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# 2020-02-01 - The Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali | |
I found this book for a couple of dollars in the thrift store. It | |
was published in 2003. This was more clear to me than any of the | |
English translations that i read previously. | |
> In those times, most teaching was done orally and students learned by | |
> way of sūtras. The word sūtra comes from the same root as the | |
> medical term suture, meaning to connect or hold together [as in | |
> thread, or stitch]. When the teacher expounded on a piece of | |
> knowledge, the student would be given a short phrase that would later | |
> remind her/him of the greater body of material. This was somewhat | |
> the equivalent of modern day cue cards. | |
> | |
> A further story says that Patañjali himself wrote down the sūtras | |
> on palm leaves but a goat ate half of them before he took the | |
> remainder to the Himalayas. Perhaps this is the origin of modern day | |
> "goat yoga." | |
> | |
> --Depak Chopra | |
> Sri Patañjali was the epitome of acceptance of all methods and | |
> broad-mindedness of approach. He did not limit his instructions to | |
> one particular technique, to members of any particular religion or | |
> philosophy, or in any other way. He gave general principles and used | |
> specifics only as examples. For instance, in delineating objects for | |
> meditation... he simply gave various possibilities to choose from and | |
> then concluded: Or by meditating on anything one chooses which is | |
> elevating. | |
# Introduction | |
The Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali is one of the most enlightening | |
spiritual documents of all time. Nearly two thousand years old, this | |
collection of 196 compact observations on the nature of consciousness | |
and liberation remains unrivaled for its penetrating insight. Though | |
brief, the Yoga-Sūtra manages to cut to the heart of the human | |
dilemma. With uncommon directness, Patañjali analyzes how we know | |
what we know and why we suffer. He then provides a meditative | |
program through which each of us can fulfill the primary purposes of | |
consciousness: to see things as they are and to achieve freedom from | |
suffering. Weaving the threads of ancient yogic knowledge into a | |
detailed map of human possibility, the Yoga-Sūtra stands as a | |
testament to heroic self-awareness, defining yoga for all time. | |
Even today, from a distance of two millennia, we can be sure that | |
Patañjali's inward quest arose from a deeply ingrained desire to | |
extract happiness and meaning from the mysteries of life, | |
consciousness, and mortality. | |
In Patañjali's era, though, the yoga posture or āsana, was simply a | |
means of sitting as steadily and effortlessly as possible and was not | |
an exercise system of any kind. This older, contemplative yoga has | |
come to be known as rāja-yoga--the "royal" or "exalted" | |
path--distinguishing it from the later hatha yoga. It is also often | |
referred to as classical yoga for the same reason. | |
[Everything in creation is part of nature, or prakṛti, including | |
everything that we think of as "me"--physical, emotional, conceptual, | |
spiritual, internal, external... this is all impermanent, and subject | |
to cause and effect.] | |
Pure awareness [Puruṣa], on the other hand, is not stuff of any | |
sort and is therefore free of cause and effect. It was never created | |
and never ends, existing beyond time. Because it is immaterial, it | |
has no location, movement, or other natural properties; nor does it | |
have anything in common with consciousness or thought, other than the | |
role of observing them. It is literally intangible, impersonal, and | |
inconceivable. | |
Like the rest of nature's stuff, consciousness is embroiled in an | |
ongoing process of creation, spiraling from form to form, pattern to | |
pattern. This incessant repatterning of consciousness distorts its | |
actual relationship to pure awareness. | |
Like the rest of creation, the aspect that Patañjali calls | |
consciousness, or citta, is evolving. Its evolutionary goal is to | |
refine itself to the point where it can become so still, so unmoving, | |
and equally absorbed in all phenomena that it becomes very much like | |
pure awareness itself. In that instant, it can reflect pure | |
awareness back to itself, making it realize that it is distinct and | |
separate from nature. In other words, the underlying purpose of | |
creation is to reveal pure seeing to itself. | |
Another perceptual change occurs during this process. One's sense of | |
time becomes spacious, with consciousness sensing many more | |
individual events than before and beginning to perceive its own | |
workings in more detail. What seemed like a smooth flow--the reality | |
of the phenomenal world--can now be seen as the flickering of | |
microphenomena arising and vanishing with unimaginable speed and | |
subtlety. Under ordinary circumstances they had blended together | |
something like the individual frames in a motion picture, giving the | |
illusion of solidity and continuity. ... In this light, the dramas of | |
consciousness no longer seem real, nor do the propel one any longer | |
toward thoughts or actions that will bring more suffering. One | |
recognizes, at last, that the unchanging awareness that knows this | |
reality is the true center of human existence and that it is free of | |
suffering. | |
Patañjali's program of moral and personal discipline can seem | |
impossibly difficult at first. The challenge lies not in the | |
prescription itself, though, but in overcoming the well-established | |
mental and physical habits that already produce suffering in our | |
lives. These habits of perception and behavior cost us dearly, yet | |
we cannot help but hold them dear, for they ARE us. That is, we have | |
all developed seemingly tried-and-true patterns of thinking and | |
reacting, crystallizing into stories about ourselves and the world, | |
and we cling to them as our identity and home. Letting all of these | |
constructions dissolve into the much less orderly or [less] | |
predictable stream of momentary reality runs completely counter to | |
the organizing imperative of the self. There are hardly any tools in | |
the self's repertoire, or in our collective society, for surrendering | |
control to such an extent or for facing reality so squarely. | |
# Chapter 1, Integration | |
In chapter 1, Patañjali defines yoga as a multi-faceted method of | |
bringing consciousness to a state of stillness. To show why this | |
might be worthwhile, he examines what he believes to be the | |
fundamental predicament of existence and then offers a solution. The | |
predicament, he says, is that consciousness and the pure awareness | |
underlying it are separate but generally feel like the same thing. | |
Patañjali considers this the primary failure of human understanding, | |
a defect that produces suffering with nearly every thought and action. | |
