Evolution of Love 2

Eight steps

The sage Patanjali formulated the Yoga system into eight steps for achieving the goal:
1. Avoid unrighteous behaviour--yama.
2. Follow certain moral and spiritual percepts--niyama.
3. Learn to be still in body and mind, for where motion ceases, there begins the perception of God--asana.
4. While concentrating on the state of peace, practise control of the life force in the body--pranayama.
5. When your mind is your own, that is, under your control through pranayama, and then you can give it to God-- pratyahara.
6. Then begins meditation: first, concentrate on one of God's cosmic manifestations such as love, wisdom, joy --dharana.
7. What follows in meditation is an expansion of the realization of God's infinite omnipresent nature--dhyana.
8. When the soul merges as one with God, who is everlasting, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss, that is the goal--samadhi.