Question: What benefits can be obtained from the practice of Yoga?

Sri Chinmoy: All kinds of benefits can be obtained from Yoga. If we practise Yoga for material gain, material wealth and material prosperity, Yoga will give these very things to us. But we have to know what we actually want. If we want something permanent and everlasting, something fulfilling and transforming which will give us constant joy, delight and a sense of perfection, then this purpose of practising Yoga is absolutely right and correct. Otherwise, if we want only material wealth, we will get it by praying to God: "God, I need money, I want wealth, I want name and fame." God will give us these things, for God is everything. He fulfils all our wishes. But satisfaction, constant satisfaction, eternal joy, we will never derive from these wishes.

If we feel that these are the benefits we need from Yoga — name, fame, wealth, satisfaction in showing the world how great we are — we will get them because Yoga is union with God. If we pray to God for this kind of benefit, God will be unified with us in this lower plane of consciousness. But if we want to realise God in the highest plane of consciousness where it is all Light, Delight, Perfection and Truth, we must know that Yoga can give us that also; Yoga has the key. The highest Yoga can give us these benefits. It is all-pervading and all-fulfilling. Many things we can get from Yoga. Only we have to know if we are going to be satisfied with the lesser goal or if we want to reach the highest Goal, the Goal where Infinity, Eternity and Immortality dwell together.