An inner experience is the manifestation of a deeper level of oneself. Dream, of course, is an experience. Your dreams may be schizophrenic but that is an expression of your own self. Thought is also a concept or expression of your own self. A piece of music is an expression of yourself, whether you compose it or just admire it. A painting or sculpture is a concept of yourself whether you create it or just admire it. That means the external world is a manifestation of your inner experience. And you can improve this experience to any extent. You can also bring about deterioration of this experience. When everything is hopeless outside, that is your experience of yourself, and if everything is beautiful outside, that is also your experience of yourself.In the last few decades, yoga has helped millions of people improve their concepts of themselves. Yoga realizes that man is not only the mind, he is body as well. Therefore man does not experience happiness only through the mind. The body is also real and it is a part of his personality. Just by improving the condition of the body however, man will not necessarily enable his mind to experience happiness either. This is because he is not only the body and mind, he is emotion and desire as well. He is something beyond the mind or psyche. Therefore, yoga has been designed in such a way that it can complete the process of evolution of the personality in every possible direction. That is why yoga has so many branches – hatha yoga, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga, gyana yoga, kundalini yoga, and so on.

A combined, integrated practice of yoga in one’s life will definitely ensure a better quality of experience within you and without. Every seeker and practitioner on the path of yoga must remember that the various paths of yoga are to improve the quality of head, heart and hand. However, yoga does not end with the development of the personality. One level of the personality is dependent on this mind, this body and these emotions, but there is another deeper part of the personality which you have to develop with another kind of mind and emotion. This requires a special process, and that process is known as kundalini yoga.

KUNDALINI TANTRA
Swami Satyananda Saraswati