The solution, he asserts, is to let consciousness settle to the point | |
where it can reflect awareness back to itself. Ordinarily, | |
consciousness is not reflective but rather a whirl of thoughts, | |
sensations, and feelings turning in one direction, then another. | |
When it is utterly motionless, though, consciousness becomes | |
jewel-like, reflective enough to help awareness overcome this case of | |
mistaken identity and recognize its true nature. This, and not our | |
compulsive quest for gratification from external experience, is the | |
source of the most profound happiness and wisdom. | |
As surely as human beings are endowed with native faculties of | |
speech, logic, and movement, so too do we possess a bottomless well | |
of inner silence and stillness. ... the Yoga-Sūtra locates complete | |
realization and freedom from suffering in the bodymind's natural | |
potential to become placid and steadily aware in the present moment. | |
The yoga of Patañjali is more a program for developing this capacity | |
than it is a state to be reached. | |
Patañjali states from the onset that pure awareness is overshadowed | |
by the modulations of consciousness, which is continually transformed | |
from one pattern of thought to another and rarely sits still for | |
long. This characteristic of consciousness requires deliberate, | |
consistent, and intense inner work, or yoking, if one is to awaken | |
from its automaticity and see through its incessant, limiting | |
definitions of reality. | |
Patañjali's universe is not relative. Some perceptions are true and | |
others are not. But to Patañjali, concepts are clearly not the same | |
thing as truth. Later, in 1.48, he shows that consciousness arrives | |
at the highest possible level of true perception only when it moves | |
beyond thought altogether. | |
Patañjali now defines the two polarities of yogic will that create | |
the potential for realization. Practice, or abhyāsa, is the will to | |
repeatedly align and realign attention to the present moment, the | |
only place where the singular process of yoking consciousness into | |
profound stillness can be enacted. | |
A special type of effort is cultivated and driven by abhyāsa, in | |
which we practice to return to a point of focus without exertion. At | |
the final stages of stilling, all action ceases. So abhyāsa might | |
better be described as "subtle effort," focused on the cultivation of | |
effortlessness. | |
Vairāgya literally means "not getting stirred up" and refers to the | |
relationship that arises in the instant one perceives something. | |
Vairāgya is the willingness to let a phenomenon arise without | |
reacting to it. In other words, one can allow any feature of | |
consciousness--a thought, feeling, or sensation--to play itself out | |
in front of awareness without adding to its motion in any way. This | |
subtracts more and more of the confusion from our experience, leading | |
to profound stillness and clarity. | |
Thus vairāgya reveals the newness and originality of the unfolding | |
moment. As we let go of reacting in conditioned ways, we are | |
jettisoning the learned patterns we have developed in the past to | |
relate to every aspect of experience. To let go of these is to enter | |
into a spontaneous and unpredictable present, unmodulated by wanting, | |
aversion, or other forms of self-centeredness. Indeed, what gets | |
"stirred up" in reaction always has to do with ME. The sense of "I" | |
is largely composed of reaction, being an encyclopedic enthology of | |
likes and dislikes, and it infiltrates even our most altruistic | |
thoughts and deeds. | |
Every time we soften to an experience that would otherwise incite us | |
to react, we break out habit of setting our personal consciousness | |
apart from nature. | |
Patañjali says that nonreaction is the mastery of our tendency to | |
react. Achieving such a degree of effortlessness requires enormous | |
effort, as he explains below. But this is a special type of | |
effort--to allow, to let things be--that becomes refined little by | |
little with steady practice and eventually extinguishes itself. | |
From Patañjali's perspective, any kind of volutional bodymind | |
movement, whether mental or physical, constitutes a kind of action or | |
karma. Each action or volution leaves an impression (saṃskāra) in | |
the deepest part of memory, there to lie dormant for a time and then | |
spring forth into some new, related action. This in turn will create | |
fresh latent impressions, in a cycle of latency and activation. | |
Concentration (dhāraṇā, 3.1) builds spontaneously as the yogi | |
softens and opens to experience, not through steely attempts at mind | |
control. Eventually the only mental forms that arise in this | |
practice (abhyāsa) are entrained to the same object as the preceding | |
ones, supplanting all other perceptions. This is absorption | |
(dhyāna, 3.2, 4.6). As one continues to hold on to the possibility | |
of the mind's falling completely still, the intervals between | |
thoughts grow longer. In time, mental formations cease altogether | |
for minutes or even hours at a time. | |
By halting its own movement, consciousness has ceased to "seed" the | |
memory with saṃskāras. From then on, nothing more will be added | |
to the store of latent impressions that were left by earlier thoughts | |
and actions. When any of the already-stored impressions is | |
activated, nonreaction can limit its effects by preventing it from | |
inciting further action and thereby perpetuating the cycle of | |
karma-saṃskāras-karma. | |
It may seem odd that Patañjali doesn't appear to place much | |
importance in the experiences of insight and bliss that inevitably | |
come and go as stilling deepens. Helpful and desirable though these | |
experiences may feel in the moment, they are nonetheless subtly egoic | |
traceries spreading turbulence across a consciousness bound for | |
mirrorlike placidity. They may be considered landmarks indicating | |
progress on the path, Patañjali suggests, but should not be mistaken | |
for its conclusion, freedom from suffering. | |
To Patañjali and the adherents of sāṃkhya, īśvara is a divine | |
awareness that has nothing in common with any god in the pantheons of | |
their contemporaries. Actually, neither yoga nor sāṃkhya is | |
theistic per se. While Patañjali acknowledges that yogis may be | |
inclined to invoke deities (2.44), he is careful to set īśvara | |
apart. Īśvara is not a being or entity but rather a puruṣa. It | |
was not created and cannot be destroyed, existing beyond time and | |
space; nor does it create or destroy anything. Unlike the playful | |
īśvara of Vedanta, Patañjali's īśvara is not subject to cause | |
and effect and is thus unmoved by devotional activities such as | |
prayer or ritual. | |
30 Sickness, apathy, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sexual | |
indulgence, delusion, lack of progress, and inconstancy are all | |
distractions that, by stirring up consciousness, act as barriers to | |
