Beautiful women, wealth, sensations, celebrity, substances capable of distorting my perception, and even forcing my body into positions ready for the covers of important yoga magazines - I pursued them all, some wholeheartedly, but none would satisfy my real longing.

Desire, instead of being an obstacle to an inspired and fulfilled life, is the very thing that propels you toward it.

In the end, yoga for me is all about three things: more joy; being able to collect your capacity so you can have more of what you want in real terms; and ultimately - this may be the most important of it all - less fear.

Despite its widespread acceptance and the number of lives it has improved, what most of us in the West commonly associate with yoga represents only the tip of the iceberg that is yoga, a tiny fraction of what is a vast and profound science.

Indeed, much to my parents' surprise, the first word I spoke in this lifetime was "light." Prior to uttering its name, however, I was already searching for light - for my source. Yet despite my preternatural kinship with that spark that lights this and all worlds, for the first two or three decades of my life, I resisted it.

When it comes to desire, it's not a matter of avoiding desire, but rather learning to discern those desires that are helpful and necessary for your growth - those that serve your soul and help you continue to thrive - from those that do not.

What does "living your best life" mean to you? Does it mean accumulating wealth and fulfilling all your material wants? Or, does it mean turning away from the material world in order to fully realize the gift of spirit? We often tend to think of these objectives as being mutually exclusive: material fulfillment or spiritual fulfillment, not both together.