Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

Endnotes Appendix Bibliog. Downloadable PDF

Sutra 2.17: Draṣṭr̥ dr̥śyayoḥ saṁyogaḥ (saṁyogo) heya hetuḥ

Literal translation: “Pure Seer, and the seen in nature, together yoked: leaving behind stirrings”

Meaning: “You the perceiving True Self and the natural objects you perceive are tied together as if one, causing you to be stirred up.”

A chant in English: “Be your True Self in nature, but don’t be trapped in it.”

Definition: Patanjali declared in Sutra 2.16 that you can abandon your troubles before they can happen. How do you accomplish this? You come to the realization that is in Sutra 2.17: you are not what you perceive.

This means, for example, that you are not the chair or couch on which you are sitting. You also are not the emotions you feel–they are separate from your True Self or from Being. And you are not the mental thinking, and not the constructed sense of self, that you have developed in memory. They do exist. They are what Patanjali calls part of nature. But they are external to your core of pure Awareness. Once you realize this, you can begin to disentangle yourself from future troubles.

Comment: A related, interesting story comes from the dawn of humanity as a lesson in who and what each of us really is. Ancient times tell of souls who, before humans existed, wanted an earthly existence. Enamored of the beauty of the earth, they came down into it and entered into such biological objects as animals and trees and even inanimate ones like rocks, wind, and bodies of water. So in love with their new bodies were they that they gradually forgot who they were–free spirits–and became trapped forever more or until other entities released them.

Some claim such stories have a strand of truth in them; others, that they are fiction. At the least, , these tales are symbolic of how our individual selves are caught in matter. However, as Patanjali indicates in this new section of sutras, 2.17-2.22, you do not need to make the choice of leaving behind your body. Rather, you may seek mastery of it. This change, though, requires you to realign yourself with Being or your True Self.

Being “caught” in your body, Patanjali teaches, is not necessarily bad. Instead, it is an opportunity to purify your natural life so that you live a new existence of improved thinking and sensing. In order to succeed at this, you must let Being or your True Self gradually convert your “stirrings”–the whirlings or energies–of much that is unnecessary in thoughts, memories, emotions, and sensations. None of these four aspects of being human are bad, in and of themselves. However, you should not, he says, become trapped in their often constant, repetitive, distracting, and unnecessary existence in yourself.

Ascetic individuals and communities throughout the world since the beginning of human life have worked especially hard in attempting to rid themselves of their “stirrings.” For example, the Christian desert Fathers and Mothers were hermits and ascetics who lived for this purpose in the wilds in and near Egypt primarily in the 300s-400s CE. Their homes were caves, small “cells” they built individually, or small rooms in simple communal monasteries.

They fasted and prayed daily, read only the Christian Bible or nothing at all, and owned so little that some wore rags and ate and drank from one simple bowl. They earned just enough money for scant food each day by such jobs as weaving reeds into ropes and baskets.

Notably, their goal usually was to spend the great majority of their time each day for years, often a lifetime, learning to rid themselves of all impulses that kept them from inner silence and God. One of the most famous was Father Poemen. He says that a person must “abstain from everything which is contrary,...anger, fits of passion, jealousy, hatred and slandering....” How do you accomplish this? Poemen says, “Vigilance, self-knowledge, and discernment; these are the guides of the soul.... The victory over all the afflictions that befall you, is, to keep silence.”

Likewise, the more you know, as in Sutra 2.3, that your thoughts, memories, emotions, and sensations are not Being–not your true Self or Awareness–the better you are able to “abandon wearying problems” as in Sutra 2.16. This means that the more you live in such true Awareness rather than just your constructs of self–and the more you give up your illusions of power and your hot messes–the deeper you fall into an inner silence. In that quietude, Patanjali coaches, you develop more profound gifts and healings: sometimes called gifts of the spirit, they are newer, clearer, more immediate and deeper thoughts, memories, feelings, and sensations than in the old nature-bound versions of self. Almost always, there are much fewer of them, like the single note of a bell. And when you are in this state of True Self/Being, these gifts are more useful, more profound, and far less troubling.

