The perfection of yoga is to become detached. And the perfection of detachment is to become completely attached, attached to God.
Interpretation
True mastery of yoga involves detachment from worldly desires and a profound attachment to the divine.
This quote highlights the transformative journey of yoga, where practitioners learn to let go of their material attachments and ultimately develop a deep connection to the divine. It emphasizes that true perfection in yoga is not simply about physical prowess but embracing a spiritual relationship characterized by love and devotion to God.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of inner peace, this quote can illustrate how yoga leads to spiritual growth.
When the mind is turbulent, uncontrolled and restless, it is like a pond of water that is filled with mud. Therefore when we look within ourselves, all we perceive is the mud of our material conceptions of life. But when the mind is still through discipline, and through yoga, it is like a pond that has no waves and no turbulence. Then we can perceive through that crystal clear water the eternal nature of our soul.
Sometimes river flows very strong, sometimes it flows very small, but it makes no difference to the ocean because it is satisfied in itself with its own quantity of water. Similarly, when our heart is cleansed with spirituality, we find pleasure and ecstasy with our own selves that is so sweet, so wonderful and so satisfying, that the so-called pleasures of this world no longer have any values, no appeal at all.
Our humble service attitude in our life is what determines what effect chanting will have on our consciousness. Otherwise we can be chanting for millions and millions of births before we actually achieve the goal.
All beautiful forms of this world are in the process of transformation. Nothing is stable. With every moment, our reality is changing. Mother Ganges, like nature, is constant, but no manifestation of hers remains. Likewise, all that we hold dear in this world is imperceptibly vanishing. We cannot cling to anything. But if we can appreciate the beauty of the underlying current of truth, we can enjoy a reality deeper than the fickle waves of joy and sorrow.
Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God.
The true treasure lies within. It is the underlying theme of the songs we sing, the shows we watch and the books we read. It is woven into the Psalms of the Bible, the ballads of the Beatles and practically every Bollywood film ever made. What is that treasure? Love. Love is the nature of the Divine.
Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization.
To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist; he must abandon the subjective line; he must know that dungheaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones.
The gospel has done its work in us when we crave God more than we crave everything else in life - more than money, romance, family, health, fame - and when seeing His kingdom advance in the lives of others gives us more joy than anything we could own. When we see Jesus as greater than anything the world can offer, we'll gladly let everything else go to possess Him.
Let us praise the noble turkey vulture: No one envies him; he harms nobody; and he contemplates our little world from a most serene and noble height.
In the big picture, it doesn't really matter if we never made a record, or we never sang a song. That isn't important.
What if a dawn of a doom of a dream bites this universe in two, peels forever out of his grave, and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
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