Have you ever thought during Hatha Yoga class, whilst trying to maintain your balance in the Vrksa-asana (tree position) or practicing the Simha-asana (Lion position) which involves sticking out your tongue, how exactly are you linking with God? At least in the Shava-asana (corpse position) you are flat on your back with eyes closed and probably rather tired after all the previous attempts at other yoga positions. It's better now if you think that Yoga actually means to link with God, before you fall asleep instead of meditating.

Linking with God, does not mean making Him your order supplier or delivery man! Nor are you endearing yourself to anyone by making these demands.

"Due to our conditioning, we tend to view spiritual as the opposite of material. To us, material means form; therefore, spiritual must mean formless. Material means active; therefore, spiritual means devoid of activity. In order to grasp a true understanding of activities in the spiritual world, we have to lay these misconceptions aside."

The actual concept of yoga therefore is to prepare yourself in readiness for this glorious event of ultimate personal connection with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But in order for this to happen you have some work to do.

The ancient Vedic system Varnasram, prescribed a method of living a more elevated, civilized lifestyle. Man used his current status defined as either a worker (sudra), business man (vaisya), leader (ksatriya) or intellectual (brahmin) as a system to grow spiritually, whilst still living in material circumstances. Each person was trained to go through various stages of life: youth (brahmacari), family life (grhasta), retired (varnaprast) and elder (sannyasa) and at each stage they acquired additional knowledge whilst following certain requirements for that level.

Now days in the west, our spiritual training is sorely lacking but in the east as well, many have also got side-tracked. More and more people have stayed with karma yoga that taught them by making various prescribed sacrifices they could get certain mundane results. Other yogas such as kundali yoga involve bringing the energy from your base chakra all the way up through each chakra in turn, designed as the best way for procreation but now used as a way of extending one’s sensual enjoyment.

Everything now turns into self satisfaction not service to the Supreme and in this we are laying down our bleak future of repeated, continual, birth, old age, disease and death. As a result of disillusionment with the material world, there are those intellectual Jnani yogis who then swing to the opposite polarity and decry anything that is in this world. Their appreciation of the goal of ultimate connection with the Supreme is a merging into the brilliance of the light – unfortunately by seeing the Supreme as impersonal, they miss out on the important personal aspect behind the light (brahmajyoti).

"Through love and devotion, we can move beyond the impersonal approach to God …….."

None of these behaviours or attitudes make us truly eligible or worthy to be considered a follower of Vedic culture; a person whose goal is spiritual advancement – the correct meaning of the much maligned word Aryan.

"A karma yogi faces the danger of becoming attached to the fruits of his work; a jnana-yogi faces the danger of thinking himself one in every way with the Lord. An astanga-yogi faces the danger of becoming enamored by his own mystic power."

Bhakti Yoga is the art of devotional service without having any expectations, requests or ulterior motive and is only offered to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It involves five potent devotional processes:

1. Hearing

2. Chanting

3. Remembering

4. Serving

5. Surrendering

"Even though we are in this material world and it seems difficult to change our consciousness, it is possible to do so by aligning ourselves with devotional activities."

According to the Collins New Pocket English Dictionary “mystic” means a person who seeks spiritual knowledge. Unfortunately if you are looking in the wrong place, your search will be endless. The catch phrase “it’s the journey not the goal” is very misleading. Mysticism becomes very attractive when we become tired with continuous travelling on the switchback of life.

"The Journey Home” is a spiritual memoir—the real-life, autobiographical account of an exceptional counter-cultural youth who leaves America in search of himself. Trying desperately to access the continent within, he sets out first for Europe , visiting cathedrals, holy places, and hippie hotspots. With little more than a seeker’s heart and a blues harmonica, he leaves few avenues unexamined, as his overland journey takes him through the Middle East and beyond. Western religious ideals and the models who exemplify them are his first natural guideposts and ports of call. He is open, nonsectarian and, most of all, earnest.

In 2005 as Bhakti Tirtha Swami lay dying from cancer, he made a request. He asked Radhanath to set aside his reservations and write the story of his journey to God. At first Radhanath refused, saying that writing about his own life would be “sheer arrogance.”

“Don’t be miserly,” Bhakti Tirtha told him. “Share what has been given to you.” He passed away two days later."

Evolution happens - how? And as for reincarnation where has it got us if we can’t remember any of our lives. But there are souls who are fortunate to remember past lives, some by spontaneous recall others by hypnosis. An old book of “The Search for Bridey Murphy” intrigued many of us when finally various doorways started to open.

"The process to reincarnation is the key to returning home. According to the Vedic scriptures, reincarnation occurs because a human being is actually a soul who uses the physical and subtle bodies covering it in each lifetime to experience, learn and grow to perfection."

The subtle body of evolved souls carries the aggregate of all each individual’s lessons and experiences. As we drop each body for a new one, the subtle body accompanies the soul until finally that too will be left behind when there is no more accrued karma.

The soul uses the subtle body but is not the subtle body. The subtle body contains the intelligence which is superior to the mind. The mind merely decides to do something or not to do something. By working with the intelligence one learns a secret way of moving into non-attachment to the mundane. Update your thinking towards choosing an ever higher taste than what the mind is used to and it soon forgets old attachments.

Devotional Mysticism or Bhakti Yoga stops the accumulation of karma and works off the accrued amounts – a fact well worth knowing as you change your life to the new paradigm of karma-free living.

“The most evolved soul” he (Bhakti Tirtha Swami) writes in his thesis,”is attracted to the path of Bhakti Yoga”