stillness. | |
31 When they do, one may experience distress, depression, or the | |
inability to maintain steadiness of posture or breathing. | |
32 One can subdue these distractions by working with any one of the | |
following principles of practice. | |
33 Consciousness settles as one radiates friendliness, compassion, | |
delight, and equanimity toward all things, whether pleasant or | |
painful, good or bad. | |
34 Or by pausing after breath flows in or out. | |
35 Or by steadily observing as new sensations materialize. | |
36 Or when experiencing thoughts that are luminous and free of sorrow. | |
37 Or by focusing on things that do not inspire attachment. | |
38 Or by focusing on insights culled from sleep and dreaming. | |
39 Or through meditative absorption in any desired object. | |
40 One can become fully absorbed in any object, whether vast or | |
infinitesimal. | |
41 As the patterning of consciousness subsides, a transparent way of | |
seeing, called coalescence, saturates consciousness; like a jewel, it | |
reflects equally whatever lies before it--whether subject, object, or | |
act of perceiving. | |
42 So long as conceptual or linguistic knowledge pervades this | |
transparency, it is called coalescence with thought. | |
43 At the next stage, called coalescence beyond thought, objects | |
cease to be colored by memory now formless, only their essential | |
nature shines forth. | |
44 In the same way, coalesced contemplation of subtle objects is | |
described as reflective or reflection-free. | |
45 Subtle objects can be traced back to their origin in | |
undifferentiated nature. | |
46 These four kinds of coalesced contemplation--with thought, beyond | |
thought, reflective, reflection-free--are called integration that | |
bears seeds of latent impressions. | |
Together, yogic effort and effortlessness guide the bodymind as it | |
gravitates steadily toward integration, or samādhi. Now that the | |
stuff of self is no longer seen as other than the rest of creation, | |
consciousness ceases to struggle against itself and can relax its | |
incessant restlessness. | |
Samādhi (literally, "putting together") is both the culminating | |
practice of yoga ... and its end-state. | |
47 In the lucidity of coalesced, reflection-free contemplation, the | |
nature of the self becomes clear. | |
48 The wisdom that arises in that lucidity is unerring. | |
49 Unlike insights acquired through inference or teachings, this | |
wisdom has as its object the actual distinction between pure | |
awareness and consciousness. | |
50 It generates latent impressions that prevent the activation of | |
other impressions. | |
51 When even these cease to arise and the patterning of consciousness | |
is completely stilled, integration bears no further seeds. | |
# Chapter 2, The path to realization | |
Having explored the ultimate state of transcendence, samādhi, | |
Patañjali now turns his attention to the route by which one comes to | |
arrive there. After identifying ignorance of one's true nature as | |
the root cause of suffering, he explains how it colors human | |
experience and perpetuates itself across the span of life, death, and | |
rebirth. ... Finally, Patañjali begins to lay out the eight-limbed | |
program of aṣtaṅga-yoga, charting the path that leads from | |
external to internal and from ignorance to realization. | |
1 Yogic action has three components--discipline, self-study, and | |
orientation toward the ideal of pure awareness. | |
2 Its purposes are to disarm the causes of suffering and achieve | |
integration. | |
The path to realization, or sādhana, is of no use unless one travels | |
it. Action, or kriyā, is required for most of us if we are to | |
progress toward samādhi (see 4.1, however). Energetic effort alone | |
is not enough--it must be in the right direction, headed toward the | |
supreme objective. For Patañjali, discipline, or tapas (literally | |
"heat"), provides the energy; self-study (svādhyāya) serves as the | |
road map; and pure awareness, as exemplified by the divine īśvara, | |
is the destination. | |
3 The causes of suffering are not seeing things as they are, the | |
sense of "I," attachment, aversion, and clinging to life. | |
4 Not seeing things as they are is the field where the other causes | |
of suffering germinate, whether dormant, activated, intercepted, or | |
weakened. | |
5 Lacking this wisdom, one mistakes that which is impermanent, | |
impure, distressing, or empty of self for permanence, purity, | |
happiness, and self. | |
6 The sense of "I" ascribes selfhood to pure awareness by identifying | |
it with the senses. | |
7 Attachment is a residue of pleasant experience. | |
8 Aversion is a residue of suffering. | |
9 Clinging to life is instinctive and self-perpetuating, even for the | |
wise. | |
17 The preventable cause of all this suffering is the apparent | |
indivisibility of pure awareness and what it regards. | |
18 What awareness regards, namely the phenomenal world, embodies the | |
qualities of luminosity [sattva], activity [rajas], and intertia | |
[tamas]; it includes oneself, composed of both elements and the | |
senses; and it is the ground for both sensual experience and | |
liberation. | |
20 Pure awareness is just seeing itself; although pure, it usually | |
appears to operate through the perceiving mind. | |
21 In essence, the phenomenal world exists to reveal this truth. | |
22 Once that happens, the phenomenal world no longer appears as such, | |
though it continues to exist as a common reality for everyone else. | |
23 It is by virtue of the apparent indivisibility of awareness and | |
the phenomenal world that the latter seems to posses the former's | |
powers. | |
24 Not seeing things as they are is the cause of this phenomenon. | |
25 With realization, the appearance of indivisibility vanishes, | |
revealing that awareness is free and untouched by phenomena. | |
26 The apparent indivisibility of seeing and the seen can be | |
eradicated by cultivating uninterrupted discrimination between | |
awareness and what it regards. | |
Patañjali recognizes that there can be no substitute for direct | |
knowing; his decision to create the Yoga-Sūtra, however, | |
demonstrates his belief that words can serve to reinforce direct, | |
preconceptual insight, even regarding transcendent states of | |
consciousness that are beyond thought. Patañjali seems to have had | |
practicing yogis in mind when he composed the Yoga-Sūtra, hoping it | |
would organize and clarify the direct knowledge they were acquiring | |
through yoga. | |
In particular, when the mind considers the IDEA of discrimination, it | |
tends to frame it as a comparison between two tangible entities, as | |
if holding an apple in one hand and an orange in the other. Viveka, | |
however, is the discrimination between utterly intangible awareness | |
on one hand, and all that can be felt on the other. Thus, at first | |
viveka can be experienced only in regard to the tangible. Awareness | |
itself cannot be sensed, merely recognized by default, until | |
