Exploring the Yogasutra

Philosophy and Translation

Daniel Raveh

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781441186713
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría filosóficas

Patañjali's Yogasutra is an ancient canonic Indian text composed in Sanskrit in the 3rd or 4th century. Belonging to a very different cultural milieu, this multi-layered text is philosophical, psychological and practical in nature. Offering a philosophical reading of Patañjali's Yogasutra, this book discusses themes such as freedom, self-identity, time and transcendence, and translation - between languages, cultures and eras. Drawing substantially upon contemporary Indian materials, it discusses for the first time classical yoga as reflected upon by Daya Krishna (1924-2007) with constant reference to Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya's (1875-1949) studies in yoga philosophy. The genuine attempt on behalf of these two original thinkers to engage philosophically with Patañjala-yoga sets the tone of the textual exploration provided here. This book features a new annotated translation of the Yogasutra, and the author provides a useful background to the extensive Samkhya terminology employed by Patañjali. Daniel Raveh also offers a close reflection of the very act of translation, and the book concludes with suggestions for further reading and a glossary of central notions.

1

Abhyāsa/vairāgya: a conceptual investigation into the process of yoga

I cannot think of a more contradictory statement to Descartes’s “cogito ergo sum” than Patañjali’s yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ. The former statement is from Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy (1644), the latter opens the Yogasūtra. If Descartes, in tune with Aristotle’s definition of man as a rational animal, perceives the cogito, the thinking faculty, reason, as the essence of the human person, then Patañjali posits the very opposite.¹ For him, the citta-vṛtti-s or movements of the mind are not merely an external layer of one’s self and identity, but in fact an obstacle on the way to realizing one’s svarūpa or “original essence.”² Contrary to the implications of Descartes’s famous statement, according to the Yogasūtra-kāra, the “I-am-ness” of the human person can only be revealed if the mental faculty is “switched off.” Following his stunning contention, Patañjali offers a detailed citta-vṛtti or mental activity “map,” consisting of pramāṇ a, viparyaya, vikalpa, nidrā, and smṛti (valid knowledge, invalid knowledge, verbal construction, sleep, and memory). The interlacement between pramāṇ a and viparyaya is intriguing. Both notions refer to phenomenal knowledge, valid and invalid respectively (and implied is reversibility between the two: what is considered as “valid knowledge” today may become “invalid” tomorrow and vice-versa). As both pramāṇ a and viparyaya refer merely to the phenomenal realm, from a metaphysical point of view there is no essential difference between the two. Another interesting feature of the scheme is the independent status of vikalpa (subordinated in parallel schemes to viparyaya), which indicates Patañjali’s philosophical preoccupation with language as the anchor of phenomenal existence, and hence an acute obstacle to samādhi.³ The Sūtra-kāra further touches on mental activity during sleep, and finally highlights memory as a vṛtti. Memory is the mechanism which creates the “phenomenal I.” One is, phenomenally speaking, a conglomeration of memories, the continuum of which is the biography one identifies with. Nevertheless, paradoxically, memory cannot “remember” the essence, the svarūpa, that which Patañjali—following the Sāṃ khya tradition—refers to as puruṣa.⁴ To “remember” puruṣa, or more precisely oneself as puruṣa, memory (in the conventional sense of the word) has to be suspended; suspension which may give rise to that which memory, that is, “phenomenal memory,” cannot register. I find Patañjali’s definition of smṛti or memory too narrow. According to him (in YS 1.11), “Memory is conservation (or nondestruction) of an object experienced in the past” (anubhūta-viṣaya-asaṃpramoṣaḥ smṛtiḥ). Absent in his definition is imagination as a necessary ingredient of memory. Is memory just object-dependent, as implied by Patañjali? Or does one add colors and tastes to past experiences and “fill the gaps” of memory with and through one’s imagination? Another missing feature in the vṛtti-scheme, apart from imagination, is emotions. Patañjali depicts the human consciousness as knowledge-oriented, thus ignoring or even suppressing the emotional realm. The question is of course why. Is it because he belongs to a cultural climate in which it is uncustomary to discuss emotions?⁵ Or since he evaluates emotions as subordinated to and determined by the knowledge-centered vṛtti-s enumerated by him? Prima facie, emotions (consisting of the word motion, that is, vṛtti) seem to be a constitutive factor of the constant change, movement, restlessness of consciousness, which Patañjali seeks to resolve. The “medicine” prescribed by him for mental activity as a “disease” is twofold, consisting of abhyāsa and vairāgya, repetitive practice and dispassion. In the following paragraphs I will attempt to work with these two notions, which together form the structural framework of the process of yoga as explicated in the Yogasūtra.

1. Abhyāsa

Abhyāsa—literally: repetition, repetitive practice, exercise, discipline, use, habit, custom—is the constituting formula of phenomenal human existence. For Patañjali, this familiar notion is “the other,” but however the counterpart of vairāgya, literally: dispassion, detachment. Following the Sūtra-kāra, I will start with abhyāsa, between the lines of which the far less familiar notion of withdrawal, referred to by the term vairāgya, is concealed. By unpacking the notion of abhyāsa, I hope to learn something of its “other,” vairāgya, and of their simultaneity or inseparability in Patañjali’s formulation.

