Learning to honor all four of your soul's desires compels you to thrive at every level, leads to lasting happiness as well as a complete and balanced life.

We are already complete. All we need is the clarity to recognize the wholeness that is us.

It's vital to understand that while you are alive, there is no end to desire, since the seed of your every thought and your every action is a desire.

Being able to recognize which of your desires are vital to pursue and which ones are not is often less than easy. This is precisely why the ancient sages counseled that we practice yoga. Their point was a very practical one: You are best able to discern which of your many desires should (and should not) be responded to when your mind is calm and tranquil.

I came into this world restless despite many appearances to the contrary. Does that make me unique? I doubt it.

In fact, many people, including some who practice yoga, assume that yoga is nothing more than a form of exercise, or they believe that only the physical aspects of yoga have relevance to their lives. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Yoga's most sublime objective is to awaken an exalted state of spiritual realization; however, the tradition also recognizes that this state does not exist in absolute isolation from the world and worldly matters.