consciousness arrives at a stillness so transparent and mirrorlike | |
that its properties approximate those of awareness itself. This can | |
develop only when latent impressions are no longer being activated or | |
produced... | |
Viveka is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. It develops in stages, | |
not unlike learning to read. | |
28 When the components of yoga are practiced, impurities dwindle; | |
then the light of understanding can shine forth, illuminating the way | |
to discriminative awareness. | |
29 The eight components of yoga are external discipline, internal | |
discipline, posture, breath regulation, concentration, meditative | |
absorption, and integration. | |
At the same time, all frontiers of being are interconnected, with the | |
work at each supporting the work at the others. In that sense, | |
aṣtaṅga-yoga must cultivate all eight aspects simultaneously. | |
It is often assumed that by posture (āsana) and breath regulation | |
(prāṇāyāma) Patañjali meant the movements and breathing | |
exercises of hatha yoga, widely practiced today. From this one could | |
infer that he considered their mastery a prerequisite for | |
integration. However, as mentioned at the outset, most hatha yoga | |
was probably not devised until the ninth or tenth century, many | |
centuries after the composition of the Yoga-Sūtra, and was almost | |
certainly unknown to Patañjali. His modes of āsana and | |
prāṇāyāma were far simpler, being the physical and respiratory | |
thresholds of the yoking process, coterminous with the other six | |
levels, their sole purpose being to serve as vehicles for | |
interiorization and calm. | |
30 The five external disciplines are not harming, truthfulness, not | |
stealing, celibacy, and not being acquisitive. | |
31 These universals, transcending birth, place, era, or circumstance, | |
constitute the great vow of yoga. | |
32 The five internal disciplines are bodily purification, | |
contentment, intense discipline, self-study, and dedication to the | |
ideal of yoga. | |
33 Unwholesome thoughts can be neutralized by cultivating wholesome | |
ones. | |
The external disciplines, or yamas [the abstinences], are the way we | |
yoke ourselves in relation to the world. | |
When we choose to follow the yamas, we are in effect repudiating the | |
natural human wish, seen from infancy, for the immediate | |
gratification of all our desires through external things. Although | |
we learn throughout childhood to check our impulses in accordance | |
with society's codes of behavior, every culture condones some form of | |
violence, deception, appropriation, hedonism, and acquisitiveness. | |
Taking the "great vow" of the yamas sets one apart from the rest, | |
therefore, in allegiance to a higher standard. | |
For this reason, the yamas must not be thought of as moral | |
commandments but as skillful ways to relate to the world without | |
adding to its suffering or ours. | |
35 Being firmly grounded in nonviolence creates an atmosphere in | |
which others can let go of their hostility. | |
36 For those grounded in truthfulness, every action and its | |
consequences are imbued with truth. | |
37 For those who have no inclination to steal, the truly precious is | |
at hand. | |
38 The chaste acquire vitality. | |
39 Freedom from wanting unlocks the real purpose of existence. | |
Īśvara-praṇidhāna, dedicating oneself to the ideal of pure | |
awareness, has little to do with the emotion of devotion. Rather, | |
praṇidhāna (literally, "application," "alignment") is the | |
orientation one takes as every thought, word, or deed comes to serve | |
the goal of knowing pure awareness, or puruṣa. ... As we sit in | |
stillness, praṇidhāna is a surrender that we can make in every | |
moment--to let nature (prakṛti) unfold exactly as it will, without | |
our attachment or aversion--thereby entering the perspective of pure | |
awareness. ... Finally, just as one conceives of īśvara as being | |
utterly independent of nature (prakṛti), one comes to see the | |
"aloneness" (kaivalya, 2.25) of one's own awareness (puruṣa). | |
These last three niyamas--intensity, self-study, and orientation | |
toward pure awareness--constitute yogic action, or kriyā-yoga. The | |
path to freedom, Patañjali insists, is a path of action and requires | |
these three disciplines if realization is to be achieved. | |
Posture, or āsana, is the bodily aspect of Patañjali's holistic | |
system. Here the term refers only to those postures suitable for | |
prolonged immobility. Āsana traditionally refers as well to a seat | |
or cushion used to support the body. For most body types, a level of | |
steadiness and ease commensurate with samādhi is hard to attain | |
without such support. Even Siddhartha Gautama, a seasoned and highly | |
accomplished yogi, bundled grasses into a comfortable and supportive | |
cushion before sitting down to the contemplation that led to his | |
awakening, some six or seven centuries before Patañjali. | |
# Chapter 3, The extraordinary powers | |
The power of primary interest to Patañjali is discriminating | |
awareness, or viveka, arising from samādhi and leading to | |
realization. | |
As withdrawal of the senses (pratyāhāra, 2.54) diverts attention | |
from the gross realm of externals toward the internalized and subtle, | |
concentration (dhāraṇā) can yoke its orientation to any chosen | |
object or field. Once bodymind stillness has deepened sufficiently, | |
Patañjali observes, an unprecedented fixity of attention becomes | |
possible (2.53). This is because steady observation of the body | |
sitting (āsana) and breathing (prāṇāyāma) is itself powerfully | |
concentrative, and one of its primary effects is to reveal the | |
stunning distractability afflicting the usual modes of consciousness. | |
This distractibility can't be rectified, after all, unless it is | |
recognized. The "effortless effort" of abhyāsa manifests here as | |
the effort both to focus and to return from distraction, while the | |
will not to react (vairāgya) is the mechanism through which | |
distractibility is attenuated. Concentration, a yogic action, and | |
withdrawal of the senses, an effect, are interdependent, each arising | |
with and supporting the other. | |
Likewise, dhyāna, or absorption, develops as all perceptual activity | |
funnels to the chosen area. | |
9 The transformation toward total stillness occurs as new latent | |
impressions fostering cessation arise to prevent the activation of | |
distractive stored ones, and moments of stillness begin to permeate | |
consciousness. | |
10 These latent impressions help consciousness flow from one tranquil | |
moment to the next. | |
11 Consciousness is transformed toward integration as distractions | |
dwindle and focus arises. | |
12 In other words, consciousness is transformed toward focus as | |
continuity develops between arising and subsiding perceptions. | |
In chapter 1, Patañjali notes that when samādhi deepens to the | |
point where thought ceases, the reflective experience of | |
