The teachings are available to everybody. But you must want them. You must turn to the teachings, keep coming back to them, and keep asking yourself, “Why was I born? Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? What should I pursue? How far should I go? What is my place in relation to the universe?” These are the things that are important. It doesn’t matter what words you use to formulate those questions—that’s very individual. It’s that you ask those questions, and that you seek contact in life with a power greater than yourself, some Light greater than that visible to human eyes. Then you are on the path to realization of the Self, realization of your own divinity. It makes no difference whether you are a woman or a man.
Keep asking questions. Try to go further. Remove your obstacles—your personality quirks and your personality aspects, which you often take for real, and give power to. The only thing that has power in you is your inner being or inner Light. You may call this inner being soul, if you like, or Higher Self—the term you use has to be meaningful to you, so choose your own words.
What really matters is your own personal self-development. You must develop so that, whatever your spiritual tradition, you can see with greater clarity and understand with less confusion. You can use the spiritual tradition you already have and increase your awareness from there. Then you can know how your mind works and how to focus your attention. That process always leads you to greater knowledge.
Ask yourself, “Who am I? Where do I want to go? What do I want to make out of this life? When I get older and I know that death is approaching, can I say I have lived a worthwhile life?” If you can say yes, you will have a very peaceful death. If you have a goal in life, your life will be richer than if you are just tottering and stumbling around, not knowing where you are going. When you have a goal, you know that stumbling is a necessary part of your journey, and you will pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and go where you want to go. If you ask yourself what kind of person you are now, and what kind of person you want to be physically, mentally/emotionally, and spiritually, you can get the tools through yoga to achieve that goal. But you must decide on the goal. Nobody can do that for you.
The yoga that I learned from my Guru, Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, helps people to answer their own questions, helps them to find out what kind of life they want to live. You don’t have to give up what you have. You can pursue the life that you have already and the commitments that you have taken on in life. All you need to do is deepen what you have and clarify where you are going. That is all up to you.
Some of you are probably aware quite clearly that you need to develop more deeply, and some may have just an idea that there is a need and maybe it will become clearer in the future. There is no particular urgency, except perhaps that life is becoming increasingly complex, and so you may wish to seek something of a greater and much deeper value in yourself. If the teachings can help you to uncover this, then they have served their purpose.
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