Meditation As Spiritual Culmination (2-volume set)

Here's an incredible book on the day-to-day practice of meditation by Swami Sarvagatananda, the previous head of the US Boston Center. The book uses a Western approach to learning the Yoga Sutras, and was written by a swami who lived in the US for many years. It's two huge volumes covering 1611 pages of 132 night class talks from 1977 to 1981 on Raja yoga and the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali.

One of the students writes in the preface:

About thirty of us, college students, professors, office workers and retirees had the good fortune to participate in these classes. It was a character transforming experience for us. We learned that Raja Yoga deals primarily with the mind and its control. But this control cannot be attained without leading a pure life, full of loving concern for all, and reflecting rather than reacting to negative thoughts or circumstances.

As the classes progressed, the intensity increased. We listened in fascination as the swami went deeper into the intricacies of the mind, the method of concentration and its culmination in meditation. The swami's intimate knowledge of this difficult subject enabled him to clear up all our doubts in simple yet convincing language in a question and answer session at the end of class."

From the Introduction
Raja  Yoga  means  the  Kingly Path. Why is it called so? Here nothing is based on imagination, or any kind of belief, or faith, or conviction  or  authority.  This  is one discipline which helps us to grow,  to  evolve  and  to  gain depth, not from the outside but from  within.  The  mandate  is from within. Raja Yoga tells you: “Be strong, be courageous, have the ability to  say  ‘no’  to  your  negative thoughts. Look at them squarely when they come up to the surface consciousness.” That is, be fully aware what is going on in your  mind,  fully  conscious,  deliberately  look  at  them;  and when the war goes on between he  conscious  and  the  unconscious,  when  the  unconscious urges come up, you are not absentminded,  you  are  alert.

There  is  nothing  in  your  mind that  happens  without  your knowledge, but you don’t catch it as you don’t hold your mind. Without knowing this art of holding the mind you still can be a great  scientist,  great  surgeon, great poet, great philosopher as these are of a different type altogether.  Turn  the  mind  in,  look within, not out. It is easy to look out, easy to analyze things outside, but you cannot easily analyze things inside to understand what is happening  in  your  mind. 

A  yogi  is one  who:  controls  his  mind, analyses his mind, examines his mind.  Every  thought,  every  impulse, every urge, every modification, he examines thoroughly. This is a definite process. A time comes when you become aware of all your thoughts, tendencies, urges  and  modifications.  You stand up and say: “All the devils are in me – and all the gods are also in me.

Really speaking I am the sum total of all the things in the  world,  good  and  bad.  If somebody   does   something wrong  outside,  I  need  not  ask why  he  has  done  it.  If I have brains, I know why. I would have done the same thing if I had not the control of my mind. That’s it, there is no difference, we would do exactly the same thing when we lose our control.... if somebody does something wrong,  immediately  we  react: “you did it, you are responsible.”

We  chase  them,  we  criticize them,  condemn  them.  A  yogi does not do that, he turns within. ... When you look within, you find that you have the same situation.That is why Goethe made that wonderful statement: "There  is  not  a  single crime  in the world which I might not have committed.”  We  have  the  desires of robbers and murderers in our minds, but we don’t manifest  them  because  we  know they are not good. This comes when you are fully awake, mindful, alert, catching the glimpse of the  urge  or  modification  that comes from inside ....  That  is only  possible  when  you  are calm,  quiet,  deliberately  awake and aware..."