by A.K. Aruna
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SWAMI DAYANANDA SARASWATI
Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Anaikatti, Coimbatore

The Patañjali Yoga Sūtras cannot be looked upon as a book on the philosophy of Seśvara Sāṅkhya. Ādi Śaṅkara, in his Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, had discussed the Yoga School quoting certain sūtras, which are not found in Patañjali’s book. Perhaps the Patañjali Yoga Sūtras formed a part of the syllabus for the people given to traditional Vedanta study. Even today, jijñāsus, who study at Kailash Ashram, study the Patañjali Yoga Sūtras, with various Sanskrit commentaries.

I am very happy that Sri Aruna, one of my senior students, is presenting the Patañjali Yoga Sūtras with a commentary in keeping with the Vedanta tradition. Very good in Sanskrit, Aruna’s word for word translation of the meaning of the sūtras does not leave anything to be desired. With his commentary, the overall vision of Patañjali comes alive.

There are no authentic books in circulation on this important work on Yoga discipline. Aruna’s book meets with the need in admirable measure. I congratulate him for his contribution to the pursuit of spiritual discipline.

Sw. Dayananda
18/8/2013

Yoga has been practiced for thousands of years by Indian spiritual seekers and saints. Yet, let us ask: Is there a single yoga text that specifically points out what those seekers and saints were actually contemplating in their yoga spiritual practice?

Most modern yoga texts, in English, are about āsanas – postures for physical strengthening, relaxation, stretching, and physical therapy. A few also highlight the benefits of these āsanas for relieving stress. Some introduce a little meditation, bringing in some spiritual words, such as love, bliss, and divine. Some present an āsana practice that includes a life of yoga off the mat. They may explain these spiritual ideas and life styles with a few examples. There is often not enough depth unfoldment of these ideas and their expressions into a life style. Sometimes they encourage the readers to imagine their own explanations – as if the seekers already know the answers they are seeking.

These texts do not fluently connect the student to the contemplative spiritual scriptures of India, for which India is so well known. In this way, these yoga texts are unlikely to bring the student to a clear sense of a broad, integrated, in-depth spiritual grounding that a full yoga encompasses.

There is one ancient yoga text, though, that is held to be the philosophical and contemplative basis of yoga. That text is the Yoga Sūtras by Patañjali. Its study has come to be called Rāja Yoga, meaning the Royal Yoga. It is a teaching of yoga appropriate for a king (rājan) learned in scripture yet not a renunciate, such as that taught to King Janaka by Yājña-valkya in the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad scripture and to Prince Arjuna by Lord Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad Gītā. We would think, then, that the commentaries and literature surrounding the Yoga Sūtras would be steeped in the scriptures of India – but that is not the case.

The earliest extant and most influential Sanskrit commentary (bhāṣya) is by a man named Vyāsa. He does not quote any scripture. Instead, he sprinkles in his commentary a few quotes from certain sages, culled mostly from the Mahā-Bhārata epic. The innumerable English translations and commentaries of these sūtras appear to only convey the spirituality, or lack thereof, of their many and varied authors. Even the scriptural leaning versions, such as the one by Bangali Baba (The Yogasutra of Patanjali: With the Commentary of Vyasa) and the one jointly by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood (How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali), sparingly connect the sūtras to specific scriptures. The effort here is to rectify this void.

There is also the purpose here to directly connect the many students and teachers of the Indian scriptures to the vast yoga community, and the yoga practitioners and teachers to the spiritual community.

Previously, the gulf between the two has been bridged only by the individual student or teacher on their own. Much of that effort has been through connecting a few of the topics in yoga to anecdotal stories of spiritual saints. Most of these stories revolve around the modern founders or practitioners of the teacher’s lineage. These stories are more of a devotee’s praise than a real grounding in a full yoga tradition dating back thousands of years.

The effort here is to formally bridge these two communities in all their myriad lineages with a common language and understanding. This is done through mapping the terminologies, sūtras (aphorisms), and topics of the Yoga Sūtras directly to the highly revered scriptures of India – namely, the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā.

As such, this text is helpful both to spiritual students seeking expanded and specific guidance, and to various teachers researching technical tools to bridge the apparent gap between yoga and the Indian scriptures.

Coming from the United States, a different culture from yoga’s flowering ground, I was carefully and artfully introduced to these scriptures in 1976 by Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati (Aug 15, 1930 to Sept 23, 2015). In India, I lived in the teacher’s family (guru-kula) with over sixty other students for two and a half years.

The classes were five a day, six days a week. We studied Sanskrit; chanting; meditation; the Bhagavad Gītā with Śaṅkara’s commentary; several introductory Vedānta texts, such as Tattva-Bodha and Ātma-Bodha; the Upaniṣad scriptures Kena, Praśna, Īśāvāsya, Muṇḍaka, and portions of Chāndogya and Bṛhad-āraṇyaka; plus the three Upaniṣads Kaṭha, Māṇḍūkya with Kārika, and Taittirīya complete with Śaṇkara’s commentaries. Finally, we studied the four initial Vedānta Sūtras with Śaṅkara’s commentary – called the Catur-Śruti. We each have continued to study these and other texts as needed after our course. Many such long and short term courses have been conducted by Swami Dayananda Saraswati and by his students.

For ten years starting at the beginning of 2000, I had created a five volume set of texts called The Aruna Sanskrit Language Series in addition of this work. The series, in a self-teaching format, unfolds the grammar of Sanskrit along with the Bhagavad Gītā. The series includes a grammar book and a lesson book, plus a dictionary, a translation, and a grammatical analysis of all the verses of the Bhagavad Gītā. Since then I have been creating a free browser enabled collection of over thirty Vedānta texts (including this text) plus several Sanskrit reference dictionaries in their original Sanskrit, simplified for interested beginning and advanced students.

But it is not these forty plus years that show in these pages. It is the thousands of years of continuous tradition that preserved and elaborated on this deep, scriptural teaching tradition.

Long ago I had first read the Yoga Sūtras translated with Vyāsa’s commentary by Bengali Baba. I did not then see how they could properly fit with Vedānta scripture. Much later I wanted to bring the yoga of Vedānta to a wider audience. I envisioned the Yoga Sūtras as an introductory vehicle.

Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati and Swami Tattvavidananda had recently given talks on sections of the Yoga Sūtras. Listening to them, I saw the possibility of a way to link the Yoga Sūtras to the yoga of Vedānta.

Still, there are many sūtras, including the section in chapter three dealing with yoga superpowers, that on first glance appear incompatible with Vedānta scripture. And what about the dualist philosophy so often associated with these sūtras?

Setting aside my doubts, I started from the sūtras’ beginning and, to my surprise I have to admit, found the way to reconcile each sūtra to Vedānta. In the process, I found the available traditional commentaries to be of little use. None of them made an adequate attempt to base the sūtras on scripture. In fact, they took them in a different direction towards a later developing dualist philosophy called Sāṅkhya.

Instead, I took the topics and individual words that Patañjali employed and quite easily found their source and contextual development in Vedānta scripture that preceded these sūtras. I was surprised at the ease of this process, since this had not been thoroughly attempted in print before, to my knowledge.

It is not easy to translate and comment on the Yoga Sūtras, while at the same time introduce and explain Vedānta scripture in one text. The reader has to bear with this apparent juggling process, but should quickly see the benefit. That benefit is not just understanding a traditional yoga text in a new way; it is seeing these Yoga Sūtras in a truly enlightening way as they were intended. It connects yoga back to its true beginning and purpose which the early seekers and saints embraced in their contemplations.

To convey this enlightening teaching to its current students, these sūtras are explained in clear contemporary language. The explanations are in keeping with our current culture and sciences – the same as was done in Patañjali’s time. As it was then, this work is presented as a current spiritual non-fiction meant for enlightenment.

I wish here to give adoration to my teacher, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, who has faithfully passing on this knowledge-tradition, renewing and reinvigorating it into the 21st century. I also wish to thank John Warne for editing the initial draft of this work. John has studied Sanskrit and Vedānta, and has completed one of these long term courses. He corrected and questioned many of my expressions, as well as appropriately replaced or added many paragraphs where needed. Any faults or omissions in this text, though, are due to the rawness of my submitted material.

Yoga is popular in the West as physical exercise, a centering technique, and physical therapy. In India, though, it is much better known as a spiritual discipline that connects the individual with the divine.

As a spiritual discipline, it spans two popular traditions – Yoga and Vedānta.

Vedānta is a non-dualist tradition – the reality basis of everything including oneself is only one, not many. Its authority is the Upaniṣads (abbreviated in this commentary as Up.), Bhagavad Gītā (Bh. Gītā), and the Vedānta Sūtras. Within Vedānta, yoga (in this commentary, yoga without capitalization refers to a characterization of useful practices within Vedānta) is presented as karma-yoga and as jñāna-yoga. Karma-yoga means spiritual discipline related to life’s activities (karma). Jñāna-yoga relates to spiritual knowledge (jñāna) and its specific disciplines, such as the practice of renunciation, sannyāsa.

Yoga (in this commentary, Yoga with capitalization refers to the separate tradition or school of thought called Yoga) is a dualist tradition – there is no one reality basis of everything. Its authority includes these Yoga Sūtras. Yoga is presented as kriyā-yoga and samādhi. Kriyā-yoga is essentially the same as karma-yoga. Samādhi is the disciple of pursuing knowledge (jñāna) through contemplation. Here, samādhi may be pursued for scientific as well as spiritual knowledge. The differences in the world are real, so pursuing knowledge of these differences involves contemplating these subtle differences.

Although it will be argued here that there need be no essential separation between these two traditions, assuming the innate dualist understanding is preliminary to and can mature into a non-dual knowledge, an interesting twist has happened. The Yoga Sūtras, which are amenable to either tradition, have been subsumed by a pervasive early commentary that interprets the sūtras only through Sāṅkhya, a dualist scientific philosophy. This stops the disciplines in Yoga from further questioning the reasons one believes in differences being ultimately real. Limiting samādhi (contemplation) to reaffirming Sāṅkhya’s dualist perspective, this samādhi becomes disconnected from the samādhi championed in the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā that pursue knowledge to its ultimate conclusion in the one unifying reality of everything including oneself.

As a result, almost no one, even inside Vedānta, has since seen these Yoga Sūtras as easily being within the Vedānta tradition. These sūtras are taken as Sāṅkhya Yoga, instead of as Vedānta Yoga.

The reason for this is likely that Vedānta already has its own sūtras, the Vedānta Sūtras. Sūtras are typically written early within a tradition to outline and capture the essence of an oral tradition into writing. These succinct outlines are easily memorized and passed down through the various teaching lineages. Those sūtras help maintain the accurate continuity of their teaching traditions through succeeding generations. Each tradition has one set of sūtras to encapsulate its teaching. Vedānta has its Vedānta Sūtras, while Yoga lays claim to these Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali. Therefore, Vedānta does not need the Yoga Sūtras to be complete.

But Yoga needs Vedānta Yoga to really flower for the spiritual seeker. The commentary here will thus show that, when it comes to spiritual knowledge, it is much more meaningful to take the original Yoga Sūtras as Vedānta Yoga. This will be the more fulfilling approach to these sūtras for yoga spiritual seekers, who are the intended audience for this unique commentary.

The sāṅkhya and Sāṅkhya

It should first be noted that there is a difference between the Sanskrit word sāṅkhya and the name Sāṅkhya which applies to a particular philosophical doctrine. The word sāṅkhya (literally, related to reckoning or grouping, related to explaining – saṅkhyā) means enumeration or knowledge.

As knowledge, the term sāṅkhya is used in the epic Mahā-Bhārata and in the Bhagavad Gītā as the sacred knowledge handed down from the scriptures. In the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā, where Kṛṣṇa’s teaching starts (verses 2.11 through 38, said therein to be dealing with ‘sāṅkhya’) the quotations, paraphrases, and teachings are directly from the Upaniṣads. Hence, the rest of the mantras in those non-dual Upaniṣads, in particular the Kaṭha Up., cannot be disconnected from what is called sāṅkhya in the Bhagavad Gītā.

Another use of the word sāṅkhya found in the Mahā-Bhārata epic was for describing a teaching that employs a methodology (prakriyā) of enumerating components or aspects (tattvas) of the universe, including the nascent scientific thinking that was developing.

With regard to Vedānta, there are various teaching methodologies (prakriyās). First, there is the primary prakriyā of imposition-sublation (adhyāropa-apavāda). This prakriyā, meant for unfolding the non-duality unique to Advaita Vedānta, describes the entire universe, including what the individual thinks he or she is, as consisting of two or more categories of everything. It then dismisses these categories as being absolutely real.

This adhyāropa-apavāda prakriyā consists of two components – adhyāropa (imposition) of a duality enumeration of the universe and its apavāda (sublation). By sublation (or subration) is meant its dismissal as being absolutely real and its subordination to a broader, overarching truth.

Each of these two components is presented through one of several other prakriyās.

Adhyāropa (imposition) involves any of the prakriyās of seer-seen (dṛk-dṛśya), effect-cause (kārya-kāraṇa), three states of experience (avasthā-traya), the five embodiments (pañca-kośa), and so on. These prakriyās involve enumerating (sāṅkhya).

Apavāda (sublation) involves the prakriyā of negation (neti-neti), where the authority of the scripture is invoked by asserting, “It (the truth) is not this or that (enumeration).” It also involves the prakriyā of co-presence–co-absence (anvaya-vyatireka), where logic is employed to support the sublation claims.

We thus find the scriptures presenting the entire universe by enumerating the dualities of seer-seen, cause-effect, subtle-gross, and eater-eaten; the trio of the three worlds (heavens, atmosphere, and earth), three guṇas, three states of experiences (waking, dream, and deep sleep), and the three gross elements (red, white, and black, that is, fire, water, and earth in Chāndogya-Upaniṣad 6.4.5); the five elements (space, air, fire, water, and earth); the seven worlds, the seven tattvas or categories (objects, senses, mind, intellect, cosmic mind, unmanifest, and the puruṣa or cosmic person in Kaṭha-Upaniṣad 3.10-11); the fourteen worlds; etcetera. Any one of these presentations can be called a sāṅkhya.

The Yoga Sūtras through Sāṅkhya

With this scriptural background of employing enumerations to encompass the entire universe, many later philosophies and even science itself evolved. Indeed, the atheist philosophy called Sāṅkhya, which elaborated on the gross-subtle, guṇas, elements, and tattvas (principles) to explain the universe, was considered around the start of the first millennium in India to be the science of the universe. Many of the arts, such as medicine, and other traditions, such as Buddhism and Vedānta, adopted in part or whole Sāṅkhya’s explanations of, or at least its approach to, the science of things.

When this Yoga Sūtras text is interpreted from the background of the atheist philosophy of Sāṅkhya, it is taken as Sāṅkhya Yoga, an infusion of the theist tendencies of the majority of the Indian populous with the atheist philosophy and science of Sāṅkhya. This theist version of Sāṅkhya defines a world outlook through duality and the science of Sāṅkhya, while accepting a God as a separate, inactive participant in the world. Contemplation (samādhi) is the method to perfect this outlook in one’s life.

The Yoga Sūtras through sāṅkhya

In this commentary, we will instead take these same sūtras from the background of the theist scriptures – with their nascent science of enumeration (sāṅkhya) and their non-dual vision of everything, and with contemplation as its method to help assimilate this non-dual vision.

Vedānta, Sāṅkhya, and Yoga Sūtras

Vedānta non-dualism says that the basis of all reality is the one brahman (literally, the big and the reality, and often capitalized as if it is a name for reality). This reality is also indicated by the terms: Īśvara (literally, the ruler, and commonly meaning the Lord), puruṣa (literally, the one who pervades, and commonly meaning the Cosmic Person), or ātman (literally, the mover, pervader or devourer, and commonly meaning the self).

I, the ātman, am in fact the reality of the universe, not other than the Lord. The diverse universe, in fact, simply appears to exist within this singular reality. In this perspective all duality – all otherness and separation – is sub-rated as only existing as if and thus is not the absolute truth. This non-dualist perspective is uniquely Eastern.

Sāṅkhya dualism, on the other hand, claims that the basis of all reality is dual – more than one absolutely existing entity. The puruṣa is the reality of oneself, and there are countless puruṣas, with the Lord being one of them. Everything else is prakṛti or pradhāna (Nature). I, the puruṣa, am not any of the objects of the world. None of the objects and none of the other puruṣas are me. Duality – otherness and separation – is real. This dualist perspective is universally common, East and West, spiritual or not.

People in yoga love to read the Bhagavad Gītā for its sweeping non-dualist vision, whereas, they read the Yoga Sūtras, because, as its title suggests, it should be the philosophy of yoga. Some people gloss over the difference of non-duality from duality as not being important to them.

The majority of people, at least in the West, are by nurture dualist. They reconcile the non-dual Bhagavad Gītā to dualism by taking it as poetry, not as a spiritual science. Whereas, the people who wish to pursue non-dualism, consciously or not, reconcile for their spiritual needs the apparently dualist Yoga Sūtras to the Bhagavad Gītā by taking the sūtras to be aiming at an implicit mystical goal of non-duality – a samādhi in which differences temporarily disappear.

This commentary cuts through this felt dilemma – finally bringing yoga back home to its scriptural fountainhead, where the truth to be contemplated within yoga is clearly laid out and well reasoned, not mystical.

The Format

This commentary will connect over two hundred and fifty quotations from the Vedas, Upaniṣads, and the Bhagavad Gītā to these Yoga Sūtras. The student is encouraged to read the footnotes since these are where the quotations are given. The footnotes also serve to interconnect related Yoga Sūtras, so the text can be better understood as a consistent, integrated teaching, and not as a series of disconnected notions. If you do not investigate these footnotes and their quotations, half the purpose of this text will not be fulfilled.

These quotations are not meant to exhaust all the possible connections of these sūtras to the scriptures, but to help start this process for students and teachers. The student and the teacher are encouraged to investigate these quotations in their sources to see their contexts and surrounding teachings. Each quotation is always taken appropriately from its context.

The text is laid out in sūtra order. All the Yoga Sūtras are given. The original sūtra in Devanāgarī script is followed by its transliteration and English translation. Finally, within square brackets, is a word-for-word vocabulary, followed by a Sanskrit and English commentary as required.

The vocabulary is ordered the same as the English in the sūtra translation. This will make it easy to match the vocabulary with the translation. If the same word is repeated in the sūtra, the vocabulary will repeat it too. Except for the pronouns, typically, the uninflected forms of the vocabulary are shown, while the following sūtra translation will additionally show the inbuilt inflected syntax of the prepositions and other parts of speech required to expand the Sanskrit vocabulary into an English sentence. By stripping the inflection from the Sanskrit words of the sūtra, this section will display the words as true vocabulary items. Compound words are either shown together with hyphenation or, more often, separately as individual vocabulary items, depending on the transparency of the relationship between the component words of the compound. The translation of each vocabulary item is contextual within the sūtra and sometimes shows an adjective as a verb. There may be other parts of speech conversions as well, because of this adopted convention of exactly matching the vocabulary to how they are rendered in a flowing English sentence.

The following literal sūtra translation (and the vocabulary) is shown in bold font. Embedded in each sūtra translation (and some of the vocabulary) are additional words in non-bold font that explain or expand the sense of the sūtra, or connect the topic to other sūtras. After reading the entire translation, try reading just the bold words that are the bare words of the sūtra.

The footnotes (shown by hovering over the text with a pointer device, such as a mouse) containing the scriptural quotations are given in English, with their full Sanskrit provided immediately after each sūtra commentary. The Sanskrit of these quotations have most of their words separated (i.e., their sandhis broken) to perhaps help many who are new to Sanskrit Devanagari writing. Each of these quotations has been freshly translated by the author. To help understand these bare quotes within their scriptural context, the author has occasionally added contextual explanations in square brackets.

Following each sūtra is a vṛtti (clarifying commentary in Sanskrit) by A.K. Aruna. After that is the English commentary taken from the same author's book Patanjali Yoga Sutras: Translation and Commentary in the Light of Vedanta Scriptures available on Amazon and other online outlets. At the end of each sūtra are the footnotes in Sanskrit that are referenced in the commentary.

The transliteration of Sanskrit words is here in keeping with the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) scheme (see Appendix: Alphabet), for example, sūtra, instead of sutra. Additionally, individual Sanskrit words are shown in the form one would find them in a Sanskrit dictionary, for example, ātman (आत्मन् for self), yogin (योगिन् for yogi), and draṣṭṛ (द्रष्टृ for seer), instead of their commonly found nominative inflected forms – ātmā, yogī, and draṣṭā, respectively. There is one exception, though. The Sanskrit word karman is shown as karma, because it is more a part of our international vocabulary.

For those teachers who wish to use this version of the Yoga Sūtras to give classes, a suggestion on groups of sūtras for specific topics is available (see Appendix: Courses).

At the end of these sūtras are various appendices:
Appendix - Index of Quotation Sources to Sūtra Citations to find where source texts are cited in these sūtras,
Appendix - Nature of the Mind to describe the nature of the mind in this teaching tradition,
Appendix - Suggested Steps in Contemplation to summarize a typical contemplation session in keeping with Patañjali,
Appendix - Suggested Sūtra Selections for Courses for teachers, and
Appendix - Alphabet to assist with pronunciation of Sanskrit words,

In the spiritual literature of India, the ultimate human goal is called mokṣa or kaivalya. This goal is freedom without any qualification, complete freedom in and of itself – encompassing everything in one’s universe in every way.

Every small goal in life finds its complete fulfillment in the attainment of this freedom alone. This goal is not tied to any cultural trappings or spiritual beliefs. It is as applicable to any self-conscious creature anywhere in the universe, as it is to everyone on Earth. To recognize this one goal as alone fulfilling all goals takes a certain maturity, but there is no extraordinary qualification to initiate the study of the means which prepares one for this ultimate human pursuit. Yoga is this preparation.

The first word, atha (now), of these sūtras indicates the beginning of the teaching of yoga. ‘Atha’ also traditionally carries with it a sense of auspiciousness by its mere sound, and is used at the beginning of many important undertakings to invoke a grace for completing the undertaking and for the undertaking to be widely beneficial.