Like the citta-vṛtti-s (mental activity), abhyāsa can be kliṣṭ a or akliṣṭ a: outgoing, object-centered, worldly, or quite the opposite, that is, ingoing, objectless, meditative. Patañjali focuses on the latter, namely on introversive abhyāsa. For him, abhyāsa is “the effort to achieve stability (of ‘empty,’ motionless mind).”⁶ He further maintains that “it is firmly grounded if performed attentively and ceaselessly for a long period of time.”⁷ In Yogasūtra-bhāṣ ya 2.15, Vyāsa speaks of bhogābhyāsa or “phenomenal abhyāsa” as the (fatal from a yogic point of view) procedure which grounds the human person to the phenomenal realm through avidyā, which he defines as viṣaya-sukham or enjoyment of objects. What seems in the short, phenomenal run, to be “enjoyment,” Vyāsa sees as a long, yoga run duḥkha or suffering. If phenomenal repetitiveness, with which the saṃsāra-web or one’s worldly existence is weaved and reweaved, is referred to by Vyāsa as bhogābhyāsa (bhoga-abhyāsa); then its yogic parallel, repetitive as its phenomenal counterpart but directed inwardly instead of outwardly, can be pertained to as yogābhyāsa (yoga-abhyāsa). The point which I am trying to make is that as far as his abhyāsa, or the effort he puts into his practice is concerned, the yogin walks on familiar grounds. He is a “doer,” devoted to his “doing” as much as any other doer, even if the purpose of his practice is to achieve absolute disengagement, that is, a state of worldless-ness. Through abhyāsa, the yogin endeavors to uproot inveterate patterns, by repeatedly practicing their opposite. His challenge is to “change direction,” to introvert the outgoing movement of consciousness, to overcome the solid habit of turning to objects. The problem, which Patañjali seems to deal with, is that the human person is totally unacquainted with an objectless mode of existence. He thinks and lives in terms of objects or “things.” The question is what it would be like if one ceases to objectify, if one puts the mechanism of objectification “on hold.” De-objectification, in my reading, is Patañjali’s prescription for the “duḥkha patient,” and the challenge he sets up for the yogin. A first step would be to practice “the opposite” of objectification. An instance of Patañjali’s “cultivating the opposite” method, which for me is the core of yogābhyāsa is found in YS 2.33:

To stop thoughts which contradict the yama-s, one should cultivate their opposite.⁸

The immediate context of the sūtra is Patañjali’s discussion of the yama-s or essential ethical principles, from ahiṃsā (nonviolence) to aparigraha (nonpossessiveness). When a thought contradicting any of these ethical principles arises, Patañjali suggests, the yogin should cultivate its opposite. Interestingly, cultivating the opposite of a thought such as “I want to kill him” (Patañjali implies in YS 2.34 and Vyāsa elucidates in his bhāṣ ya) does not mean to produce a counter-thought in the form of “I do not want to kill him” or “I want to befriend him.” Instead, “the opposite” would be to reflect upon the consequences of the initial contrary-to-an-ethical-principle thought. Patañjali, in my reading, sketches a narrative of a “struggle” between two forces, that of a “harmful thought” (as a paradigm not just of unethical thoughts but of every kliṣṭ a-vṛtti or outgoing movement of consciousness), and its antidotal reflection cultivated by the yogin to “confront” the former thought as it arises. In brackets I would like to call attention to Patañjali’s typical accurate, almost “scientific” articulation. He aspires to cover the whole sphere of vitarka or “contrary thoughts,” referring as he is to such thoughts “whether executed, planned to be executed or even approved, whether driven by greed, anger or delusion, whether mild, moderate or intense.”⁹ Apropos the “struggle” between “contrary thinking” and yogic “contra-contrary-thinking,” Vyāsa compares (in YSb 2.33) the human tendency of reproducing “contrary thoughts” even after reflecting upon their painful implications, to a dog’s impulse to lick his own vomit.¹⁰ It is a potent simile, as it features the human obsession with “externality,” and the inclination to always return to the familiar, “disgusting” or affected with duḥkha as it may be.

At this point, I am reminded of Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950), a contemporary guru, or for our sake, yogin, who in one of his numerous question-answer sessions attempts to clarify the notion of abhyāsa, or more precisely yogābhyāsa. According to him,

The passage from pravṛtti to nivṛtti [from object-centered to objectless consciousness] is possible through abhyāsa and vairāgya. It works, but takes time.

Using the yogic notions of abhyāsa and vairagya, the renowned Advaitin, famous for his sādhana-less teaching, seems to encourage his present interlocutor to embark on the yoga-sādhana (“it works”), underscoring the effort and duration which are part of yoga as a process (“it takes time”). Effort and duration as ingredients of abhyāsa are implied in YS 1.13–14 quoted ab...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Introduction: yoga, translation, the other
• 1.   Abhyāsa/vairāgya: a conceptual investigation into the process of yoga
• 2.   Revisiting avidyā and abhiniveśa: a note on yoga psychology
• 3.   Rethinking prajñā: Yogasūtra 1.49 under a philosophical magnifying glass
• 4.   Text as a process: a dialogue with Daya Krishna
• 5.  “The undeciphered text: anomalies, problems, and paradoxes in the Yogasūtra” by Daya     Krishna
• Concise Glossary
• Appendix I: Introduction to the Yogasūtra translation, or: why another translation ?
• Appendix II: The Yogasūtra in transliteration
• Appendix III: The Yogasūtra in translation
• Bibliography
• Index