Who Is This Book For?
This book is meant above all for someone whose primary goal is to be completely
liberated from illusion, united with one’s true self, and totally open in one’s heart to the true
self of each other individual. It is also meant for someone whose primary goal is to be
successful in life – more honest, healthy, creative, wealthy, and loving. Which of these two
separate goals is one’s primary one determines how one reads this book and how one
approaches the practices it describes.
The approach of a reader who seeks a successful life is to learn selected techniques
from the book and practice them until he or she becomes a master at using the will to focus
the attention and channel the energy of life. The mental stillness and physical ability thus
achieved allow such a master to fulfill his or her ethical desires in life. However, the mental
stillness produced through this willful approach is not complete. This is because the life
energy, the power at the root of the mind and body, cannot be completely controlled by the
will.
If one seeks total liberation, the liberated authors of the verses in The Small Burning
Lamp of Sun-Moon Yoga (The Hathayoga Pradipika) teach that one’s practice should consist of
surrendering one’s life to whatever it is that is absolute or ultimate. One may think of this
Absolute in any number of ways, among them, Truth, God, and Love. In the practice of
surrender to the Absolute, the life energy is released from the control of the will and given
to the Absolute, allowing the fundamental constituents of the body and mind to be evolved.
During this process, the techniques described in the book gradually unfold without the use
of the will. Surrender to the Absolute eventually leads to a stillness of the life energy that is
not dependent on the will; it is an evolved state. With that state comes complete mastery
over the body, and absolute, timeless stillness of the mind. In the end, body, mind and soul
are transformed into divinity. The true divine individual, your true self, is completely open
to the divinity of others as they truly are.
Liberation does not mean reaching a state in which you feel free to do whatever you
want. True liberation is freedom from the snare of false knowledge, the snare of thinking
something is true that is not true and trying to live according to that false idea. For
example, you may be living according to a false idea about yourself, perhaps that you are a
body, a mind, a personality, or a soul or spirit located in time and space; or you may be
living according to false ideas about others, God or ultimate principles. False knowledge,
which is based on conscious observation, is incomplete. Only surrender to absolute reality
reveals the truth of what actually is. Liberation is directly knowing for yourself what
ultimate reality is and being in union with that ultimate reality. Yoga means union. It is
both the path to liberation and the destination.