Sūtra style texts, such as Patañjali’s, are by design meant to briefly present a summary of a topic that has an already existing body of literature, oral or written, in which the topic is elaborated. To unfold and understand such a condensed text as this we need to rely on a valid means of knowledge (pramāṇa) with regard to this text and this background literature (YS.1.7).

Intuition, a form of imagination (YS.1.9), is not a valid means of knowledge with which to unfold this text. Proper unfoldment instead requires a background in the literature of which this text is a summary and, at the very least, familiarity with the Sanskrit language. Interpretations based on imagination or extrapolations of other translations in languages distanced from the original Sanskrit will be just that – imaginations or even further abstractions from the original text. There are quite a few of these Western clones, with the author’s dash of inventiveness to capture its audience. Being exposed to and keeping in mind the contextual meaning and import of yoga, the student will quickly learn whether or not an author is going to be helpful.

Another approach with a long tradition that has been passed on through the most popular existing Sanskrit commentaries is to interpret these sūtras through a certain literature that came after them. That later literature was primarily the dualist Sāṅkhya work, called the Sāṅkhya-kārika, by Īśvara-kṛṣṇa. This philosophy is basically a mechanical dualism, not unlike the popular philosophies and theologies of today.

When one adopts this dualism as the basic philosophy underlying these sūtras, as was done in the most prominent commentary of this text by an author called Vyāsa (a common name in ancient India, as well as a word that means editor or compiler), then the inherent limitations and divisiveness of that dualist thinking will permeate these sūtras and may lead the student astray.

But what if the dualist thinking one has entertained since a child limits by its nature one’s quest for freedom? If one is still seeking a fully satisfying truth after all these years, why not question these dualist assumptions? If dualism is by its nature divisive and not amenable to a complete freedom, then how could these dualist assumptions allow a text that purports to direct a student to unfettered freedom succeed? What is suggested here is that a dualist approach to this text is unnecessary since there is a better approach which avoids this limited, misleading, and divisive interpretation.

This better approach is more firmly based in tradition and follows an earlier literature that is the authority on the nature of freedom (mokṣa). That earlier literature is also the first to mention yoga and present it as a means for this freedom. That literature is the sacred Upaniṣads that predate these sūtras by many hundreds to perhaps over a thousand years. Though it is more ancient than Sāṅkhya philosophy, it is more sophisticated and is quite new to most people interested in yoga. We will show how this approach to these sūtras, and to everything in your life, can be most enlightening.

The Upaniṣads clearly unfold a vision of a limitless reality, free of division. This vision pierces beyond cultures, environments, and histories. The Upaniṣad scripture is unlike the other scriptures of the world, because it is at once both a scripture and a science – a science of the nature of the spirit and the nature of the universe. It can then apply universally, as a science does, to all humankind – not just to a chosen, converted, or elite group. This science is different from the material sciences, since it is based on scripture (the report from someone who had realized its benefit) and the truth of one’s very nature. Though this spiritual science is not based on the senses, logic from sense perceptions, or doubt based experimentation – nor could it be – it is presented for peer review to the open minded in every society and every generation for the individual to benefit.

This scripture applies to the basic human condition of every individual, whether that person believes it or not, or thinks it otherwise or not. And it allows everyone else to believe or think as they will. The vision of these Upaniṣads, which is assumed here in these sūtras, was transmitted from generation to generation to be available to whoever can approach and assimilate it. No attempt to convert, coerce, or conquer for spreading the word is required. Its own benefit to those individuals who have assimilated it has and will sustain its teaching tradition.

Patañjali himself here indicates that there was this earlier body of literature from which he was summarizing this topic of yoga. The prefix ‘anu-’ in this initial sūtra is often used in the sense of anurūpe, meaning in conformity with. When applied to the term śāsana (teaching), it indicates that this will be the traditional teaching of yoga. This text is then meant to be in conformity with the prior traditional texts that deal with the topic of yoga and the topic of liberation, the goal of yoga.

The prior traditional texts we have available to us today are only the scriptures, in particular the Upaniṣads, that delve deeply into the topic of the nature of reality, as well as the popular literatures that help convey this teaching – called Purāṇas (legends) and Itihāsas (epics) about the lives and teachings of people who were called yogins. By far the most acclaimed teaching on yoga is within the Mahā-bhārata Itihāsa called the Bhagavad Gītā, which deals directly with yoga and its ultimate goal, liberation, as taught by the Lord incarnate, Śrī Kṛṣṇa.

If we keep such texts as the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā as our principle reference while unfolding this terse work of Patañjali, then we will know we are understanding Patañjali as he intended – according to the same tradition that was before him, or contemporaneous (perhaps, as imagined by some academics, in the case of the Bhagavad Gītā), but not after him.

When going through these sūtras, please read the commentary and the many footnotes, since they provide the direct connections of this work with the sacred tradition in which this work is to be reconciled.

As a general definition of yoga it seems that the word nirodha is best rendered in its most general meaning, as mastery. Later in this text during the discussions on the final stages of yoga in which samādhi (contemplation) is discussed, the term nirodha is employed in a more specific technical sense as the culmination of samādhi. It is then best rendered in that context as assimilation or the dropping of ignorance and its various obstructions to freedom.

The ultimate goal of yoga is to know and be only the unafflicted reality (YS.1.24–25, 2.2–3, 3.49–50 & 54) that is the nature of oneself, the puruṣa (YS.1.3), the person at the core of one’s being (YS.1.29). For this ultimate goal, the immediate goal of yoga is gaining clarity of mind that can eventually assimilate the knowledge of the nature of oneself (YS.1.30–41 & 46–48). This involves sufficient mastery (nirodha) of the thoughts of the mind.

Here, mastery does not mean suppression, rather a cognitive alertness allowing the most appropriate and helpful thinking to arise. This manifests outside the seat of meditation as propriety in action, both mental and physical, based on a clearer ascertainment of what is unconditional freedom. It is the mastery that a mature and informed person would command in a situation, as opposed to that of an immature or uninformed person. And this mastery is not for managing the external situation, but for managing the mind so that it remains a helpful tool, particularly with regard to intelligently seeking one’s ultimate goal in life.

It must clearly be understood that mastery or discipline of the mind is not in any way subjugation or narrow confinement of the mind. That would be confusing physical discipline with mental discipline. The mind is naturally fleeting and fickle, and can jump across the universe in a split second. The mind cannot be contained like an unruly pet. Mental discipline instead is predominantly conceptual. The only restrictive aspect possible here is in making an informed choice to start and remain in this discipline of knowledge leading to the goal of yoga.

The word nirodha has the dictionary definitions of nāśa (destruction, disappearance), pralaya (resolution of an effect back into its material cause), and/or pratirodha (obstruction – mechanical or otherwise) (Śabda-Stoma-Mahānidhi: A Sanskrit Dictionary by Tārānātha Bhaṭṭāchārya). Hence, in regard to the final goal of yoga, final assimilation would be an appropriate rendering of nirodha, since that final assimilation is a combination of a destruction of an ignorance that binds and a resolution of the effects of that ignorance to their objective cause – both realized through knowledge that frees and its assimilation. However, to reach that goal, the preliminary steps to this assimilation within yoga involve mastery of the mind.

The mastery of the thoughts of the mind here in Patañjali’s yoga is willful direction, via repetition (abhyāsa) (YS.1.12), sitting (āsana) (YS.2.46), and breath control (prāṇāyāma) (YS.2.29). It is cognitive via trust (śraddhā) (YS.1.20), study (svādhyāya) (YS.2.1), contemplation (Īśvara-praṇidhāna) (YS.1.17, 23, 28 & 2.1), assimilation (samādhi) (YS.1.18, 2.3–4), and clear knowledge (prajñā) (YS.1.48, 2.3–4). The last of which, knowledge (prajñā), is the destruction (nāśa) of self-ignorance.

Mastery (nirodha) includes the ability to assimilate and stay on a particular thought or topic that does not hinder (a-kliṣṭa) the goal in yoga as well as the ability to counteract and refrain from a particular thought or topic that hinders (kliṣṭa) (YS.1.5). This includes the ability to resolve (pralaya) cognitively all objects and the mind into the non-dual silence of their reality basis, into oneself. This mastery is a total commitment to a beneficial (śreyas) life of yoga and avoidance of what may be pleasurable (preyas), but not beneficial.

An equally good rendering of the term nirodha in this context is discipline. It involves not just restraint from what is not helpful (by clearly seeing its unhelpfulness from start to finish), but also the pursuit of what is helpful. The ultimate goal of yoga will be further characterized as liberation (kaivalya) (2.23–27), which is also said to be simply self-knowledge (prajñā) (YS.1.48 & 4.26). In this way, the term discipline (anuśāsana) is appropriate to the final goal of yoga, since it indicates the need for the mind to follow a methodology, a means of knowledge (pramāṇa) (YS.1.7), to reach its goal.

As the mind is finally the one that has to discipline itself, then this is self-discipline. No one else can make you study, contemplate, and know. You have to choose to discipline your mind, you have to follow this discipline, and you have to complete this discipline. This is Patañjali’s yoga.

It is critical to note that it is not said that the self goes or returns to some state it does not have now, or had earlier, or might have in the future. This success of yoga is not a becoming, or a return. It is simply remaining as oneself really is and always has been, without the mind’s confusion. We will be told that the mind’s confusion is a self-conception due to ignorance that is imposed upon the nature of the self, which the self does not and cannot have (YS.2.5). You do not have to become something you right now are not.

Clearly the body and the mind can be cleansed, but the belief that there is some cleansing process of the self that yoga achieves is nothing but further confusion about the nature of the self. The self is never sullied, and always is and will be free in every way. The goal of yoga is to eliminate or sublate the false self-conception and enjoy the essential nature of oneself.

What is the Essential Nature of Oneself

The self has the most essential nature of the being that witnesses all thoughts that make up the mind and thereby witnesses all objects of those thoughts. Any other nature the self may appear to have is subsidiary and related to the particular nature or content of these thoughts, or the character of the objects of these thoughts.

One may think one is a doctor or a janitor because of the knowledge and skills one has gained. One may think one is dull or smart because of the nature of one’s intellect. One may think one is sorrowful or happy because of the content of one’s emotive mind. One may think one is a man or a woman because of one’s body. One may think one is a husband or a wife because of the spouse. One may think one is a bachelor or a bachelorette because of the absence of a spouse. One may think one is an employer or an employee because of one’s activity. Whether employed, unemployed, unemployable, or retired, one may think one is rich, poor, or somewhere in-between, because of one’s possessions. One may think one is an American or an Indian, a Westerner or an Easterner, and so on, because of one’s geographic, political, social, or philosophical affiliations.

There is a body of literature that analyzes such claims with straight-forward reasoning that reveals a profound vision of the reality of oneself. What that vision is, and how this vision changes one’s understanding of oneself and one’s entire world will be shown in the next few pages. This vision encompasses every way one knows oneself and the world.

In every perception, every experience of the world, one’s self is there as the witness. One does not notice a difference between the witness through the eyes, the witness through the ears, or the witness through any of the other senses. Though the objects being witnessed and the senses differ, one’s self as the witness is not different.

I see. I hear. I taste. In each of these, there am I. I am not two different persons. Each is but me as the witness accommodating every sense perception.

Most times, I am not thinking of myself as a witness. The particular thought of myself as a witness of a perception is itself a thought that comes and goes. Thinking that I am a witness is only occasionally there, such as when I notice myself acting out of character. Whereas, I clearly am there as the witness in every perception, whether I have a thought about that witnessing or not. About this I have no doubt.

As it is for perception, so it is for any thought. For every thought in the mind I am the witness. Without seeing myself as witness, I witness one thought after another. It is not that I witness one thought and someone else witnesses the next thought. Clearly I am the only witness of my thoughts. Even if I am not thinking of myself as the witness of my thoughts, I have no doubt I am there as the witness of every thought.

What is the Ego

Thoughts about myself as a perceiver or as a thinker are occasional. They come and go. When such thoughts come they take the form of defining me as the one who is witnessing the current perception (of objects or emotions) or the current thought. This defining myself limits me in time with respect to such and such perception or thought. These thoughts are what this teaching calls the ego. The ego is not some entity haunting within me. It is simply any thought I have about myself. The ego (ahaṃ-kāra), in other words, is only a type of thought that occurs in the mind. When it is not there, I am not consciously defining, not limiting, myself to what is happening at any particular time.

This understanding of the ego is unique in that every other teaching presents the ego as some entity that is either the hero or villain in life. This is simply not the case. The ego is only a thought that occurs in the mind, like any other thought. When it occurs, I am its witness. When it does not occur, I am still the witness – the witness of the absence of an ego thought, whether as a non-ego thought or as the absence of any thought whatsoever.

Just as I witness each thought, I also witness their absence. At the time of their absence I am not, nor could I be, thinking of myself as the witness of the absence of thought. This would be an obvious contradiction. Nevertheless, I witness the absence of thought. This clearly must happen between every thought this mind entertains. This absence of thought may be for a micro second or hours. When for just a micro second, like the space between movie picture frames, the gaps go mainly unnoticed, yet, like the movie, they are still part of and characterize the experienced, the witnessed.

Extended periods of absence of thought happen each night I enjoy a good sleep. There is no ego thought occurring during this time, defining myself as being asleep, yet upon awakening I know I was asleep. When I am asked if I slept well, I do not need to consult anyone; I myself know if I did or did not. I was the witness of being asleep, even though no thought occurred during that time.

Myself as the witness is not something that comes and goes, whereas perceptions and thoughts do. My notions of myself as a doctor, janitor, smart, sorrowful, happy, married or not – these are thoughts that come and go and are ego thoughts that define me as one thing or another. These defining thoughts seem to limit myself to one status or condition, or another. But the truth is that no perception or thought can define or limit the very witness of them.

Ego thoughts could only truly define a witness if the objects of these thoughts were that witness. Objects of thought are limited to the form of the thought. They are within time and place, from a limited perspective, and couched in the language of the mind expressing as this particular thought.

But the real witness is not the object of an ego thought. It is the witness itself of an ego thought. It transcends, as it were, the ego thought, since it is ever the subject, while all types of thoughts and their absence come and go. As an object in the form of an ego thought, such an object can never be itself the witness I am. Any ego thought then can never truly define, never limit, me who is the witness of all perceptions, all thoughts, and all objects of thought.

The self-assessment that I need to get rid of the ego is itself another ego thought that defines the ego-me as a failure who has to improve, or whose ego thoughts have to go away. This makes little sense, since we need ego thoughts to survive in life. How would I know to feed this body unless I recognize I am the one who is hungry? If, without needing to change my language, I simply understand the expression “I am hungry” as meaning, in truth, “this body is hungry,” then what problem could such a thought be? We need these thoughts to transact in the world.

These ego thoughts, objectively understood, do not need to go away, nor would we want them to all go away. They do not limit me if they are objectively understood as meaning this body is such and such, or this thought is such and such. They do not really limit me if I, in fact, clearly know myself as not these perceptions or thoughts – I am not these objects, but instead am their witness.

How Can Logic Help

Now, how do I know that I am essentially the witness of everything and am not this particular body and mind being witnessed? If I am the latter then I am indeed limited. If I am both the witness and the latter, both this witness and this witnessed entity, then also I am indeed still limited in time and place. I would be the witness conditioned, and thus limited, by the witnessed. So, while it is clear from my perceptions and thinking that the witness is always there, what reason do I have to understand myself as only the witness and not the witnessed?

For this we need to apply correct logic toward our experiences to get at the essential nature of myself. We all have reasons for establishing what is real and what is not real. Those reasons may vary, but the actual establishing of reality itself finally amounts to simply attributing one thing as real and another as not real.

The initial criterion for reality may be stated as: We say one thing is not real and another is when we give up on the prior claim to reality and re-place that reality onto the other. This is essentially the same we do for truth also. That is why this teaching holds that truth and reality are essentially one and the same. Hence its word for reality, ‘satyam,’ is also its word for truth. Though the reasons for attributing the truth/reality of a thing may vary, the essential criterion for truth/reality is our attribution of truth/reality upon one thing or another. In other words, it is we who impute truth/reality to things, not that things intrinsically gain or lose some attribute called reality.

An example of this attribution of truth/reality is this teaching literature’s classic example of snake and rope. In twilight, with enough light to see something but not enough to see clearly, one sees what he or she thinks is a snake. Upon closer examination with trust in the help of another who sees clearly, this person discovers it was only a rope. Here, the snake’s claim to reality (notice that it is the person who gave this claim, not the snake) lasted until the person re-placed that reality upon the rope (neither did the rope make this claim). When the rope gained that claim to reality, it did not in fact do anything or intrinsically gain anything. The rope had not lost and then regained its own nature (sva-rūpa). This sva-rūpa (its own nature) always was there – relatively speaking, of course, since the rope was created in time and will decay into something else. Nevertheless, the person now knows that what is there is a rope and it always was a rope, but initially or temporarily the person thought it was a snake.

Another example of this attribution of truth/reality is how for millenniums people in the West thought the Earth was flat, until a thinker and scientist gave good reason to think that the Earth was round. Over time this new understanding became the truth, the reality, of the shape of the Earth for nearly all of us. It is not that the Earth became round; it always was round.

Like with the snake and rope, the facts did not change. Rather it was our cognitive understanding of the facts that changed. The effect is that the roundness of the Earth, which we now know existed before, exists now and will exist for some time in the future, outlasted the flatness of the Earth, which only existed before and was limited to only our thinking it to be so. Notice that the reality of a thing is only as good as the next good questioning of its claim to reality. If it survives that, then it lasts until the next, and so on. This has become the accepted position of our modern sciences in their careful referencing of claims of reality or truth in their theories.

But these two are either-or examples of claims to truth and reality. Much of life, though, is shades of gray, especially when categorizing the overall reality or truth of a situation or a thing. An extension, then, of this criterion of reality that provides for these shades of gray is: What outlasts or survives another, in terms of time or valuation of that time, is more real than the other. For example, a momentary spell of feeling satisfied is reduced in its overall truth or reality relative to the more pervasive spell of feeling unsatisfied. Therefore, thinking I am essentially unsatisfied is more likely than thinking I am essentially satisfied. That one is sometimes satisfied is true/real, but more often one seems to be unsatisfied. Both are equally real as experiences, but the more frequent one will prevail in one’s understanding of his or her overall life.

This is an example of one thing being more true/real in our thinking than another, though the other cannot be totally dismissed as not real in our thinking. In this author’s life, I am more a student of Vedānta (of the Upaniṣads and their analysis) than a janitor, which I was for a few years of my life. Because of this my life choices now are weighted, are valued, much more towards the perspective of a student of Vedānta than to that of a janitor. Of course one can be both, since they do not exclude each other, and indeed for a time I was both – meaning my livelihood involved both.

If we want to examine the final reality basis of things, though, rather than just the temporary forms of their reality, then we can adapt a corollary of the above criterion of reality. That corollary is: What a thing cannot give up is its essential reality, and what it can give up is not its essential reality. This corollary employs the well-known anvaya-vyatireka (co-presence–co-absence) logic. The anvaya (co-presence) is in whose – the reason’s (the hetu’s) – presence something – the fact to be discerned (the sādhya) – invariably occurs; vyatireka (co-absence) is in whose absence that something invariably does not occur. This logic for getting at the essential nature of something is commonly used by all of us and is the basis of experimentation.

For example, in trying to discern what is the problem with a computer, we proceed by removing a feature we previously installed and seeing if an unwanted, new symptom stops – this is the vyatireka (co-absence). Then we add back in that feature and see if the symptom returns – this is the anvaya (co-presence). This process informs us of what exactly is the nature of the problem with the computer, or at least which feature holds the problem. This logic is transparently used throughout the scripture, often through story telling, to discover the more subtle, that is, the most pervasive and hence basic, truth or reality of what looks like just a composite. The logic ferrets out the hierarchy of dependencies between seemingly equal composites.

It is this final corollary that we will use to analyze the above claims as to who or what is the essential truth of the self. This corollary handles not only black or white, real or not real, but also shades of being more or less real/true. That is, it allows the dismissal of the more and more subtle natures of a thing, until one reaches the intrinsic nature of a thing which cannot ever be given up without the thing itself being lost. This corollary is applied to get at the essential reality, the essential truth, of a thing.

Whatever can, in terms of out-lasting, be dismissed or devalued as not, or less, real/true cannot ever be a thing’s essential reality. What cannot ever be dismissed or devalued is, has been, and will be its essential reality. In other words, what is unreal can never be real (non-dismissible), nor can the real ever be unreal (dismissible).

How do I Know I am Simply the Witness

Now, the earlier question was: How do I know that I am essentially the witness of everything and am not this particular body, mind, and their activities being witnessed?

The claim that I am a doctor or janitor is only as true as the knowledge and skill that I have. This knowledge and skill set was acquired in time – before I did not have it, now I have it, and later when I retire and do not keep up with the knowledge and skills required I will lose it. Yet I am very much there before and after these acquirements and losses. I am more real than this knowledge and skill set. I can cease to be a doctor or janitor and I survive, but the doctor-me or janitor-me does not survive. The doctor-me or janitor-me are simply ego thoughts that come and go in life. The doctor-me, for example, disappears when I give attention to my wife. Then the husband-me occurs. The same process occurs for every other ego thought.

If I think I am dull or smart, then this claim is based on a relative scale that I adopt. In comparison to a child I may be smart; in comparison to a genius I may be dull. So if I am both these opposite claims at the same time, then I am absolutely neither of them. If I study, I will be smarter and less dull. If my mind is not used or degenerates in sickness, then I will be more dull and less smart. These claims wax and wane through out my life and my day, and depend upon with whom I am comparing myself. Dropping these claims of being more or less dull or smart, I remain. It’s the same for sorrowful and happy. These wax and wane, yet I survive either of them.

Nor am I the child, the young adult, or the geriatric. The child may be me. The young adult may be me. The geriatric may be me. But since they each were, are or will be me, then I cannot be any one of them. I exist before and after each of these metamorphoses. These metamorphoses of the body, like the metamorphoses of the mind, come and go. Again, I am simply their witness.

Life and Death

The gain of this body and its loss are also considered in this inquiry as something that comes and goes for the individual who precedes and survives these events.

An individual has his or her peculiar nature because of what that individual did before to earn this particular embodiment – this form, condition, or situation. What I do in this life will determine what I get later, after the loss of this body.