Sutra 2.18: Prakāśa kriya sthiti-śīlaṁ bhūta-indriya-ātmakam bhoga-apavarga-arthaṁ dr̥śyam

Literal translation: “Brightness, activity (kriya), ongoing steadiness/continuation: the pre-matter natures. Matter’s becomings (the elements of nature), the sensory organs: the embodied expression of them [of those first three pre-matters]. Enjoyment and turning away from them: their purpose. [All of this] the seen”

Meaning: “Brilliant clarity, action, and stable inertia [the gunas] are the three underlying essences of nature. All other physical elements, along with the sensory organs (five senses and mind), express those three essences in material life. Enjoyment of them–and freeing ourselves from them–are the two reasons for their existence. All of this defines what is ‘the seen’ (as in Sutra 2.17).”

A chant in English: “The natural world and your doors of perception can lead you beyond material pleasures to experience true freedom.”

Definition: In the previous sutra, 2.17, Patanjali talked about the seer” and the “seen.” Now in Sutra 2.18, he defines the “seen.”

Almost all translations agree that the first three words of this sutra (“brightness,” “activity,” and “steadiness”) refer to ancient Hinduism’s three main constituents or forces of nature’s essences: the gunas of sattva, rajas, and tamas. The earliest Hindu scriptures define them as the three underlying qualities of the entire universe and all other form and matter. See Sutra 1.16, where the three are introduced and explained.

The second part of this sutra, about the physical elements and the sensory organs, refers to the material world that we actually can see and touch. It is worth noting, though, that the ancient understanding of the “elements” of nature is not of molecules and atoms; rather, in much of both East and West in ancient times, the main elements of nature were four or five: earth, water, fire, air, and sometimes ether/spirit.

Comment: Especially interesting in this sutra is how Patanjali refers to the mind as yet another sense organ, similar to the five senses. Mind is, in the ancient Hindu view, not a storage device for retention of memories. Rather, for Patanjali, mind is an “eye” and “ear” that retrieves vibrations of thoughts, feelings, and other energy-whirlings or stirrings around it, just as the five senses retrieve energy vibrations of color, sound, and smell. For more on mind as sense organ, see the “Comment” section of Sutra 1.2.

Another notable phrase in this sutra occurs in its next-to-last phrase: “Enjoyment and turning away from them: their purpose.” This means that the purpose of all nature, at least for a human, is to create two states. The first is enjoyment of life’s higher, finer rewards: they help you desire ever more illumination, will to grow, and steadiness. The second state, “turning away from” nature, often is translated as “liberation” or “freedom.” However, two ways of understanding this have developed, as follows.

In general, older translations assume that liberation means you are freed forever from the bondage of nature, at which point you stop being reincarnated or even that you stop life itself, and you then die. Newer translations sometimes suggest, however, that meditating will prevent your being compelled to follow the same old bondage, and that you will, instead, be transformed into a newer, better way of life here on earth.

Is the ultimate liberation–whether it is called nirvana, moksha, satori, or any other name –the time when you forever leave earthly existence? Or is it a renewal of a different kind of existence on earth? In both scholarly and spiritual circles, this sometimes becomes an issue quite sharply argued with strong opinions on both sides. (For example, see the disagreements Buddhist schools of thought have about the meaning of nirvana–as the end of your physical existence vs. the beginning of a new life in our world–in “Appendix D: What is Nirvana?”)

There are reasons to argue that Patanjali and others may have experienced a transformational liberation of, or within, their bodies, a change that leaves a person still alive on earth but with a liberated soul. The reasons for this point of view are made best through looking at his final discussion, at the end of this book in Sutras 4.29-4.34, about experiencing dharmamegha or the “raincloud of virtue.” To learn more about this transformation, you may read those last six sutras and/or examine “Appendix E. How to Meditate after Dharma Megha” and “Appendix F. What Is Ultimate Dharma Megha?”

