Patanjali Yoga Sutra - II - 44

Surrender to the supreme

Samadhi Siddhihi Ishwara Pranidhanaath|

When you surrender or offer yourself totally to God, you attain a state of samadhi, or the merger of your mind and intellect, with the cosmic awareness and the supreme self. Just as a handful of water taken out of the river looks apparently different, is offered back to the river and it merges, the mind is only an apparent individual wave in the ocean. In the state of samadhi, the wave forgets it is a wave and revels in its oceanic self.

- Swahilya Shambhavi.

Patanjali Yoga Sutra: II: 44

Study your self

Swadhyayadishtadevatasamprayogaha|

By Swadhyaya - contemplating on the essence of your being, you achieve union with the deity you worship. Swadhyaya means many things, but everything leads to the same essence. It means study of the self. The Upanishads are books that speak of the self. Studying the Upanishads is Swadhyaya. Meditation in silence is also Swadhyaya as in meditation you get to know who you are. Studying your thoughts, your emotions, your physical body and all its components - so deeply that from whichever way you go, you arrive at yourself, which is the self in all. You come to that space in you where you, me and it vanishes. - Swahilya Shambhavi
(Pic: Swahilya Shambhavi - Gangaji at Rudraprayag.)