Rod Stryker - The Four Desires: Creating a Life of Purpose, Happiness, Prosperity, and Freedom

Advance praise for The Four Desires

The Four Desires is firmly grounded in ancient wisdom. Anyone seeking inner healing and lasting happiness must read this book.

P ANDIT R AJMANI T IGUNAIT , Ph.D., chairman and
spiritual head, Himalayan Institute

The Four Desires is a classic of transformational writing. Accessible to anyone looking for guidance on their journey, it is one of the most helpful books Ive ever read on what it requires to live a fulfilled life amid the complexities of todays world. Im recommending it to everyone I know!

S ALLY K EMPTON , author of Meditation for the Love of It

Rod Stryker brilliantly shares countless practices to empower and satisfy your inherent longing for happiness and success, worldly as well as spiritual. The Four Desires is a practical, powerful guide.

L ILIAS F OLAN , PBS host and author of
Lilias! Yoga Gets Better with Age

The Four Desires is a precious gem of a book. It offers us the owners manual of time-tested teachings we all should have had available to us earlier, which we can now utilize to realize and live a life filled with purpose and meaning. I will be recommending it for years to come to all my students and teachers-in-training.

R ICHARD M ILLER , Ph.D., author of Yoga Nidra:
A Meditative Practice for Deep Relaxation and Healing

Read The Four Desires slowly, savor its wisdom, and then do the exercises to help embody the wisdom. It will help you live your best life.

E RICH S CHIFFMANN , author of YOGA: The Spirit
and Practice of Moving into Stillness

I am thrilled to have at my fingertips the extraordinary genius of Rods teachings, as offered in The Four Desires. Regardless of ones yogic experience, Rod guides us to uncover the beauty, power, and purpose of our lives. This book is an incredible gift to have both as a teacher and student, and I am excited to use it as a resource for my own continued growth and self-discovery.

S EANE C ORN , yoga instructor and
co-founder of Off the Mat, Into the World

Copyright 2011 by Rod Stryker

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Delacorte Press,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

D ELACORTE and colophon are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Para Yoga is a registered trademark and The Yoga of Fulfillment
is a trademark of Rod Stryker.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Stryker, Rod.
The four desires: creating a life of purpose, happiness,
prosperity, and freedom / Rod Stryker.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-440-42328-7
1. Yoga. 2. SuccessReligious aspectsHinduism. I. Title.
BL1238.54.S77 2011
294.544dc22 2010052828

Illustrations by Kate Ramirez

Jacket design: Carlos Beltran

v3.1

Happiness. We all seek it. There is no more basic or universal drive than the desire to be happy. It is inherent, something we are compelled to by virtue of who and what we are.

Everything human beings have accomplished and aspired to, our every endeavor, has been and always will be rooted in the impulse to satisfy our longing for happiness. We desire love, pleasure, beauty, friendship, accomplishment, wisdom, and power. Each of us longs for an abiding sense of purpose and meaning, peace, health, and security. At some level, we also aspire to freedom, to a greater capacity to shape our destiny, and to connect with something greater than ourselves, which some call Source, Self, or God.

As the thirteenth-century poet Jalaluddin Rumi observed: The wings of humankind is its aspiration. Aspiration was responsible for the creation of language, society, culture, science, architecture, the worlds spiritual traditions, and even walking on the moon. Everything humanity has accomplished is the legacy of its enduring desire for fulfillment.

The book you hold in your hands is a road map to fulfilling your material and spiritual desires, both your short-term goals and the enduring longing that all human beings have, whether were conscious of it or not, for lasting peace and freedom. The process it walks you through is based on the ancient spiritual tradition of the Vedas. A series of sacred scriptures from the land known today as India, the Vedas are, for the most part, little celebrated in the West. However, the same cannot be said for one of the Vedas many branchesnamely, yoga.

Yoga is officially an industry in America. By some estimates it generates nearly five and a half billion dollars a year. People of all walks of life, social strata, and age groups practice it: housewives, stockbrokers, professional football players, judges, country music stars, grandmothers, and schoolchildren. The reason for its widespread popularity is simple: it works.

Yoga has improved the lives of those in nursing homes in Florida, prisons in Illinois, and boardrooms in Manhattan. With research showing that children who practice yoga have higher test scores and are better adjusted socially than those who do not, some schools have begun integrating it into their curricula. Universities and hospitals nationwide are currently funding or conducting studies on yoga, as are the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute. Corporations big and small offer it to their employees. Insurance companies are underwriting yoga for their enrollees because of its proven long-term benefits: studies confirm that it slows down the aging process, reduces many stress-related symptoms, helps with back problems, and improves everything from cognitive skills to immune function to sleep, memory, and even digestion.

Despite its widespread acceptance and the number of lives it has improved, what most of us in the West commonly associate with yoga represents only the tip of the iceberg that is yoga, a tiny fraction of what is a vast and profound science; few Westerners are aware of the full breadth and power of its teachings. In fact, many people, including some who practice yoga, assume that yoga is nothing more than a form of exercise, or they believe that only the physical aspects of yoga have relevance to their lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. When yoga is understood in its totality, it is not a religion; it is a practical and comprehensive science for realizing lifes ultimate aims. The yoga tradition provides one of humankinds most effective systems for achieving enrichment and happiness in every aspect of life. In short, in the same way that the physical practice of yoga so effectively benefits your body and mind, the larger science of yoga is similarly powerful in unlocking the vast potentials of your body, mind, and spirit to help you achieve your best life imaginable.