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.
This course completes the first two chapters – Samādhi Pada (Meditative Absorption) and Sādhana Pada (Practice).
In the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad it is said that the Vedas came out on the breath of God. Just like you are breathing without thinking, for God, this Vedic knowledge is as natural. Therefore, God gave the Vedic knowledge effortlessly, just like breathing. If God wants to bring out the Vedas through breathing, He can do that. For Him every sense can do the function of any another sense because He is beyond duality. He is Absolute so His senses are also absolute.