This before-life and after-life existence of the individual is a belief (a truth claim), but so are many of the claims, such as I am this body, which we are dismissing here as not being the real I. Much of what we think we know is simply beliefs. Most of the information we have is personally untested, unverified by us, and simply believed to be so. We base many of our beliefs upon having read or heard about them from family and friends, from teachers in school, from a science journal, a novel, a self-help book, a newspaper, television, the Internet, or water-cooler gossip.

Some people attempt to dismiss others’ beliefs to prop up their own. They resort to a generalization that the simpler explanation is more likely the truth. This is appealing to what is called Ockham’s razor, a principle of economy of explanation. I can simply dismiss someone else’s beliefs, such as a before-life and an after-life, as unreal if those beliefs look too complicated for me. In a self-defining system such as mathematics, this is effectively applied. It is rarely applicable, though, outside such artificial systems. It is not that the principle of simplicity is necessarily wrong; rather the application of the principle in regard to beliefs is often too simple-minded, if not prejudiced. Many times, and you can contemplate this yourself, a person appealing to this principle is not, in fact, taking into account the complexity or insufficiency of explanation of their assumptions behind their own beliefs.

If, for example, one thinks that only what can scientifically be proved is real, then their world of the real is so tiny that it becomes nearly meaningless. When have they ever scientifically proved, or even scientifically established that it is provable, what is love, friendship, happiness, the identity of their parents and their relations, most of history, all of their imagined future, and on and on. Their world of the real quickly shrinks to a few sense perceptions they have had that they also know could be interpreted in an unknowable amount of ways – yet they think they are explaining the real world, the world of science, the supposed world we all live in.

This is why simply labeling other beliefs as unreal and clinging to one’s own beliefs as real is not an ultimately satisfying criterion for determining what is real and what is unreal.

Rather than simply preaching opposing beliefs or resorting to generalizations, we should instead appeal to reason and inquiry to show that a particular belief is more or less realistic. However, with regard to the belief in the existence of an individual’s prior or future embodiment, it turns out that science or logic based on this life’s experience has no scope to prove or dismiss prior or future lives. Science cannot design an experiment to test the truth or untruth of the existence of prior and future lives. Such beliefs are about a subject matter that is outside of the stated scope of either science or reasoning to prove or disprove. Dismissing, in one’s own mind, one or more instances of a claim of a past life as a hoax is not equivalent to dismissing the possibility of past lives.

However, reasoning can dismiss the claim that I am the sum of or am any one of these embodiments – whether as a male or female, husband or wife, employer or employee, American or Indian, and so on – whether in the past, present, or future. The logic is that I survive these embodiments and take on other different embodiments. Before any one of these I was there, during I was there, and after I will be there, whether in this life, or any past or future life. And this logic applies whether one believes in a prior and after life, or not.

So if I am not any of these, then am I nothing? – No, I always was and am the witness of these adventitious acquirements, qualities, metamorphoses, and embodiments. If there are future embodiments I will be the witness of them too.

The 24/7 Reality

Even in detailed analysis, I am always the witness. When I look at just a twenty-four hour period in this life, I am continually the witness. I witness all I experience while awake. In dream also nothing escapes my witnessing, since that alone can be what my dream is. In deep sleep when the conscious mind stops functioning, I experience the absence of any thing and can later clearly proclaim that I was sound asleep without a dream. How else would I know that? So, deep sleep is also witnessed by me. This same witnessing of the absence of thought happens in moments of thoughtlessness, whether deliberate or not. In every moment of time I am the witness.

I witness their coming and going, so I cannot be these moment to moment thoughts and objects I witness. They dismiss themselves in dream and deep sleep every night. I need not do anything to get rid of them, since they give themselves up as possibly being my real nature every night, every moment. Even if I philosophize that I do not even exist, I am still there witnessing these philosophical, or religious, thoughts as they come and go. The same me, with and without these thoughts, is there before, during, and after every thought.

There is never a time I was not, nor will not be. This is the statement made by Lord Kṛṣṇa in the beginning of the Bhagavad Gītā. This was not a claim made because He is a special person, a reincarnation of the Lord. This was given as a teaching to Arjuna, his student, that this is the truth of Arjuna himself, the truth of the self – never was the self not, nor will it not be.

However, my self consciously being the witness is itself a relative claim as it is always in relation to what I am witnessing. When there is nothing to witness, such as during sleep, I am not claiming this existence as a witness. It is only later, upon re-awaking, that I can re-claim that existence as the witness of thought or of thoughtlessness. If there is, in fact, no second existent thing to witness, there can then be no witnessor-witnessing-witnessed relationship. So while being the witness is more true/real than any other claim, it is itself not the absolute.

If one were to make the better claim, then it would be that I am the reality that allows me to ever be the witnessor. ‘Being’ is not relational, whereas ‘witness’ is. I am the existence that witnesses all that can be witnessed. I am essentially existence itself that expresses as the witness of all.

We will see later that the claim of the existence of any thing is itself based on the fact of it being witnessed. I am the source of the attribution of existence to all I witness, in the same way as I am the source of the attribution of reality to the various claims I had of my relative existence as a doctor, janitor, and etcetera. I am the being, the witness, who attributes all of reality to my universe of experience. None of this universe of experience lies outside of the reality I attribute to them, I lend to them, so that they may shine within my awareness of them. Being the witness of these experiences, they fall within my awareness. Yet they, independently, cannot be my nature as they are but the witnessed, the seen (YS.2.21). Essentially, they are only the reality I lend to them.

Acknowledging the fact that all things shine within the existence I am is a non-erroneous lending of my existence to these objects of experience. But if I attribute to them a degree or level of reality, such as imaginary, practical, or absolute, that they do not merit, then this is an erroneous attribution of the object’s existence. Simply making such an error, though, does not necessarily afflict me. It will afflict me, however, if this erroneous attribution of reality makes me erroneously take myself to be inadequate, unworthy, and insecure as a consequence. This is because, as this teaching, that is, the scripture that forms the basis of this teaching, will unfold, I alone cannot but be all of this existence, this reality.

What is the Benefit

So what? What is the useful result of this inquiry? The benefit is knowing that all limitation, all that I do not want, everything that afflicts me, is something that is witnessed by me. Being more real than the limitations, I am not them. Any identification I have with these is sub-rated, (dismissed as less real) by this incontrovertible, unshakable knowledge that I am their witness. Any limitation is not me. What I do not want is not me. Any affliction I appear to have is not me. Any notion I have about myself is not me.

I am not even limited by other conscious beings, since these so-called other beings are just the bodies I see and the minds I encounter. I cannot and do not witness the witness that they are. The witness is the one reality that cannot admit a second. For every witnessed thing there are innumerable other witnessed things to limit it. For the witness alone that possibility of being limited is not there. In this way the literature that guides this inquiry unfolds this witness reality as the only reality, the one without a second that has always been just this only reality. This witness is reality itself without limit. It is not inside you – it is the essential you, you are this reality, and this reality cannot be without you. It is all that is real, because it is reality itself. All beings, all of time and space, are within the scope of this witness, this reality. This limitless reality, even if taken as the Lord, is not other than you. How could it be otherwise and still be limitless?

Once the knowledge of my real self as unlimited reality itself is fully assimilated, a freedom from limitation, from all afflictions is attained. And that freedom is more real than the bondage I thought I was subject to, since I always was, am, and will be free from these limitations and afflictions as ever being their witness, whereas the sense of bondage comes to an end. Freedom is another expression of the truth, the reality of myself.

So when someone wonders why you are trying to figure out who you are, thinking that this is something obvious and that you are wasting your time, then this small discussion may help you understand what this inquiry is.

Not that you need to convince others, though. If you think you need to convince others that you are right (or at least okay), then you have not fully understood this teaching. Nor could you, or can you, convince others if they have not started to question their own erroneous assumptions about themselves.

By the way, this is one of the reasons this teaching has been called the most secret of secrets. There can be no conversion of the multitudes. The truth is already everywhere available, 24/7, but few see it. That makes it the most secret of secrets. Seekers of this complete freedom have to come to discover this truth by correcting their vision, correcting their thinking. None can help the seeker, unless the seeker sincerely asks for help. But such seekers are few; most people simply struggle to survive in their short lifetime, clinging to a myriad of beliefs to console and comfort them in the struggle. That is what life is.

Until one does this inquiry, one only has a vague, unverifiable belief in who one thinks one is. This belief lasts only until the next good question, but most people avoid these questions and avoid those who bring up these questions. It is unsettling to be reminded that you do not really know who you really are.

Patañjali Indicates This Witness Reality

Patañjali only touches here on the nature of this reality – with just the one telling word draṣṭṛ (witness). Later he will also present this self as untouched by the afflictions of ignorance, the I-notion, attachment, aversion, and the fear of death (YS.1.24, 2.3, 10 & 4.30); pure perception or consciousness (YS.2.20 & 4.34); the one reality in which all else is the very same, as not other (YS.3.53 & 55); then again as time-less, pure and satisfied (YS.2.5); the presiding presence in and the witness of everything (YS.3.49–50); and finally as the immutable and the self-revealing (YS.4.18–19). This is the significant minimum to point out the exact nature of oneself and all of reality according to the vision of the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā. Patañjali assumes that one has been exposed to this teaching of the nature of reality, since that exposure (self-study, svādhyāya, YS.2.1) is the initial and essential step in yoga, and that one is now ready to contemplate upon it to help assimilate this knowledge in one’s life.

What Patañjali writes in these sūtras will then clearly follow from this background. Without this background, we end up with the less helpful translations and interpretations, replete with vague terminologies and mystical claims that fill yoga bookshelves. But now, with this understanding of what the inquiry is and what the topic of the contemplation should be, we can proceed as, we assume, Patañjali would have wanted us to proceed.

This, which we will see in the second chapter, is the fundamental ignorance in the form of a mutual imposing of natures between the seer and the seen, the witness and the witnessed. This is a clear statement of the fundamental problem.

It is not the problem that thoughts (vṛttis) appear, but that one assumes the same form (sā-rūpya) of these thoughts: “I am a doctor,” “I am upset,” “I am not satisfied,” and so on. This mis-identification means the thoughts control and define the person, instead of the other way around.

It will be shown later that simply mechanically stopping thoughts will not keep them from coming back (YS.1.18). So the goal of yoga is not stopping thoughts, as many think it is. If simply stopping thought is yoga, then a sleep, drugs, or coma is instant yoga. This is why Patañjali next goes on to describe the nature and quality of thoughts, and which to pursue and which to avoid, since it is not that you think, which we all – whether a great yogin or not – obviously do in our own ways, but how you think that is the problem addressed by yoga.

Another meaning for itaratra is at other times. But this would convey the sense that the yogin resides in the seer sometimes and is identified with thoughts at other times. This sense of the word only weakens the earlier sūtra to merely indicating an intermediate stage of on again off again experience of meditative peace in the self. This mediocre expression of the goal of yoga would not have been the intent of Patañjali at the defining start of this text.

The word kliṣṭa, as well as its negative a-kliṣṭa, is an adjectival form of the noun kleśa (affliction). Kliṣṭa refers to those thoughts that sustain the kleśas, while a-kliṣṭa refers to those thoughts that counter-act the kleśas. And to be free of the kleśas, the final goal of yoga, is to be the perfect puruṣa (person, self), the very nature of the Lord (YS.1.24–25, 2.2–3, 3.49–50, 54 & 4.30).

In this context, with reference to the goal of yoga, we are defining kliṣṭa as what hinders one’s progress in yoga, rather than the dictionary meanings as afflicted or painful. Those definitions miss the intent of this section which is to present thoughts as either helpful or not towards the goal of yoga. It is a mistake to say that some thoughts may be painful (kliṣṭa) and thus they should all be removed. That interpretation is based on duality and a fear of thoughts, of thinking. Mind is not your enemy in yoga; it is your tool and friend.

A-kliṣṭa, in its fullest understanding, thus means what is other than what hinders one’s progress in yoga. However, it may also mean what is neutral – neither hindering nor helpful. Much of how we live life is neutral to our conscious goals in life, and this can be part of our aimless getting along in life without making any progress. But here, it will be shown that karma-yoga is very much a part of yoga (YS.2.1). Thus, how one understands the entire world, how one understands oneself, and how one bases all choices in life become centered on one’s understanding of realities, which is the crux of this teaching. In that all-embracing world view including everything in everyway (YS.3.54), neutrality – ineffective action and thought – becomes less and less. A-kliṣṭa then becomes a matter of living entirely the understanding born of this teaching, and therefore means that which is always helpful in one’s progress in yoga.

This distinction, then, between kliṣṭa and a-kliṣṭa is central to citta-vṛtti-nirodha (mastery or discipline in thinking). And this is more to the point of nirodha than is nir-vikalpa-samādhi which will be discussed later, and which is simply an unavoidable result of this discipline. This sūtra is often glossed over by the commentators and translators of these sūtras, and not clearly connected as it should be to the preceding sūtras (where the goal and the problem are stated) and following sūtras (where the means are stated).

These five can be taken as just five categories of thought that Patañjali wants to highlight, while not covering all possible types of thought. Alternatively, as we will take them here, they may be taken broadly so that they do cover all possible thoughts.

As broad categories of all thought, then, any thought that is factually connected to and is about a stimulus would be knowledge. For example, an emotion, which is a perception of a mental state (the stimulus), would be included in knowledge (pramāṇa). If a thought has no connection to a stimulus, it would be an imagination. But if that imagination is then taken as factually connecting to some stimulus, then that imagination would instead be an error. If there was no conscious thought of any stimulus at a given time, then a non-conscious experiential thought that this factually occurred would be later consciously recalled as having been sleep. If none of the above strictly applies, then it would be a thought about one of those first four types of thought. This would be what we call a memory. We do not directly remember stimuli. Instead, we only recollect right now a past experience (thought) – whether the experience is about a stimulus factually, imaginatively, or falsely, or it is about the lack of a stimulus.

Pramāṇa means knowledge or, more literally, a means of knowledge. Direct perception by way of any of the five sense organs (hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, or smelling) and valid inference, by themselves, do not hinder one’s progress. Scripture understood in its full context, as well as direct perception and inference in support of the scripture, help one’s progress in yoga.

Later philosophers, including some philosophically minded Vedāntins, technically distinguish from this broad term of anumāna (inference) three more means of knowledge: upamāna (comparison), for example, upon seeing a wild ox in the forest, there arises the knowledge, “this is like a cow”; arthāpatti (presumption), for example, this person remains hefty but is not seen to eat during the day, so there arises the knowledge, “this person must eat at night”; and anupalabdhi (non-perception), for example, on a well lit ground, because of not seeing a pot, there arises the knowledge, “a pot is not there.” These extra technical distinctions in logic are simply included here in Patañjali’s use of the word anumāna (inference). Śaṅkara in his authoritative commentaries on the major Upaniṣads routinely lists just the three means of knowledge, as found here in this sūtra.

In regard to the final means of knowledge, latter day philosophers of India have stretched āgama beyond the scriptures to mean any knowledge that comes from verbal testimony. This is an unreliable extrapolation of this essential means of knowledge. The classic definition of an independent means of knowledge is that it is both not contradicted (a-bādhita) by another means of knowledge and not gained (an-adhigata) by another means of knowledge. With these two criteria, simple verbal testimony from a person does not stand up as a means of knowledge.

First, what someone tells you is often contradicted later. Also what someone tells you can be just as well known to you directly either by perception or by your own inference of the object this person is talking about. Then again, what was the source of that person’s knowledge they are relaying to you? That source was likely either their perceptions or their inferences, but perhaps it was also imagination or error. So the truth of their words is only the truth of those other two means of knowledge, nothing more. If the person is knowledgeably relaying the scripture to you, then that is the passing along of the āgama (scripture, tradition).

When you hear someone say something, you directly gain knowledge of that person’s words. This is a direct perception through hearing. As with seeing, our knowledge through hearing is in the thought-form of words, for example, “this person is saying this…”. From that perceptual knowledge you may have anywhere from a strong belief to a strong disbelief in regard to what you think those words are referring. The result is this verbal testimony has the added aspect of inference. That is, since this person has always relayed true statements to me before, I accept what I believe this person is saying now. If the person had lied to me before, I may not take what I believe this person is saying as true. The person is giving verbal testimony to me in either case, so the only difference is my assumptions and inferences about that person. In other words, inference plays too crucial a role here to accept simple verbal testimony as an independent means of valid knowledge.

If Patañjali really meant simple verbal testimony here, then he could have used the much more generic term śabda, or śabda-jñāna, (words or verbal-knowledge). Instead, he uses the term āgama which literally means what comes, and in practical usage usually means tradition or scripture – what has been handed down from beginningless time and is not considered authored, not created new by a specific human being. Knowledge from scripture is neither contradicted nor gained by any other source.

The other scriptures of the world are admittedly written by men and deal mainly with specific events, dreams, or visions that were perceptual or could be as well inferred. They have a history and a date of creation, even though they may be considered inspired by God. They can easily be seen as borrowing inspiration and expressions from each other and from other indigenous traditions that have not survived intact. Many of these scriptures are stories that include moral guidance. Whereas, the scriptures this text relates to are metaphysical teachings, not otherwise knowable.

The āgamas are these scriptures, the Vedas including their Upaniṣads, but also are the later Purāṇas (legends) and Iti-hāsas (epics) that relay the scriptural teachings in a popular format for all the people of India. But those later texts’ (which are also called Smṛti, because they are ‘remembered’ and passed down) authority is only so much as they do not contradict the scriptures, especially concerning the topics of these Yoga Sūtras, namely, the nature of the self (ātman, draṣṭṛ), the Lord (Īśvara), and the teaching (jñāna) including yoga. To represent the Purāṇas and Iti-hāsas, the Bhagavad Gītā has been chosen because it is specifically held in the highest esteem regarding the teaching of the Lord and of yoga. The many quotations in this book are from the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā.

The glossing over of āgama pramāṇa (means of knowledge) to mean simple verbal testimony may imply or assert that whatever any yoga teacher says is to be taken as the gospel – because they said it. This is just uncritical thinking and can steal your life away. Always be careful of those who say, “Just trust me.”

We instead believe that Patañjali wished to explicitly establish from the start of these sūtras the prāmāṇya (validity) of the scripture, which is the critical authority with regard to kaivalya (liberation), the knowledge of the self, and what is its helpful means (yoga).

What in the scripture is a means of knowledge then? When the scripture in this tradition talks about heaven, the existence and nature of heaven cannot be contradicted (in this life) by direct perception and thus by inference, nor gained by those other two means of knowledge. Yoga perception of subtle things, such as heaven, is, for others, the yogin’s verbal testimony, or, in any case, is not a common means of knowledge. If it is believed, it would fall under direct perception of the yogin. If it clearly contradicts scripture, it would be taken in this tradition as mistaken. If it is in keeping with the scripture, it is a restatement of the scripture.

When this scripture talks about dharma (universal order) it does not present it as a set of moral mandates writ large in stone or divine dreams. The scripture unfolds dharma as a universal law and a psychological principle operating in the universe by way of a mechanism, called karma. Karma connects causes, such as a past action, to their effects, though a passage of time may intervene. This is a teaching of realities, not a thou shalt. We perceive the effects of karma, but only a scripture can authoritatively present the subtle reality behind the perception. In this way, this scripture is uniquely presented as a means of knowledge for gaining understanding of subtle truths essential for human maturity, not something to be blindly, unquestioningly believed or followed.

This scripture is viewed as a manual of knowledge that comes along in every cycle of manifestation of the universe. It comes with the universe and is thus not originally authored by any human, but is only naturally re-revealed in each creation cycle through sages, whose teachings were orally preserved until written down in recent times. Being viewed as not coming from a particular person or persons, but rather from the Lord, then trust can be more easily given. This scripture could not be for the profit of some person or institution. Nor would it only be from some person’s perspective and information, where it could become irrelevant or outdated. Being directly from the timeless Lord, these preserved teachings are not taken as simple verbal testimony.

When the scripture talks about rivers, cities, plants, flying machines, math techniques, and other types of topics, it has no exclusive prāmāṇya (validity), since these may as well be ascertained through perception and inference by those people in those times, and in our generation through perception and inference via geology, archeology, paleontology, or the other sciences. These are not what are being pointed out as the knowledge being conveyed by the scripture. But being a part of the scripture, these types of statement are simply taken as true, and beneficial in some way to someone.

If the scripture said “fire is cold,” that statement would, on the face of it, be wrong because it contradicts our perception. In taking the scripture as true (otherwise called śraddhā, trust), then one would look for another meaning for such statements within their context that would not contradict perception and logic.

The āgama (scripture) thus only has validity in those statements about what would not be contradicted by another means of knowledge and not be otherwise gained by direct perception or by inference. That is why it stands on its own as a separate, independent means of knowledge, and why it forms the third pramāṇa. It remains a valid means of knowledge, no matter the expanse of the frontiers of mankind’s sciences. It can never become ill-relevant or replaced.

One comes to look at scripture intelligently – not blindly. This is well laid out in the ancient science of scriptural analysis, called mīmāṃsā. The mīmāṃsā of the Upaniṣads (Uttara-mīmāṃsā), the science of the Upaniṣad scriptures, is otherwise known as Vedānta, and yoga is the preparation for assimilating this Vedānta, according to the Kaivalya Upaniṣad.

The ultimate knowledge taught in the scripture is the one that finally frees the individual from saṃsāra (the unbecoming life of becoming). The preparation of the mind so that it can quickly assimilate this freeing knowledge is called yoga.

Mithyā-jñāna literally means falsely-knowing. For example, an error in perception would be thinking a rope in bad light is a snake. An error in assumption or inference would be one that does not amount to valid indirect knowledge. An error regarding what is not available for perception and thus inference would be, for example, thinking that one’s self is just this body-mind complex. Error is not knowing the actual nature of whatever is the subject matter of the cognition and then imposing one’s imagination upon it, thinking that this is its real nature.

Error hinders progress in yoga, so it is kliṣṭa, though we may learn from our mistakes. If that learning takes place, then that learning would be due to one of the pramāṇas. It would be about what is learned, not the mistake. If the mistake is learned, then that would just be repeating it.

Imagination is any belief or statement that amounts to only the meanings of the words it is couched in and does not actually attain its intended object. For example, “The self (has a measure which) is infinite” is an imagination, instead of the correct, “The self has no measure,” because the mind cannot attain an actual conception of an infinite measure.

