva-Purusha Distinction (exposing mind as non-self), and Avidya (precise determination of ignorance).
CAUTION: Without knowledge of Self, yoga benefits allure and do not endure. Powers elude power-seekers; they naturally rush in resolved minds. All is yours and without effort
Present book begins with Synopsis outlining Disease and Antidote. Ituses stories and other sources to enliven and elucidate. It prepares readers with advance messages and provides glossary of uncommon terms. Book discusses essentials of yoga discretely, using dedicated sections and chapters. It can turn casual encounter of the reader into a lifelong and fulfilling experience Read it slowly and steadily.