Patanjali Yoga Sutra — mṛdumadhyādhimātratvāttato’pi viśeṣaḥ|| 1.22||मृदुमध्याधिमात्रत्वात्ततोऽपि विशेषः ||

Success in yoga also depends on the intensity of practice adopted by sādhakas — soft, average or powerful.

When all the links of a chain are strong enough to bind a strong elephant except one link, which is just strong enough to bind a dog, what should be considered as the strength of the chain? A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Bhagavān acclaims the application of intensity in yoga sādhana as follows:

प्रयत्नाद्यतमानस्तु योगी संशुद्धकिल्बिषः।

अनेकजन्मसंसिद्धस्ततो याति परां गतिम्॥गीता ६.४५॥

prayatnādyatamānastu yogī saṁśuddhakilbiṣaḥ.

anekajanmasaṁsiddhastato yāti parāṁ gatim||Gītā 6.45||

An intense yoga practitioner will be totally freed from all sins and having cleansed of all his wrongdoings, reaches the supreme position.

The spiritual perfection achieved through dhyānayoga helps a yogi to completely cleanse all his sins and he enjoys total freedom. That complete freedom itself is ‘Kaivalya or Mokṣa’ — the ultimate goal of anybody’s life. Such a man is jīvanmukta. Bhagavān warns, this needs very intense sādhana, totally dedicating one’s life. But, no part of one’s practice goes waste even if one cannot reach the desired results in one’s lifetime.

swāmi vivekānanda looks from a different perspective and portrays yoga like this: “Yoga is a conscious systematic process for accelerating growth of a human being from his animal stage to the ultimate stage of divinity”. Thus, yoga is all about personality development. And he gives a very impressive analogy: Michael Angelo was a magnificent sculptor. His sculptures were astonishingly outstanding! He was asked, what was his secret of success. His answer was very apt: ‘In every rock, there is already a sculpture waiting to manifest through the hands of an artist. Obviously, one’s job is to just remove the unwanted parts of the rock, mercilessly, through one’s chisler and a hammer”.

So does our personality. Our personality is a conglomeration of good as well as bad things or aspects. There are vices as well as virtues in our personality. Negatives are also there, positives are also there. Sādhaka makes all out, steadfast efforts to find out what is considered negative in his personality. Once found out, he uses the tool called ‘Yoga’ to chisel out those unwanted negative portions. Finally, divine personality only remains. That is yogasādhana.