Preface

I f this book is to lay any claim to authenticity, it must make one point clear above all others. It is this: By persistent and sustained practice, anyone and everyone can make the yoga journey and reach the goal of illumination and freedom. Krishna, Buddha, and Jesus lie in the hearts of all. They are not film stars, mere idols of adulation. They are great inspirational figures whose example is there to be followed. They act as our role models today. Just as they reached Self-Realization, so may we.

Many of you may worry that you are unable to meet the challenges that lie ahead. I want to assure you that you can. I am a man who started from nowhere; I was heavily disadvantaged in many ways. After much time and effort, I began to reach somewhere. I literally emerged from darkness to light, from mortal sickness to health, from crude ignorance to immersion in the ocean of knowledge by one means alone, namely by zealous persistence in the art and science of yoga practice ( sadhana ). What held good for me will hold good for you too.

Today you also have the benefit of many gifted yoga teachers. When I began yoga, there was, I am sorry to say, no wise, kind teacher to lead me. In fact my own Guru refused to answer any of my innocent inquiries on yoga. He did not instruct me as I do my students, offering them step-by-step guidance in an asana. He would simply demand a posture and leave it to me or his other students to figure out how it could be realized. Perhaps that stimulated some stubborn aspect of my nature, which allied to unshakable faith in the subject of yoga made me burn to go on. I am ardent and passionate, and maybe I needed to show the world that I was not worthless. But far more than that, I wanted to find out who I was. I wanted to understand this mysterious and marvelous “yoga,” which could reveal to us our innermost secrets, as equally as it revealed those of the universe around us and our place in it as joyful, suffering, puzzled human beings.

I learned through practice, earned a bit of experienced knowledge, and reinvested that knowledge and understanding in order to learn more. By following the right direction and with the help of a naturally sensitive perception, I was able to further my knowledge. This produced in me a growing accumulation of refined experience that eventually revealed the essence of yoga knowledge.

It took me whole decades to appreciate the depth and true value of yoga. Sacred texts supported my discoveries, but it was not they that signposted the way. What I learned through yoga, I found out through yoga. I am not, however, a “self-made man.” I am only what seventy-two years of devoted yoga sadhana has created out of me. Any contribution I have made to the world has been the fruit of my sadhana.

This sadhana provided me with the tenacity of purpose to continue even through trying times. My disinclination toward laxer lifestyles kept me on the straight path, but I never shunned anyone, for I have come to see the light of the soul in all. Yoga ferried me across the great river from the bank of ignorance to the shore of knowledge and wisdom. It is no extravagant claim to say that wisdom has come to me by the practice of yoga, and the grace of God has lit the lamp of the inner core in me. This allows me to see that same light of the soul glowing in all other beings.

You, my readers, must understand that you are already starting from somewhere. You have the beginning already shown to you, and no one knows in what wholeness and felicity you may end. If you take up any noble line and stick to it, you can reach the ultimate. Be inspired but not proud. Do not aim low; you will miss the mark. Aim high; you will be on the threshold of bliss.

Patanjali, of whom you will hear much in this book, is considered the father of yoga. In reality as far as we know, he was a yogi and a polymath living around fifth century B.C. India, who collated and elaborated existing knowledge of the yogis’ life and practices. He wrote the Yoga Sutras, literally a thread of aphorisms about yoga, consciousness, and the human condition. Patanjali also explained the relationship between the natural world and the innermost and transcendent soul. (For those who wish to pursue their textual studies further, I have included references to his great work. See my book Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali ).

What Patanjali said applies to me and will apply to you. He wrote, “With this truth bearing light will begin a new life. Old unwanted impressions are discarded and we are protected from the damaging effects of new experiences.” ( Yoga Sutras, Chapter I, Verse 50)

It is my hope that my own lowly beginnings and ordinariness may serve as a source of encouragement as you seek this truth and begin a new life. Yoga transformed my life from a parasitic one to a life of purpose. Later yoga inspired me to partake in the joy and nobility of life, which I carried to many thousands of people without consideration of religion, caste, gender, or nationality. I am so grateful for what yoga has made of my life that I have always sought to share it.

In this spirit I offer my experiences through this book in the hope that with faith, love, persistence, and perseverance you will savor the sweet flavor of yoga. Carry the flame forward so that it may bring the blissful light of the knowledge of true reality to future generations.

This book owes its conception and delivery to a number of people who worked together to bring it to its final state so that I may offer it to you. I would like to acknowledge in particular Doug Abrams of Idea Architects, John J. Evans, Geeta S. Iyengar, Uma Dhavale, Stephanie Quirk, Daniel Rivers-Moore, Jackie Wardle, Stephanie Tade, and Chris Potash. My gratitude goes to Rodale for bringing this work to the public at large; I share all credit and merit with them.

Yoga was my Destiny, and for the past seventy years, yoga has been my life, a life fused with the practice, philosophy, and teaching of the art of yoga. Like all destinies, like all great adventures, I have gone to places I never imagined before I set out. For me it has been a journey of discovery. In historical terms it has been one of rediscovery but undertaken from a unique perspective: Innovation within traditional boundaries. These past seventy years have taken me on the Inward Journey toward a vision of the Soul. This book contains my triumphs, struggles, battles, sorrows, and joys.

Fifty years ago, I came to the West to shed Light on Yoga. Now through this book, I am presenting half a century of my experience in order to shed Light on Life. The popularity of yoga and my part in spreading its teaching are a great source of satisfaction to me. But I do not want yoga’s widespread popularity to eclipse the depth of what it has to give to the practitioner. Fifty years after my first trip west and after so much devoted yoga practice by so many, I now wish to share with you the whole of the yoga journey.

It is my profound hope that my end can be your beginning.