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.
If the nature of soul is bliss, then why would we be looking for bliss? If bliss is inside you, then no one can take it out. You can cover it from the outside, but it is still inside of you. It can be covered, but you cannot make it unavailable to itself. Soul does not know what happiness is. If it did, it would not do what it is doing now…Jiva does not have ananda in it. You get ananda – you get the seed that comes from the outside. The soul never knew God, otherwise, why would it come here?
