In plain words
the moment one says 'yoga practice' or 'meditation-yoga,' they think this is some or other spiritual path, and something belonging to Vedānta. As soon as one mentions this subject, yogis who lived of old, sitting alone in the forests, wearing ochre robes, and living on fruits, tubers and roots, naturally come to mind for many people. They form the opinion that yoga-sādhana is the ancient discipline practiced by such wandering ascetics. This is merely conjecture, but not the truth. Today, foreigners are examining and researching this science of yoga with a physical-scientific perspective.
Today, in this age of machines, continuing a life of peace is becoming harder and harder. People are falling prey to various kinds of mental illnesses. The people of civilized countries such as America, unable even to attain natural sleep at night, experience artificial sleep with sleeping pills. Because of those, they increase many heart ailments and blood-pressure disorders upon themselves, and finally ruin their health as well. Modern endeavor and mechanical lives — people are, on one side mentally and on the other physically, thrown into confusion for lack of peace and rest. Today, even though modern medicines have multiplied by crores upon crores, none of them can cure those diseases, and they are developing new disease as well. For that very reason, some more intelligent people, reckoning yoga practice alone as their refuge, have, today, through many researches, recognized and are developing yoga practice. Have you seen that?
The Vedas are the most ancient literature in the whole of world-literature itself. By 'literature,' I do not mean the poetry being written today, to while away time, meaningless, lacking in character, not bound to truth, joined with made-up stories — such poetry is not what I mean. Nor is it a single person's individual mind or temperament. In Bharatiya spiritual life, Vedic literature is like the Ātma;