Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

Endnotes Appendix Bibliog. Downloadable PDF

Definition: “Yoga” is a Hindu Sanskrit word that means “yoking,” “joining,” or “union with the divine.” This is, simply, the experience of connecting with an awareness beyond the normal self–whether within yourself or without.

The Sanskrit word "sutras" means, in English, “sayings," "aphorisms,” or “brief chants.” In Sanskrit's ancient roots, a major meaning is that a sutra is a "woven thread." It tells us that here, the single thread of each saying is woven into the complete fabric of a book.

What does “yoga” mean to us now? During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the institution of “yoga” in the West became synonymous with receiving lessons in breathing exercises and physical posture or movements. However, in ancient India, “yoga” actually was what we call “meditation” today. Breathing and body postures were important, but they were just one helpful part. If Patanjali were alive today and writing his book, he might call it Meditation Handbook.

The Yoga Sutras is not a religion or philosophy. It is not against, or counter to, any particular belief system. The sutras can fit well with almost any religion open to meditation. It is part of what sometimes is called “perennial wisdom” or similar names since the Renaissance: a belief that all the world’s religions are talking about the same underlying experiences.

This means that while some of Patanjali’s sutras do have what might be called “spiritual” meanings, his practices here can relate easily to people’s experiences in many religions. Patanjali says that you can connect with a state of higher Being, whether within yourself, through nature or art, or in a number of other experiences and practices. The sutras even can help you understand unusual meditation experiences. And they fit the scientific approach for those who believe in no religion at all: even if you think there is nothing higher or greater except the human mind, you can learn through the Yoga Sutras how to harness its greater abilities.

Thus this book offers clear, step-by-step directions, provides a variety of ways to meditate, and describes what then happens. It can go right to the heart of what works for you, why, and how to learn its techniques gently and slowly—or more quickly.

Comment: Each sutra in Patanjali’s book is a saying of one or two sentences (usually with no verb), written as a chant. In Patanjali’s time, only one or two percent of people could read, so almost all communication and teaching was oral. Written works were very rare. You can hear how the Yoga Sutras sound as chants by searching online for “yoga sutra chant.” (Two good links are www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzCrhOPxt6M and http://yogasutrastudy.info/ysp-audio.)

The “Comments” in this book also discuss scientific studies about meditation, as well as the experiences of well-known meditation experts and mystics, to support and identify the specific methods and results that Patanjali discusses. And the book offers brief explanations, in the “Endnotes,” for somewhat deeper analysis or a quick summary of some of the world’s major religions and mystics.

Many individuals throughout the world and history have discovered the methods and experiences Patanjali describes here. Most meditation systems and major religions contain people within their orders, ranks, or schools who have experienced a great peace, love, strength, or special awareness–events that traditional religions would call spiritual or mystical. People who are nonbelievers in religion, even those who are agnostics, have such experiences, too. In recent decades science has verified the practical value of meditation and of many of these experiences. Patanjali was not trying to create or sustain a religion. Rather, this is a simple instruction manual on how to find, make sense of, and enjoy such experiences.

Definition: Each chapter of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras has a title. The name of Chapter One is Samadhi Pada.

The word samadhi means, in Hindu yoga meditation, the ultimate freedom of having a perfectly clear mind. The roots of the word–"sam" and "adhi" (possibly from "aditi" in Hinduism’s oldest written scripture, the Rig Veda)–contain such meanings as "blessed freedom," "blessed pairing together" (of your awareness with that of Being), and "pairing freedom." One good way to define this almost indefinable word is to say, "Union-with-Being."

The word Pada often is defined as "one of four parts," just as this chapter is one of the four in the original Yoga Sutras. The word also means "step"; a "trace or mark of a foot"; in Buddhism, the Buddha's "footprint"; or, especially in Hinduism, "path."

One of the clearest ways to express the full title is, simply, "Chapter for Union with Being." It also could be called "Step One: Joining Being" or "The Path to Ultimate Freedom."

Comment: The word samadhi is Hinduism's word for what other religions call nirvana, satori, moksha, the Presence of Yahweh/Elohim, Union with God, and similar phrases and words that convey an ultimate or deepest experience. It is important to stress that samadhi is not an abstract philosophical or theological concept, but rather an actual experience. The Western words "Bliss," "The Peace That Passeth Understanding," and "Energy" or even "The Force" as imagined in Star Wars, also capture what the experience is.

