The Four Yogas or the Four Paths to Spiritual Enlightenment: In the words of the ancient Rishis

Science has been contributing to the material convenience and comfort of man, so steadily and in such progressive measure that we now live in a condition of physical ease incomparable beyond that in which our forefathers did at the turn of the century. Yet this has not increased our genera happiness or brought us the inward joy of living. Indeed the failure of Science in the procurement of genuine joy has been as ignominious as its success in the creation of artificial comfort has been wonderful. Nor is this a matter of surprise. Peace, which is the basis of all real joy, can never be the fruit of the labours of Science. For Science works and can work only with the things of passing existence, the destructible materials of the physical plane; Peace and Joy are the permanent values of the Essence of Living-the Spirit. The understanding of the Spirit-Spirituality-alone can confer permanent Peace on man and make him fit for real Joy. The Spirit, which is but the universal aspect of God, is the Goal of the seeker everywhere. The different religions of the world differ not in this Goal but in the ways which they open to mankind to reach it. Hinduism is nothing if not catholic. Its catholicity discovered, earlier than all other religious systems, the differences in the mental make-up of man. And, in its understanding sympathy, Hinduism found and prescribed for the benefit of mankind in all grades and planes of intellect and mind different paths in Spirituality. These different paths are different only in their courses. Both at the starting point and at the destination they join the same points. Here is the individual soul-the pilgrim-, and there is the Universal Soul-the Spirit, God, or whatever we choose to call it. Even the differences in the paths are felt only while one traverses them, and produce different passing results in the duration of travel, but the moment one ‘arrives’ the awareness of the paths and their qualities disappears entirely. Oneness results. Karma, Bhakti, Raja and Jnana Yogas are the four paths dealt with in this book. Sri Krishna, Narada, Patanjali and Vyasa formulated and expounded these Yogas. The author, with his knife-edge intellect, has cut off the intricacies of these principal Yogas and presented them to the reader in their essential and fundamental quality as clear paths each one of which he can tread with the complete confidence that, by following it with unfaltering faith, he will ‘arrive’.