Sutra 2.19: Viśeṣa-aviśeṣa liṅga-mātra-aliṅgāni guṇa-parvāṇi

Meaning: “(1) Physical objects, (2) the material energies allowing for perception and sense of ego, (3) pre-matter essences differentiated into forms or shapes (before they become matter), and (4) pre-matter essence undifferentiated with no form or shape, pure and underlying all else: these are the four shades or levels of nature affected by the gunas (these are the “seen”).

A chant in English: “In meditation, you might experience not only the outer world and the mind, but also its underlying essences and the womb of creation.”

Definition: In this sutra, Patanjali is teaching readers the four levels of nature (the “seen”) that meditators may experience, and how all of them are part of the gunas. All four parts of nature are described in ancient Hindu scriptures before Patanjali’s time. The first two are obvious to everyone: (1) material objects and (2) material energy (such as sound and light).

The second two are “essences,” something Western science generally doesn’t recognize. One of them is “formed essences”; the other, “unformed, pure essence.” Formed essences are things that, says Patanjali in other sutras, a meditator sees with subtle inner vision: for example, the “burnt seeds” that some meditators see coming into them or circling around them, or vritti–the swirling, whirling thoughts, memories, and emotions that you need to clear from your mind.

The main theme of this chapter on kriya yoga is the five personality types and how to get rid of them. Patanjali now is bringing forward these four levels of nature to help you get rid of any of the five personality traits from which you may suffer. Each personality trait is embedded in the physical object of your body and brain, and in your material energy of your sight, sound, and thinking.

Patanjali also points out in various ways throughout his Yoga Sutras that the elements of a personality trait also are embedded in your “formed essences.” What are your own “formed essences”? They are such things as the “burnt seeds” that he describes in Sutra 1.18 and the “whirlpools or waves of thought in your brightening mind space” in Sutra 1.2 that you see, at least in art, with your subtle senses beyond, behind, or above material sensing.

His purpose in describing the fourth level of nature, pure essence, is the same. Once you reach an awareness of pure essence, you can use it to disintegrate or deconstruct your clinging personality type as described in Sutra 2.10.

Many medieval and modern translations fail to describe how Patanjali actually describes these four levels of nature with the purpose of helping meditators rid themselves of a major personality problem. Almost every single one of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras has a practical purpose for meditation. All four of these levels of nature were visible–were experienced–by the ancient Hindu rishis. This sutra is placed here in his writing as yet another part of his roadmap to success in meditation.

Comment: Here, Patanjali defines nature even more carefully than in the sutra before it. He describes it as having four levels or parts, and he also specifically mentions the gunas here. Here is a more thorough description of how each of these four Hindu categories of the universe work.

1. 1. “Specific (divided leftovers or remains)”–physical objects of matter. This is the hard matter everyone knows: touchable reality. It is what the universe evolves into, ultimately, says Hinduism, from purest divine and from purer essences to the “leftover” or “remains” of them: our touchable reality where all is “divided”: chair from table, potato from sky, and one human from another. You encounter these in meditation all the time, especially, your own body, the most external layer of your personal self.

2. “Nonspecific (undivided leftovers or remains)”–material energies that are nontangible but allow your sense organs to work. In ancient Hinduism, these are such material forces as sound waves, light, and gases or volatiles such as odors and tastes.

In ancient Hindu times, also included were the chemical and electrical energies passing through our nervous systems and brains that enable us to think, feel, operate our organs, and possess a sense of “me-ness” or ego. They are considered “undivided” because they appear to present themselves to us more as a flow like in a stream or breeze. We encounter these, too, all the time in meditation as sight, sound, thought, and memory.

3. “Differentiated (barely attached)”–basic essences that are in pre-matter forms or shapes, prior to becoming physical energy or matter. They are, among many other things, the “burnt seeds” that you may see during meditation, and other subtle or psychic essences that have a shape. They are “differentiated” because they are visible as separate forms or shapes. And they are “barely attached” because they are more loosely put together, more easily broken up.

They appear in meditation to many people as interruptions, disturbances, or sources of new thoughts or emotions coming from the outside of their heads or bodies. They also sometimes come in a “bright” form as high or deep illuminations of understanding realized by intuition rather than logic.

