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.
Have you ever seen a camel grazing? It goes here and there for food and it never comes back. Similarly, our mind is like a camel mind, running here and there and it never comes home. Our mind is going somewhere all time time, getting the food of raga (like) and dvesha (dislike). That is its food. It is getting its energy from that. We are always moving in the grooves of like and dislike. We have to bring it back from there. That is the sadhana. Are you in yourself or are you somewhere else?