We use imagination to educate as well as entertain, such as in mythical or fictional stories, and imagination can be a part of scriptural upāsanas (meditations). As long as one understands the intended purport of these statements and does not blindly assume the validity of the literal details, these do not hinder progress in yoga and can even help.

Imagination is also technically present in much of what we believe (YS.1.42), especially regarding what is subtle. But, regarding subtle matters that must be understood instead of believed, imagination hinders progress in yoga. It is also why in this study we have to go beyond the words, which can as well add imaginations about oneself based on their literal meanings, instead of enlighten us, instead of resolving their meaning in the truth of oneself as their implied meaning.

In the above example, “The self is infinite” only amounts to a mere concept in my mind about infinity, simply a thought, that I then equate with myself. This only expresses that I am some thought in my mind, which itself misses its target by an infinite measure. Whereas, “The self has no measure” is a negation of any limit that my mind can think of as being applicable to myself. This removes erroneous concepts I have about myself, such as I am just this body or this thought in my mind.

Similarly, statements such as “I am all knowledge” make sense when taken to mean I am the reality that is the effortless witnessing that lights up all thoughts in this and every mind. Whereas, an imagination of this would be thinking that I (this mind) should know in detail everything in the universe. Such imaginations are frequently seen in current yoga literature. Our self-conceptions should be in line with reality.

Imagination (vikalpa), when given a status of reality, becomes error (viparyaya). Hence error (viparyaya) is sometimes called imagination (vikalpa), because error has both ignorance and imagination as its basis. It is a covering of the fact (the ignorance) and then projecting, superimposing, something else in its place (the imagination). Imagination with ignorance is hindering, since it limits one’s progress in clear understanding of realities. Imagination with knowledge is at worst non-hindering, like the enjoyment of reading a book of fiction.

Imagination is what is being pointed out in the daring and significant āgama (scripture) statements that everything of the universe, of course including this mind and body complex, is no more than hanging on the tip of the tongue.

It is language itself, the vehicle of the mind, that forms the divisions of everything known and unknown in the entire universe by naming and categorizing. The expression of everything being only a name (nāmadheya) is the basis of the later expression of everything being only names and forms (nāma-rūpa). Here, the forms (rūpas) are simply the phenomenal sense perceptions, not separate from their word-names that occur in the mind, because of the way the senses and mind are made. This same expression, nāma-rūpa, can as well be taken as “whose form/nature (rūpa) is but a name (nāman).”

Because of our human ability of naming by way of our many languages by different humans, in different circumstances, in varying perspectives with different sense acuities and language associations, the various forms of the universe are conceived quite different from each other. What to speak of how different these forms are from the perspective of the countless other creatures (from dolphins to insects) whose minds and thus languages, so to speak, are incomparably different. Being subject to countless, changing perspectives in time and place, and so without a single definitive form to be found anywhere – otherwise called being indefinable (a-nirvacanīya), not categorically and absolutely definable – then this universe is understood in this teaching as more a fiction, a mere appearance (māyā), than an absolute fact. Because we can change our perspective about anything and everything, then no one perspective about any object or any thought can define or limit what is truly reality.

Language and imagination can imprison, by way of error, one who is ignorant of realities, but has no power to imprison one who no longer is ignorant of realities. So, though language and imagination do not in fact hinder a person, are a-kliṣṭa, finally, it is only ignorance, and what sustains ignorance, that hinders a person.

Sleep in moderation does not hinder progress, but excessive sleep and certainly absent-mindedness in one’s activities may hinder progress in yoga. But sleep here should not be understood as the physiological condition of resting; it is rather the cognitive state of the mind that occurs during dreamless sleep, when the mind does not manifest any thought. Later we will see that a clear understanding of sleep, of the reality therein, helps one’s progress in yoga.

Memory is not a form of new knowledge, but is just the bringing up of the subject matter of a prior knowledge or prior experience, imagined or otherwise, stored in the mind (see Appendix - Nature of the Mind). Memory is required to progress in yoga since it is what keeps the teaching at the forefront of one’s understanding of everything in one’s universe. Remembered erroneous conclusions and falsified imaginations need to be re-evaluated and dropped in the light of new knowledge.

Simply remembering the teaching, though useful, is not the goal of yoga. The teaching has to be converted to knowledge (pramāṇa), not to just a parroting, out loud or to oneself, of the mere words of the teaching. This is why memory is here listed as different from pramāṇa.

Later it will be shown that memory is the nature of the past, while imagination is the nature of the future. The present is the realm of knowledge, error and sleep. That knowledge and the essence (the reality) of the present are one and the same (see comm. on YS.4.12 & 19). This is the nature of the teaching – it keeps getting deeper into the nature of reality around and within us, until clarity within the one reality that encompasses and includes all is one’s presence.

Both abhyāsa (repetition) and vairāgya (non-attachment) will be defined in the following sūtras. What is to be repeated and how, plus the nature and importance of non-attachment will be fully dealt with in the rest of the sūtras.

Initially, these two are repetition of what helps (a-kliṣṭa) one’s progress in yoga, and non-attachment to what hinders (kliṣṭa). Ultimately, it requires non-attachment to even what previously helped one’s progress, but later stands in the way. This discipline, which is yoga, brought about by repetition and non-attachment, becomes the contemplation described shortly.

The goal of this discipline, of yoga, is oneself free of errors in thinking due to ignorance of one’s essential nature. But, unless yoga is taken as the end, as knowledge itself, what is only a means is just that – a means. It should not be taken as the end in itself. This is why people can get stuck in doing yoga and remain unfulfilled thinking there is nothing more. What is more is the ultimate goal of yoga, for which yoga is just a means that should be used until the goal is reached. Finally, one needs to be non-attached to yoga in order to arrive at one’s ultimate goal of freedom (YS.3.50).

Sat-kāra (utmost respect) refers to śraddhā (trust in the words of the teaching and the teacher) (YS.1.20), rather than just politeness or reverence. It is taking the teaching, the discipline, as sat (true, fact). The teaching is not some unapproachable, divine mystery at which one can only bow. It being true or in keeping with the truth, one just undertakes this discipline, and it will provide its benefit in keeping with one’s karma. It is this approach to yoga that distinguishes yogins from academicians, the merely curious, or those who like to exercise in groups, or to have some quiet time.

The scripture (āgama or śruti) talks not only about complete freedom, but also, while one is still within the throws of duality, how to make the best of it in a way that does not hinder your progress, your maturity, in the long run. The scripture’s view of the long run is over innumerable lifetimes. Just to finally come to the teaching found in this tradition is said to take a cosmically long time. Once you get to the teaching, though, final maturity can come quickly enough. This will be discussed shortly. Along the way, relatively short term rewards are mentioned for living a life that is in keeping with this maturing process. This maturing process is living a life of universal values (dharma), gaining a cosmic perspective on life and the universe, and engaging in certain prayers and acts that have special efficacy, not otherwise known than through scripture.

These are not rewards given by the scripture or overseen by the sages who revealed the scripture. These are rewards inherent in the intelligent cosmic order of the universe, the manifestation of the Lord. They are seen to be as natural and objective as are the laws of science. These rewards, such as heaven, are all temporary, though a stay there may last for ages. If there is a going up, there will be a return, and around the cycle one goes.

How could it make sense that one gets an everlasting heaven or an everlasting hell based on the actions or beliefs in the few years of one’s life? In this tradition, you only get what you have earned, no more and no less. These scriptures are objective and reasonable even in their spirituality.

The student addressed here, as well as the student addressed in the Bhagavad Gītā, is the one who has been on that up and down track for eons, and now chooses to get off. Consumerism, even on the spiritual side, can ensnare the human heart only so long. Eventually one discovers that it is complete freedom that one really wants, and will finally satisfy. This discovery takes vairāgya (non-attachment).

Vairāgya (non-attachment) is not absence of desire or lack of passion, as often translated. This sūtra clearly states that vairāgya is a mastery over desires, not their absence. When at peace by not being overpowered by desire (rāga) and aversion (dveśa), two of the kleśas (afflictions) (YS.2.7–8), the mind naturally has clarity (prasāda). When agitated and overpowered by desire and aversion, it is said to have color (rāga) – the mind is as though stormy red or foreboding black. The mastery over this coloring is vairāgya (literally, the state of not being colored/affected).

The discipline is not avoiding agitation, desires, or aversions. This will surely fail, since the circumstances that can trigger these kleśas are situations and objects outside of one’s control. One has to cultivate a discipline of mind which will render stressful, desirable, or adverse situations and objects impotent. With eyes open, come what may – what comes being what naturally comes according to one’s karma – one remains at peace.

Another word for vairāgya is non-affectment, not allowing external situations and objects to control, to affect, your mind without your permission. So you, that is, your understanding of yourself and the world, have charge (vaśī-kāra) of your mind, not the other way around. The understanding of the nature of objects, the mind, and the true nature of oneself which this teaching unfolds, when held in a clear mind with the aid of the practices in these pages, will provide this mastery.

Non-attachment culminates within the knowledge that I am this limitless reality which is one without a second. Its culmination is also the same knowledge that what appears is but the reality that I am. In the wake of this knowledge, all objects – here indicated by the term guṇas – are known to be nothing more than their appearance to my five senses within my awareness (YS.2.21). The objects come and go, and I remain the same reality, not in need of them for my existence (though this temporary body and mind complex has basic needs), or for my fulfillment. With them I am complete; without them I am complete. This is a fully assimilated non-attachment towards all.

The terms vitarka (reasoning) and vicāra (inquiry) connect to the second and third means of knowledge available in contemplation, namely, anumāna (indirect knowledge, inference) and āgama (scripture), respectively. The first means of knowledge, pratyakṣa (sense perception and perception of mental states) is not employed in contemplation, though some modern instructors bring in pratyakṣa, such as incense fragrance, Indian music, invoking emotions, etc. The preparation within the seat of contemplation here will instead involve the withdrawal of the senses, called pratyāhāra (YS.2.54). If pratyakṣa is continued in contemplation, then pratyāhāra has not been completed.

One is not gathering information or figuring out what is true or not in contemplation. Instead, one is re-viewing what one already understands so it is more fully appreciated and assimilated with certitude.

The type of samādhi in this sūtra is what we normally understand as contemplation. It involves reasoning and instruction from the scripture. It is not the initial questioning, reasoning, and instruction themselves, though, since these would have already been attended to in first exposing oneself to the teaching and then thinking over how it applies in clearing all possible doubts, called śravaṇa (listening) and manana (understanding), respectively.

In the contemplation here, it involves just a few words to bring to mind what one knows from these words to help get past some mental obstacle to one’s assimilation of this teaching (2.33–34). It involves the two essential aspects of oneself – sat (existence) and ānanda (fullness). I exist without limit, and I am completely satisfied. These two go straight to the fruit of this knowledge, namely, my existence is without limit, is without loss or destruction, and my fulfillment is without limit and always available. This appreciation starts with seeing the logical fallacy in the notions I have about myself as being this or that thought in my mind. It then moves on to what the teaching says about the essential me. It culminates in the subsequent form of samādhi – “I am the witness that is limitless existence-fullness.”

The forms of this contemplation are to be appropriately followed, in that they should be in keeping with the teaching, with the appropriate means of knowledge. The teaching is the āgama (scripture) with reasoning based on the scripture and which supports the scripture. These forms of contemplation are thus grounded in a proven teaching tradition and in reality.

The word samādhi means that in which (everything) resolves (samādhīyate yasmin iti samādhiḥ). Samādhi is not in any sense a stopping of the mind, since there is no real resolution in temporarily stopping something. It is instead resolving (pralaya) everything including the mind as non-limitations into the limitless reality of oneself. Preceded by inquiry into the goal of yoga that is the unafflicted puruṣa as the nature of oneself, contemplation is the employment of the reasoning and deliberation therein to bring this inquiry into focus, and then remaining there to appreciate and assimilate the truth of oneself. The only resolution that can happen in contemplation is the resolving of the doubts and other forms of obstacles that has kept one from appreciating the fruit of this inquiry. The inquiry results in clarity in the knowledge of oneself, the witness, as limitless, fulfilling existence. One’s psychological baggage that seems to stand in the way of appreciating this truth is then laid bare to be dismissed (sub-rated) in the light of this clear knowledge.

This is the samādhi presented here. The mental obstacles to freedom are what are destroyed here. There is no imagined destruction of karma linkage that then prevents the mind from restarting again after samādhi. This latter, popular interpretation of a mechanical destruction of the mind within samādhi is a result of being hand-cuffed by a limited philosophy of duality. Duality is where the mind is believed to be as real as the self, therefore is a real problem that has to be overcome, and so must be mechanically destroyed in order for the self to surface and be free.

But, since here the overcoming is by prajñā (knowledge), there can be no mechanical destruction. The only destruction that knowledge can do is the destruction of ignorance. Knowledge cannot destroy what is a fact; it is simply for revealing what is the fact. This discerning of the difference between the results of action and the results of knowledge is essential in gaining clarity on the proper means in this endeavor.

This samādhi is really just the result of the prior when the words within the prior samādhi drop and only their implied meaning abides. Their implied meaning is only oneself free of limiting identifications (sārūpya) with thoughts (1.3–4). So, here, there is only oneself. This dropping of words and quiet appreciation of being this limitless reality can happen without all doubts being cleared. Doubts, as manifestations of latent tendencies, may not arise at that time and so one gets a quiet – but temporary – resolution. Later, these doubts and their repercussions re-surface and again one will want to continue one’s contemplation.

When the preceding contemplations end, if one continues to limit oneself and one’s reality to what one witnesses, this is because of the latent tendencies to assume that limiting ego thoughts are true. These tendencies are there because the fundamental ignorance, from which those tendencies are a manifestation, remains. A temporary samādhi is just another witnessed experience from which to grow.

Similarly, one may have this temporary samādhi while experiencing certain embodiments other than this current human embodiment. In some heavenly, subtle embodiments these pre-earned rewards are experienced. And, of course, during each period of universal dissolution, everyone’s mind is naturally absorbed.

This sūtra is simply to explain the traditional stories in the Indian epics and legends about certain individuals, yogis who, after their earthly bodies die, continue in the subtle realms of saṃsāra. These would include the ethereal siddhas (accomplished beings) mentioned in sūtra 3.32, though not all of these siddhas would necessarily be śrotriyas (exposed to and able to teach the methodology of this tradition). They may have been natural shamans who could easily go into a trance that could simulate an a-saṃprajñāta samādhi.

Notice here that the temporary form of samādhi, the a-saṃprajñāta samādhi, is not the final step for the path of the yogin. Prajñā (knowledge) is the final goal of yoga according to the progression indicated by Patañjali’s sequential ordering of these steps in the compound word śraddhā-vīrya-smṛti-samādhi-prajñā-pūrvaka.

The general principles within yoga practice have been given, namely, repetition (abhyāsa) of the practices presented in this text derived from scripture and non-attachment (vairāgya) to what hinders progress in yoga. What seems to hinder progress needs to be objectively reexamined and either reintegrated or dropped. Tenacity in these practices was indicated to impress upon the seeker their importance in succeeding quickly in yoga. Also stated were the initial and deeper levels within contemplation that lies at the core of yoga. These levels in contemplation will be further discussed in this chapter (sūtras 1.42 through 51). The source of the topics to contemplate (namely, scripture) as well as what to avoid (namely, error) were also indicated.

Now, specifically, which scriptural topics to contemplate upon are presented. The first and primary topic is the Lord, the eka-tattva (the one reality), since the Lord is the clearest and most inclusive way to understand the real nature of the puruṣa, oneself. We naturally think ourselves to be limited and identified with the body and mind. Therefore, to contemplate the limitless puruṣa, which is the reality one is, Patañjali suggests that we contemplate the Lord – in the way this tradition presents the Lord. This will be given in the next nine sūtras.

This is why the Lord is the puruṣa in its completely free nature and fullest understanding. Gaining knowledge of this puruṣa as one’s self is the goal of yoga. This is not the attainment of a God-like state or status, and this is not an imagination or wishful thinking that I will be similar or near to God. It is no less than the knowledge that I am exactly that limitless puruṣa.

The compound word puruṣa-viśeṣa can also mean the excellent puruṣa, the perfect puruṣa. This is exactly who the Lord is – the puruṣa understood in its perfect limitless nature. The Lord, then, is not a means for attaining one’s perfect nature; the Lord is one’s perfect nature. This bold truth reverberates across the scriptures, and should not be missed by any student of yoga.

The qualities we attribute to the Lord as the source, sustenance, and resolution of the cycles of the universe, of course, are applicable only in relationship to the Lord’s manifestation as the total, and not to our individual body-mind complexes. The essential nature of this Lord – not the Lord’s nature as we think of it through those cosmic attributes – is the limitless puruṣa, and that also is the essential nature of oneself as limitless reality.

The word viśeṣa often also means an adjective, a word to describe. Here, Īśvara (the Lord) when understood in its full implication is descriptive of the puruṣa. The term ‘Lord’ is the least limiting term, at least in this tradition, that one can give to reality, to the puruṣa. The Lord is the most accurately expansive description of inherently indescribable reality – reality that cannot be circumscribed in words, in notions.

When the compound puruṣa-viśeṣa, here, is rendered instead as the special puruṣa by a commentator or translator, then you know you are reading a dualist rendering of these sūtras. This dualist vision amounts to a notion about God as a separate being, better than you, of course. With this perspective, you could never be the completely free puruṣa that is the goal of yoga.

The dualist vision is naturally there for everyone, including those in the Abrahamic religions, the dualist sects within theist Hinduism, and even many neo-Vedāntins. By ‘neo-Vedāntins’ we mean those who filter and fit the scripture to seem more amenable to a secular or a Western spiritual seeking audience. They are often the ones who claim that all religions are the same, and represent Vedānta as another belief system with nothing too foreign, too threatening to other belief systems. For them, the Upaniṣads are not a unique means of knowledge, but are just an additional set of scriptures, perhaps as believable as others.

A motivated student, however, will discover the keys to the scripture and to him or herself through Vedānta and Patañjali’s vision as presented herein. One of the keys is relating the totality of the Lord in its essence to the essence that is the reality of the individual. Westerners would need to learn how to expand their understanding of a Lord to this fullest of extent, to encompass everything including oneself. The following sūtras and their commentary will help.

This fuller understanding of the Lord is also a means to a sense of universal community, social and ecological responsibility, and emotional health. These benefits will in turn help further mature the students so that their understanding of the Lord can finally expand to the identity of self and Lord. That identity is the resolution of the misconception of duality and isolation.

In the scripture (āgama), the Lord is understood as the material and efficient cause of the universe, pervading the cycles of manifestation. By material cause is meant that the Lord is the very reality, the existence, (sat) of everything that manifests. No separate material is necessary for creation. There is no prakṛti or pradhāna (unmanifest and manifest Mother Nature) apart from this reality (sat). In this understanding, there is not even a creation, a separation of the created from a creator. There is only a manifestation of a universe to the senses from the perspective of each individual totally within the only reality which we call the Lord.

By efficient cause is meant that the Lord is the intelligence according to which this well-ordered manifestation occurs. The common example given for a material and efficient cause is the making of a clay pot. There, the clay itself is the material cause, and the intelligent potter is the efficient cause. In this example, the material and efficient causes are separate. The example where they are not separate is dreaming. You are the material of your dream world. Your dream world material does not exist apart from you, the dreamer. And you, as the intelligent dreamer, are the efficient cause of the dream.

The material (upādāna) and efficient (nimitta) cause (kāraṇa) of the universe is none other than that which the scriptures call the limitless Lord. All the intelligence (jñāna) expressed as the amazing order (dharma) of this particular universe, from the quantum to the celestial, is only an aspect, just one manifestation, of the intelligence (jñapti-svarūpa, the nature of the source of knowing, that expresses as intelligence) that is the Lord. It is this same jñapti-svarūpa that is the nature of one’s self, the nature of the witness-puruṣa, the sarva-jñātṛtva (the very nature of the knower of all, YS.3.49).

This may at first be an unexpected understanding of the Lord and the universe. The Lord and the universe and the self are not inherently separate things. Atheists and materialist scientists are accommodated in this sophisticated model. Here, the universe is but a reoccurring manifestation of the Lord. There is no separation between the universe and the Lord, any more than there can be separation between a clay pot and clay. There is one intelligence that accounts for both the manifestation of the pot and the manifestation of the universe. A Lord is not needed to explain the world; the manifestation of the world is nothing but what could be called a Lord. The ‘Lord’ is just a respectful name we give to the singular reality of everything and of oneself. You can call it the quantum soup of everything, if you include yourself as that soup and understand that all time and space is that soup, that reality. And within that soup, that reality, there can be no distinctions.

To a human being operating totally within the science of this one current manifestation, the appearance of the re-manifested universe from the unmanifest would naturally and scientifically look as if it were spontaneous. Within the model of our present science of multi-dimensional space and multiverses, it would not be necessary to postulate an external Lord. Nor does this scriptural tradition here in its purest form envision an external Lord.

The expression of the Lord in our spiritual lives, though, is not limited to explaining our scientific life. Our total human life includes science, community, empathy, and love. One can construct a scientific universe model that is without an external Lord, but one can also construct a scientific universe model that includes an intrinsic Lord as the only material and order of this universe, a highly unifying and satisfying principle. The Indian tradition says that science and Lord need not and cannot exclude one another.

That which is not limited by time, must also be free from space (ākāśa), since time and space (including the objects that change within space) are inseparable and mutually dependent aspects making up the warp and woof of the limiting adjunct (upādhi) we call the universe. The Lord is thus time-free and space-free. Whether time or space is there or not, the Lord, the unconditional existence itself, is there. The Lord is free from, yet sustains, the universe. Sustains here is the sense that the Lord alone is the reality and is the truth of the limited reality this universe enjoys. The Lord alone lends this universe its limited reality. Nothing can exist apart from reality, from the Lord, whereas reality is not dependent on or limited by any thing. Things have no reality apart from the reality the Lord lends them, but that loaned reality does not in turn limit the Lord, since the Lord alone is that reality.

The dream is a very helpful example for loaned reality. We assign reality to the objects in our dream, but we are not circumscribed and made smaller by those dream objects. You think of them, and in that way alone they exist in dream. You think of them differently, and they change. No man-eating creature or horrendous catastrophe has ever succeeded in harming or destroying you, the dreamer and the waker. Only the dream changes or ends. The reality of these dream objects and experiences, including the role you play as an actor in the dream, resolves back into you the waker or deep sleeper, unscratched.

