Our self-acknowledgement, our dedication has to be bigger than our fear.

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.

From a yogic perspective, stillness, coupled with expanded awareness, is by far the most powerful medium by which you can affect your destiny.

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.

Once you know yourself as a genuine seeker, and when your own inner chamber is quite enlightened, then comes the natural unfoldment of pure love and compassion and a genuine desire to serve others.

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.

If yoga is about life, this means ALL life, not just part of it. Together, the spiritual and the material constitute the whole you, the whole of the experience of being human, and the nature of the universe in which you live. There may be no step more important to achieving ultimate fulfillment than accepting what the Vedas teach us about desires--that some desires are inpsired by your soul.