Subject of this seminar: "Samadhi and Sadhana Pada" - Chapters 3 and 4
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.
Don’t get discouraged to study Sanskrit. To live and survive like animals in the material world you need only 4% of your brain. You need 1% of your brain for eating, 1% for sleeping, 1% for defending yourself, and 1% for pro-creating. You still have 96% of your brain to use. Why is the other 96% of your brain there? Why did God make us like that? That is to study sastra. And we need to understand Sanskrit to study sastra.