Dream appearances shine in the borrowed light of you the dreamer, and do not exist independent from you the dreamer, nor limit you the dreamer. You pervade and survive the dream, pervade and survive the deep sleep, and pervade and survive the waking world. You supersede all these. You outlast them as the reality that witnesses all states of experience, and are thus free from all sense of limitations. The ability to objectify sleep, dream, and waking in the light of the unchanging presence of the self underlying the three states is enough to support your understanding of your limit-less nature. No more or other experience, including thought-less samādhi, is required to assimilate this teaching.

Om is presented and unfolded in the Upaniṣad scriptures as the limitless reality called brahman (literally, the big, from the Sanskrit verbal root bṛh,) and as the reality which is one’s self (ātman). Through its three component sounds a–u–m (a and u equaling o), on Om are super-imposed the three apparent states of oneself and all experience: waking-consciousness (a), dream-consciousness (u), and sleep-consciousness (m). A so-called “fourth” state of oneself is reality as consciousness itself, the silent basis before, during, and after those three – from which they are produced, in which they are sustained, and back into which (without having left) they resolve.

The student can keep in mind that the Upaniṣad tradition is the basis for Patañjali. Om is the name for brahman (limitless reality) in the Upaniṣads. Patañjali’s use of this name for the Lord clearly indicates that Patañjali is referring to the Lord in its limitless reality as brahman, not as the role of creator, sustainer, and resolver of the manifestations of the universe, nor simply as a God to be prayed to.

Consciousness

In the West, particularly within philosophy and psychology, the English word ‘consciousness’ is often used synonymously with (human) thought, self-conscious thought, mindfulness, or mind. Sometimes it is expressed as knowing that one knows. This is not how this commentary is using the word ‘consciousness’. Here, we are using it in the same way we find it in the reliable Vedānta texts, especially scripture translations. This is because the Vedānta scriptures present a unique understanding of the mind and knowledge that is not readily found in the West.

Here, initially, the word ‘consciousness’ should be understood in its natural grammatical sense (and this is why Vedāntins choose to use this word) so it better fits the Vedānta scriptures’ meaning of its terms – cit and caitanya. That grammatical sense is the -ness, both the essence and reality, of being conscious of. Multiple thoughts, experiences, or minds cannot be called ‘multiple consciousnesses’ – a word having a suffix that does not easily allow a plural form. So ‘consciousness’ is not an ideal word for what we all understand to be a thought or a mind. At best the word ‘consciousness’ could indicate a particular type of thought, such as thoughts about oneself in relationship to others. But this is nowhere near what Vedānta means by cit and caitanya. The Sanskrit term citta (literally, what is witnessed), which Patañjali uses throughout these sūtras and which certain Western scholars translate as consciousness, is rendered everywhere else in Sanskrit literature by native speakers as thought or mind, as it is here.

Caitanya (consciousness) is not the conscious or witnessed thoughts themselves, rather the witnessing-being of conscious thoughts. It is the conscious-ness; the witness of, or witnessing capacity for, thoughts. With this initial understanding, this commentary will expand the meaning of the word ‘consciousness’ to bring out its full meaning that indicates brahman, the unchanging reality revealed in the teaching on Om. With the same meaning, an alternate rendering of the terms cit and caitanya is the word ‘awareness.’ These two words – consciousness and awareness – will be used interchangeably.

Om is presented in this tradition as the entirety of language, hence of all knowledge and, in the final analysis, of everything, of everything distinguished and known to us through language and mind. The initial sound a is the simplest linguistic sound that can be made by opening and letting out breath from the back of the mouth without any other modification of the effort within the mouth. The linguistic sound u is that same sound modified by the rounding constriction of the last part of the mouth, the lips, as the breath is being expelled. The linguistic sound m is produced with the lips closed and the breath expelled out the nose. I am using the term ‘linguistic’ sound to indicate the sounds we use for language, not the other sounds we can make with the breath, such as expelling breath out of the mouth or nose while simply breathing.

The entirety of linguistic sounds the vocal apparatus can make is represented then by the range of modifications of the vibration sounds of the vocal cords from the back of the mouth to the front, from a to u. The only other linguistic sounds are those made with the nose, namely n and m. The linguistic sound m is the simplest of the nasals, requiring no effort in the mouth. The n sound with its variations requires the opening of the lips with some shaping of the mouth, though the breath is only out the nose.

In order for there to be language, there have to be separable words. By extension, the silence before and after words is represented by the silence between repetitions of Om. We will see in the following commentary that the entire diversity of the universe can be appreciated as the names we give to distinguish phenomenal appearances from each other.

In this way Om indicates the Lord, the entirety of experiences, the ultimate reality (brahman), all of language, all of knowledge, and the whole of the universe. Repeating this sound Om and contemplating upon it, upon its many meanings and on its meaning as oneself, addresses the central topic within the spiritual teaching tradition.

Care must be taken, though, because it may have gathered a power by its utterance through billions of repetitions over thousands of years. As a single word mantra it is traditionally recommended only to renunciates, sannyāsins, because its essential meaning resolves everything of language, knowledge, and the universe to their silent basis, their final resolution – the ultimate renunciation. For those of us who live a more active life in society, the sound Om is combined with other sacred words, such as the mantra, Om īśāya namaḥ (meaning, Om, I surrender [the body, mind, and actions] to the universal Lord), which supports our most helpful actions and thoughts.

Your neighbor, unless he or she has studied the scripture, is probably not going to give you verbal testimony yielding knowledge about the meaning of Om. Only the scripture and its commentaries talk meaningfully and with authority about Om. This is why āgama pramāṇa, as scripture, is important to be correctly understood. It is not reasonable to think you can read a contemporary yoga book, close your eyes, repeat Om, and attain the ultimate non-dual goal of yoga.

The vast majority of the translations of and commentaries on these sūtras avoid the scriptures either because they do not understand them and their intimate connection with these sūtras, or the authors think the scriptures render yoga less marketable in secular societies.

The teachings about praṇava, about Om, are important enough to be given in many Upaniṣads. This sūtra directs the student to them.

By contemplation on the essential nature of the Lord, one comes to know the conscious being at the center of oneself, which is the reality of everything. Grace is said to be attained by chanting the name of and by contemplating the nature of the Lord. That grace can be seen as the opportunity and motivation to come to terms with the facts of one’s spiritual and emotional growth. It may play a part in removing psychological and other obstacles to gaining this knowledge. The obstacles are the limitations we impose upon ourselves because we think we are limited. The Lord is the limitless presence that we are saying is our true nature and we are contemplating as already being in fact our own true nature. How could those obstacles not be attenuated by this practice (abhyāsa)? The obstacles are our well-ingrained imaginations about ourselves that we believe are true; they manifest as distractions of the mind and self-defeating thoughts that hinder our progress in yoga.

These two sūtras list twelve factors that distract the mind in this discipline. They are another expression of the five afflictions (kleśas). The scriptural literature has a number of ways of expressing the obstacles to gaining freedom in life. These two sūtras list many of them, however, the other sūtras tend to use the more succinct expression as the five kleśas – ignorance (a-vidyā), a possessive I-notion (asmitā), binding desire for (rāga) and against (dveṣa) objects and situations, and fear of death (abhiniveśa) (YS.2.3).

The detailed listing of the distractions here initiates a process in aspirants for addressing what they find most distracting from their goals, starting with health onwards. More importantly, these two sūtras connect those distractions that affect the body to the fact that they in turn affect the mind. This is where they become obstructions to yoga. One only needs adequate health to embark on this path. This is sometimes mistaken by those who believe that the body has to be perfected before meditation can even be taught or attempted.

Considering that traditionally one takes to the spiritual path fulltime in one’s later years as the final stage in life upon retirement – as a vāna-prastha (moving out of the family house to a private or public hermitage in the woods) or as a sannyāsin (a secluded or wandering renunciate) – imperfect health (flexibility, energy level, and so on) is not likely to have been seen as an unmanageable obstacle in yoga.

Some commentaries and most translations weaken this eka-tattva by taking it to mean only one object of contemplation. But this will be completely addressed in Yoga Sūtras 1.35 & 39. On the other hand, the ultimate tattva (reality) – the Lord understood as the completely free puruṣa that is oneself – has already been introduced and said to be appreciated as the remover of obstacles in the preceding sūtra 1.29. That tattva, the completely free puruṣa, and not some one object of desire is the goal of kaivalya (liberation). Therefore, its importance here as the key to removing distractions, to removing unsteadiness of the mind and objective self-acceptance of all that occurs in the mind, which is the goal of samādhi and hence of yoga itself, has to be and is included here.

Yoga is a method for attaining a goal that is already possessed, for attaining the perfect nature of oneself. This already attained goal is not appreciated due to ignorance of that nature resulting in misidentifying oneself with the various beliefs and opinions in the mind. This method begins and ends with contemplating the already, always present ultimate nature of the self. At first it may be helpful to appreciate this as the Lord. Finally, it is appreciated as the real nature of oneself.

It is like finding out that you are a twin by having your long lost twin come to your door and first simply tell you and then explain how you are twins. Initially, since the person looks a lot like you, you can understand how that person might be your twin, but finally you end up appreciating that you are the twin to this person. You were a twin before you knew you were a twin. You become the twin by appreciating the very fact itself, nothing else.

Only listening to the knowledge, listening to the teaching, not any change to the self, is required on your part. Contemplation on the ultimate person, at first, as the Lord – the person that you in fact are, and ultimately as the limitless reality within oneself – is the principle technique of Patañjali’s yoga. If you do not get it when you listen to the teaching, then there are a number of steps in yoga you can take to explain and clear any doubts.

Many of the commentators and most of the translators assume that Patañjali advocates a version of dualist Sāṅkhya philosophy. Their aversion to appreciating the Lord as the pure puruṣa that is oneself is understandable. Understandable, because that identity is not acceptable to Sāṅkhya philosophy, which holds that there is no Lord. Moreover Sāṅkhya says the puruṣas are many and separate, without being able to give a satisfactory explanation of how these puruṣas can be both nir-guṇa (attributeless) and yet somehow many and separate from each other. Many and separate, themselves, are attributes.

The so-called Sāṅkhya-Yoga philosophy also cannot accept the identity of the Lord and the self. They talk about a Lord as a separate, special puruṣa that one can pretend is in one’s heart, but who is not really there. That Lord sits somewhere staring, a unique non-action contact (saṃyoga) of the witnessing Lord, upon the witnessed pradhāna (unmanifest nature in non-evolving equilibrium) and somehow agitates the components (guṇas) within it into manifestation in the form of this evolving universe, with the purpose of being of service to the many puruṣas.

Sāṅkhya and Sāṅkhya-Yoga both accept this agitation into manifestation of an insentient entity. Both are very odd in that they rely on this literally impossible phenomenon to prop up their thesis of the distinction between the self (puruṣa) and an insentient nature that can evolve. Even if they hold that the unmanifest nature (pradhāna) is kind-of sentient by the presence of a sentient-like component (sattva), still their philosophy also holds that the puruṣa is nir-guṇa (attributeless) and so could not be something that stares itself in contact with anything else!

Their philosophy, for this reason, seems quaint and is logically inconsistent. This may be why so many yogins spend more of their time practicing yoga than thinking about the philosophy behind those practices. Patañjali does not propose or argue for any dualist philosophy in any of these sūtras. Patañjali never uses the term sāṅkhya in any of these sūtras. The dualist views are all Īśvara-kṛṣṇa’s contributions that have been assumed to be behind Patañjali’s yoga by later commentators. Īśvara-kṛṣṇa was a later philosopher who formulated a version of dualist philosophy called Sāṅkhya.

In regard to the Lord, Patañjali himself has no such reservation in offering many sūtras on this eka-tattva – eight so far and many more to follow. This can be taken as an indication that Patañjali was not an advocate of Sāṅkhya philosophy or a Sāṅkhya-Yoga philosophy. Patañjali, just as many Indian writers and commentators, did borrow common terminologies from the scriptures and also from each other. But borrowing some terminology does not necessarily entail accepting any of the philosophies that share these common terms.

Rather, Patañjali appears here as simply an advocate of yoga that includes samādhi (contemplation) and an appreciation of an intelligent Lord as a means for equipping the mind to attain kaivalya (liberation). The vast majority of seekers in India accept that kaivalya means a Lord that really is in one’s heart. They grow up with a shrine in their homes, parents who understand that Lord in the heart, and a habit of going to temple to affirm that Lord’s presence. The iconography of these temples clearly adheres to this concept. The seeker enters from the external world into the religious environs of the temple. At the center of the temple is a dark enclosure (the mind in ignorance of the Lord) wherein the Lord’s presence is illumined by the lamp (of knowledge).

Patañjali clearly takes an approach that accepts the same tenants as the Bhagavad Gītā, the other great and earlier, or perhaps contemporary, text on yoga. Patañjali expounds on the nuances of samādhi, which was only lightly touched upon in the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā.

The Bhagavad Gītā is clearly based on Upaniṣad teachings and uses some of the same terminology as the original Upaniṣads. Sāṅkhya philosophy also borrowed from and elaborated upon the terminologies of the Upaniṣads. The Bhagavad Gītā clearly teaches a real, not a pretend, identity of the limitless Lord and the limitless self. Please see this author’s works on the Bhagavad Gītā for more on this topic.

These attitudes – based on the universal value structure called dharma (universal justice) in the scripture – uphold an objective, non-distracting, and supportive relationship with oneself, other people, other living beings, and all situations around us. The student’s objective is to assimilate this teaching in all thinking, attitudes, and behavior. It is a way of life, not a philosophy. These and other values that support a more open and contemplative mind are fully developed in the Bhagavad Gītā.

The values noted in this sūtra are the student’s tools in addressing and assessing his or her attitudes toward him or herself as well as toward the world. Goodwill toward oneself is not self-indulgence. It is personal honesty and a commitment to integrate the various aspects of the psyche. It is a commitment to emotional maturity and inner growth. We envy another’s joy when we place unwarranted value on another’s possession or achievement. So neither the joy nor the envy is justified. Therefore to bear goodwill to oneself is to always have the highest value in mind, or easily available.

Compassion, actually empathy, is a natural and honest human connection to all living things. Compassion toward oneself is easily overdone; we tend to be extremely forgiving of our mistakes, even more so than we are of others. It takes a sensitive, uncompromising objectivity to evaluate our underlying motivations. Often our sorrows toward ourselves, our feelings of self-pity, voice our childish sense of entitlement and a more basic sense of worthlessness and unlovability. Feeling unworthy can influence our attitudes expressing judgment.

There is no healthy mind incapable of entertaining the full range of human behavior, from abject depravity to saintly beatitude. What makes a difference is a life of allowance, objectivity, and unconditional understanding. Again this works both in relationship to our self and to the world. The clarity, the steadiness of mind this sūtra suggests, is gained by the development and nurturing of buddhi, of the intellect, the higher mind which is non-reactive, non-judgmental, understanding, bright, enthusiastic, and cheerful. This teaching that addresses the self, the Lord, and the world in terms of the benevolent whole is a proven, teachable sharing of spiritual truth.

More details and the purpose of this, as it relates to the other steps towards contemplation within the eight limbs (aṣṭāṅga) of yoga, will be presented in Yoga Sutras 2.49–52. This is the second time breath has been mentioned in this chapter (YS.1.31). In the second chapter the topic of breath will be covered, and in the third it is again taken up with reference to the gain of calm (YS.3.31). Breath control is important and should be considered and practiced in order to promote a composed, meditative mind. This is not an attempt to raise kuṇḍalinī (the coiled energy at the base of the spine) here. We are simply making an honest effort to own up to our already perfect self, free of ignorance, sorrow, and fear.

This is contemplating the very nature of the awareful being that is oneself. This needs the person to understand that the shining being within is none other than the perfect puruṣa, the Lord. So instead of the contemplation upon the Lord as the perfect person in sūtra 1.23, this is upon the being within as the perfect person. Of course, they are the same, but this takes the understanding of the scripture. This is well taught in the scriptures, such as in the footnote quotations to this sūtra. Patañjali has already directed the seeker to the scripture (āgama) and he specifically indicates which scriptures by the terminology he uses – jyotis and viśoka. The commentator Vyāsa using the term hṛdaya-puṇḍarīka indicates the mantra from Kaivalya Upaniṣad which uses the equivalent term hṛd-puṇḍarīka.

Imagine the person who knows not the scripture behind these sūtras trying to contemplate some painless light inside his or her head. It is irresponsible to not indicate to seekers what this viśoka jyotis really is.

Objects are manifestations of the tattvas (evolutes) of the world, in Sāṅkhya terminology. Thus attachment to objects, such as contemplating on the tattvas just to gain specific objects or powers, would be kliṣṭa (what hinders one’s progress in yoga, YS.3.37). These objects should instead be contemplated in order to see their limitations. These limitations, no matter how grand, are not one’s self, nor can they make a difference in or improve one’s self in any way, shape, or form.

Like the Lord in reference to this entire waking world, I, the dreamer, can see myself as the Lord of the dream world, as its source and substance. Then in deep sleep, which is also just me, this dream world as well as the waking world resolves, like the universe resolves into an unmanifest state in the reality we call the Lord, until the next big-bang – in our case, the clang of the alarm clock. In this way one can come to assimilate how one can be that same reality from which the universe appears and into which it resolves. All this, as taught by the Upaniṣads, can be meditated upon with the help of Om, also called the ālambana (basis).

The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, especially, presents the nature of the self, of reality, via the three states of experience, waking-dreaming-sleeping. It says the conscious being that in-forms all three states, that is always there, unaffected before, during, and after each of the appearances of these three states, is the reality of oneself, the reality of brahman (the infinite). So these experiences within waking life that we cling to as if they make or break us are, in comparison to the reality of oneself, no more real than dreams. These experiences are simply movements of the mind that come and go in its restlessness. This understanding is what is to be contemplated during recitation of Om in meditation. Every thought, every experience, is the same as this Om arising in awareness, remaining for a moment in awareness, then resolving back within the awareful being, within oneself. It is temporary; oneself alone is permanent and untainted by the appearances of thoughts.

These are not poetic statements that life is like a dream, but statements of fact about all our experiences, namely that all of life has a nature not essentially different from a dream – as simply the movement of the mind. This is reality based teaching. This and similar analyses of dream and deep sleep in the Upaniṣads is what Patañjali is referring to here in this sūtra, and again why scripture (āgama) is to be studied with the help of a skilled teacher.

The superficial commentary of Vyāsa on these last several sūtras led to a lack of independent analysis by the following commentators and translators. They completely miss the connection of these very important topics to their clear development in the scriptures. This allows a few translators to imagine that the ancient yogins were into psychotherapeutic dream analysis. This imagination cannot be laid at the feet of Vyāsa, though, as it is perhaps more a wish by those translators to make their medieval Sāṅkhya based interpretations sound current.

The teaching analyses dream not for therapeutic experiences but for its lesson in understanding what is the reality of this world, the dream, and oneself – the waker and dreamer. The Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad with its commentary especially details this critical understanding of the mind and oneself as its independent witness through waking, dream, and deep sleep (BrhU. 4.2 & 4.3 with commentary).

One has to start somewhere. If only objects you desire attract you, then contemplate upon them in order to eventually appreciate their limitations through the teaching.

Mastery or control is not to be understood as power over individual things. Such a power and its craving, imagined to be a part of yoga or not, can only be based on the erroneous belief that objects, including this body and mind, can provide the satisfaction-full freedom which is the real goal of yoga and is the natural goal of everyone, whether they fully recognize it or not. Mastery, as had already been explained in Yoga Sūtra 1.15, here concerns the ability to pursue what is conducive and avoid what is not conducive to yoga. It is the nirodha (discipline) of the thoughts of the mind indicated in Yoga Sūtra 1.2 as the definition of yoga.

The power this individual body and mind can have over even a tiny portion of the universe is a pittance. The real mastery is freeing oneself from the notions that these things of the universe are an addition to or subtraction from me, are to be pursued and possessed, or feared and avoided. It is complete independence, a lack of dependence on anything. This complete mastery entails the appreciation that all this is not other than the reality that is oneself.

This is the immediate goal of yoga – a sufficiently clean and clear mind that can easily assimilate, can easily take on the truth of, any truth it rests upon, like a clear crystal takes on the exact color of any object it rests upon.

All objects of the universe, including the senses and mind with all its various ideas and notions, are but name and form, as the scripture never tires in pointing out. This getting past the name and form in the mind to their reality, their is-ness (YS.1.17), that is not separate from oneself is this being purified of memory of word and idea. The terms word and idea in these sūtras are the equivalent of the scripture’s terms name and form, respectively. The term memory is used because memory alone can be the vehicle to introduce into the current moment a name connected to a particular form learned in the past. Language, the matching of word with a form, is a skill learned in a culture over time that is retained in memory and applied to the current moment at hand. This language is the tool to distinguish objects through these different names and forms. If these distinguished objects are then given (are hypothesized to have) a reality beyond the reality of the applied names and forms from memory, then one is making a mistake of creating a reality for objects that is not there.

An example of such a mistake is hearing a noise in my room at night and bringing to mind the thought of a monster as actually existing in my room. When I know the thought as simply a thought, then it can be objectively investigated appropriately. When I believe, however, that there is an existing monster simply based on that thought, then this is a mistake.

A more subtle and devastating example is thinking of my body and becoming worried that I am ageing, thus I am subject to death, to disappear.

When I correctly know this body is simply a perceptual notion I have in the current moment, and when I correctly know that this notion is bound up with memories of a past body and with imaginations of an uncertain future body, and when I correctly know that the notion that I am this body is a mistake, then I can objectively see that this body is now something that may be called old but it is not me. This body is intrinsically only existing right now. There is no age for this current appearance other than the present moment. The reality of time and the flow of time will be analyzed in the later chapters to reveal this understanding (see comm. on YS.3.16, 52, 4.12–14 & 33). Though the momentary appearance of this body may be given the name old, still I do not then become old.

However, if I believe that this body now is the same as the body in the past memories of it and is the same as the body in the imagined uncertain future notions of it, and therefore it is a single continuous entity that is continually ageing till death, and this ageing till death is myself ageing, then this is a devastating, death-dealing mistake.