4. "Undifferentiated (unattached)”–the essence just described, but “undifferentiated” because it has no separate parts or shapes, and is “unattached” because it flows like a perfect constant breeze. These may appear in meditation as images or feelings of a pure flow of essence; of tiny, soft-golden particles; as rains or showers of undivided essence; or otherwise. As they enter your body, they feel like flows of physical energy.

The gunas: This sutra also states that these four levels or shades are “Nature’s (the guna strands or threads’) levels.” The two types of material existence and the two types of essences described above are the four levels or shadings of nature (of the gunas). The gunas saturate all four. Guna literally means “strand,” “thread,” or “string that is plucked” as in a bow string or gut string, hence the idea of such a string releasing activity as a bow releases an arrow or a musical instrument releases a vibratory note.
Thus the gunas come first in nature, and exist ingas what might be called vibrational tendencies or inclinations: the qualities of continuance (tamas), activity/force (rajas), and brightness/movement (sattva). One, two, or all three of these tendencies “vibrate” or “move” the two types of essences and the two types of physical matter, inclining them to become what they are.

In Sutra 2.10, Patanjali says that you can use a “reverse birthing” process to rid yourself of bad personality traits. That is, you can “dis-integrate” or “de-construct” the negative personality forms. To do so, you move backward through “nature.” You start taking them apart in your body and brain through physically negating them by exercise, postures, interruption of actions, etc. Next, you gradually disentangle them in sound, sight, and thoughts. Next, you break them down in their formed essences that seem to keep hanging around you. Finally, you use their pure essence to cleanse them and keep them and your whole self cleared.

B.K.S. Iyengar describes this as a backward-moving process from objective reality to a holy union: our awareness moves from our physical and internal experiences toward their pure essence, and then to the originator of all essence, divine consciousness itself. This latter he calls “the merging of nature into spirit [as] a divine marriage, which becomes possible through the work of yoga.”

Western society has two similar theories regarding Hindu “essence” and the gunas. One is the philosophy of idealism (especially Plato’s). The other is modern science’s “string theory” and “quarks.” For more on these Western theories, see the 2.19 Endnote.

Sutra 2.20: Draṣṭā dr̥śi-mātraḥ śuddho-api (‘pi) pratyaya-anupaśyaḥ

Literal translation: “The Pure Seer, perceiving: only pure. But (from) notions/sensings an after-seeing”

Meaning: “You, who is the Aware One, as you are being aware, have a pure, continuous perception; however, you also develop mind-forms of this as ‘afterimages’ or memories.”

A chant in English: “You really are an Awareness, but you often may discover this by your remembering it through your mind.”

Definition: In Sutra 2.17, Patanjali described the “Pure Seer, and the seen in nature.” Then he used Sutras 2.18 and 2.19 to define “the seen in nature” in more detail. Now here, in Sutra 2.20, he defines the “Pure Seer.” He is saying that the Pure Seer, which is your deepest Awareness or true Self, has a completely pure perception of an object when it observes it.

He also suggests that your mind–a structure of thoughts and memories–recalls what you have observed and tends to take credit for it as if it is your true Self. He literally calls the mind’s recollection an “after-seeing”–after-images or memories. This literal meaning is a more direct, singular interpretation that may be truer to Patanjali’s tendency to prefer direct objectivity and immediacy.

Comment: There are several subtly different interpretations of this sutra among translators. One of the clearer points in this sutra, however, appears to be that the mind might declare itself alive and existing just because it has thoughts or memories. This, in fact, sounds much like French philosopher René Descartes’ famous declaration, “I think, therefore I am” (which he wrote in Latin as “Cogito, ergo sum”). That statement, it is said, represented the beginning–in the seventeenth century–of modern Western philosophy: it started by using Cartesian doubt about humans’ existence, and then it used the scientific method to philosophize about how/why humans can prove they exist.

However, as Christian mystic and theologian Thomas Merton says, “Nothing could be more alien to contemplation than the cogito ergo sum of Descartes [because in contemplation] there is...only SUM, I Am.” In other words, as both Patanjali and Merton agree, the act of thinking does not prove a person exists. Instead, such thinking is merely the activities of the mind. The proof of human aliveness is the existence of your true Awareness or True Self: that is the real “I am.”

