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.

To live the life of Yoga, to repeat, is about a faith that continuously guides the teacher toward practices leading to the harmony of body, mind, and spirit.

I set off in yoga seventy years ago when ridicule, rejection and outright condemnation were the lot of a seeker through yoga even in its native land of India. Indeed, if I had become a sadhu, a mendicant holy man, wandering the great trunk roads of British India, begging bowl in hand, I would have met with less derision and won more respect. At one time I was asked to become a sannyasin and renounce the world, but I declined. I wanted to live as an ordinary householder with all the trials and tribulations of life and to take my yoga practice r to average people who share my life with me the common life of work, marriage and children. I was blessed with all three…

It took me decades to appreciate the depth and true value of Yoga. Sacred texts supported my discoveries, but it was not 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.

The way of yoga followed here has a different purpose from others, — for its aim is not only to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.

For me the path of Yoga has always been a battle as well as a journey, a thing of ups and downs, of light followed by darkness followed by a greater light.

Letters on Himself and the Ashram, p.372

Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one's being, from bodily health to self-realization. Yoga means union — the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions.

Yoga, as it was understood by its sages, is designed to satisfy all the human needs in a comprehensive, seamless whole. Its goal is nothing less than to attain the integrity of oneness — oneness with ourselves and as a consequence oneness with all that lies beyond ourselves. We become the harmonious microcosm in the universal microcosm. Oneness, what I call integration, is the foundation for wholeness, inner peace, and ultimate freedom.

The source of my father’s teaching, and the essence of Yoga, was formulated by the great Indian sage, Patanjali, more than two thousand years ago in this succinct definition: Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively toward an object and sustain that direction without any distractions.

Yoga is the science that teaches you the method of uniting the individual will with the Cosmic Will. Yoga transmutes the unregenerate nature and increases energy, vitality, vigour, and bestows longevity and a high standard of health. Try to increase the power of concentration. Japa will help you to have a one-pointed mind. (What Is Actual Yoga)

A human is not a being; he is a becoming. He is an ongoing process – a possibility. For this possibility to be made use of, there is a whole system of understanding the mechanics of how this life functions and what we can do with it, which we refer to as yoga.

Destiny just has to do with me as a person and my journey so far. I started from, like, a very low point in my life. Very timid, very shy, not confident at all. I had so many... If I say mental, people will take it out of context, but I was not very okay here (head) and here (heart). But just going through life, going through music, people I've met on the way, it just brought me to a very beautiful point.

Yoga is defined as a method – the process of nirodha (mental control) – by which union (the goal of yoga) is achieved. Yoga is therefore both the process of nirodha and the unqualified state of niruddha (the perfection of that process). The word yoga (union) implies duality (as in joining of two things or principles); the result of yoga is the nondual state..., or as the union of the lower self and higher Self. The nondual state is characterized by the absence of individuality; it can be described as eternal peace, pure love, Self-realization, or liberation.

When I set off in yoga, I had no understanding of the greater glory of yoga. I too was seeking its physical benefits, and it was these that saved my life. When I say that yoga saved my life, I am not exaggerating. It was yoga that gave me a new birth with health from illness and firmness from infirmity.