consciousness leaves latent impressions (saṃskāras) of its own; | |
these prevent the activation of any new saṃskāras (1.50). Here he | |
describes the actual transformation toward that samādhi, which takes | |
place one moment at a time. Each new instant (kṣaṇa) of | |
unfolding consciousness is oriented either toward or away from | |
stillness. As more and more successive instants occur during which | |
no distracting saṃskāras are activated, intervals of tranquility | |
begin to connect and flow together. | |
13 Consciousness evolves along the same three lines--form, time span, | |
and condition--as the elements and the senses. | |
14 The substrate is unchanged, whether before, during, or after it | |
takes a given form. | |
15 These transformations appear to unfold the way they do because | |
consciousness is a succession of distinct patterns. | |
16 Observing these three axes of change--form, time span, and | |
condition--with perfect discipline yields insight into the past and | |
future. | |
This particular nature of consciousness--unfolding as a succession of | |
distinct patterns that, under ordinary circumstances, are perceived | |
as a continuity--dictates how it must be transcended, as Patañjali | |
describes at the end of chapters 3 and 4. It will become clear that | |
wisdom consists in knowing the true nature of consciousness as a | |
sequence of finite, inconceivably brief appearances that have no | |
awareness in and of themselves. Only awareness (puruṣa) sees, and | |
it sees without beginning or end. | |
17 Word, meaning, and perception tend to get lumped together, each | |
confused with the others; focusing on the distinctions between them | |
with perfect discipline yields insight into the language of all | |
beings. | |
18 Directly observing latent impressions with perfect discipline | |
yields insight into previous births. | |
19 Focusing with perfect discipline on the perceptions of another | |
yields insight into that person's consciousness. | |
20 But it does not yield insight regarding the object of those | |
perceptions, since the object itself is not actually present in that | |
person's consciousness. | |
21 When the body's form is observed with perfect discipline, it | |
becomes invisible: the eye is disengaged from incoming light, and the | |
power to perceive is suspended. | |
22 Likewise, through perfect discipline other percepts--sound, smell, | |
taste, touch--can be made to disappear. | |
Now Patañjali turns to the shamanic realm of yogic endeavor, which | |
appears to have coexisted with the liberatory realm from earliest | |
times. The appearance of magical powers in the Yoga-Sūtra is | |
completely in keeping with religious traditions in India and | |
elsewhere, stretching back to prehistory. ... The yogic stance, | |
however, carefully enjoined by both Siddhartha Gautama and | |
Patañjali, is that such powers, while impressive, do not conduce to | |
liberation in and of themselves. | |
Most of these either are deployed in the phenomenal world or unlock | |
its secrets; few directly pertain to wisdom (prajñā). | |
23 The effects of action may be immediate or slow in coming; | |
observing one's actions with perfect discipline, or studying omens, | |
yields insight into death. | |
24 Focusing with perfect discipline on friendliness, compassion, | |
delight, and equanimity, one is imbued with their energies. | |
25 Focusing with perfect discipline on the powers of an elephant or | |
other entities, one acquires those powers. | |
26 Being absorbed in the play of the mind's luminosity yields insight | |
about the subtle, hidden, and distant. | |
Once again, the luminosity to which Patañjali refers here and | |
throughout the Yoga-Sūtra--including aphorisms 2.18, 2.41, 2.52, | |
3.36, 3.44, 3.50, 3.56, 4.19--is sattva, one of the three fundamental | |
qualities or nature, or guṇas. Sattva is the luminous, bouyant | |
quality that gives consciousness the transparency and reflectivity | |
that can be clearly recognized once consciousness settles. These in | |
turn, reveal pure awareness to itself. | |
33 Focusing with perfect discipline on the light in the crown of the | |
head, one acquires the perspective of the perfected ones. | |
34 Or, all these accomplishments may be realized in a flash of | |
spontaneous illumination. | |
According to esoteric descriptions found elsewhere in the yogic | |
literature, the cakras, or "wheels," are immaterial energy centers | |
that distribute life force (prāṇa) via the nāḍi throughout the | |
energetic body interpenetrating the physical one. Although | |
Patañjali doesn't mention the cakras again, he lists powers that | |
arise from subjecting certain of them to perfect discipline. | |
Note that it is by focusing on the heart and not on higher centers | |
that one comes to grasp the nature of consciousness. The heart | |
center is associated with the sense of touch, and focusing on it | |
sharpens one's sense of bodily sensation. The yogas of both | |
Patañjali and Siddhartha Gautama regard bodily sensation as a | |
foundation of mindfulness and therefore a direct path to | |
understanding the nature of consciousness. | |
36 Experience consists of perceptions in which the luminous aspect of | |
the phenomenal world is mistaken for absolutely pure awareness. | |
Focusing with perfect discipline on the different properties of each | |
yields insight into the nature of pure awareness. | |
37 Following this insight, the senses--hearing, feeling, seeing, | |
tasting, smelling--may suddenly be enhanced. | |
38 These sensory gifts may feel like attainments, but they distract | |
one from integration. | |
He makes it clear, though, that the goal of yoga, and indeed the | |
whole point of existence is not to cultivate power in the phenomenal | |
world but to end suffering by realizing the nature of pure seeing for | |
its own sake. | |
53 Focusing with perfect discipline on the succession of moments in | |
time yields insight born of discrimination. | |
54 This insight allows one to tell things apart that, through | |
similarities of origin, feature, or position, had seemed continuous. | |
55 In this way discriminative insight deconstructs all of the | |
phenomenal world's objects and conditions, setting them apart from | |
pure awareness. | |
56 Once the luminosity and transparency of consciousness have become | |
as distilled as pure awareness, they can reflect the freedom of | |
awareness back to itself. | |
# Chapter 4, Freedom | |
At the end of chapter 3 Patañjali leaves us with a glimpse of | |
freedom, or kaivalya. As he defines is, kaivalya is not a state that | |
we achieve but rather the inherent separation that exists between | |
prakṛti and puruṣa. Recognition of this separation is called | |
discrimination, or viveka, and is accompanied by insight into the | |
momentary transformations of the world's forms. It is this insight | |
that defuses the dramas of consciousness, in effect freeing it from | |
further suffering. | |
In chapter 4 he prepares us for a more thorough depiction, | |
