The aim of the book is to clarify the practice of meditation (Yoga) to the Western mind, to formulate a modernized method of inward thought and inward living, and to clarify divine self-comprehension. Brunton considers Yoga as an 'indrawing of man's mind toward his inner god-like self'. The author's method is an introspective self-enquiry, which includes a rational analysis of the self and also a process of abstract meditation.

A great part of the book is devoted to instructions in self analysis, breathing exercises, eye exercises and concentration on the heart. The author then drifts into mysticism. The Overself-atom, which the author, without any physiological support, locates in the heart, 'cannot be separated from its parent-God in the Universe … that which exists in the human being as the Overself-atom exists also outside him as the Universal Spirit'.

The book is written with feeling and conviction and enables one to get some understanding of the aims of the practice of mediation.