Yoga

Yoga wants you to get control – not of others' resources, but of your own mind, energy, and body.  Practice asteya (noncoveting) and aparigraha (nonattachment to matter/gifts) for a change, and find the deeper meaning in life.

The yamas and niyamas of the Eight-Limbed Yoga of Patanjali are intimately connected to the problem of suffering.  Practicing these two rudimentary limbs, one learns to overcome suffering – or at least to forebear it.

[Notes on three of the niyamas:] The study of the scriptures (svadhyaya) is a remedy for nonretentive memory.  Surrender to Ishvara (Ishvara pranidana) leads to Samadhi.  Purity (saucha) courts communion with God, for impurity means how distant from Reality something is.  The five elements are about as far away from the Source as one can go, so one must be careful in the world of relativity.

"The Five Kleshas* cause affliction by turning internalized awareness outward so that it does not dwell on its own perfect nature.  Thus, they are a mutation of the mind field, and they swiftly become a field of abundant growth for a host of karmas and samskaras." - Vedavyas
* Five Kleshas: ignorance, egotism, attachment, aversion, clinging to life/fear of death

The six passions, eight fetters, five kleshas, and the nine viparayas come out of unmanifest Prakriti and merge back into Prakriti.  The yogi keeps them from rising, for then he is free from ever having to keep them from rising.

If karma has accrued, then you have to look into it, and at it, first at the relative level.  Later, once seeing it, and admitting it, you can neutralize it from a higher level.  Then you can experience an abiding peace, and become a servant of peace, shantidasi.  But many make the mistake of trying to pretend it away by rising above it as if it does not exist.  Later, they see its recurrence in the most unwanted forms and events.

Bhakti (devotion) and dhyanam (meditation) pay homage to karma (action) in order that they become fully matured.  But karma pays deference to Jnana (discriminating wisdom), for one must learn to act in knowledge in order to avoid negative karmas and the samskaras (mental impressions) they form.  As Swami Vivekananda has said, all action is really for gaining knowledge.

All thoughts, acts, eating, and gifting are to be offered unto Me, states Sri Krishna.  I say that one must develop all this first before serving God in mankind.  Otherwise you may end up serving the personality, as many do in their work, rather than the Supreme.  As I have often said, if you serve humanity they will only remain human, but if you serve God in humanity they will realize their divine nature.  All of history bears this fact out so well.

If you remember that it is Brahman's maya, rather than maya as an independently existing principle, you will not fall prey to ignorance.  Your actions will be performed in knowledge.

Pratyahara represents a stumbling block, but dharana is an outright and freeing attainment.  If you master concentration, you are practically home free, on all levels.