Believing that the current appearance of this body is a single continuous entity, external to and completely independent from thought and its content, is a mistake that does not necessarily cause a problem. This is just misidentifying a factual object (the current appearance of this body) with an imaginary object fading to its death. Thinking that what happens to this external entity is happening to me, to the notion I have of myself as the knower of these thoughts and entities, however, is a mistake that causes a problem. This latter mistake makes myself appear to be unduly limited and necessarily subjects this mind to baseless anxiety and fear – all because of shallow, loose thinking that mixes up entities and realities. This is misidentifying oneself with a factual or imaginary object – limiting oneself to whatever problem that object appears to have.

The moment, which is pure cognition, is the reality of oneself that is timeless (time-free) and limitless, whereas memory is of the past and imagination is of the future. These latter two are limited since they are simply thoughts in time that will go away in time. When contemplating the nature of the objects of the world, such as this body or the mind, in keeping with the teaching, one is objectively seeing their inherent limitations as simply names and forms. One sees their limitations as not belonging to or affecting the single reality in which they temporarily manifest as names and forms. This is the preliminary sa-vicāra contemplation.

Then, in nir-vicāra, one finally comes to appreciate the pure is-ness of the object as the same “I am,” the same is-ness of oneself, sat-cit (reality-consciousness), the reality in which these objects manifest. At the moment of appreciating this single reality basis of objects, one is not imagining separate, real existences for the contents of thoughts beyond their mere appearances in the moment, whether those contents be the memories of the names and forms that constitute the objects, or that content be another thought with the name and form of “I am now contemplating.” At that timeless moment, in other words, there is no notion distinguishing the thinker, thinking, and thought. The thought here is only of the nature of the object as is-ness. Hence, the normal activity of the mind employing its distinguishing names to various forms is missing, and is here said to be as though not there. Of course, it is there as the non-reflexive, non-distinguishing, non-dual thought of is-ness.

Many commentators and translators imagine that contemplating an object free of word and idea, free of name and form, is some special yoga vision that yields some kind of supernormal knowledge about that object. But think about that claim. Isn’t it that, when you remove word and idea, the object in fact can only disappear? How could it appear in contemplation without any form whatsoever? It cannot. Thus, how could there then be any special super vision that yields supernormal knowledge about the object by such contemplation? If there is no form, there can be no supernormal information about the object. That supernormal information also would have to be without name and form too, if it were, in fact, part of this contemplation. How could that be information at all?

Does the author claim that he or she has this super vision? Or, are they claiming that some yogins are said to have these super power? Can you attain complete freedom in your life which is the goal of yoga simply by believing anecdotal stories about some yogins somewhere else or in the past? Do you really believe you also have the stuff to attain those rare powers yourself?

Please think about such claims. Isn’t the scripture’s explanation given above the obvious way to understand these sūtras? Contemplating anything free of name and form can only be the scripture’s vision of non-dual reality, pure is-ness. This alone is a teaching grounded in reality and clarity that can actually help you, not something grounded in mysticism – if there is such an oxymoron.

Inquiry (vicāra) is a term used for scriptural analysis of subtle objects not otherwise known through the senses, and thus not knowable by any logic (vitarka) based on sense perceptions.

Scriptural or divine objects, such as heaven or a particular form of a deity, though subtle in nature, are still objects. They are just not objects of the senses. They are either completely or mostly objects of the mind. Divine visions, such as when one dies and gets into heaven, are possible at that time by a provided subtle eye sight. Such subtle sights, sounds, etcetera would not be unlike the perceptions we have here within our dreams. These divine subtle objects, though, have no more intrinsic reality than the so-called mundane subtle objects, such as everyday thoughts, dreams, and so on. They both have the same subtle nature.

Even scriptural objects are but name and form alone. This getting past the name and form to their reality, their is-ness, that is not separate from oneself is this being purified of memory of word and idea. When contemplating the limited nature of the subtle objects presented in the scripture – which perception and logic cannot reach, such as the heavens or the subtlest nature of common objects (such as all objects being only a manifestation of the Lord), and, in keeping with the teaching, dismissing those limitations as not constituting separate real entities – one starts to appreciate the objective reality of the subtle object, freed of one’s mistaken or incomplete perspectives.

One then can ultimately come to appreciate the pure awareness of the subtle object as being the same “I am aware” awareness of the self, sat-cit (reality-consciousness). One gains a glimpse of the ultimate goal of yoga. At that time, one is not consciously aware of the thought process going on, of “I am now contemplating.”

Fully appreciating mundane or divine objects all the way to their is-ness is not anything like the fanciful imaginations that we read in modern yoga advertising brochures. Neither are they like Arjuna’s divine vision given to him by Lord Kṛṣṇa in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā. That divine vision was of forms that Arjuna could give names to. That was not a vision free of names and forms, free of memory of word and idea.

Seeing artha-mātra, an object purely free of erroneous mental projections, is not some mystical capacity hidden from others. Anything like an x-ray vision is still well within names and forms. All names and forms are projections, whether from x-ray vision, dream, or through the senses. A real vision, free of names and forms, can only be a non-sensory appreciation, understanding, of the is-ness of the object. That vision, then, only frees when it is clearly known that this is-ness is but the same is-ness of all objects, and is but the same is-ness of oneself (asmitā), and that is oneself.

Included in scriptural objects or topics are, of course, Īśvara (the Lord), ātman (oneself), and brahman (limitless reality). They are also, initially, only the notions we have about them, and, as such, have no more intrinsic reality than their subtle nature as thoughts. Inquiry into their real nature, though, through the scripture supported by reasoning, reveals their true nature through an expanded meaning of the words, free from erroneous notions that appeared to limit them. They are all nothing but limitless is-ness. They are the puruṣa, the being which alone is kaivalya (freedom).

One can contemplate on one single object, such as an annoying habit one may have, particularly if it blocks doubt-free knowledge and one needs to get past that single sticking point to gain clarity in knowledge. This sūtra, however, indicates that, in general, one should move from contemplating innumerable single manifest objects to contemplating their subtle, uniting totality as presented in the scripture. Since this mind cannot comprehend much more than one object at a time, then this contemplation would be on the subtle nature that unites these objects (see YS.4.14).

All these contemplations based on the understanding of reality in the scripture, based on reasoning in keeping with the scripture (vitarka) and inquiry into the scripture (vicāra), are a subtle progression, leading to more subtle clarity of mind (YS.1.47–48). These contemplations connect the individual to the cosmos, and like the meditations in the Upaniṣads, called upāsanas, are meant to make the mind more subtle (pervasive) and amenable to the truth of all of reality.

The puruṣa is subtle but is never an object. In the scripture (āgama), which Patañjali accepts as a means of knowledge, it is called the subtlest (sūkṣmatara) and is the reality basis (satya) of even prakṛti. Prakṛti, being a-liṅga (unmanifest) and not oneself, is what naturally cannot be an object of contemplation. The term paryavasāna (meaning reaching culmination at) is thus here used exclusively, not inclusively. Subtle objects for meditation include everything subtle up to but not including prakṛti.

The puruṣa, however, though the subtlest but not an object, is one’s self and so not totally unknown. Hence, it can be appreciated not as an object, but as oneself free of limiting concepts and thus always clearly available, including in quiet contemplation, in a-saṃprajñāta samādhi (YS.1.18).

The four sa-bīja samāpattis, in order of subtlety, were contemplation on common objects with reasoning (sa-vitarka) culminating in contemplation free of reasoning (nir-vitarka), and contemplation on subtle scriptural objects with inquiry (sa-vicāra) culminating in contemplation free of inquiry (nir-vicāra).

These reasonings and inquires, though helping (a-kliṣṭa) one’s progress in yoga, are nevertheless within the realm of the fundamental ignorance (a-vidyā) that is there from birth. Until the fundamental ignorance goes, every thought one entertains, even if it is scriptural, will be within the skewed perspective of this original ignorance.

How can a singular ignorance affect all thoughts? The reason is because this ignorance concerns the very nature of the seer of all thoughts, as well as the reality of all thoughts and their content. This fundamental ignorance takes what is unreal as real and the real as no better than the unreal (YS.2.5).

This is why one can listen to this teaching over and over and gain more clarity and more maturity, but there is yet no complete solution, no appreciation of complete freedom in one’s life, no acknowledgement of fearlessness as one’s being. The fundamental ignorance has to completely go. It cannot be kind of gone (YS.3.54).

This fundamental ignorance (including the teaching to get out of ignorance) and its resulting afflictions are the seeds (bījas, see YS.1.24, 50–51 & 2.3–4) that need to be rendered totally impotent for this teaching to finally bless. The teaching in all the Vedas, including their Upaniṣads, are just so many words, until their meaning is assimilated as clear knowledge – that knowledge alone is para-vidyā (knowledge of the unlimited). Even in quiet contemplation (a-saṃprajñāta samādhi) one’s ignorance remains as latent tendencies to raise doubts and confusion upon coming out of these temporary samādhis. Nevertheless, these samādhis are included in the limbs of yoga (see YS.3.1–8), and they serve their purpose in bringing discipline and clarity to the mind and thus making it contemplative.

Being contemplative allows this vision of truth to take hold in one’s life. Being ever contemplative – never outside of clear, valid thinking – is a spontaneous expression of, or conducive to, the complete assimilation of this teaching.

Here is pointed out the immediate goal of nir-vicāra samādhi. It is clarity of mind. And this clarity can ultimately culminate in knowledge as nir-bīja samādhi (see comm. on YS.1.51 & 3.9).

Here, it is not exactly explicit what the source of this prajñā (knowledge) is. Some say that samādhi is a source of knowledge, but that is not said by Patañjali. He has given three sources of knowledge (pramāṇas): pratyakṣa (direct perception), anumāna (indirect knowledge), and āgama (scripture) (YS.1.7). Samādhi has been exhaustively presented here as a method of clarifying and steadying the mind, which is an instrument in all three pramāṇas. In particular, samādhi has here been clearly presented as a means of gaining clarity with the two means of knowledge one is employing in these contemplations, namely the last two, reasoning (vitarka) and inquiry into the scripture (vicāra). Just as it has been indicated that the a-liṅga (unmanifest) cannot be an object of samāpatti or samādhi, so also the puruṣa (self), which is the witness of everything, cannot itself be an object of samādhi.

The grahītṛ (knower see YS.1.41) as an object of contemplation that is talked about in each of the preceding samāpattis has been carefully limited as just a notion about oneself (“I am…”) as a grahītṛ (knower), not the actual self that witnesses this mind’s notions. Thus, samādhi cannot be a unique means of knowledge of the puruṣa. And it is knowledge of the puruṣa that will be said to be kaivalya (freedom).

In this sūtra, when Patañjali uses the word prajñā (knowledge), one should understand it is a kind of knowledge, or rather an understanding drawn from āgama (scripture) in keeping with reason. It is an understanding that lacks full clarity that one will expand upon. It is an understanding one brings to the samādhi that can be and eventually is made clear by this method of clarifying the mind in regard to whatever is the object of the contemplation.

To know certain things we either do or we do not have to also contemplate them. For example, we do not have to contemplate on one plus one equals two, since, once clearly explained, there is nothing more to clarify. But contemplation is helpful to clearly understand subtle topics as to how they should be incorporated in one’s world view. In particular, this samādhi taught here is helpful in owning up to the subtlest nature of the universe as one’s very self.

The purpose of samādhi is indicated here by joining the prefix pra-, meaning thoroughly, with the Sanskrit verbal root jñā, meaning to know. Thus this sūtra indicates that the knowledge of subtle things does not bear its fruit of truth until it becomes thoroughly clear. This is the purpose of samādhi – to gain that clarity if it is not already there.

When it comes to knowing the self, the process is one of dropping concepts about the self that necessarily limit the self. I have knowledge of myself, namely, that I exist, but it is not clear due to being mixed up with innumerable limiting notions about myself.

This is not a blind dropping of any and all concepts; it is one of clearly understanding the inadequacies in these concepts as applying to the self. The way of approaching self-knowledge is given in the scripture as neti-neti (not this, not that) – I am not the things I think I love, not the body, not the mind, nor the ego which is just one aspect of the mind. But the end of this neti-neti is not nothingness or thoughtlessness. Neti-neti is directed at oneself, and the self can never be unknown, never be denied, and thus never dropped. The culmination of neti-neti is just being oneself, without limiting concepts of oneself.

This is described in the scriptures as knowledge. In the case of self-knowledge, the self is its own pramāṇa (means of knowledge), called svataḥ prāmāṇya (self-revealing – see comm. on YS.4.19–20), like any source of light does not require another source of light to physically illumine it. In other words, the self, which illumines everything including the concepts in the mind, also illumines itself, or more precisely, does not require another source to illumine it. This is the most direct knowledge – sākṣāt a-parokṣāt (immediate and not remote) – requiring no other instrument to reveal itself. But this self-revealing is not what one may think must come in an imagined white heat of meditation. It is not a unique meditative experience which makes the meditator somehow transformed or super-sensitive. The self-revealing reality, is-ness, is always present in every thought and between every thought – in “Pot is,” “Body is,” “I am,” everything is the is-ness I am. “Pot,” “Body,” “I” are just adjectives (upādhis, YS.3.14) that make no division, no limitation in is-ness. Any more added to that knowledge will limit oneself. And until this is assimilated, even “I am infinite” is a limiting imagination (see YS.1.9).

Here, samādhi becomes an upāya (means) to this end, through gaining clarity on the inapplicability of one’s own life-long and unexamined concepts of oneself through the words of the scripture that point out what the self is not.

And that is also why ultimate non-attachment (para-vairāgya) towards these near and dear concepts wrapped up with one’s ego is involved in this process so that they can be dropped once falsified. Knowing oneself is unlike other applications of seeking knowledge, such as learning one plus one equals two, where non-attachment plays no role. This is how and why ultimate non-attachment (para-vairāgya) is required (YS.1.12–16) to assimilate self-knowledge.

Words of the scripture and the supporting logic, the two means of knowledge brought into contemplation, cannot directly reveal the self. The self is instead self-revealing as I. Nevertheless, it takes words, takes teaching, to remove mistakes we have imposed on the self-revealing I.

This process of listening to the words of the scripture with their supporting logic, which together remove mistakes, can also be expressed as a going beyond the words to get to their implicit meaning, which points to the reality of oneself.

It is not a pursuit of learning how to discuss the topic of yoga, not a PhD course, nor a training to be a lecturer. It is rather a pursuit to be a yogin and attain the goal of yoga, which is liberation as the limitless self. If one is unclear on the nature of the self that one has been taught through words and with reasoning, then the clarity of mind that contemplation brings to these words and logic allows this teaching to be assimilated and brings the truth of this teaching into one’s life, in the first-person, not as a third-person topic.

It is possibly this distinction that Vyāsa in his commentary was alluding to by saying that the scope (viṣaya) of the words of the scripture and the supporting logic is general (sāmānya) (in my terms, is in the 3rd person), whereas, the scope of this assimilated knowledge (prajñā) is unique (viśeṣa) (in my terms, is in the 1st person).

This is the limitation of words, even the words of the scripture and logic. They both are in the realm of the 3rd person. They are about the topic. They, themselves, are not here the topic, the object talked about. Here that topic, that object, is I, oneself alone. This self is doubly viśeṣa (unique). First, the self is not the words or the logic, nor their object. Second, the self, the only thing that always remains the subject (I) and never an object (he, she, it, you), is unlike anything else in the universe. Everything else in the universe, including thoughts and even notions one has about oneself, are objects known. The ātman (self) alone is the only subject in the universe and can never be an object by its very nature.

This is why there is a need to assimilate this teaching and its supporting logic. The direct object of this teaching and supporting logic has the nature of being a 3rd person account about the self. What frees, though, is their 1st person assimilation that is the self free of the 3rd person erroneous notions imposed on the self, counteracted by an integrated understanding of the teaching and its supporting logic. It is a change from “The teaching says this or that about the limitless self,” to “I am the limitless self.”

This is, and has always been, the critical sticking point for every generation of all students. The student hears the teaching (called śravaṇa) and has been trying to understand the teaching (called manana), but seems to get stuck at not yet assimilating the teaching (called nididhyāsana).

In nididhyāsana, instead of being simply a repeated mental activity, it is a repeated operation of a means of knowledge. It is similar to opening the eyes to see a visual object. No effort is required other than to operate the means of knowledge, for example, by simply opening the eyes sight takes place. In nididhyāsana, one is simply bringing to a contemplative mind the teaching and seeing its truth.

A term related to nididhyāsana is upāsana (meditation). Upāsana is a practice prescribed in the ritual parts of the Vedas that is a mental ritual of visualizing in an object the Lord. It is a mental worship of the Lord. In the Vedas, it is primarily for gaining puṇya (karma merit) through this mental activity. The upāsanas in the Upaniṣads, the last part of the Vedas, on the other hand, pertain more to topics within the teaching methodology than to rituals, such as meditating on space as the source and resolution of the universe, as sa-guṇa-brahman (reality in reference to the attributes of nature).

These upāsanas develop a contemplative mind (cittasya naiścalya, steadiness of mind), and they have a special karma benefit (puṇya a-dṛṣṭa phala) later in life or in the after-life, such as getting to a better heaven. These Veda upāsanas have the same detailed prescriptions in their performances as Veda rituals. As such, by performing them wrongly, they can yield unwanted benefits (pāpa a-dṛṣṭa phala) also.

When these upāsanas, especially the ones from the Upaniṣads that relate to topics of the teaching methodology, are performed as a karma-yoga, as simply an offering to the Lord (Īśvara-praṇidhāna), they do not yield any special karma benefit (puṇya a-dṛṣṭa phala), nor unwanted benefit if performed wrongly. They instead always yield an immediate benefit of a more contemplative mind, in keeping with how well they are performed. If the upāsanas are a seeing of the truth of these teachings, these become contemplations.

A contemplative mind is integral to assimilating this teaching. There are students who, because of a mind sufficiently groomed over prior lives, quickly mature spiritually in this life and are able to assimilate the teaching upon first hearing it (śravaṇa). We see this in the Upaniṣad descriptions of certain students with their teacher. Others take longer to understand what they heard and longer to assimilate it – until they know with certitude, “I am what this teaching is about.”

Because of the universality of this vision, encompassing all of one’s understanding of the universe and oneself, the teaching cannot be fully assimilated until it is thoroughly understood. Not understanding the teaching correctly keeps the student from being able to assimilate it. When it is crystal clear, one can whole-heartedly jump into it, and just be it.

Clarity of knowledge through the preceding sa-bīja samādhi brings to maturity the saṃskāra, (latent impression) of the teaching of the limitless self. The teaching saṃskāra nullifies the ingrained but erroneous orientation that we each have had from beginningless time. Of course, this assumes that one is contemplating on the nature of the self and not on some object of desire or power. Contemplating worldly attachments, one remains in saṃsāra (rounds of unbecoming becoming and its attendant rebirths and deaths), chasing after phantoms with an enlarged ego. According to the Bhagavad Gītā chapter 16, such a lifestyle is trying to perfect the path of an asura, an unworthy person bent on consumption.

There are two sets of saṃskāras. One set is the inherent tendencies that manifest as the continuing ignorant notions and their effects in the mind and thus in one’s actions. Those saṃskāras are formed over lifetimes of erroneous thinking. The other set is the inherent tendencies that manifest as the recall of the teaching and its supporting logic. The second set counteracts, blocks, the first set of saṃskāras. The second set of saṃskāras also were formed over lifetimes, and have now brought you to listen to the teaching right here and now. It is this latter set of saṃskāras that pratibandhin (counter-acts) the other.

Note here that we are talking about saṃskāras, not actual thoughts themselves (again, please see Appendix - Nature of the Mind for a description of the mind within this tradition). Yoga is about getting at the source of the problem. The problem may appear to be the negative thinking one has about oneself, but here the deeper problem is the root inherent tendency to manifest these erroneous notions. These tendencies are within the unconscious and may involve psychological issues, as well as the normal but blocking orientation of an individual against a world out there.

That is why thoughtless samādhi is useless in yoga. Samādhi is all about bringing in the teaching from previous lifetimes (in the form of one’s accumulated beneficial saṃskāras) and from this life into the mind and assimilating it from 3rd person to 1st person in nature.

Properly, this samādhi occurs while one is walking around, as well as while sitting. It is the awareful, continuous attempt (YS.1.13–14) to assimilate the teaching. This alone strengthens the beneficial saṃskāras that effectively counteract any limiting notions about oneself before, during, or after they arise – during the samādhi and for the rest of one’s life.

This nir-bīja samādhi is the natural, inevitable result of sa-bīja samādhi when one sees past the name and form of the object of contemplation to its reality basis, past the words of the contemplation to their meaning. That meaning is the limitless reality that is oneself. It is the fulfillment of the change from saṃprajñāta to a-saṃprajñāta samādhi, from 3rd person understanding to 1st person assimilated knowledge. After that, the teaching need not be repeatedly brought back to memory for the knowledge to remain clear and unshakable. There is no need for further activation of the teaching saṃskāras.

The latent tendencies needed to regenerate these memories of the teaching have done their job in sa-bīja samādhi. Now they are not needed to correct any erroneous thinking. They too are dropped; though they are not destroyed. Latent tendencies are not destroyed as several translators suppose. They are just not activated into memories of the teaching in the quiet stillness of nir-bīja samādhi. This is their nirodha, in much the same way as the erroneous saṃskāras were not destroyed in sa-bīja samādhi, only deactivated, rendered powerless for a period of time (YS.1.18) by the teaching’s saṃskāras. This quietude in nir-bīja samādhi, as we will see in sūtra 3.9, is in fact silently maintained by the saṃskāras of the teaching. They just do not manifest a thought in the form of a memory of the teaching during this nir-bīja samādhi.

This is one way of understanding what goes on in samādhi. It is a very mechanical way of understanding samādhi and the purpose of yoga. However, there is a much deeper way of understanding nir-bīja samādhi.

Instead of looking at this mechanically, paying far too much attention to what happens to the mind, the more fruitful vision is to look at the knowledge of the realities of nature including the mind and of the puruṣa, which alone is the real concern of Patañjali in these sūtras.

