The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Two thousand years ago, someone tied the whole tangle of the mind into 196 short lines. No weighty text, no sermon. Just one question: what is the mind, and how does it grow still.
First, one thing
Who was Patanjali? Honestly, no one knows for certain. Two or three centuries on either side of the Common Era, one person (or perhaps a whole tradition) decided to press the whole of yoga down until it could be threaded onto a single string. That is exactly what “sutra” means: a thread. The fewest possible words, the most possible meaning.
And this is no religious book. It holds no story, it sets no condition of faith. It is a manual for the machine of the mind. Patanjali writes almost like an engineer: first he tells you the destination, then the road, then the road’s fine features and its slippery patches, and at the end the place where everything comes to rest.
A small honesty: if you have ever tried, even a little, to quiet the mind, in any way, in any tradition, this book will light up for you. And if you never have, no matter. As you read, the trying begins on its own.
How to read the whole thing
First time: Pada 1 through 4, in order. Do not rush. In each pada a few sutras are the real pillars, and the rest stand around them.
Only have time for one pada? Take Pada 2. It is the most grounded, and the famous eight-limbed yoga lives there.
Already have a practice? Read Pada 1 and Pada 4 together. The two are two ends of one thing, and everything in between is the bridge that joins them.
What about the powers? Pada 3 brings some startling capabilities. They are fascinating, but they are not the destination. Patanjali himself calls them an obstacle on the road. Read them as a catalogue of what is possible, with nothing on the page you are obliged to do.
Samadhi Pada · The chapter on absorption
The map. What the mind is, what the waves rising in it are, and what remains behind once it grows still. The two-word formula of practice and dispassion is right here (1.12).
Pause here: 1.2, 1.3, 1.12, 1.14, 1.33, 1.41
Sadhana Pada · The chapter on practice
The road. Where suffering comes from (the five kleshas), and the first five limbs of the eight-limbed yoga: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara. The most useful pada of all.
Pause here: 2.1, 2.3, 2.16, 2.29, 2.30, 2.46, 2.47, 2.49
Vibhuti Pada · The chapter on powers
The fine features. The last three limbs of the eight, the method of samyama, and the startling powers that open from it, which Patanjali both describes and warns you about.
Pause here: 3.1-3.4, 3.9, 3.38, 3.50, 3.51, 3.53
Kaivalya Pada · The chapter on liberation
The destination. The mind’s true face (it does not shine by its own light), the mechanism of karma and latent desire, the dharma-megha samadhi, and kaivalya. The shortest pada, the deepest.
Pause here: 4.1, 4.3, 4.7, 4.18, 4.19, 4.22, 4.25, 4.29, 4.34
The one marvel of the whole book
All four padas are really one thing, said in four parts.
In the very second sutra (1.2) Patanjali lays the whole thing down: yoga means the stilling of the waves of the mind. And in the next sutra he names the reward: then the “seer” settles into its own true form.
Padas 2 and 3 tell you how to get there. And then the very last sutra (4.34) brings that first thing back around, now after the whole journey, in its clearest form.
So the first sutra and the last sutra are saying one and the same thing. The 194 sutras in between are the road that joins one to the other. The whole book is a closed circle, and that is its real beauty.
After this
On this same site: the Ashtavakra Gita shows this very destination by a reversed road. Patanjali’s path goes step by step, Ashtavakra’s in a single leap. Read the two together and each will light up the other. And Chapter 6 of the Gita is on meditation, in direct conversation with Patanjali.
As you read, keep one question beside you: which wave does my own mind stay drowned in most? Just watching that does more than weeks of study.
Read alongside
- Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6 Dhyana yoga, an echo of Patanjali’s eight limbs.
- Ashtavakra Gita Yoga’s final destination is where Ashtavakra begins.
- Narada Bhakti Sutra Bhakti-yoga, the full bloom of Patanjali’s “ishvara-pranidhana.”