Patanjali's Yoga Sutras Intro
Founder of the Divine Life Society lived most of his life in Rishikesh, India. He wrote an impressive 300 books on various aspects of Yoga, religions, philosophy, spirituality, Hinduism, moral ethics, hygiene and health. He was a pioneering Yogi in bringing Yoga to the west and throughout the world. He was clear, simple and precise in all his teachings. His motto being: "Serve. Love. Give. Meditate. Purify. Realise."
Another of the great Yogi's of the last century
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Introduction
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are one of the six darshanas of Hindu or Vedic schools and, alongside the Bhagavad Gita and Hatha Yoga Pradipika, are a milestone in the history of Yoga. The book is a set of 195 aphorisms (sutras), which are short, terse phrases designed to be easy to memorize. Though brief, the Yoga Sutras are an enormously influential work that is just as relevant for yoga philosophy and practice today as it was when it was written.
To understand the work's title, it is necessary to consider the meanings of its two component words. The Sanskrit word Yoga, as used by Patanjali, refers to a state of mind where thoughts and feelings are held in check. Sutra means "thread". This is a reference to the thread of a mala, upon which (figuratively speaking) the yoga aphorisms that make up the work's content are strung like beads. For that reason the title is sometimes rendered in English as the Yoga Aphorisms.
The Padma Purana defines a sutra as "A sutra should have few alphabets (alpa-akshara), an unambiguous meaning, be full of essence (sara-yukta), said only after considering all arguments for and against it, infallible and without blemish."
Traditionally, the most prominent commentary is that of Vyasa, to whose work Vachaspati Misra has contributed an explanation of Vyasa's commentary.
Authorship
There is some confusion as to which Patanjali was the author of this book. Some have identified him with a grammarian by the same name, but the grammarian's dates do not match the age of the work as determined by the internal evidence. It is safe to assume that the Sutras were written somewhere between 1,700 and 2,200 years ago, although they may have existed long before that in unwritten form. Tradition has it that Patanjali is the compiler, but not author, of the Yoga Sutras. Before Patanjali wrote them down, they were learnt by memory and passed down from teacher to student through generations.
Nonetheless, Patanjali is a major figure among the great Hindu thinkers by any measure and, though not the father of yoga per se, he is certainly the father of Raja Yoga as its compiler.
Patanjali is also believed to be an incarnation of the serpent Ananta (Skt: endless), well known in Indian mythology as the thousand-headed naga who serves as a couch for Lord Vishnu and is also the guardian of the world's treasures.
Desiring to teach yoga to the world, he is said to have fallen (pat) from heaven into the open palms (anjali) of a woman, hence the name Patanjali.
Philosophical Roots and Influences
The Yoga Sutras are built on a foundation of Samkhya philosophy and the Bhagavad Gita. In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali prescribes adherence to eight "limbs" or steps (the sum of which constitute "Ashtanga Yoga", the title of the second chapter) to quiet one's mind and merge with the infinite. These eight limbs not only systematized conventional moral principles espoused by the Bhagavad Gita, but elucidated the practice of Raja Yoga in a more detailed manner.
For their part, the Yoga Sutras form the theoretical and philosophical base of all Raja yoga. It can still today be considered the most organized and complete definition of the Raja Yoga discipline. Moreover, the "eight-limbed" path espoused by Patanjali has formed the foundation for much of Tantra Yoga (a Hindu deific, Shiva-Shakti yoga system) and Vajrayana Buddhism (Buddhist Tantra Yoga) that came after Raja Yoga.
The Yoga Sutras not only provides yoga with a thorough and consistent philosophical basis, but in the process, also clarifies many important esoteric concepts (like karma), common to all traditions of Indian thought.
The Eight Limbs of Raja Yoga
The eight "limbs" or steps are: Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. A number of commentators break these eight steps into two categories. Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, and Pratyahara comprise the first category. The second category, called Samyama is comprised of Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. The division between the two categories exists because in latter three mentioned steps there is no cognizance whereas in the first five steps cognizance exists.
"Since there is no cognizance to these three stages (ed. Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi), they are not bound by time or succession. The result is that they exist independently and also exist simultaneously. Any one, two or three can exist at the same time. When the three stages exist simultaneously then it is called (ed. Samyamah) the simultaneous existence."
Taken from the commentary on Patanjali Sutra III.4 by Master E.K.
