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The inspiration for this work came from Rev. Swami Omananda ji, Acharya Gurukul Jhajjar (Haryana). Swamiji's life was a long story of study and meditation, education and social service. He lived a struggle for the revitalization of ancient studies and Vedic values specially in the context of the needs of the present time. Yoga is the rock-bed foundation of positive and holistic living in the same tradition. Hence a presentation of yoga philosophy in modern English idiom is an act of service to the community. This book is meant for an average English-knowing reader, although it may also be used by those who chiefly depend on literal translations of the text and commentaries. The real meaning of an ancient text may not be available through a literal translation without reference to the substantial content of the language. In the present work an attempt has been made to explain the substantial content in the scientific milieu in the current idiom of the English language. No claim to an exhaustive explanation of the meaning but an attempt has been made to present the content in a simple and clear style as far as possible. Therefore a reader, I believe, will surely feel what yoga philosophy is like-if not what exactly it is-and if he feels that, I shall have been amply rewarded for this labour of love. It is rarely possible to-day for anyone to claim that he can fully understand and explain the yoga philosophy of Patanjali, first because of the nature of this ancient knowledge and secondly for reasons of the language. Ancient Indian philosophy, specially Yoga, is Darshan which means vision, a direct experience of the Reality and, simultaneously, a transmutation of the personality in tune with the vision. The medium of the vision may be thought, to begin with, or imagination, but finally it is the soul itself which, in a state of communion with the Reality, becomes one with it. The philosophic state then is a recreation, reflection in contemplation, of the state of Being wherein the subject, the object, and the experience (knowledge) all three merge into one. When the philosopher emerges from that experience, then, with his memory and imagination, he recaptures and reconstructs that experience from the impreSs which his soul still bears. This memory and imagination, too, is not the ordinary existential memory and imagination, it is the trans-logical, Ritambhara Prajna, the highest intelligence of which the human mind is capable. Logic and reason has a place but it has the power only to apprehend and not to comprehend the experience. Besides the limitations of logic and reason, we suffer from historical limitations of communication. The original language of the Yogasutras is the nearest possible approximation to the philosophic vision, but we cannot now be sure of our understanding of that language and much less of the approximation of that language to the vision. Indeed, we cannot even be sure whether our language to-day can translate the original Sanskrit expression. A claim to the original vision would be fantastic, even a claim to the original language would be presumptuous. Still what I do claim is an intellectual and sentimental commitment to the vision and to the language of the philosophy. Hence whatever is presented here is the fruit of that commitment and its meditative expression in English. Yoga philosophy presents a holistic programme of intelligent and full systemic living. Yoga is a complete discipline of a conscious evolution of the self from the state of existence to the vision of the essence and union with the Infinite source and spirit of the universe. Maharshi Patanjali takes the Sankhya and other Darshanas as his basis and constructs a prabtical programme of personal and transpersonal realization of truth and freedom.