Question: How can I apply the science of yoga to life?
Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa: With an understanding of the yoga view of the self, the yoga practitioner can begin to apply transcendental knowledge to his life.
For a person who cultivates wisdom or true knowledge, the results are inner peace, satisfaction, patience, respect for others, freedom from duplicity, compassion, joyfulness, remembrance of his spiritual identity, freedom from the fear of death, freedom from anxiety and depression, among others.
The false identification of the body as oneself leads to so many conflicts. International conflicts, religious conflicts, racial conflicts, sexual conflicts, and many other conflicts are rooted in this false identification. Each body has a multitude of different labels and characteristics. This in itself isn’t wrong, just like it isn’t wrong for people to wear different-colored clothes. What is wrong is that due to identifying the body as the self, we wrongly consider the person to be the labels that are on his body.
Therefore one who receives transcendental knowledge gains insights and answers to many of the social, economic, and personal problems of the world today.