The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali

Patanjali, William Q. Judge, William Quan Judge

• Publisher: Barakaldo Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781839744105
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

The Yoga S?tras of Patañjali are a collection of 196 Sanskrit sutras (aphorisms) on the theory and practice of yoga. The Yoga Sutras were compiled prior to 400 CE by the sage Patanjali in India who synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions. The Yoga S?tras of Patañjali was the most translated ancient Indian text in the medieval era.Before the 20th century, history indicates that the medieval Indian yoga scene was dominated by the various other texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Vasistha, texts attributed to Yajnavalkya and Hiranyagarbha, as well as literature on hatha yoga, tantric yoga and Pashupata Shaivism yoga rather than the Yoga S?tras of Patañjali.Yoga tradition holds the Yoga S?tras of Patañjali to be one of the foundational texts of classical Yoga philosophy.

BOOK III.

1. Fixing the mind on a place, object, or subject is attention.

This is called Dharana.

2. The continuance of this attention is contemplation.

This is called Dhyana.

3. This contemplation, when it is practiced only in respect to a material subject or object of sense, is meditation.

This is called Samádi.

4. When this fixedness of attention, contemplation, and meditation are practiced with respect to one object, they together constitute what is called Sanyama.

We have no word in English corresponding to Sanyama. The translators have used the word restraint, but this is inadequate and misleading, although it is a correct translation. When a Hindu says that an ascetic is practicing restraint according to this system in respect to any object, he means that he is performing Sanyama, while in English it may indicate that he is restraining himself from some particular thing or act, and this is not the meaning of Sanyama. We have used the language of the text, but the idea may perhaps be better conveyed by “perfect concentration.”

5. By rendering Sanyama—or the operation of fixed attention, contemplation, and meditation—natural and easy, an accurate discerning power is developed.

This “discerning power” is a distinct faculty which this practice alone develops, and is not possessed by ordinary persons who have not pursued concentration.

6. Sanyama is to be used in proceeding step by step in overcoming all modifications of the mind, from the more apparent to those the most subtle.

(See note to Aph. 2, Book I.) The student is to know that after he has overcome the afflictions and obstructions described in the preceding books, there are other modifications of a recondite character suffered by the mind, which are to be got rid of by means of Sanyama. When he has reached that stage the difficulties will reveal themselves to him.

7. The three practices—attention, contemplation, and meditation—are more efficacious for the attainment of that kind of meditation called, “that in which there is distinct cognition,” than the first five means heretofore described as “not killing, veracity, not stealing, continence, and not coveting.”

See Aph. 17, Book I.

8. Attention, contemplation and meditation are anterior to and not immediately productive of that kind of meditation in which the distinct cognition of the object is lost, which is called meditation without a seed.

9. There are two trains of self-reproductive thought, the first of which results from the mind being modified and shifted by the object or subject contemplated; the second, when it is passing from that modification and is becoming engaged only with the truth itself; at the moment when the first is subdued and the mind is just becoming intent, it is concerned in both of those two trains of self-reproductive thought, and this state is technically called Nirodha.

10. In that state of meditation which has been called Nirodha, the mind has an uniform flow.

11. When the mind has overcome and fully controlled its natural inclination to consider diverse objects, and begins to become intent upon a single one, meditation is said to be reached.

12. When the mind, after becoming fixed upon a single object, has ceased to be concerned in any thought about the condition, qualities, or relations of the thing thought of, but is absolutely fastened upon the object itself, it is then said to be intent upon a single point—a state technically called Ekagrata.

13. The three major classes of perception regarding the characteristic property, distinctive mark or use, and possible changes of use or relation of any object or organ of the body contemplated by the mind, have been sufficiently explained by the foregoing exposition of the manner in which the mind is modified.

It is very difficult to put this aphorism into English. The three words translated as “characteristic property, distinctive mark or use, and possible change of use” are Dharma, Lakshana, and Avastha, and may be thus illustrated: Dharma, as, say, the clay of which a jar is composed; Lakshana, the idea of a jar thus constituted, and Avastha, the consideration that the jar alters every moment, in that it becomes old, or is otherwise affected.

14. The properties of an object presented to the mind are: first, those which have been considered and dismissed from view; second, those under consideration; and third, that which is incapable of denomination because it is not special, but common to all matter.

The third class above spoken of has reference to a tenet of the philosophy which holds that all objects may and will be finally “resolved into nature” or one basic substance; hence gold may be considered as mere matter, and therefore not different—not to be separately denominated in final analysis—from earth.

15. The alterations in the order of the three-fold mental modifications before described, indicate to the ascetic the variety of changes which a characteristic property is to undergo when contemplated.

16. A knowledge of past and future events comes to an ascetic from his performing Sanyama in respect to the three-fold mental modifications just explained.

See Aphorism 4, where “Sanyama” is explained as the use or operation of attention, contemplation, and meditation in respect to a single object.

17. In the minds of those who have not attained to concentration, there is a confusion as to uttered sounds, terms, and knowledge, which results from comprehending these three indiscriminately; but when an ascetic views these separately, by performing “Sanyama” respecting them, he attains the power of understanding the meaning of any sound uttered by any sentient being.

18. A knowledge of the occurrences experienced in former incarnations arises in the ascetic from holding before his mind the trains of self-reproductive thought and concentrating himself upon them.

19. The nature of the mind of another person becomes known to the ascetic when he concentrates his own mind upon that other person.

20. Such concentration will not, however, reveal to the ascetic the fundamental basis of the other person’s mind, because he does not “perform Sanyama” with that object before him.

21. By performing concentration in regard to the properties and essential nature of form, especially that of the human body, the ascetic acquires the power of causing the disappearance of his corporeal frame from the sight of others, because thereby its property of being apprehended by the eye is checked, and that property of Satwa which exhibits itself as luminousness is disconnected from the spectator’s organ of sight.

Another great difference between this philosophy and modern science is here indicated. The schools of today lay down the rule that if there is a healthy eye in line with the rays of light reflected from an object—such as a human body—the latter will be seen, and that no action of the mind of the person looked at can inhibit the functions of the optic nerves and retina of the onlooker. But the ancient Hindus held that all things are seen by reason of that differentiation of Satwa—one of the three great qualities composing all things—which is manifested as luminousness, operating in conjunction with the eye, which is also a manifestation of Satwa in another aspect. The two must conjoin; the absence of luminousness or its being disconnected from the seer’s eye will cause a disappearance. And as the quality of luminousness is completely under the control of the ascetic, he can, by the process laid down, check it, and thus cut off from the eye of the other an essential element in the seeing of any object.

22. In the same manner, by performing Sanyama in regard to any particular organ of sense—such as that of hearing, or of feeling, or of tasting, or of smelling—the ascetic acquires the power to cause cessation of the functions of any of the organs of another or of himself, at will.

The ancient commentator differs from others with regard to this aphorism, in that he asserts that it is a portion of the original text, while they affirm that it is not, but an interpolation.

23. Action is of two kinds; first, that accompanied by anticipation of consequences; second, that which is without any anticipation of consequences. By performing concentration with regard to these kinds of action, a knowledge arises in the ascetic as to the time of his death.

Karma, resultant from actions of both kinds in present and in previous incarnations, produces and affects our present bodies, in which we are performing similar actions. The ascetic, by steadfastly contemplating all his actions in this and in previous incarnations (see Aph. 18), is able to know ab...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Table of Contents
• DEDICATION
• PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
• BOOK I. - CONCENTRATION.
• BOOK II. - MEANS OF CONCENTRATION.
• BOOK III.
• BOOK IV. - THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF ISOLATION.