Patanjali divided his Yoga Sutras into 4 chapters or books (Sanskrit pada), containing in all 195 aphorisms, divided as follows:
Samadhi Pada (51 sutras)
Samadhi refers to a blissful state where the yogi is absorbed into the One. The author describes yoga and then the means to attaining samadhi. This chapter contains the most famous verses: "Atha yoga anusasanam" ("Yoga begins with discipline") and "Yogas citta vritti nirodha" ("Yoga is control of citta vrittis" - i.e., thoughts and feelings).
Sadhana Pada (55 sutras)
Sadhana is the Sanskrit word for "practice". Here the author outlines two forms of Yoga: kriya yoga (action yoga) and ashtanga yoga (eightfold yoga). Kriya yoga, sometimes called karma yoga, is reflected in the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 3, where Arjuna is encouraged to act without attachment to the results of action. It is the yoga of selfless action or as some have observed, of service. Ashtanga yoga consists of the following levels:
Yama = abstentions
These are 5 in number
ahimsa = abstention from violence = non-violence to all beings
satya = abstention from lying = truth
asteya = abstention from theft
brahmacharya = abstention from sexual activity = continence
aparigraha = abstention from possessions
Niyama = observances
These also are 5 in number:
Saucha = purity
Santosha = contentment
Tapas = austerities
Svadhyaya = study
Ishvarapranidhana = surrender to God
Asana - Postures of the body. This is also a title applied as; One made gracious by God as in Asana Bodhitharta
Pranayama - Control of prana or vital breath
Pratyahara - Abstraction; "is that by which the senses do not come into contact with their objects and, as it were, follow the nature of the mind." - Vyasa
Dharana - Fixing the attention on a single object; concentration
Dhyana - Meditation
Samadhi - Super-conscious state or trance
Vibhuti Pada (55 sutras)
Vibhuti is the Sanskrit word for "power" or "manifestation". This book describes the higher states of awareness and the techniques of yoga to attain them.
Kaivalya Pada (34 sutras)
Kaivalya literally means "isolation", but like most Sanskrit words, used technically, this translation is misleading. In this sense it means emancipation, liberation, used interchangeably with moksha (liberation), which is the goal of Yoga.
References
Master E.K., The Yoga of Patanjali Kulapathi Book Trust ISBN 81-85943-05-2
Wikipedia
Part 2 is a translation of the Yoga Sutras
Patanjali Yoga Sutras
This immortal classic by Patajali, which finds mention in the Bhagavad Gita, explains the importance of and the philosophy behind yoga, meditation and spiritual practices and gives invaluable instructions.
1. Part 1 - on Contemplations & union
2. Part 2 - on Spiritual Disciplines
3. Part 3 - on Divine Powers
4. Part 3 - on Realizations
Before beginning any spiritual text it is customary to clear the mind of all distracting thoughts, to calm the breath and to purify the heart.
1.1 Now, instruction in Union.
1.2. Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.
1.3. Then the seer dwells in his own nature.
1.4. Otherwise he is of the same form as the thought-streams.
1.5. The thought-streams are five-fold, painful and not painful.
1.6. Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, fancy, sleep and memory.
1.7. Right knowledge is inference, tradition and genuine cognition.
1.8. Wrong knowledge is false, illusory, erroneous beliefs or notions.
1.9. Fancy is following after word-knowledge empty of substance.
1.10. Deep sleep is the modification of the mind which has for its substratum nothingness.
1.11. Memory is not allowing mental impressions to escape.
1.12. These thought-streams are controlled by practice and non-attachment.
1.13. Practice is the effort to secure steadiness.
1.14. This practice becomes well-grounded when continued with reverent devotion and without interruption over a long period of time.
1.15. Desirelessness towards the seen and the unseen gives the consciousness of mastery.
1.16. This is signified by an indifference to the three attributes, due to knowledge of the Indweller.
1.17. Cognitive meditation is accompanied by reasoning, discrimination, bliss and the sense of 'I am.'
1.18. There is another meditation which is attained by the practice of alert mental suspension until only subtle impressions remain.
1.19. For those beings who are formless and for those beings who are merged in unitive consciousness, the world is the cause.