You become aware of this when you can make your mind perfectly silent for a time. You do not have to have thoughts to be able to be and to operate as a human being. Sometimes you come to such clarity by experiencing Being around or outside of you, first. Sometimes you find it within yourself as the most basic precursor to all other awarenesses.

Through either entry point, you then realize that thinking has nothing to do with your primary Awareness, your primary self. Instead, your root consciousness, on its own, is the “Pure Seer” behind the mind. And you discern that you are different from your perceptions.

Patanjali realizes it is easy for a human being to think their awareness is their thinking, and if they weren’t thinking, then they would lose consciousness. As Swami Hariharananda says in his translation of the Yoga Sutras, when the “objects of Buddhi [mind], e.g. cow, pot, etc. are [perceived], then the mind is similarly coloured, e.g. sometimes like a cow, sometimes like a pot.” The obvious mistake is then to believe you are the cow or the pot. The more subtle error is to assume that your thoughts of the cow or the pot are your most important and deepest self. Instead, your ”I Am” is behind that thinking, and not dependent on thinking for its existence. And it exists through all perceptions, with or without thoughts.

Literal translation: “This [from the previous sutra] for the intention only of the world of sensory experiences of the going-through-nature Being [Atman or True Self]”

Meaning: “This memory (in Sutra 2.20) is for the purpose, simply, of its use in the world of nature by Being that you know or your essential True Self (the seer).”

A chant in English: “Remember Being or your True Self as you pass through the world of nature.”

Definition: This sutra is about the placement of your True Self in nature, especially as stated in the final two words, drsyasya-atma. They create an important phrase. The first, drsyasya, in its earliest Sanskrit form may be translated as the world of sensory experiences or pleasures.

The second word is the famous Hindu “Atman,” a word meaning the “True Self” or “portion” or “spark” of Being or God within you. The compound word also may refer to your “vital breath” or “essence.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots indicate that this important word, “Atman,” developed from two ancient ancient definitions. They are at- or “going through”; and -ma, “the mother.” That is, your True Self or vital essence is “going through the mother”: your deepest Self moves through the conduits of mother nature.

In Hinduism, Brahman and Atman form a pair that defines your experience of Being. Braham is the universal sense of Being-everywhere. Atman is your awareness of Being or True Self within you. Thus in this sutra, the word atma specifically identifies the type of Being that you bear within your body as your Being-in-the-mother or in your body in nature. Both Brahman and Atman are, in Hinduism, the same: Being. But from the human perspective, one appears outside of the body; the other, within.

Comment: The feminine principle is very important in ancient Hinduism. In four early Vedas, the Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva, “womb” is mentioned sixty-nine times.

Ancient Hinduism developed the concept of Purusha and Prakriti–Being and Matter. According to A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, the word Prakriti represents many female elements: for example, “a goddess,” “personified energy or wife of a deity,” “original or primary substance,” “the material world (consisting of three constituent essences or Gunas),” “Nature (distinguished from purusha)” and “primary essences which evolve the whole visible world.” In this Hindu viewpoint, Purusha is the state of Atman, inner Being, or True Self always attached to each bit of matter, and Prakriti is the outer manifestation or “body” that is energy and matter from its subtlest to most dense. In Hinduism, all of this Prakriti, or energy/matter, is divided into the three “essences or Gunas” of sattva, rajas, and tamas. (See Sutra 1.16 for more detail about the three gunas.)

Patanjali is clarifying in this sutra that the Atman or True Self travels through these multiple versions of matter and essence in 2.18-2.19 and, before them in the creation of the universe, all three gunas. He adds that for meditators, the real purpose and end goal of all this energy/matter is to help you find your Self/Being. By implication, then, he reassures you that if in meditation you are confronted by even more matter and essence, that not only is normal but also may be good in the sense that it may be a sign of your progress.

