Practicing Yoga in the Age of Quarrel
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Five thousand years ago, in the  Bhagavad-gītā  dialogue, Lord Kṛṣṇa recommended the yoga practice to His disciple Arjuna, but Arjuna flatly expressed his inability to follow the stringent rules and regulations of yoga. One should be practical in every field of activity. One should not waste his valuable time simply in practicing some gymnastic feats in the name of yoga. Real yoga is to search out the four-handed Supersoul within one's heart, and to see Him perpetually in meditation. Such continued meditation is called  samādhi . If, however, one wants to meditate upon something void or impersonal, it will require a very long time to achieve anything by yoga practice. We cannot concentrate our mind on something void or impersonal. Real yoga practice is to fix the mind on the person of the four-handed Nārāyaṇa who dwells in everyone's heart.
Sometimes it is said that by meditation one will understand that God is seated within one's heart always, even when one does not know it. God is seated within the heart of everyone. Not only is He seated in the heart of the human being, but He is also within the hearts of the cats and dogs. The  Bhagavad-gītā  certifies this with the declaration that Īśvara, the supreme controller of the world, is seated in the heart of everyone. He is present not only in everyone's heart, but also within the atoms. No place is vacant; no place is without the presence of the Lord.
The feature of the Lord by which He is present everywhere is called the Paramātmā.  Ātmā  means the individual soul, and Paramātmā means the individual Supersoul. Both  ātmā  and Paramātmā are individual persons. The difference between them, however, is that the  ātmā , or soul, is present only in one particular place, whereas the Paramātmā is present everywhere.
In this connection, the example of the sun is very nice. An individual person may be situated in one place, but the sun, even though a specific individual entity, is present over the head of every individual person. In the  Bhagavad-gītā  this is very nicely explained. Therefore, even though the qualities of all entities, including the Lord, are equal, the Supersoul is different from the individual soul by quantity of expansion. The Lord, or Supersoul, can expand Himself into millions of different forms, while the individual soul cannot do so.
The Supersoul, being seated in everyone's heart, can witness everyone's activities, past, present, and future. In the  Upaniṣads  the Supersoul is said to be sitting with the individual soul as a friend and witness. As a friend He is always anxious to get the individual soul back home, back to Godhead. As a witness, He is the endower of all benedictions that result from the individual's actions. The Supersoul gives the individual soul all