Vedanta & Yoga
Personally, I have not found anything philosophically, intellectually, religiously, or spiritually that could not be understood via Vedanta.

When I was young I was walking around feeling Brahman but seeing maya.  So I knew I had to get serious if I was to be able to see Brahman everywhere.  When I was 19 years old I discovered these teachings and I have found them to be a world unto themselves, their own special loka of inner realms.

Vedanta is that acidic truth that will transform your mind, whether in a few days, weeks, months, years or a lifetime, but eventually it will.  It is that Truth, as Christ said, "Know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free."

The true luminary says, "The only true Freedom for me is transcending the five sheaths.  I transcended avarana and vikshepa Shakti and found myself in sattva.  Then I transcended sattva as well."

We consider everything in Yoga and Vedanta from the standpoint of the observer.  Departing worldly society, you join the "society" of the Seers in this position.

India is big on the Teacher.  You get two things from the Teacher: clarification and intensification.

Once mind gets clarification, then it needs intensification.  Clarification means hearing the truth and intensification means meditation.  You need to take this knowledge in with a peaceful mind and digest it.  But people are merely taking in bits of relative knowledge and piling them atop each other, hoping to sort them out later.  But what if the learning process gets stymied along the way or death overtakes you before the sorting can take place?  Then one takes all these random fragments to death, and into the next life.  Then, "Supplies!"  There is karma and repercussion by the truck load, and clarification and intensification become unrecognizable, therefore impossible.

You have to blow up the lotuses [make them bloom] with Knowledge, especially the upper four.  Divine Mother loves Wisdom.  She is the Mother of Wisdom.  If you come to Her in ignorance, She says, "Oh, poor thing, you need some grace and compassion."  But come with Knowledge and She is pleased.  Come with love and you win Her heart.  However, love cannot truly be Love until the mind has clarification and intensification.

Do not just prance about chanting this Truth of nonduality in the New Age.  Realize it.  Bring Light to yourself first, because you are everything.  When you realize that Light in yourself, you will see It in everyone.  When they see that you see that Light in them, they will get the idea.

Airline attendants give the instruction, "Put your own mask on first before helping others."  So do not pass out from ignorance before performing your dole of true service; get illumined!

Sanatana Dharma does not come and go.  It is eternal; it only rises and falls. When one dharma, called a "yuga dharma," gets encrusted over time, a new one rises.  But they all emerge from and submerge into Brahman.

Buddha did not find a relative end to suffering, but an ultimate end to suffering.  Doctors and scientists cannot even find a relative end.  So Buddha says to forebear until you realize the absolute end, which is beyond the duality of pleasure and pain.

Anywhere the illumined soul goes, barriers will fall.  It is all in Consciousness.  You are there, so It is there.

Until you understand emptiness, you cannot understand that "emptiness is form and form is emptiness."  And until you experience fullness, neither of these options is possible.

This is why we feel the ancestors close to us, the gods and goddesses, saints, sages, seers and the Trinity - it is because of the interconnectedness of all things based in the innate Oneness of Reality.

Yoga and Vedanta were never separate.  The Upanisadic rishis were in love with Yoga.  These philosophies are the two black rocks you want to smash against each other, leaving absolute clarity.  You need to cut your spiritual teeth on them and break down old habits, conventions and conditioning via them.

In truth, there is the fire of Yoga and nearness to Brahman.  The fire of Yoga will destroy your past and present karmas and samskaras.  Nearness to Brahman deals with present and immediate karma.

We cannot talk about transcending attainment until we have done our homework.  We are complaining that philosophy is just a bunch of words that titillate the mind.  But we have not earned the right to say that because we have not looked into the words via study and meditation (jnana and dhyana) and found their deep meaning - a profound set of meanings which generate Wisdom Samadhis.

Objects are objectionable.  They take up mind space, not just physical space.  Maya possesses this covering, overfilling effect.  If you can remove the covering effect you can see Reality.  But to do this you cannot use these outward-seeing eyes; you need to tune your consciousness to a subtler state.  Like Dalai Lama says: There's the appearance chair (form), the real chair (swirling particles), and the Buddha nature chair (essence).