Thank you, restlessness, as challenging a traveling companion as there could be. In the end, my embrace of you was what sent me on the only search that really counts. Responding to you was the stirring that led me to sit every morning and to venture into that invisible terrain where seeker and sought merge and rest together, once and for all eternity.

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.

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.

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.

According to the yoga tradition, fear is the source of disease, decay - physical harm, when we're not thriving. And then finally, it's even the cause of death.

Everyone who has ever overcome hardship or adversity has done so in large part because he or she has chosen, consciously or unconsciously, to "let go" of their past hardship and pain by embracing, what I call, a Miracle Angle - a way of seeing their circumstances that allowed them to transform their circumstances into a spark for positive change.

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.