Actually, Vyāsa had a much better grasp of this than most of the current translators. In his commentary he says that the saṃskāras born of the teaching did not destroy the other saṃskāras, they instead cause the stopping (avasādayanti) of the other saṃskāras from manifesting the afflictions (kleśas) in the mind. He goes on to say that in nir-bīja samādhi the mind along with both sets of its latent tendencies remains merged in its own nature (saha saṃskārāiḥ cittaṃ svasyāṃ prakṛtau avasthitāyāṃ pravilīyate). For Vyāsa there is no destruction of saṃskāras, they only remain merged in their own nature, in the guṇas.

Even in a mechanical way, this is a much better expression of what is going on. It provides the basis for a discussion of what is meant by the resolution into its own nature. If the resolution of the mind is understood within a dualist philosophy, then the mind having been resolved in this way cannot reappear in any way, shape, or form. This mind, once capable of sublime thought on the nature of the universe and the puruṣa, is now disintegrated into its unthinking components, not to reform again. Is this outcome desirable by anyone?

If, however, the resolution of the mind is understood in the non-dual āgama tradition, then the mind – being clearly known as always being in its own insentient nature before, during, and after nir-bīja samādhi – cannot erroneously reappear confused as the sentient being that the puruṣa is, that I am. In that case, come what may in the mind, I remain in my own nature, free of identification with the thoughts in the mind.

This deeper understanding is recognition of the nature of the prajñā (knowledge) itself that allows nir-bīja samādhi. The knowledge is that the only reality is the reality that is oneself, and that reality is limitless, without a second. This means that as long as this knowledge is deeply assimilated in the 1st person, then even outside the seat of meditation this knowledge will remain. That knowledge is oneself – how could it not remain? Even while thoughts and their objects, the entire universe, parade in the mind, they are definitely known as not oneself, not the permanent reality, and hence unreal, less than real, dependent.

Their unreality is not that they do not appear in the mind. Many unreal (imaginary) things appear in our minds and we are not confused into thinking them real. In this case, every thought (imaginary or relatively real) is now known as unreal, as not absolutely real, not as real as oneself. This means that, being unreal by their nature, one is in nir-bīja samādhi without thoughts as being real, in and out of the seat of meditation. That is why we can have teachers who know (śrotriya) and have assimilated (brahma-niṣṭha) this reality (see comm. on YS.2.25), who can pass on this teaching to the next generation. Without this deeper understanding, no such teachers could exist. If resolution of the mind into its own nature is taken to be destruction of mind, great teachers would have to remain in the seat of nir-bīja samādhi, thoughtless and silent. This is not a helpful appreciation of kaivalya (freedom).

Why bother studying Patañjali’s text if you think he either did not yet have the knowledge he talked about, or he did, became a zombie, and that zombie wrote this? Now, if the mechanical resolution of the mind is only during meditation, but not afterward (which was not what Patañjali said), and thus if this freedom from the mind is just temporary in a-saṃprajñāta samādhi, then do either the ignorant saṃskāras activate again later, or not? If the ignorant saṃskāras return to being active, then the knowledge that brought a-saṃprajñāta samādhi was clearly not complete and fully assimilated. If you know one plus one is two, but forget it later, then did you in fact know it, or did you just memorize the answer for a while? If it was just memorizing an answer, then there never was knowledge (see comm. on YS.3.54).

The freedom that is kaivalya is knowledge, and that kaivalya, that knowledge, is the very nature of the puruṣa (YS.1.48, 2.25, 4.26 & 34). It was from the knowledge itself that nir-bīja samādhi effortlessly resulted. Nir-bīja samādhi, understood mechanically as simply quietude of the mind, would be just a state of the mind. The mind is not the puruṣa – at least Patañjali was clear about that! Any state of the mind, quietude or not, therefore, cannot be the kaivalya here.

In real kaivalya, which is the very nature of the self without identifying with any state of the mind, there is only the subject, oneself, as the only reality. Even when thoughts and their objects come and go, they are nothing but oneself, like all the bodies and all the thoughts in a dream, including my own body and thoughts therein, are nothing but me the dreamer. This was why Patañjali suggested contemplation on Om, and on the dream and sleep state.

Otherwise, if samādhi is without this discernment, without the teaching, then it is only a temporary dropping of problems, to be picked up again when thinking and the old latent tendencies kick back in (YS.1.18). This is why thought-less samādhi without the teaching has no efficacy here. Only clear knowledge (prajñā) has efficacy, since the problem is only one of ignorance.

Prayerful discipline (tapas) is total commitment to one’s goal. The following words in the sūtra give the context of this commitment. Here it is commitment towards the scripture as a means of knowledge in order to gain the ultimate freedom that is the Lord. This naturally entails the physical and mental disciplines of a dedicated student. Again Patañjali emphasizes study of the scripture. That is where the reality teaching is given. It is through the scripture that one understands what it to be contemplated.

Īśvara-pra-ṇi-dhāna culminates, as was pointed out in the first pāda (chapter), in contemplation of the Lord, but it also means aligning (dhāna) oneself completely (pra-, prakarṣeṇa) with understanding (ni-, niścayena) towards the Lord, who is the whole order that expresses as this universe, and as this body and mind. In this, how one lives one’s life becomes an expression of a spontaneous sense of duty and care of all that is in-keeping with this order – respect for everyone and all of nature, with the proper values in support of this life style.

As part of kriyā-yoga, application of Īśvara-praṇidhāna in one’s life is emphasized here. This kriyā-yoga is the equivalent of karma-yoga in the Bhagavad Gītā, where this topic is more completely unfolded. Knowing that, Patañjali does not here develop this topic. Contemplation within yoga is the special topic of these sūtras. Here, when Īśvara-praṇidhāna is understood in its fullest extent, it includes all the limbs of yoga up to and including samādhi (YS.2.29), the contemplation of the perfect person (puruṣa) in the form of the Lord as oneself (YS.1.23–32).

The traditional teaching’s focus on the identity of self and the Lord helps develop one’s understanding of everything as interconnected. Seeing deeply into any one thing reveals the truth of everything. We will develop this more fully in the commentary on the many contemplations given in chapter three, sūtras 3.16–53. Here it is seen that the three components of kriyā-yoga are included in the niyamas, the second of the eight limbs of yoga (YS.2.32). In the Yoga Sūtras, the three components of kriyā-yoga in their full sense, and particularly Īśvara-praṇidhāna incorporate all eight limbs of yoga. Indeed, thinking through any universal value, or any of the limbs of yoga, or any object – in full measure – will reveal the uninterrupted correspondence of microcosm and macrocosm. This is seeing the macrocosm in the microcosm. This follows the principle that what is true here is true everywhere. Whether in samādhi or enjoying one’s mind and life, truly knowing oneself is knowing everything.

Kriyā-yoga, which is the equivalent of karma-yoga, is a core aspect of the life of a yogin. The saints and sages of India underwent and were exposed to and influenced by this teaching discipline. If some saint appears to not have been formally initiated into this teaching tradition, then by his or her past karma, the person was naturally disciplined and had an appropriate attitude toward life and the universe. That person needed very little exposure to the teaching, which is inescapably heard in the cultural songs and literature of India, to be a saintly person. If you dream you are another exception, then a dream enlightenment may surely be yours. It would be better, though, to take advantage of this proven, detailed, and well maintained yoga tradition.

Karma-yoga is not, after all, an activity one does. It is instead an attitude based on understanding the reality of the world and of God. If one has this matured attitude, there is nothing more needed to be done to gain a mind that can assimilate this teaching. If one does not have this matured attitude, one may engage in activities that help bring about the necessary understanding to mature this attitude.

Karma-yoga brings about the two goals of yoga: samādhi culminating in an assimilated knowledge and freedom from the kleśas. These two goals are really just two ways of stating the same goal – being the perfect puruṣa (person, self). Put positively, this one goal is the freedom in the assimilation of self-knowledge with the help of samādhi (contemplation); put negatively it is the freedom from the kleśas.

These five afflictions and their interrelationships will be unfolded in the next eight sūtras.

For those who have lived a full life of yoga, the first two, the dormant and the sprouting (like seeds), are subtle and can be taken care of by contemplation and self-inquiry, respectively. In this way the kleśas (afflictions) in these two states remain or are reduced to being dormant (prasupta). The later two, the variously breaking out and the fully grown, are where the kleśa has broken out of its obstructions or is unobstructed, respectively. Kriyā-yoga addresses these kleśas by bringing not only the mind but one’s activities to bear at reducing or neutralizing these afflictions.

Ignorance is the erroneous transference of the natures of the mind, body, and their possessions and relationships upon the pure witness self; and the transference of the timeless reality nature of the witness self to the mind and body, and their possessions and relationships. The mutual transference is thinking, “I am time-bound, limited, and incomplete (like this body and mind)” and “the mind, body, possessions, and relationships should somehow last forever, be unlimited, and fully satisfying (like the pure witness self).” This is the fundamental mistake from which all other afflictions arise. It is not a simple cognitive mistake; it is a fundamental perspective with which all humans are born. This mistaken orientation requires an encompassing life of yoga to re-orient oneself in keeping with objectivity and with ultimate reality. Patañjali tells us that kriyā-yoga and vairāgya (non-attachment) are proven disciplines for reorientation.

This mutual identity of oneself with the thoughts of the mind is called vṛtti-sārūpya (having the same form as the thoughts) in Yoga Sūtra 1.4. It includes the mind, in these cases manifesting as ego, thinking it is the witness self that should last forever, be unlimited, and fully satisfied. These are not possible for the mind, hence the resulting afflictions the ego, which is just one type of thought in this mind, suffers out of its own ignorance. The conflicts and defenses the ego suffers are rebuilt from childhood onwards – nurtured and possibly inflamed by parents who suffer their own problematic ego.

The mutual identification of the ego and the limitless I is the natural condition of every human being. We are not born with knowledge of the whole and of its identity with the self. Enlightened parents and qualified teachers can bring the light of knowledge to the darkness of self-ignorance. The specifics of the individual complexities of ego, of the kleśas, of anger and covetousness and self-criticism, are the field, the arena, for Patañjali’s kriyā-yoga and vairāgya. These are the ways to come to terms with the mind and its habitual misidentifications as the self. The unexamined and unresolved misidentification, the human mistake, perpetuates through the subtle processes identified in the traditional Indian understanding of the human condition.

This entity, the self identified with the mind, is the individual person called the jīva. The subtle mind, senses, and powers of the bodily functions, collectively called the subtle body, inhabit a physical body, and then move on when that physical body can no longer hold them. This is recognition of the continuance of energy, which is what this subtle body is. The subtle body is not an effect of the physical body. Rather, in this tradition, it is just the opposite. The physical is always an effect or a phenomenal manifestation of the subtle. The subtle body is independent – existing before, during, and after the physical body. In its presence, this physical body is animated; in its absence this body lies motionless and decaying. Whatever it is that makes that difference between a live and a dead body is called the subtle body. The witness self that is attribute free and therefore timeless lends reality, lends consciousness, to this composite subtle body. Again, the identification of that which has no attributes is taken to be the self in an apparent individual relationship with this subtle body. That self-identified subtle body is the transmigrating jīva, the individual.

The Sāṅkhya philosophers call the jīvas separate puruṣas. They mistakenly say the puruṣas are equivalent to the ātman taught in the Upaniṣads. There is an abrupt and irreconcilable discord in the Sāṅkhya explanation.

Īśvara-kṛṣṇa was the author responsible for formalizing many of the Sāṅkhya inconsistencies. The term sāṅkhya was a Sanskrit word meaning a well thought out reckoning, and was so used in the early literature of the Upaniṣads, the Purāṇas, and the Bhagavad-gītā as a term indicating the scriptural teaching relating to the self, the world, and God. The teaching tradition that takes the time and care to go through all the statements of the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad-gītā holds that there is only one reality, variously referred to by the terms brahman, ātman, or Īśvara, depending on whether the term is in reference, respectively, to itself, to oneself, or to the universe. It is this truly complete teaching that we present here and that brings understanding and relevant skills to the student.

Little is gained by philosophies which seek to confirm our innate sense of ultimate separation between individuals. Patañjali does not suggest a multiplicity of puruṣas. It is the one reality (the eka-tattva), the identification of the self and the Lord through knowledge, that provides meaningful contemplation and a fully integrated emotional and physical life. This is the original sāṅkhya taught in the scriptures. It is the clear teaching in the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad-gītā. Patañjali makes no claims that would force these sūtras outside of this tradition.

Both attachment (rāga, bandana-kāma binding desire) and aversion are impositions on objects of a capacity to be consistent sources of pleasure or sorrow. Seen as sources of pleasure and pain, we act upon those judgments, those beliefs, accordingly. Our judgments are based on subtle impressions (saṃskāras) formed during previous contact with similar objects and on our incessant desire to be fulfilled and satisfied.

However, when objectively seen, objects, animate or inanimate, do not intrinsically have that nature of being a source of pleasure or pain. Pleasure and pain are subjective judgments related to the mind and senses. The objects are what they are. The same object will stimulate pleasure or pain at one time and not at another; it will stimulate one person but not another, one creature but not another. Objects remain what they are irrespective of the imposition of emotional or sensed qualities upon them. Again, it is the individual’s unexamined and persistent need to find a sense of wholeness and satisfaction that drives him or her to attribute the potential for fulfillment to objects. It is the unexamined and wanting notion one has of oneself that drives an individual to seek remedy, or control, or approval, or attention, or safety, from the people with whom he or she is emotionally involved.

What Patañjali and the Yoga Sutras teach is that the only source of happiness and fulfillment is the fully realized self. When the student relieves objects, including other people, of the burden of providing satisfaction, when the value structure is appropriate, objects can serve their purpose and the student can enjoy or appreciate them and himself, or herself, without the confusion.

It is a human tendency to become emotionally attached to objects of desire and to distance from or reject what seems to bring pain. Contemplation is an effective tool for freeing oneself from emotional reactivity. Īśvara-praṇidhāna (acknowledgement of the Lord as the universal order) helps here, because the Lord manifests not only as the physical order, but also as the psychological order. This acknowledgement and appreciation is relating one’s individual mind and body objectively within the total. This interconnected universe is a given, mostly outside one’s own two hands. One learns to accept this order graciously.

Each person has a psychological background, and so too another person has his or her own background. If, in-keeping with the order, these two do not mesh together, then with this objective understanding one may stay away from another. One can draw a boundary – physically, emotionally, or intellectually (that is, make decisions that maintain a boundary). To hate another person is not objective, nor helpful, nor even natural, since one typically has to work oneself into that emotion. Hatred stems from an unwarranted imagination of this person as a source of pain (perhaps due to one’s own inability to maintain adequate boundaries) and an unwarranted expectation of this person as being a source of pleasure, when all there is objectively is a potential clash of personalities or activities, which can be managed more wisely.

To have a desire for or against something or someone is not the problem. These are privileges and necessities in order to enjoy the variety in nature. Otherwise, one would be an insensitive automaton. The problem is when one identifies with and becomes that obsession or hatred. This is being in-keeping with objects mixed up with one’s imagination upon them. One imposes the nature of being a source of pleasure or pain on the object, then oneself becomes different towards that object in keeping with one’s imagination upon it. This is another form of mutual imposing of natures, another expression of the basic ignorance.

Ni-veśa, and thus abhi-ni-veśa, normally means entering into or clinging to in classical Sanskrit, where here it can mean clinging to life or self-preservation. However, yoga has a particular meaning for the word. The word can as well be taken from the old Ṛg-Veda meaning for the Sanskrit prefix ni with the verbal root viś, from which come the words ni-veśa and abhi-ni-veśa. That old meaning is to sink down, to vanish, to cease, hence the meaning death, and, as an affliction, the fear of death – the fear that one will not be there after the body dies. The misidentification of the time-free self with the body’s changes causes us to assume that the body should last forever and causes us to see our selves as mortal. We seem shocked and find it difficult to accept that this decay is happening to oneself.

Even scriptural scholars who believe in life after death of the body still show fear and non-acceptance of death. What the āgamas (scriptures) reveal is beyond scholarly information; it is knowledge that affords a reorientation in understanding of oneself and the world. Yoga is the means to assimilation of that knowledge.

The reality here is that it is the body that we see dying. The consciousness, the is-ness that is my self, which is manifest as my mind, is the witness of this change in the body. To assume that the one who is witnessing it is dying, is the same kind of misidentification we can experience watching a 3-D movie, ducking every now and then because of that misidentification. It is another expression of the fundamental ignorance. If that is resolved, then so are all these afflictions, because these afflictions are not based in objective reality. It is a clear case of knowledge alone being the solution. But it is a knowledge that requires thorough assimilation for its benefit to manifest in one’s life. The saṃskāras (subtle impressions in the mind) and the scars of an unexamined emotional life do not yield readily. They have ways of coming back that require vigilance and patience until knowledge is free of doubt and spontaneous.

Fear of death is the mother of all fears, and that is why it is included here as one of the afflictions. It is also taken up in the Bhagavad Gītā, when fear of inflicting death on members of his own family and clan impels Arjuna to seek from Kṛṣṇa the teaching that frees one from unwanted fear of death. Every living being shares the survival instinct. Perhaps we retain some memory of prior deaths and loss that conditions the present life. Perhaps there was pain involved that informs us now. Otherwise, it is difficult to account for this natural fear and behavior towards something we had not experienced before.

It is not a fear of the unknown, though that also may be there. Can one really believe that a mosquito avoids its death because of fear of the unknown? This tradition’s explanation is that the subtle body and mind carry forth from birth to birth the impressions (saṃskāras) related to fundamental self-ignorance which result in, among other things, a fear of death. In modern science, we may attribute it to instinctual mechanisms passed on through DNA. Either way, this fear results from subtle sources that come with birth. The various forms of the fear are lodged in the subtle recesses of the mind, and may be neutralized, according to this tradition, by better assimilation of this teaching. But fear itself is only eliminated by a fully ascertained knowledge that I am limitless in terms of time and the notion of duality is erroneous.

Fear is not because of a second thing. There is, in fact, no second thing in reality. Nevertheless, we seem to have fear. Fear is thinking something else limits me. A wise person has the whole world all around, but fears not. The world is a secondary reality that makes no difference in the wise person.

The subtle world is a part of the order in the universe we call the manifestation of the Lord. Science is also part of the manifestation of the order which is the Lord, and without that order there would be no mathematics or science.

Some may have issue with a Lord. The issue is really with their concept of a Lord. This teaching tries to invoke the most open and broad sense for the term Lord. Any concept that cannot stand inquiry, including inappropriate or inadequate concepts of a Lord, need to drop in the light of a fuller understanding.

There is an intelligent order that pervades the entire universe, which enforces e=mc², as well as allows that formulation’s understanding. So, one logically needs an all-pervasive term to capture that fact. This is what is attempted here with the term Lord. It is a term used in the context of a very important understanding of a universe that is both sentient and insentient, but in both cases is completely intelligent. This universe manifest to our senses and understanding has its complete being in this Lord alone. The proof of such a Lord is, then, everywhere around. Open your eyes and you are seeing the Lord. Close your eyes and there is the Lord. You yourself are this Lord, and the Lord is you. If your concept of the Lord is smaller than this, then this teaching is here to expand it.

These scriptures are there because of the human mind. These minds do not differ in their issues and problems. If generations after generations contribute their understanding of these issues, such as in a scripture that grew and was gathered over millenniums like the Vedas, and faithfully commented upon for millenniums afterwards, then, when you look into that, you will see the basic truths of your own mind. They all had to deal with death for millenniums. They have something to teach on this subject, and it could be more profound than one can imagine.

The kleśas (afflictions) arise from ignorance of reality, ignorance of the truth. Ignorance alone is their ground of being. When these afflictions are still just subtle thoughts, not broken out or in full bloom in one’s behavior, one only needs to see them as their source, as ignorance alone. By this, they easily resolve or dissolve themselves. No further counter action is required. This seeing their falsity can be employed anywhere and anytime, including in the seat of meditation. Basically, it is the application of objective, common sense to one’s afflictions. If their source in ignorance, in untruth, is not clearly seen continue your studies of this teaching with a competent teacher.

In contemplation, when these afflictions arise out of new and old saṃskāras, they are observed objectively, without identifying them as being associated with myself, and then let go without pursuing them, without being in-keeping with them, anuśayin (YS.2.7–8). Contemplation is a quiet, mental pursuit that allows these sub-conscious afflictions to bubble up and be clearly seen. But in contemplation one exercises the capacity to choose to not react to them by not identifying with them. This deliberate, contemplative attitude of objectivity carries over into one’s entire life, where it continues to counteract the afflictions. Contemplation requires prior inquiry (vicāra); this inquiry is brought into the contemplation in an abbreviated form. Inquiry into these afflictions exposes their erroneous nature. Seeing them as simply forms of ignorance, the afflictions are neutralized as being real impediments in life, so that one naturally can mature out of them.

It is said that only humans (or the equivalents to humans on other planets) can give rise to karma since it requires a faculty of choice, an intellect (buddhi). If a creature has no faculty of choice to guide its actions, as is the case with plants, insects, and other animals, then that creature has no resulting responsibility for those actions performed in that embodiment. These creatures have a mind (manas) that is controlled by instincts, and its own likes and dislikes which come with or are acquired in that birth. It is also said that subtle beings born into pleasant or unpleasant, purely subtle realms, such as a heaven, cannot accumulate new karma, since those embodiments, like other non-human physical embodiments, are only meant to exhaust certain karmas from an already existing karma-āśaya. The individual’s karma-āśaya is not somewhere in a heavenly vault; it is part of the individual’s subtle body (karaṇa-śarīra) that is with you right now in an unmanifest, potential form.

Only humans, or beings that are the equivalent to human in terms of having an intellect capable of making choices based on free-will and on the certitude of the judgment, “I am the doer,” “I am the experiencer,” and “I will reap the expected results of my actions,” can cause further births. Moreover, they alone can end their string of births through gaining knowledge of reality. That is also why the universe-manifestation cycles are beginningless. There always has to be the equivalent, or better, of humans for there to be the karmas for rebirths now and in the past. These universes are manifested in order to provide the variety of beings and variety of situations for exhaustion of these innumerable karmas.

This whole scheme of how the universe and its cycles are put together is, of course, a reflection of, and a discourse directed at the human mind, and itself is thus a reflection of the fundamental ignorance by which the human is born. The description of karma and rebirth is not of absolute reality. Instead, it is a means to understand the nature of conditional, dependent reality and of one’s experiences so that one can more easily understand and appreciate the teaching of the limitless reality that brings a mature freedom in one’s life.