Sutra 2.22: Kr̥ta-artham prati naṣṭam api-anaṣṭam tad anya sādhāraṇatvāt

Literal translation: “Having done that objective (as in previous sutra), perished or not, that other, commonly normal”

Meaning: “Even if you have completed the goal [i.e., discovered your True Self/Being by going through nature, as in Sutra 2.21], then in spite of how the bonds of nature (the seen) have perished for you, they have not perished for others, as nature itself is common and normal.”

A chant in English: “When you find your Self or Being and break matter’s bonds, matter itself still will be there.”

Definition: This is Patanjali’s way of saying that nature is real, and even when you succeed in going beyond or behind nature’s matter and essence–eventually becoming totally liberated from their bonds–still the mountains, the birds in the sky, and your body will exist. And if you stay in your own body as a fully awakened meditation master, the universe and your own sensory experiences will continue to be present in your daily functioning.

Comment: Science tells us that what you see, feel, hear, touch, etc. is real. So, too, is what researchers observe under microscopes and microphotography. Scientists also are quick to point out that what we experience does not represent the whole range of matter and energy. For example, some animals are able to see ultraviolet or infrared frequencies of “color” that humans cannot. Dogs and many other species can detect sounds and smells that humans are unable to notice. Most animals, including humans, are unable to perceive quite a large number of physical phenomena: radio and television waves, atoms, galaxies almost invisible to the best of telescopes, etc. Thus it is sensible to say that while what you perceive is real, that is not all of reality.

Even so, in spiritual matters, some Westerners find great relief when a spiritual system such as Hinduism declares (usually) that matter does exist and the world is real. So many people interested in Eastern thought have read or heard about the Hindu term maya. It means “illusion.” Unfortunately, what many have heard is “The world is maya: reality is an illusion.”

It is true that most branches of Hinduism teach that the world is maya. But to many Hindus, the word means something entirely different than “nature is an illusion.” To many of them, the “illusion” of maya is not the world of matter itself: nature is very real. The illusion lies in our falsely thinking, they say, that each bit of the universe is separate from every other one. Instead, say these religions, once you break through the illusion of non-connectedness, you discover all of the parts of nature are connected to each other by each one’s underlying connection to Being.

This is most noticeably true regarding the connections among individual human beings. According to a meditative understanding of maya, you are connected with other people, too. The closer you are to others, the more noticeable this may be. According to Hinduism, you are connected to each of your friends, family, neighbors, and acquaintances through sharing the same objects and physical energies (such as seeing and hearing each other) and through the essences discussed in Sutra 2.18.

This is of particular significance to Westerners–the “People of the Book, who are Jews, Christians, and Muslims who share the Books of Moses and the Prophets in common. These three groups sometimes are called “social” religions because they emphasize, so much, the actions of the divine being revealed to and affecting large groups of believers. This is in contrast to Easterners, who often are said to be “individualist” religions because of the much greater emphasis on each individual’s approach to and discovery of the divine.

Thus if you are a Westerner, you may have been raised to think more about other people in your spiritual questioning. Western psychology in particular focuses heavily on how to get along with others. On the one hand, what happens in finding your Self/Being through meditation are experiences that are universal to both West and East. However, the path you take, the questions you ask, and the way you seek Self/Being is to some extent affected by the culture around you.

Thus the more you meditate and have started finding Self/Being repeatedly, the more you may look for or find others there, too. They may have left their handprints or footprints on your thoughts, memories, and feelings as you meditate. More deeply, you may have sensings of their personality or presence in meditation. Your edges may merge with theirs like the waves of two bodies of water briefly joining, or different breezes meeting from two directions.

On the deepest, most intimate levels, you sometimes may feel like your souls are merging. However accidental it may seem, it is no illusion. It happens to many, especially, for example, in paired or group events such as meditating, praying, or seeking Self/Being together; lovemaking; dancing, singing, or playing music together; and other intensely close paired or communal activities. Such experiences are an underlying reality, deeper than matter or essence. They are a reality of two or more people’s Self/Being coming together as one.

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh describes the cosmic shared dance of people’s matter, essences, and Selves/Beings like this:

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

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