elaborating on the way forms arise in nature and continually change. | |
He describes the latent forces that drive these transformations, both | |
of consciousness and its objects. He then analyzes and affirms the | |
reality of the world, independent of the perceptions of its | |
observers. Consciousness itself is an object, he asserts, incapable | |
of self-regard. Once its recognition as such can be steadily | |
maintained, reality can finally be seen as it actually is--a torrent | |
of microphenomena utterly devoid of substantiality or permanence. | |
The true nature of pure awareness itself is now visible, | |
omnipresently observing the world but separate from it and not imbued | |
with its qualities. This, Patañjali explains, fulfills the true | |
purpose for which nature created consciousness, and marks the end of | |
suffering. | |
3 The transformation into this form or that is not driven by the | |
causes proximate to it, just oriented by them, the way a farmer | |
diverts a stream for irrigation. | |
Another metaphor related to cultivation might make Patañjali's | |
concept even clearer. A farmer doesn't actually create a crop such | |
as apples; rather, they are the product of apple trees, each one the | |
latest of a long line of predecessors. The ancestry of each apple | |
tree stretches back to antiquity, every generation depending for its | |
existence on a fruitful convergence of seed, sunshine, water, and | |
nutrient soil. The farmer, as the current agent of convergence, is a | |
proximate cause of the apple's existence, having obtained the seeds, | |
planted them in rows of soil, irrigated and fertilized them, and | |
finally harvested the fruit. One would even call the product "the | |
farmer's apples." But it is primarily the seed that determines the | |
apple's essential attributes--color, texture, taste, shape, content, | |
life span, and potential to reproduce--even though each of these may | |
be affected by proximate causes. | |
The same way, it is the "seed" of the latent impressions | |
(saṃskāra) that germinates, blooming into specific thoughts, | |
forms, and actions. The set of conditions that host this emergence | |
will certainly influence it, like the farmer's influence on the apple | |
crop, but its essential attributes are determined long before it | |
becomes visible. | |
[Apples are propagated by grafting, not by seed.] | |
4 Feeling like a self is the frame that orients consciousness toward | |
individuation. | |
5 A succession of consciousnesses, generating a vast array of | |
distinctive perceptions, appears to consolidate into one individual | |
consciousness. | |
Ahaṃkāra is the individuating principle, or "I-maker." ... Even | |
though a being may experience countless, often radically different | |
modes of consciousness, each erupting from the activation of latent | |
impressions, ahaṃkāra impregnates them all, regardless of their | |
variety, with a unifying self-sense, or asmitā. This makes them all | |
feel like they're "happening to me." | |
Each saṃskāra has four attributes: | |
* a cause, usually originating with one of the five causes of | |
suffering (kleśas); | |
* an effect, manifested as thought or action (karma) | |
* a basis in consciousness (citta) | |
* the support of an object (viṣaya) | |
Patañjali mentioned this in order to explain how saṃskāras are | |
deactivated at the time of ultimate realization, which he discusses | |
beginning with 4.29. Not only does realization eradicate the causes | |
of suffering, as well as cause and effect, but it also represents a | |
transformation in which the ordinary appearances of consciousness and | |
the phenomenal object world are seen through. Since the four | |
saṃskāra attributes are inseparable, the dissolution of a single | |
one means the end of the saṃskāra as well. | |
Any object or phenomenon consists of a succession of moments in which | |
innumerable experiential forms, or dharmas, arise and pass away. | |
These cannot ordinarily be perceived as such, instead running | |
together like the frames in a motion picture. This tendency to blur | |
together imparts an unreal sense of continuity and permanence to | |
phenomena, an illusion that is nonetheless taken to be their actual | |
reality. Indeed, while Patañjali's word dharma never means anything | |
in the Yoga-Sūtra other than "irreducible constituent of | |
experience," dharma is one of the most inclusive words in the | |
Sanskrit language and commonly refers to several different orders of | |
reality, both micro- and macroscopic. Other traditional meanings | |
include "nature as a whole," "the lawfulness of natural processes," | |
"teachings related to natural law," "mental state," and "the virtue | |
that arises from living in accord with nature." | |
The world, Patañjali assures us, is real, and its objects exist | |
independently of the observer. Like the object, the act of observing | |
can be broken down into constituents. Every perception may revers | |
several of the strata that compose a human being, including sense | |
organs (indriya), sensory mind (manas), intelligence (buddhi), | |
"I-maker" (ahaṃkāra), and subtle sense experiences (tanmātras). | |
These constitute the "path" along which the sensing of an object | |
travels on the way to becoming a full-fledged perception. As | |
Patañjali pointed out in 2.27, wisdom, or prajñā, clarifies the | |
actual nature of each of these strata. Even in the absence of | |
prajñā, though, one can readily understand how any path through | |
these strata cannot be the same from one person to the next. And if | |
this sensing never reaches consciousness--namely, intelligence, | |
I-maker, and sensing mind--it cannot be known. | |
18 Patterns of consciousness are always known by pure awareness, | |
their ultimate, unchanging witness. | |
19 Consciousness is seen not by its own light but by awareness. | |
20 Furthermore, consciousness and its object cannot be perceived at | |
once. | |
21 If consciousness were perceived by itself instead of by awareness, | |
the chain of such perceptions would regress infinitely, imploding | |
memory. | |
22 Once it is stilled, though, consciousness comes to resemble | |
unchanging awareness and can reflect itself being perceived. | |
23 Then consciousness can be colored by both awareness and the | |
phenomenal world, thereby fulfilling all its purposes. | |
[That's deep philosophical stuff. The way this is translated | |
resembles a discussion of computer science, quines, and recursion.] | |
Now Patañjali hones in on a key distinction between awareness and | |
consciousness: the latter is the object of the former and cannot | |
illuminate itself. In other words, consciousness cannot see itself, | |
any more than a television picture can watch itself, even though it | |
is capable of displaying a vast array of distinctive programs and | |
settings, each offering a compelling pseudo-reality. Once the volume | |
is turned down and the screen darkened, however, the illusion | |
evaporates. One remembers that it was just a show appearing on a | |
machine. Seeing our reflection in the screen, we sense ourself | |
sitting there, breathing, watching, thinking. | |
To penetrate Patañjali's view of realization, we must go beyond this | |
metaphor. One awakens from the illusory experiences of sitting, | |
breathing, watching, and thinking--the pageant of the phenomenal | |
world--to the knowledge of pure awareness, standing apart from all | |
experience. Nobody is watching. There is just watching | |
itself--puruṣa. | |
Patañjali explains that an object becomes a percept by "coloring" | |
consciousness. Thus, once consciousness is becalmed to the point of | |
resembling pure awareness, puruṣa can sense its own presence for | |
the first time. Consciousness is now "colored" by awareness and can | |
represent it back to itself. In its luminosity, consciousness | |
reveals more of the detail about itself and the transformations of | |
its constituent stuff--insights that will ultimately unravel the | |
bonds of the guṇas and their projections. | |
Patañjali asserts that the phenomenal world is the grounds for both | |
experience and liberation (2.18). Now that consciousness can | |
accommodate both aspects of existence, prakṛti and puruṣa, both | |
its purposes can be fulfilled, and freedom is at hand. | |
The guṇas depended for their effects on the relatively gross | |
calibrations of everyday perception. But in the absence of any | |
bodymind movement whatsoever, consciousness now can reflect the | |
finest possible grade of phenomena. At this level of discrimination, | |
the guṇas' contribution to the coloring of each new transformation | |
can clearly be seen. Once seen through, the guṇas lose all power | |
to compel, and become irrelevant. | |
# Afterword: The Yoga-Sūtra today | |
... the Yoga-Sūtra continues to compel chiefly because of the way it | |
addresses the central concerns of human existence. | |
... awareness is intrinsically free and ... every human being can | |
come to know freedom. Patañjali unshackles us from the fetters of | |
conventional effort, which largely belongs to the domain of | |
suffering, and instead directs us to the possibility of | |
effortlessness. The yogic processes of interiorization and calm are | |
not as much something we do as they are naturally unfolding | |
properties of being that our selves usually hold in check. [grace] | |
An important feature of the Yoga-Sūtra is Patañjali's emphasis on | |
embodiment. Āsana and prāṇāyāma are the ground of the yogic | |
path. | |
This emphasis on physical sensation, also notable in the teachings of | |
the Buddha, is not theoretical but rather a pragmatic response to | |
experience and practice. | |
Patañjali was a realist among idealists, his teaching a model of | |
pragmatism. Absent of ceremoniousness or sentimentality, its program | |
depends for its success solely on the energy and engagement the yogi | |
brings to it. Awakening is not an intellectual event--nor, indeed, a | |
mental activity of any kind--but instead emerges by itself when flesh | |
and blood, mind and breath, are permeated more and more fully by the | |
settling process, nirodha. | |
Thus Patañjali always returns to the prescription of nondoing as the | |
most direct way for body and mind to unlearn what they think they | |
know and thereby reset the course toward pure awareness. The | |
trajectory of yoga takes us backward and inward through ourselves | |
toward the clarity of primordial repose. | |
# Dualism and nondualism | |
The yogic path leads to realization, in which every aspect of being | |
can be seen as it is. Each experience or attribute of the | |
world--including oneself--is exposed as compound in nature, with all | |
its particulars in flux. This is directly known by an awareness that | |
is unconditioned and unchanging. From the yogic perspective, all | |
suffering and confusion are seen through and neutralized by this | |
realization. It is not necessary, therefore, to conceptualize, | |
verbalize, or "make sense" of the experience in order to achieve | |
freedom. | |
However, to communicate the possibility of liberation to others, to | |
describe the process of yoga, and to encourage others to try it, one | |
must eventually do just that. While clearly recognizing the limits | |
of the mind to know itself, Patañjali makes an appeal to the minds | |
of his followers, and to all who would enter the yogic path, by | |
offering them a conceptual model of reality. In that sense, the | |
Yoga-Sūtra is a work of technical philosophy. | |
As soon as yoga enters the domain of philosophy, though, the mind | |
must assert its special prerogative, however grandiose, to install | |
itself as the locus of all knowledge. On that behalf, it must demand | |
an answer to the following question: if awareness lies at the core of | |
all experience, who is experiencing the awareness? | |
Awareness is much more vast than thought. While awareness easily | |
accommodates all mental experience, the mind is too small a container | |
for the contents of awareness. This seems to be because so many of | |
its functions are dedicated to selecting and elaborating on the | |
desirable and also filtering out or eliminating the undesirable. | |
Even much of the mind's own content, such as the conditioned values | |
that determine what is desirable or not, is internalized and hidden | |
from conscious view to make room for efficient mental functioning. | |
It is therefore impossible for the mind to swallow the whole stream | |
of sensorimental phenomena, yet it is also difficult for it to grasp | |
that it cannot. This would seem to be one of the factors that | |
prevent the mind from accepting the knowable fact that awareness | |
requires no experiencer or recipient. | |
The qualities of these two domains, mind and awareness, seem so | |
opposed that any analysis might well conclude that they are mutually | |
exclusive... | |
This conclusion reflects the mind's irresistible compulsion to reify | |
and classify its experiences in relation to the self. It is in the | |
nature of mind to sort things apart, compartmentalize them, and | |
identify the laws governing their behavior and separateness. So the | |
philosophical mind rightly sees dualism in Patañjali's isolation of | |
awareness (puruṣa) from consciousness (citta) and nature | |
(prakṛti). | |
However, any philosophical analysis must also take into account | |
Patañjali's negation of puruṣa, which he strips of any self | |
properties whatsoever. Awareness itself has no attributes--no | |
thought, action cause, effect, temporality, materiality, or | |
interaction with the world. One might well ask: "Isn't seeing | |
perhaps the fundamental, defining action of a self?" Patañjali's | |
reply is that the whole point of yoga is to recognize that seeing is | |
not a self activity at all. | |
Thus one must recognize that if the yoga-darśana is a dualistic | |
philosophy, it is a dualism that counterposes everything against | |
virtually nothing. Puruṣa is not a substantial entity in any | |