Why is keeping these births going unpleasant when pleasures are also mixed in? Change always involves loss. All pleasures, as experiences, come at a loss in the form of what it took to get each pleasure, what else one missed in getting that, and the wear and tear on the body and mind in entertaining and holding on to that pleasure.

The word tāpa means heat or fever. In the context of these sūtras, tāpa means worry, the overactive mind anticipating pleasure, its intensity and duration, concerned about securing the pleasurable object from competitors, and finally apprehensive over when that possessed object and oneself will decline and parish. Pleasures intensify the attachment to objects and strengthen tendencies (saṃskāras) to pursue more pleasures. These new and strengthened desires lead to actions whose future results necessitate more births, along with their additional mixtures of pains in the process.

Objects of pleasure and the instruments we use to enjoy pleasure – the body, senses, and mind – are composed of the three guṇas. All objects exhibit all three guṇas. These three guṇas continually over-power each other throughout the day and one’s life. Candy creates cavities; ice-cream consumed too quickly creates headaches. Good food spoils. The tamas of old-age overpowers the agility (rajas) of youth. Pleasure (sattva) leads to exhaustion (tamas) which interferes with one’s activities (rajas). The urge to get busy (rajas) overcomes the sleepiness (tamas), and causes one to be distracted from the experience of pleasure (sattva). The fluctuation is endless. No one expression of a guṇa can remain in isolation, holding off other expressions.

Moreover, every thing is painful alone, since the only source of pleasure is one’s self. In fact, the self is not even the source; it is the pleasure. Everything else is a pale reflection of that pleasure, which, if we miss the satisfaction in one’s self, entices us to chase after that shadow, always leading us away from the real satisfaction. Hence they always tend towards dissatisfaction. Therefore, the discerning have an objective view towards all things. They see that all limitations are inextricably bound with pain, whereas the limitless self is free of all pain, and thus there is no reason for sorrow. When one’s self is not accepted as being in pain, then the pain belonging to the body can be endured without causing sorrow.

Those who discern are not more unhappy than the non-discerning, although some commentaries explain this sūtra in that way. But ignorance is not bliss. If it was then would you rather redo your choices in life knowing what you know now, or not?

It is not the case that this pursuit of freedom increases the experience of sorrow. Objectivity, matured by this teaching and its contemplation, is the avoidance of bondage towards irrational elation, and of bondage from irrational sorrow. Non-attachment (vairāgya) is not a pursuit to become passionless or to become more sad. In fact, there is a great passion for gaining the knowledge that frees. Non-attachment is to be more objective and factual towards the world, to see that the real passion and real pleasure in life has one’s self as its basis, its reality. This pleasure, this reality, does not wax and wane, cannot have a more or a less. One discovers this limitless reality as oneself that no longer requires attachment to situations that fit the mind’s subjective and flirtatious perspectives in order to become happy. This is what is being pointed out here.

We all live lives confused with regard to the ability of objects to give happiness until we are taught by those who actually discern the confusion and its cause. This discernment (viveka) is the essence of the yoga of Patañjali and of the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā where the discernment is explored and emphasized. It is taught that one’s self alone is the source of happiness never to be missed, and anything else is a shadow of this happiness. In fact, unhappiness, grief, is said there to be illegitimate, simply by clear reasoning, even without knowing oneself as independent from the body or the soul.

The yogin who is objectively rational and who knows himself or herself as completely independent from the objects of the world is the one with real śānti, real satisfaction and happiness in life, not otherwise. Turning away from once pleasurable things is indeed only possible, and real, to the extent that one has already discovered the pleasure that is one’s self. The Bhagavad Gītā clearly explains this.

Even the very next sūtra tells us that sorrow, unhappiness, is no longer to be entertained in the yogin’s life.

Future sorrow alone is what can be avoided. Obsession with past pain or sorrow, because it is past, is to be objectively dropped, and current pain is to be objectively endured. Saying future sorrows are to be given up (heya) can mean either they do not arise or, if and when they arise out of inattention (pramāda, YS.1.30), they can be dropped once the teaching is brought back in to bear on the painful situation.

Duḥkha can mean either pain or sorrow. Pain is different from sorrow. Physical pains are natural to the body. Mental preferences for avoidance of physical pains are likewise natural to the mind. What is unnatural, because it is due to ignorance that can be removed, is sorrow towards pains. To get to sorrow from pain requires a series of mistakes, a process of ignorance, which this teaching addresses. Pain and pleasure need not be removed; the mind’s habit of coveting and blaming objects for its own condition is where objectivity is advised.

Sorrow can be seen as understandable, but unnecessary, to an objective outsider. However, that objective outsider is anything but, when it comes to one’s own experiences. Having a scholarly understanding is not enough. The knowledge here is the knowledge of one’s very identity. This knowledge is thus completely transformative of one’s vision of one’s self and the world. By removing ignorance through this knowledge based on objectively and thoroughly understanding realities, one can avoid sorrow in the heart, but not pain. If the pain is acute, an environment that is more therapeutic may be needed to better address re-emerging pain, guilt, shame, and trauma.

The objects of the world are both hindering and helpful. They can keep you in bondage or help you out of bondage (YS.1.5). The attachment to the presence or absence of sense objects is what makes you feel as though you are bound. Believing that one is less or more whole as a result of the absence or presence of objects, associations, position, or influence is bondage and is ignorance. This teaching is also an object in the world, but it shows you how to convert what could bind, into what will liberate.

In each cycle of manifestation of the universe, the unmanifest prakṛti (nature), consisting of the undifferentiated guṇas, first manifests as intellect, the mind of God, so to speak, which is then said to contain the divisions cognized as the subtle and gross elements, each being five-fold in this human-authored description that is based on our five senses.

The universe is said to be entirely formed according to the evolution of prakṛti through the subtle and gross elements in keeping with the universal order (buddhi). The evolution is not one level of nature changing into another; it is the later levels manifesting due to the continuing presence of the earlier more basic levels of reality. The manifest does not replace the unmanifest; it manifests because of the presence of the unmanifest, because of the order in the universe, because of the Lord.

The elements have no independent reality. They and their manifestations are all nāma-rūpa (names and forms alone). They are all of the nature of names flowing from intellect. At the end of each cycle of manifestation they flow back into their unmanifest nature (prakṛti). All this happens in the unlimited being-awareness (sat-cit) that is the Lord and that is oneself.

The analogy at the individual level is that of one’s universe springing out from and returning back into the ignorance of deep sleep. It is the intellect that awakens. As the intellect thinks so one’s universe seems and so one’s conditional sense of reality is. And then the intellect resolves into unmanifest in sleep. Even at the universal level, this teaching’s presentation of the cycles of manifestation of the universe is itself only more names employed in the teaching to help reveal that, just as in waking and sleep, this cycle of manifestation and dissolution of the universe is still no more than the cyclic flow of names and forms.

When the intellect has the abiding knowledge that there is only one reality, and from this one reality, which is oneself, nothing else separate from reality can possibly come into or go out of being, then there is no cycle. The cycle of creation simply falls, as a name (nāmadheya), from the tip of the tongue. The universe is spun from the mind in the form of words, lit up by the witness-being which alone is their reality.

This is the only sūtra dealing with the evolution of the universe. The sūtra is in keeping with the scripture and thus with Vedānta and its analysis of the Upaniṣads.

The nature of the seer has been presented and discussed in the context of earlier sūtras, where it had to be introduced to fully comprehend the sūtras up to this point. This sūtra clearly states Patañjali’s adherence to the scriptures as we have been unfolding them in the context of these sūtras. This sūtra emphasizes the undifferentiated nature of the seer. The seer, unlike the universe and all the entities within it, is partless. In fact, the seer is the very partless reality of the universe and all within it, including the individual, yourself.

Later, Patañjali and this commentary will discuss in detail the nature of thought, the seer, and knowledge in sūtras 4.18–24.

The seen has no more reality than its phenomenological experience, which is why it is always temporary. The example of dream and deep sleep comprehensively illustrates this point. Just because we see something does not determine the seen’s independent existence. We see in dream, yet the dream objects have no independent existence. When we move from dream back into deep sleep those supposedly independent dream objects lose all their independent reality. They disappear. The same can be said for the waking world objects. They too are temporary within the time they appear. The only existence any seen object has is just its nature of being seen. That nature of being seen is no more than being within awareness, the nature of the seer.

A seen object is then nothing more than its nature of being a seen object. It does not in fact exist as an equal reality independent of the seer (draṣṭṛ). It is nothing more than a form (rūpa) perceived and a corresponding name (nāma) ascribed. Objects, including thoughts, have this transient, relative (vyāvahārika) existence. Their reality is attributed to them only in as much as they become, or can become, known. These objects do not exist in and of themselves. This understanding is consistent with the principles of quantum physics which say that the scientific manner in which you examine and measure an object determines what you will find to be that object.

An example of an object seen is a table. Now, there is no such absolute thing as a table that the eyes see. The eyes see something, but only the human mind has the form and gives the name ‘table’ or the various equivalents in other languages. A bug’s eyes certainly do not see a table; they may see something to fly around or something to climb upon to find food. At the atomic-scale, in what way would an electron experience, so to speak, this so-called table? Would not what it encounters be really an atomic field, not at all resembling a table?

If one inquires into the table, then its absoluteness disappears. The absoluteness as a table object disappears when it is known that it is but wood. The absoluteness as a wood object disappears when resolved into cellulose fibers. Cellulose fibers resolve into molecules. Molecules resolve, when they are better known, into atoms, then into particles, and those into packets of variously vibrating energy in dimensions of space. These appreciations of various energies within dimensions of space are all notions within the awareness of the scientist. Where did the table go? It is still there as a name ascribed to a phenomenological experience.

This more complete understanding of objects seen is incorporated in the process of sub-ration (see comm. on YS.3.44) of very temporal and contingent realities to their more permanent and universal reality.

In fact, none of these so-called objects need disappear to appreciate the partless, universal reality. At the same time I am seeing table, I also see wood, know fibers, molecules, atoms, and etcetera. While seeing table, I can transcend table and see wood. While seeing wood, I can transcend wood and see fibers, and so on. What one sees is not really an independently existing object, but rather one sees (with the mind) only the name which we have attributed to the experience. What disappears is my assumption that any of the object/name is absolutely real. What is absolute is reality itself. The names and forms – as the objects, the senses, and the mind – are relative perspectives of reality itself. These names and forms exist only as appearances within the awareness of the witness, in oneself alone.

Prakṛti, unmanifest nature, which is the source of the perceived objects, can enjoy no greater degree of reality than the observed objects. Sāṅkhya claims prakṛti to be as equally real as puruṣa, the reality that is oneself. But Patañjali has not given equal status to prakṛti. Prakṛti is a concept and a reality only so far as one ascribes to the Sāṅkhya philosophy. Whereas, puruṣa (oneself) is universally never unknown or unknowable, and is independent of any seen object or collection of objects or their unmanifest aspect.

Again the clear illustration is deep sleep, where all objects along with their supposed absoluteness disappear, yet I must be there in order for me to later recall the absence of any separate experience during that time. The puruṣa alone is the timeless reality to be discovered, and it alone is the goal of Patañjali’s yoga. It is reached, so to speak, by a knowledge (the knowledge alone is the reaching) that is free of erroneous thinking and incomplete philosophies. There is no new, special thing to know; there is only acknowledgement that the seen has not, nor ever had, the reality one had believed.

The seen’s status as an objective (vyāvahārika) reality is based on its commonality to multiple seers (grahītṛs). When it does not have that commonality and there is only one person seeing it, then it could be an imaginary (prātibhāsika) reality.

Though objects are known to exist when they are seen by a person and not known to exist when they are not seen by a person, this status of objects does not lead to pure subjectivism – that objects are only their independent perceptions. Since a commonality (YS.4.14–15) of an object is also something that can be known.

This teaching accepts that a name and form can have commonality for multiple seers. Now, one seer’s version of the form of an object is not exactly the same as another seer’s, and no form is the same the next time you see it. But the fact that there are certain commonalities of these names and forms determines their objective (vyāvahārika) reality, as opposed to an imaginary (prātibhāsika) reality. That commonality itself is a name and form having an objective reality. Commonality is, like any other object, not absolutely real. Only existence-consciousness, the truth of the universe and you, is absolutely real.

The word ‘others’ (anyas) here does not mean that there absolutely are multiple puruṣas. An individual seer (grahītṛ), which itself is a product of ignorance in the form of a mutual identification of the subject and an object (the act of seeing), enjoys the same non-absolute reality as the seen (grāhya). An individual seer is just another concept in the mind. This concept comes and goes; it is relative and impermanent, not absolute.

Nor can the reality of a quality of many-ness for the puruṣa, as the pure witness, be established (siddha) by a conjunction of seer-seen which is a product of ignorance, as will be told in the next two sūtras. In other words, one cannot establish a truth by reason of a fabrication. When witnessing, as an attribute of the attribute-less puruṣa, is only as if, then any opinion based on this as if assumption, namely, since there are many witnessings then there must be many puruṣas – is also as if.

Moreover, this sūtra points out an even more profound fact. Namely, the same object can exist for certain people and not exist for others. And this not existing for others is not due to them not looking, but rather to them knowing a fact about the object that makes that object lose its supposed reality. To the others, to the unwise, the object is taken as absolutely (pāramārthika) real. Whereas, for one who has achieved the knowledge (prajñā) that is kaivalya (complete freedom), the same object is taken as only objectively (vyāvahārika) real – as transient and relative. Once one distinguishes pāramārthika (absolute) reality from vyāvahārika (transactional) reality, then this less-real world of phenomenon becomes what is meant by vyāvahārika, the transactional reality that is now understood as being only apparently-real (mithyā), not as real as oneself who is pāramārthika.

Before knowledge, we confuse the relatively real (the ego, mind, body, and objects) with the absolute (the being-consciousness that is oneself and all of reality). We falsely believe that all that we desire should last forever and what we do not want should never be. We falsely believe we are born and die, when it is but the objects including this body that come and go within the unchanging awareness that is oneself, that is reality. Only the wise see in general the relative reality as it really is. The otherwise see a confusing reality that they think is absolute – which goes against reason and ultimate knowledge.

In the snake-rope example, two people are looking at the same object. The one with knowledge sees a rope and has no fear; the other without knowledge sees a snake and has fear. This means that in error one does not see what is there and can project out of the fears in one’s mind what one believes is there. The one who has knowledge, upon first glance at the rope, originally also thought it was a snake, but after careful analysis with the light of a proper means of knowledge discovered it was really a rope. For that person, the snake is lost (naṣṭa), but, more importantly to that person, the basis for the fear vanishes. One can still see how the mistaken rope could appear as a snake, but that correction nevertheless frees one from the fear of a snake there. This is freedom (kaivalya) from one’s baseless fears. The snake is apparently-real (mithyā), and so now the basis for the fear is mithyā.

The same relationship that exists between imaginary (prātibhāsika) reality and objective (vyāvahārika) reality, for example, the snake and the rope, also exists between objective (vyāvahārika) reality and absolute (pāramārthika) reality – the world and I (ātman), respectively. Both the imaginary (prātibhāsika) world and the phenomenal (vyāvahārika) world seem absolutely real only when they are believed to be so. In the wake of more complete knowledge, both are only mithyā (apparently-real). The unwise and the wise see the same object, but their understanding of realities is vastly different. The unwise is limited and thus bound by the seen; the other is not. As a result, for the unwise, the objects as possessions become necessities they are bound to; for the wise, they are simply luxuries – life is seen as a luxury.

The term mithyā when translated as false or imaginary or illusion has confused many. The word mithyā is a later form of the Veda word mithunā, meaning conflictingly, wrongly, falsely. Properly used, mithyā is an adverb describing how we take an object, how we know it. When we take an object falsely, that is mithyā.

The statement, “The world is mithyā (jagan mithyā),” does not mean the world is false, imaginary, or useless. It means the world is taken, is understood, falsely. In this tradition, the world – or anything in the world – cannot be an object distinct from the absolute reality that is oneself, distinct from ātman, from sat (reality). There is already fundamental ignorance that keeps one from the factual, absolute reality nature of objects, in which case there would be mithyā, the taking of it as otherwise than what it is, along with that confusion reoccurring and cascading variously about everything throughout one’s life.

Even what we call knowledge about the world, such as, “Today is hot,” is only relatively true from a limited perspective – hot for a human compared to that same person’s memories of the past or expectations of the future temperatures at this location. That kind of knowledge has a practicality and usefulness; it is not absolutely and universally true. From the essential truth of everything and of oneself, even that knowledge is mithyā. Mithyā is an inevitable expression of one’s fundamental ignorance.

The verbal root of the words mithyā and mithunā is mith, meaning to associate, to mix. Mithyā is mixing up one thing for another, which is what Patañjali has described as ignorance (YS.2.5 & 1.18).

The wise who say “the world is mithyā” do not mean they are mixed up about the world. For them the world is none other than themselves – the one, indivisible, and sacred reality. The wise mean the world once was mithyā for them and is mithyā for the majority who take objects as other and as absolutely real, and who take themselves to thus be limited or bound by those objects.

Patañjali points out that all objects (dṛśyas) are to be seen in terms of mithyā (falsely taken as being absolutely real). Every thing that has conditional, dependent reality is not of the same order of reality as absolute reality, as oneself. The status of absolute (pāramārthika) reality that an individual ascribes to objects out of ignorance is now lost. Objects enjoy conditional existence as name and form and are available for transaction (vyāvahāra), but they are entirely dependent upon the reality that is the self. The objects are dṛśyam eva (simply the seen), not reality as real as oneself.

The seen (dṛśya) is capable of being dismissed in thought, dismissed in samādhi, and permanently dismissed as absolute reality in knowledge, dismissed as mithyā. What is capable of being dismissed defines the dismissed as less real than what dismisses it (see the commentary on Yoga Sūtra 1.3). What is not dismissed in thought, contemplation, or knowledge is oneself (puruṣa), the being that alone remains real.

The pursuits and skills of yoga are themselves part of the vyāvahārika world. Yoga starts with inculcating an understanding of the absolute reality (initially as the reality of the limitless Lord) behind all this transactional life we lead. From there, we can loosen the grip of our mistaken identities with our limited and limiting thoughts in the mind. They are all a part of the universal order called the Lord, and are not my personal possessions or identity. Then one can begin to appreciate that I am this reality that is the Lord, in which all thoughts and objects come and go.

This is not wishful thinking, or a simple positive attitude. It is a disciplined analysis and immersion in the realities of how I see myself and how I deal with an overwhelming large and complex world. The techniques have worked to free those who have gone before. As a student of this yoga, one starts with the following understanding.

This allows one’s objectivity to be complete. This truly objective perspective helps heal the sorrows retained from the past that are based on absolutely identifying with the painful projections of my perspective of events and people. It provides a buffer from present pains to help keep them from becoming sorrows. This objectivity culminates in a clear absolute knowledge of life, where even this transactional universe has no more power to limit me than a dream can affect the one who awakens from dream. Life, like the dream upon waking, can surprise and pain me. But it has not the power it had, once I know it for what it is. This universe is not absolutely real as I had once thought. It has lost (naṣṭa) its power, its reality, to define me. I am the reality, who alone validates the reality this transactional reality can enjoy. The world is no different than before, but how I more wisely take the world has changed. This is true wisdom that frees.

This is the full vision, and for Patañjali to point this out here among sūtras meant for explaining the nature of the self and of objects clearly places him outside of the later Sāṅkhya philosophy of Īśvara-kṛṣṇa, where duality is taken as real. These sūtras naturally fall within the teaching of the sacred scriptures of India, within the field of the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā, where Patañjali clearly placed them. The sūtras understood in that field, in the field of knowledge, not of a sectarian philosophy, are where these words are pregnant with a depth of meaning and clarity, with tradition and certainty.

Without the knowledge of reality, I have a notion of a separate, real object or thought only when I perceive or think of it; and I entertain a notion, a wrong notion, of myself as a separate, individual witnessor only when I see or think of an object or thought. Like pot-space, as though separate from limitless space, appears to come into existence when a pot is formed, so an individual, limited seer appears to come into existence when a thought is formed.

But an independently existing, absolutely real pot-space is not really created when a pot is formed. It is in fact only as if, but becomes a definite mistake if taken as absolutely real. So too, I (ātman), the witness-being, am not really created when a thought is formed. A pot comes and goes within limitless space without affecting space in the least; a thought comes and goes within the witness-being without affecting or limiting the witness-being in the least. This is the truth. If thought does seem to affect you, then that notion, an ego notion, of oneself being affected is itself just another thought, the same as any other thought. These notions that thoughts actually affect the witness of the thoughts are themselves thoughts, ignorant of their mixing up of realities.

Because one thinks the self is like this or that thought, does not make it so. We need a pramāṇa (a valid means of knowledge) to help us see that the self and the thoughts are not in interrelationship, not in conjunction (saṃyoga). The self is the unchanging witness and reality of the thoughts. If one imagines the self is changing while seeing the thought, that imagined self is only a notion, a thought, about the self. The self witnesses that notion also, but does not change (YS.4.22). Even in confusion one remains the changeless, limitless witness-being (sat-cit). This is what the scripture and this teaching says. Continue listening (śravaṇa) to this teaching pramāṇa while living a life of yoga and contemplation; the truth of this teaching will be one’s own truth.

We see now why one has to include the phrase “as if” or “as though” in Yoga Sūtra 2.20. By doing so, the connection between seer (draṣṭṛ) and thought/object is clarified. The limitless self, which has no attributes, cannot be an object, nor even a thought, which is within the realm of words. Every statement about it is an as if. The best one can think about the self is what it is not – neti-neti (not this – not that), since we have so many wrong conclusions about ourselves. Because the one who negates is oneself, then this negation ends in reality, your reality free of its seeming limitations, where you have always been.

Negation is one technique within the teaching methodology. Another technique involves using words with a positive sense, such as satya (reality) and jñāna (knowledge). The understood meanings of these words are used as the basis to expand their sense and indicate the affirmative, inexplicable whole. Some negation is used to free these positive words of the limitations they connote within space, time, and the dualist separation of knower and known. