Question: What is the purpose of Yoga?

Sri Chinmoy: The purpose of Yoga is to receive the Truth and Light here on earth. Yoga means conscious oneness with God. Man and God are one, but man is not conscious of his inner divinity. We love God, we need God. But our love for God is not constant and conscious. And also, we are not consciously aware of our need for God despite the fact that we are studying and practising spirituality. We are all instruments of God, but unconscious instruments. Our love of God, our love of Truth, our need for Light is not always conscious, not always constant. We have read millions of books dealing with God’s existence, but God is not a living reality for us right now.

But when we practise Yoga, when we dive deep within, we see and feel what relation we have with God. A spiritual Master is he who is conscious of God and God’s Reality. At every moment in his life of multifarious activities, he is consciously aware of his oneness with God. In his case, God is a practical reality. God is constant.

If we practise Yoga, we come to feel that God comes first and foremost in our lives. Inside God we have to see humanity and inside humanity we have to see God. Inside divinity we have to see humanity aspiring and inside humanity we have to see divinity manifesting itself. This is what Yoga does for us. Yoga immediately elevates humanity’s consciousness to the highest plane and brings down Light, Peace and Bliss from Above in infinite measure so that our life of obscurity, impurity and imperfection can one day be elevated, illumined, perfected.