Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are a collection of Sanskrit sutras (verses) attributed to the Indian sage Patanjali around the 3rd or 2nd centuries BCE. The text is considered to be the earliest major treatment of yoga as a psychological or spiritual practice, compiling and consolidating information from various ancient texts, including the Vedas, Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita. The Yoga Sutras appear to have been compiled over many years and are short, consisting of 195 (or 196, by some sources) sutras grouped into four chapters (aka books). Some historians maintain that the final chapter was added later by someone other than Patanjali.

The Yoga Sutras state that the main goal of yoga is to achieve a quiet mind, leading to a feeling of bliss and peace, and that yoga allows this goal to be pursued in an organized, methodical fashion similar to the pursuit of science. The verses constitute a formula by which anyone can test the reliability of Patanjali's approach.

The Yoga Sutras are known for their reference to ashtanga, eight elements of practice leading to the goal of a blissful mind. The eight elements are also sometimes referred to as the "8 limbs of yoga", and they express 8 different kinds of activity that are helpful in attaining the goal. The eight elements are:

• yama (five things one should abstain from doing)
• niyama (five things one should be sure to do)
• asana (various physical poses)
• pranayama (practices to increase breath control)
• pratyahara (practices in learning to disregard inputs from the senses)
• dhāraṇā (practicing single-minded mental focus)
• dhyana (practicing various levels of meditation)
• samadhi (experiencing the ceasing of the mental thought stream; aka a state of bliss)

In his model of the mind, Patanjali identifies an Observer (often translated as "The Seer") as being different from The Observed Mind. Patanjali claims that what people normally mean when they say "I" is the Observed Mind, roughly akin to the ego or personality of Western psychology. The "I" differs from the true self (the Observer). Per the Yoga Sutras, the luminous and blissfully peaceful Observer usually operates undetected in the background and can only be perceived after the incessant thought-stream has been quietened via the regular practice of yoga. The main aim of yoga practice is, per Patanjali, kaivalya (discernment of purusha, the witness-consciousness), as distinct from prakriti (the cognitive apparatus, or thinking mind); and disentanglement of purusha from prakriti's muddled defilements.

Yoga is an idea that existed long before Patanjali, and the Yoga Sutras present themselves merely as a revision of the doctrine. The philosophy of Yoga, formalized in the Yoga Sutras, is related to other schools, or darshanas, of Hinduism, including Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimansa (based on the early Vedas), Vedanta (based on the last Vedas), and Sankhya. Each of these schools, born between the sixth and second centuries BCE, draws heavily from the Upanishads, and shares basic notions like karma, dharma (duty or morality), the cycle of rebirth, and liberation.

The Chapters

The Yoga Sutras are grouped into four books or chapters (Sanskrit pada):

• Samadhi Pada (the Theory of Yoga, 51 sutras)
• Sadhana Pada (the Practice of Yoga, 55 sutras)
• Vibhuti Pada (Attainments, 55 sutras)
• Kaivalya Pada (Emancipation, 34 or 35 sutras)

People later wrote extensive commentaries on each individual sutra. The first commentary is believed to have been written by Vyasa in the 6th or 7th century CE.

The contemporary Yoga tradition holds the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali to be one of the foundational texts of the philosophy of Classical Yoga.

Notes

• Dasgupta, S.N. Hindu Mysticism. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt Ltd., 1977.
• Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree. Yoga: The Science of the Soul, Volume 1. Rajneeshpuram, Oregon: Rajneesh Foundation International, 1976.
• Dvivedi, M. N. The Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali'. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1980.