Path to Blessedness- Quintessence of The Ashtanga Yoga of Sage, Maharishi Patanjali

Revered Gurudev Swami Sivananda ji's worthy spiritual successor has been referred to as follows, "If one wants to see boldness of spirit behind a slender appearance, irreversible command of heart behind a benign face, unwavering peace of mind behind dynamism of action, impersonal detachment behind personal love and care-all at once in a single person, one cannot do better than meet Swami Chidananda."

Born on 24th September 1916, into a wealthy Brahmin family in South India, Swami Chidananda absorbed a love for tradition and respect for rituals. At Loyola College, Madras (now Chennai), Swamiji had a brilliant scholastic career. The ideals and teachings of Jesus made a deep impression in his heart, and he was able to synthesize them with all that is best and noble in Hindu Culture. The two profound influences in Swamiji's life were the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and the example of his Gurudev, Sri Swami Sivananda. He joined Gurudev in 1943 and from then on the Ashram and the lofty ideals of The Divine Life Society became his home and field of service for him.

Swami Chidananda was born with an insatiable zeal to serve the sick and the suffering. Even in childhood he built huts for lepers on the lawns of his home and looked after them as though they were deities.

Swami Sivananda said about his spiritual son and the beloved disciple: "Chidananda is a Jivanmukta, a great Saint, an ideal Yogi, a Para-Bhakta, and a great sage. Swami Chidananda is all this and much more. He was a great Yogi and Saint in his previous birth itself. His lectures are the outpouring of his saintly heart, the revelations of intuitive wisdom. And he is a practical Vedantin, his words have tremendous power. He is born to fulfill a great mission."

Sri Swami Chidanandaji Maharaj attained Mahasamadhi on 28th August, 2008.

OM SHANTIH! Peace is unto you all.

The matter contained in this book with the titled, "PATH TO BLESSEDNESS" is a simple exposition of the inner Science of Self-realization through the path of self-subdual, mind-control, concentration, and meditation. It is all about the now well-known Yoga-Aphorisms of the great sage and teacher of India known as Maharishi PATANJALI who taught about five thousand years ago and left for humanity the quintessence of the Yoga-Science in his short, terse, and meaning-filled Sutras or brief aphorisms. The Sutras are so very concise and pithy, that their full meaning is not easily understood at first reading. They have to be explained. The great sage Maharishi Veda-Vyasa, the author of the eighteen classical Puranas, did this for us by writing his Commentary on Patanjali's Yoga-Aphorisms. Much later on, a very learned disciple and seeker Vachaspaty Mishra wrote a more elaborate Gloss explaining the full meaning of sage Vyasa's commentary. The present lessons in this book are based upon the teachings given in the above-mentioned Yoga- Texts.

Why have I given these lessons? What is the purpose of my doing so? This entire book constitutes a sincere attempt to serve earnest seekers after spiritual Truth and to spread a Great Wisdom that is likely to be of benefit to mankind. This task was gladly undertaken many years back upon the express wish and direction of my Holy Master Gurudev Swami Sivananda. At his feet, I place this work humbly as an offering in gratefulness to him and in thankfulness for his having induced me to serve the seekers of this present 20th Century. The Holy Master Swami Sivananda, himself a great yoga teacher known all over the world, instructed me to give these lessons at the time when he established the Yoga-Vedanta Forest Academy in his Ashram at Rishikesh and commenced daily classes under the auspices of the above Academy. The said lessons were very carefully re-ordered in shorthand script and are now made available in this book after the resurrection, revising, arranging, and fresh editing.

The Two Paths-The Pleasant and the Good

Seekers after. the great Truth, the supreme Reality, have spent their lives in seclusion, meditation, penance, and spiritual practices and have ultimately attained the light of Realization, and thus illumined they have broadcast this light of God-consciousness, the path that leads beyond sorrow and bestows upon us the gift of immortal, eternal bliss and infinite knowledge, the greatest attainment of man. We have to strive to attain knowledge, knowing that all things become known. To obtain that great fruit of human existence, obtaining which one knows that there is nothing greater to be attained, is the grandeur and glory of human life. In order that we may fulfill this object of human life, we have to acquire Mumukshutva-the thirst for the knowledge of the Eternal and translate this knowledge into an active quest- so that we may realize the great aim as tangible experience in the depth of our consciousness. We have to ac- acquire the fundamental knowledge of the various practices upon the path of Yoga, the path of knowledge according to Vedantins, the Ashtanga Yoga of Patanjali according to the Mystics, the path of devotion or love as expounded by Narada or Sandilya in their Bhakti Sutras, and the path of attaining Truth through worshipful, dedicated activity, i.e., the path of Karma Yoga, the Gita-Dharma expounded by Lord Krishna in the Srimad Bhagavad-Gita. The seekers have to turn their faces away from the Preyo-Marga', which satisfies only the sensual nature of man, which is not his real nature and which does not ultimately lead to one's eternal welfare, and they have to make up their minds to take to the Sreyo-Marga/, which is the difficult path of the light, which is not the sensual one, which needs sense-control, mastery of the mind, Viveka and Vairagya and which leads to our real and lasting welfare. That which may be unpleasant in the beginning, but which leads to eternal welfare, is the path of Sreyas. A beautiful distinction between the two paths, Sreyas and Preyas, has been given in the inspiring Kathopanishad, where Nachiketas boldly rejects that which is pleasant and takes the difficult path which ultimately leads him to blessedness. So we have to be seekers following the Sreyo-Marga, and also we should have the unique good fortune of a safe shelter at the feet of a Mahapurusha, a great Soul who has scaled the highest peaks of inner spiritual realization and is established in the Consciousness of God-vision, in the Consciousness of the Highest Truth.