1.20. For others, clarity is preceded by faith, energy, memory and equalminded contemplation.
1.21. Equalminded contemplation is nearest to those whose desire is most ardent.
1.22. There is further distinction on account of the mild, moderate or intense means employed.
1.23. Or by surrender to God.
1.24. God is a particular yet universal indweller, untouched by afflictions, actions, impressions and their results.
1.25. In God, the seed of omniscience is unsurpassed.
1.26. Not being conditioned by time, God is the teacher of even the ancients.
1.27. God's voice is Om.
1.28. The repetition of Om should be made with an understanding of its meaning.
1.29. From that is gained introspection and also the disappearance of obstacles.
1.30. Disease, inertia, doubt, lack of enthusiasm, laziness, sensuality, mind-wandering, missing the point, instability- these distractions of the mind are the obstacles.
1.31. Pain, despair, nervousness, and disordered inspiration and expiration are co-existent with these obstacles.
1.32. For the prevention of the obstacles, one truth should be practiced constantly.
1.33. By cultivating friendliness towards happiness and compassion towards misery, gladness towards virtue and indifference towards vice, the mind becomes pure.
1.34. Optionally, mental equanimity may be gained by the even expulsion and retention of energy.
1.35. Or activity of the higher senses causes mental steadiness.
1.36. Or the state of sorrowless Light.
1.37. Or the mind taking as an object of concentration those who are freed of compulsion.
1.38. Or depending on the knowledge of dreams and sleep.
1.39. Or by meditation as desired.
1.40. The mastery of one in Union extends from the finest atomic particle to the greatest infinity.
1.41. When the agitations of the mind are under control, the mind becomes like a transparent crystal and has the power of becoming whatever form is presented. knower, act of knowing, or what is known.
1.42. The argumentative condition is the confused mixing of the word, its right meaning, and knowledge.
1.43. When the memory is purified and the mind shines forth as the object alone, it is called non-argumentative.
1.44. In this way the meditative and the ultra-meditative having the subtle for their objects are also described.
1.45. The province of the subtle terminates with pure matter that has no pattern or distinguishing mark.
1.46. These constitute seeded contemplations.
1.47. On attaining the purity of the ultra-meditative state there is the pure flow of spiritual consciousness.
1.48. Therein is the faculty of supreme wisdom.
1.49. The wisdom obtained in the higher states of consciousness is different from that obtained by inference and testimony as it refers to particulars.
1.50. The habitual pattern of thought stands in the way of other impressions.
1.51. With the suppression of even that through the suspension of all modifications of the mind, contemplation without seed is attained.
Part Two on Spiritual Disciplines
2.1 Austerity, the study of sacred texts, and the dedication of action to God constitute the discipline of Mystic Union.
2.2 This discipline is practised for the purpose of acquiring fixity of mind on the Lord, free from all impurities and agitations, or on One's Own Reality, and for attenuating the afflictions.
2.3 The five afflictions are ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and the desire to cling to life.
2.4 Ignorance is the breeding place for all the others whether they are dormant or attenuated, partially overcome or fully operative.
2.5 Ignorance is taking the non-eternal for the eternal, the impure for the pure, evil for good and non-self as self.
2.6 Egoism is the identification of the power that knows with the instruments of knowing.
2.7 Attachment is that magnetic pattern which clusters in pleasure and pulls one towards such experience.
2.8 Aversion is the magnetic pattern which clusters in misery and pushes one from such experience.
2.9 Flowing by its own energy, established even in the wise and in the foolish, is the unending desire for life.
2.10 These patterns when subtle may be removed by developing their contraries.
2.11 Their active afflictions are to be destroyed by meditation.
2.12 The impressions of works have their roots in afflictions and arise as experience in the present and the future births.
2.13 When the root exists, its fruition is birth, life and experience.
2.14 They have pleasure or pain as their fruit, according as their cause be virtue or vice.
2.15 All is misery to the wise because of the pains of change, anxiety, and purificatory acts.
2.16 The grief which has not yet come may be avoided.
2.17 The cause of the avoidable is the superimposition of the external world onto the unseen world.
2.18 The experienced world consists of the elements and the senses in play. It is of the nature of cognition, activity and rest, and is for the purpose of experience and realization.
 Quotation of the Month & C... |
| The Bhagavad Gita |
| WHAT IS YOGA ALL ABOUT?... |
| Four Paths of Yoga |
| Home |
| RECOMMENDED READING /MATS |
| YOGA SPEAK?? |
Send E-Mail to: Copyright © 2010 James Currie. All Rights Reserved