The Topmost Yoga Fulfilment and Free Self Life

These capsules are based on A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's book Krsna Consciousness: The Topmost Yoga System (1970). Salient points from the book's nine book chapters are made easy - they are rendered and arranged in five neat, small chapters. The focus of these teachings is the Self -life. Good luck!

1. The Perfection of Yoga

If you take a first-class, topmost quality mango, very costly, very sweet and very tasteful, and go from door to door and try to distribute it freely, people will doubt: "Why has this man brought this mango? Why?"

Self, the supreme authority, recommends the eightfold yoga system – Even 5,000 years ago, when circumstances in the world were different, this yoga system was not practicable.

2. Yoga and the Master of the Srimad-Bhagavatam

What is that end of knowledge? That is Self. By knowing all the Vedas, the ultimate conclusion should be Self . . . Self is everything, and the Self wants everyone to be happy and peaceful and prosperous.

The yogi wants to find out where Self is within the heart – Develop Self consciousness – God is full of joy and bliss – In Self consciousness, you will be happy. Be thus happy and you can make others happy – Take care that you are not seated in a carriage and your horses are so furious that they are dragging you to hell. Then what is your position?

The soul is free spiritually, but it has been conditioned.

Vyasadeva is known to have written the Srimad-Bhagavatam and other literature on Self. [Abr]

3. How Bhakti-yoga Works

Scholarly discussion of the Gita is futile – Act in such a way that God will see you.

He can reveal Himself through your senses, although he is transcendental also – Although He is unconquerable and unknowable, He can be known in your home.

The real peace formula is that one must know that God is the proprietor of all this universe.

4. The Goal of Yoga, Real Life

We are not meant to manufacture a society of monkeys or tigers or asses – or rascals who work very hard.

For the four propensities of animal life – eating, sleeping, mating and defending – there is reasoning power even in beasts.

Human life is not meant only for bodily demands.

You may sleep in a very nice apartment in a six-story building or in a 122-story building, and the dog may lie in a street – the dog has no social custom for mating – You may mate very silently, in a secret place (although now people are learning how to mate like dogs),

In the hundreds and thousands of universities all over the world there is no department of knowledge where the science of the soul is taught.

If I do not take care of my spiritual life, then the result is that I must live as the cats and dogs do.

Any society where there are no spiritual persons or Self consciousness is a rascal society, because it has no head.

Out of many thousands of people, one may try to make perfection of this life; and out of many millions of such persons on the path of perfection, only one may understand Self.

There are eight signs of transcendental ecstasies: (1) Being stopped as though dumb, (2) perspiration, (3) standing up of hairs on the body, (4) dislocation of voice, (5) trembling, (6) fading of the body, (7) crying in ecstasy, and (8) trance.

When you actually realize yourself, simply understanding that you are Brahman will not do. You have to engage in the activities of Brahman. You have to not only realize that you are not matter, but you have to engage yourself in the spiritual.

5. Sides to fulfillment

One must become determined to be happy in spiritual life – When you grind spices with a mortar and pestle, many small microbes are killed – We are responsible for this.

The child cannot express what he wants, so he simply cries – Seek out the Supreme Personality of Godhead . . . That will make you happy – If I hope for something which is never possible, that is hope which will never be fulfilled.

Frustration with the materialistic way of life is a good sign for accepting Self consciousness.

Be happy, eat nicely, dance nicely, live nicely and go back home. That is our mission. Kindly help – In Self consciousness one gratifies his senses in association with Self. Then it is perfect.

You are spirit soul – you must have spiritual food, you must have a spiritual life, and then you can be happy.