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 Vyasa’s samadhi, he saw jiva, jiva’s conditioning, Maya, and Krishna. He also saw the solution, which is only by Bhakti yoga that we can get out of this conditioning. He composed Bhagavatam after knowing this. We should know that he wrote this book to propagate Bhakti yoga. It is very dear to Vaishnava devotees.
