This book is comprised of lectures and talks of Swami Prabhavananda on spiritual life. The Swami had an extraordinary ability to make even the most subtle of enigmatic ideas exciting and comprehensible. He contributed a great deal to the understanding of Vedanta in the West and also facilitated a better understanding of all the religions of the world.
Those who have succeeded in attaching or detaching their minds at will have succeeded in Pratyahara, which means gathering towards, checking the outgoing powers of the mind, freeing it from the thralldom of the senses. When we can do this, we shall really possess character; then alone we shall have taken a long step towards freedom. Before that, we are mere machines.
-Swami Vivekananda