Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras are the classical work of the Yoga School of thought, one of the Six Darśanas studied in the Bhakti Tirtha course. They focus on how to attain direct experience and realization of the puruṣa, or the individual self. As the classical treatise on the Vedic understanding of the mind and consciousness and on techniques of meditation and self-realization, it has exerted immense influence over the religious practices of Hinduism in India and, more recently, in the West. For Vaiṣṇavas, the Yoga Sūtras are especially helpful in understanding the first two chapters of Bhakti-rasāmṛita-sindhu.
If you want to change samskaras, you have to do the opposite of it repeatedly, regularly, consciously…right now your mind is wild and your chitta keeps on throwing up thoughts and desires and you act on it. You have to use your buddhi to be aware of every thought you are having and ask yourself, where is this thought, feeling, behavior taking me? …If your understanding is improper, then your actions will be improper.