Different religions and spiritual practices–and different schools within them–sometimes divide the experience into higher and lower stages, or slightly different versions, for example, "blissful" or "non-blissful," "full" or "empty," etc. Such divisions are fine: they exist. Patanjali himself describes several different versions of samadhi in his sutras, the best known of which are called "samadhi with seed" and "samadhi without seed," in addition to others. So, dividing the ultimate experience into different categories is not only acceptable but also accords with the realities of the experience. The event of it comes to a meditator in shades, steps, or mixtures, as Patanjali himself discusses in this chapter.

Definition: In this book, each of these sutras is given using the same pattern–the original (Anglicized) Sanskrit saying from Patanjali, a literal translation, its meaning, and a modern chant. These are followed by a “Definition” of the sutra and a “Comment” about it.

To define this first sutra, the technical translation of “yoga” is “yoking” or “union.” Patanjali here means yoking to, or gaining union with, what is true being, which is a very real and pure Awareness through your own consciousness.

Patanjali’s “instructions” or “lessons” are not just about physical yoga postures, though those are a small part of them. This book, Yoga Sutras, is not just about breathing exercises, however important, though those also are briefly discussed. The great majority of these sutras are about what your mind can accomplish if you choose to use it. For example, the Yoga Sutras explains how you can throw out thoughts to arrive at a clear mind space, break up emotions so they are less controlling, and eventually even master your desires.

Comment: What kinds of inner mental lessons are these? It is perhaps useful to divide the world’s history of meditation, spiritual practices, and mystical experiences into two camps or styles. One can be called “The Way of Concentration.” The other can be named “The Way of Waiting.”

The Way of Concentration normally asks you to focus on a specific point, object, or subject. You might focus on a point on or above your body; an image or a repeated word or phrase; a memory, perhaps, of an especially deep or high experience; or even an especially saintly person or leader of a religion. In fact, Vyasa, ca. 400 CE, the first commentator on Patanjali, says that in using the Yoga Sutras, your mind space becomes “clear” and “one-pointed.” This “one-pointed” method may vary from very traditionally religious methods to the very nontraditional.

Usually, this path suggests specific subjects, objects, or points of concentration that are positive, such as experiences involving love, light, joy, or peace. Some more-extreme versions in the Way of Concentration do make use of darker, deeper, or lower inner forces, sometimes even psychologically and physically dangerous ones. Those who are experienced in these methods strongly recommend that you have a trusted leader to help you at each step. Legitimate masters of these methods discourage people from following this path unless followers have daily or weekly contact with an initiate who can guide them along the way.

However, if your meditations focus on higher subjects, objects, or points, then you may pursue the Way of Concentration safely using indirect advice such as from reading, recordings, and friendly discussions. In fact, in the West, this approach sometimes is called the Via Positiva–Latin for the “positive road.” Christian mystic Thomas Merton refers to it when he says, “There are, in Christian tradition, a theology of light and a theology of darkness. On these two lines travel two mystical trends.”

There are many examples of safe concentration: visualizing, praying or chanting to, or practicing the advice of a saint, guru, or master; focusing on higher points on one’s own body, especially the heart or just above the head; encouraging transcendent experiences through nature, the arts, or physical activities; and others. The key question to ask yourself is, “Does my concentrating aim for peace, joy, love, or something similar?” If the answer is yes, then your path is fairly safe.

The Way of Waiting is a path you can take by patiently watching and hoping for a higher or deeper inner experience. You do not concentrate on a specific subject, object, or point. In this camp or style of meditation, you may sit in silence; you may ask or pray for an inner awakening; you may work, if you wish, to empty yourself of normal thoughts and feelings, rejecting everything “not it”; or you simply may stand back within yourself, apart from your normal thoughts and feelings, and look for the higher or deeper to come to you.

If you pursue this method, multiple choices from traditional spiritual practices are available to you such as prayer, fasting, spiritual retreats, withdrawal to nature, chanting, special breathing and postures, and many others. Extreme methods also are available: for example, self-inflicted pain, lengthy fasting, imprisoning, profound hermit-like activities dangerous to your health, and others. These practices are neither recommended nor necessary for most individuals.

In the West, the Way of Waiting sometimes is called the Via Negativa or “negative road.” This is because as you wait for light, love, or peace to come to you, many troubling thoughts, memories, emotions, and sensations can present themselves, often from your past but also from your present. And it is easy to become caught in their sticky webs before you even know what is happening. For this reason, legitimate masters who recommend this road also strongly recommend you have help: a well experienced guide to help you through the more difficult experiences.

Where do Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras fit into these two paths? Patanjali makes it clear early in his book that people may concentrate on whatever they choose to gain light, love, and peace–and especially a crystal-clear mind. Thus the Yoga Sutras clearly fit into the category of self-help for those who want to use the Way of Concentration with a positive orientation.

However, Patanjali’s recommendations also may be useful to you if you are using the Way of Waiting. As you meditate and wait, these sutras may help you better understand what is swirling and whirling through your mind space and your emotional self–what is useful and what is not. Patanjali’s clear intent is to be practical and, in simple language, help you no matter what road you choose.

In fact, some people combine both Ways. For example, those who Wait sometimes decide to go into their heart, concentrating on it, and Wait there. Or those who concentrate may wait on a point above their heads, focusing there. Transcendentalists may concentrate on the beauty around them, waiting for it to fill them.

No matter your path, you will have experiences that these sutras can help you better understand: what is valuable and what is not? What can you reliably hold onto, and what should you ignore or push away? The sutras can help you better understand what you experience and more easily make choices.

In fact, the Sutras offer a very wide umbrella under which people from the most spiritually devout to the absolutely rational and scientific may gather, whether in Concentration or Waiting. Jerome Engel, Distinguished Professor of Neurology at UCLA, says, “Numerous writings in recent years have exacerbated the traditional rift between science and religion [but] [n]euroscientists have become increasingly interested in using...introspective inquiries of the mind to complement...scientific investigations of the brain. [C]ontemplative practices are particularly amenable to such collaboration, inviting efforts to find neurobiological explanations....” *

In other words, there are few differences among all the different schools and methods of religion and spirituality when it comes to goals. Whether you are a fervent follower of one of the major world religions, a confirmed scientific atheist, or someone who is between, the objectives for all are much the same: calm, peace, and control of your mind; joy and love; and triumph over bad health whether physical, emotional, or mental. Patanjali wrote a practical manual two thousand years ago for reaching these goals.

* For most authors or works mentioned in these sutras, you may go to the “Endnotes” for further information.

Meaning: “In yoga, you learn to calm the whirlpools or waves of thought in your brightening mind space.”

A Chant: “Still the whirlpool of your thoughts and enter the great silence.”

Definition: Yoga concentration is a way to clear your mind space of what might be considered the “Big Four Obstacles” to clear meditation:

Negative sensations (negative physical feelings such as despair, excessive desire, and over-excitation)

Patanjali describes them as swirling around in your mind space (Sutra 1.3-1.4), and later in the sutras he labels the really troubling ones as “throwaways” (1.30-1.31), which also may swirl around or within you.

One frequently used image for describing the mind space is that it rests like a deep, wide pool into which different thoughts, feelings, and other mental impressions are tossed like stones. When these “stones” are thrown in (or when you draw them in), they create waves in the natural stillness of the mind’s water. These waves obscure the clarity of the pool.

If you adopt this way of understanding what thoughts and feelings are, then you can view them as things that are not forever trapped inside your mind or body; rather they are external to your truest Self or Awareness and thus can be thrown out or otherwise blocked or rejected. There are, according to Patanjali, a number of ways to clear yourself of them.

Comment: Modern science observes our brain processes using neural imaging and similar physical tools of observation. In 2020, a team of scientists at Queen's University in Canada reported their observations of the thinking of first-year psychology students watching movies. The scientists used their scanning instruments not only to examine where in students’ heads their thoughts occurred, but also how often. The results regarding frequency were that tentatively “one could estimate over six thousand daily thoughts for healthy adults of a young-adult demographic....” Needless to say, so many bits and pieces of thinking in our heads do not exactly create a calm, peaceful mind.

In this sutra, the word nirodhaḥ usually means “to cease” or “stop.” Interestingly, the -rodhaḥ part of it may come from Rudra, a Hindu god or sometimes goddess of storms. Ni- means “no” or “not”; combining it with the name of the god gives us a root meaning of “no storm.” In other words, in successful yoga meditation, the swirlings of your mind stop, and you experience a state of “no-storm.”

Another Hindu way of looking at our thinking, called the koshas in Indian psychology, also may be helpful for understanding Patanjali’s idea of thought control. The ancient scriptures of India, from which Patanjali almost certainly drew many of his ideas, are the Vedas and the Upanishads (see “Endnotes”). The koshas are mentioned specifically in the Taittirīya, likely written well before Patanjali’s time. This scripture explains that five koshas exist as sheaths or layers surrounding your innermost Awareness. You may access them through simple awareness or with the help of verbalization or visualization techniques used in normal life, psychological introspection or therapy, and meditation. They are like the layers of an onion:

"Wisdom" Layer: Your intuitive "knowing" awareness that does not require thought

Second-to-last Layer: Emotion, desire, physical energy and feelings, bad and good; normally somewhat controllable

Outer Layer: Physical body, bones, nerves, sensory input–autonomic/automated systems

What is important to remember about the koshas is that Patanjali and Hinduism in general say the four outer layers are outside and beyond the innermost Awareness of the true Self. For this reason, he names the Middle and Second-to-last Layers–thoughts, memories, emotions, and sensations–as “whirlpools” or “swirls” because, as they enter, they resemble swirls that burrow into you like a whirlpool. Other translators call them “turnings,” “perturbations,” or “waves” like those that disturb a clear pool of water when a stone is dropped in. Later, in Sutra 18, Patanjali also will describe some of these swirls, when they are completely outside of your koshas, as looking like “burnt seeds.”

Another way to consider Patanjali’s ancient Hindu psychology is the way it defines the word “mind.” In Patanjali’s sutras, “mind” is similar to the concept of “space,” “sky,” or, say, “hole.” These words all signify something that is not a real “thing” in itself, but rather is defined by what is present within or around it.

“Space,” for example, is not an object from which you can carve out a piece, weigh it, and describe the piece’s width, length, and height. Rather, it is something that is, simply, empty–nonexistent. “Space” is defined only by what it contains–what is inside it. For example, you might say, “There is an empty space in the corner of my living room,” or “the sun and stars are in space.” The word always is an abstract–a place or location, in itself not a real object.

“Mind” is similar in ancient Hindu psychology. A “crystal-clear mind” is a location, not a thing. It is an empty mind space. Patanjali does explain that some forms of liberation or enlightenment may involve, or contain, such real energies as a deep and abiding presence of peace, love, or joy, and even mental thinking of a purer sort can occur. But a “crystal-clear mind” in the Yoga Sutras is, in its most absolute or pure form, a space empty of the Big Four: all thoughts, memories, emotions, and negative sensations.

The Western scientific “brain” certainly is a physical place, part of the human body, where a tremendous number of chemical energies perform highly complex physical activities. But “mind” is an ancient concept in both West and East. And in both, it operates more like an eye or an ear. You can close your eyes and see nothing, or plug your ears and hear nothing. Similarly, says Patanjali, you can clear out your mind and think nothing, revealing your true Awareness in its center.

* The “Literal translation” of each sutra in this book sometimes uses additional punctuation marks. They are not part of the original Sanskrit but are added here for greater clarity.

Literal translation: “At that moment, awareness: natural color standing”

Meaning: “When you complete Sutra 1.2, you will find your Awareness, standing or radiating in its own natural color, pure and crystal-clear.”

Definition: At the base or center of your normal mind and personality, you are an Awareness. This center within you is not an emptiness, a death, a midnight, or a nothingness. It is, instead, filled with Awareness, a fullness, a blazing consciousness. For example, consider a time when you have been most filled with a strong sense of something higher, deeper, more powerful than mere thought or daily emotions. Have you been transported to a powerful sense of love, of peace, or simply of pure awareness? It is times like these that you come closest to experiencing your pure Awareness.

The 20th-21st century Franciscan priest and mystic Richard Rohr–an important advocate of the Centering Prayer movement–has many names for it, as well, He says it is your “immortal diamond” and “True Self" that is “God [and] human...at the same time.” He adds that it is the Gospel of Matthew’s “treasure hidden in the field” and “pearl of great price," St. Teresa of Avila’s “actual spring” of water, the Greek “psyche (soul)," and “the indwelling Holy Spirit.”

Sanskrit Text: Patanjali, c. 400 BCE-400 CE

Contact: richard.jewell.net/contact.htm. Free Use Policy

URLs: YogaSutras.org or PatanjalisYogaSutras.org

Natural URL: http://www.richard.jewell.net/YogaSutras

See also Meditationary.org, a Meditation Dictionary; and BodyMeditation.org, Introducing Yoga Meditation.

About the Author