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).
If I give up Bhakti because I’m not getting pleasure then it means that I have not understood Bhakti. It means that I have not come for Bhakti. I have come for my own pleasure. On the Bhakti path you do not have to be looking for pleasure – it comes naturally. A characteristic of Bhakti is that the person is devoid of any other desire except to do favorable activities for Krishna. Pleasure will come when love is there, because that is the very nature of love.