sense, being utterly devoid of qualities or essence. It neither adds | |
to nor subtracts from what we know as the universe; it is just the | |
knowing itself. | |
In practical terms, characterizing Patañjali's system as dualism | |
hardly detracts from its primary purpose as a vehicle for realization | |
and is not especially significant to the yogi. In fact, the most | |
decisive transformation in the yogic process is the discovery of | |
underlying phenomenal nonduality, which becomes visible with the | |
arising of coalescence, or samāpatti. Samāpatti means "things | |
falling together," and abiding in it steadily is samādhi, or | |
"putting things together." When consciousness is becalmed to a | |
mirrorlike reflectivity, all perceivable phenomena are seen for the | |
first time to be unitary and nondual, though empty of seeing itself. | |
For the reader of the Yoga-Sūtra who wants to use it for its primary | |
purpose, as a guide to realization, therefore, it is critically | |
important not to become identified with concepts of dualism or | |
nondualism. Just as the line on the map is but a symbol of the | |
actual highway, the Yoga-Sūtra is merely a conceptual analogue to | |
the true yogic process, where all discursive activity must subside | |
for wisdom to enter. To get anywhere at all, we must keep our eyes | |
primarily not on the map but on the road itself. | |
That road leads us to a realm of profound insights--that all | |
phenomena are in fact interconnected and impermanent, that the stuff | |
of self is not other than the stuff of the world, and that the pure | |
awareness regarding self and world is not colored by them. In the | |
words of an ancient Indian saying, the lotus grows in muddy waters | |
but shows no trace. | |
# The Yoga-Sūtra in light of early Buddhism | |
Apart from the structures of their metaphysical systems, which are | |
often at odds, their descriptions and prescriptions are generally | |
compatible. | |
While a detailed comparison of classical yoga and Buddhism lies | |
beyond the scope of this book, it can be generally stated that from a | |
technical standpoint, the foundational yogic practices of the two | |
teachers are much the same, with certain differences of emphasis. | |
One of the central disagreements between the two traditions has to do | |
with their somewhat different analyses of suffering. | |
As similar as the Buddhist and yogic paths are, one aspect of their | |
metaphysical models is difficult to reconcile. Siddhartha Gautama, | |
living at a time of Upaniṣadic influence, carefully but repeatedly | |
rejected the Vedantic notion that there is any changeless soul entity | |
(ātman) abiding in the midst of the phenomenal world and its flux. | |
This would put him at odds with Patañjali, at least as interpreted | |
in the traditional Vedantic style most prevalent today. ... One might | |
well ask, though, What is it that knows the nature of | |
unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, selflessness, and nirvāṇa? Both | |
Patañjali and Siddhartha Gautama would agree that nothing resembling | |
a self, or even an "it," is involved. | |
# The Yoga-Sūtra in light of contemporary scientific knowledge | |
Regardless of one's respect for the depth of Patañjali's | |
phenomenological inquiry, it might be difficult, and perhaps unwise, | |
for the modern yogi to embrace the entirety of the Yoga-Sūtra's | |
scientific paradigm uncritically. For example, we now know that most | |
natural phenomena occur beyond the range of human perception. The | |
greater part of nature unfolds in the form of events that are either | |
too slow, too fast, too great, or too tiny to observe directly. | |
# Kriyā-yoga, the path of action | |
Thus the Yoga-Sūtra emphasizes kriyā-yoga, or yogic action, whose | |
three components are intensity (tapas), self-study (svādhyāya), and | |
orientation (praṇidhāna) toward īśvara, the divine exemplar of | |
pure awareness. | |
Thus, to effect change requires energy, converted to the heat of | |
intense discipline, or tapas. In Patañjali's formulation of yogic | |
action, or kriyā-yoga, one enforces yoking through tapas, generated | |
at many levels of human experience. In daily life, this means | |
placing realization at the center of one's priorities, not only by | |
practicing constantly and with complete engagement to enter the | |
stilling process (nirodha) through daily meditation, but also by | |
bringing every aspect of one's work and relationships into alignment | |
with the awakening process. In the stilling practice, tapas is the | |
energy fueling both the persistent returning to focus (abhyāsa) and | |
the willingness to see all experiences with clarity instead of | |
reaction (vairāgya). ... Each time we can observe without reacting | |
as an impulse to think or act out according to conditioned and | |
well-worn patterns of suffering arises, we are in effect practicing a | |
small but significant austerity that unlocks immeasurable energy. | |
And only by dying to what we thought we were can we enter the sublime | |
realm of what truly is. | |
# About the text and translation | |
Yet there is one more reason, perhaps the most compelling of all, why | |
the Yoga-Sūtra can prove so difficult to absorb. Beyond its | |
profusion of technical terms and also the seeming contradictions that | |
have marked most commentaries, ancient or new, the greater barrier, | |
by far, is that most readers have not traveled very far on the path | |
to realization and therefore can relate to the Yoga-Sūtra only as | |
philosophy instead of as a way of being in the world. This problem, | |
coupled with the inconvenient fact that Patañjali begins with an | |
elaborate and highly detailed discussion of the yogic end-states, | |
immediately puts the work beyond the reach of many. | |
Thus it follows that most of the millions who today practice yoga | |
worldwide are unfamiliar with even the basic concepts of the | |
Yoga-Sūtra. | |
It is doubtful that Patañjali envisioned the Yoga-Sūtra as a | |
stand-alone work, either philosophical treatise or yoga primer, for | |
the general public. More likely he intended it for yogis in | |
training, to provide concise reminders applicable to every area of | |
contemporary yogic knowledge, including those domains in which he | |
himself shows relatively less interest. | |
# Online English translations | |
Below is a human and machine-readable cross-index of a few English | |
translations: | |
Below are links to individual English translations: | |
BonGiovanni | |
Charles Johnston (unclear to me) | |
James Woods | |
Manilal Nabhubhai Dvivedi (good) | |
Swami Prabhayananda and Christopher Isherwood (good) | |
Sri Swami Satchidananda (good) | |
Swami Vivekananda (unclear to me) | |
author: Hartranft, Chip | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Yoga_Sutras_of_Patanjali | |
LOC: B132.Y6 P24313 | |
tags: ebook,scripture,spirit,yoga | |
title: The Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali | |
# Tags | |
ebook | |
scripture | |
spirit | |
yoga |