The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Aspiration without effort brings weakness; effort without aspiration brings a false strength, not resting on enduring things.

threefold power, of Attention, Meditation, Contemplation

2. A prolonged holding of the perceiving consciousness in that region is meditation (dhyana).

When the perceiving consciousness in this meditative is wholly given to illuminating the essential meaning of the object contemplated, and is freed from the sense of separateness and personality, this is contemplation (samadhi).

When these three, Attention, Meditation Contemplation, are exercised at once, this is perfectly concentrated Meditation (sanyama).

The first subject for the exercise of my spiritual insight is my day, with its circumstances, its hindrances, its opportunities, its duties. I do what I can to solve it, to fulfil its duties, to learn its lessons. I try to live my day with aspiration and faith. That is the first step. By doing this, I gather a harvest for the evening, I gain a deeper insight into life, in virtue of which I begin the next day with a certain advantage, a certain spiritual advance and attainment. So with all successive days. In faith and aspiration, we pass from day to day, in growing knowledge and power, with never more than one day to solve at a time, until all life becomes radiant and transparent.

From acceptance, the disciple gains happiness supreme.

The binding of the perceiving consciousness to a certain region is attention (dharana).

sorrows and losses teach us the pain of the sorrow and loss we inflict on others, and so we cease to inflict them.

other words, we cannot cure the pains of life by laying on them any balm. We must cut the root, absorption in the psychical self.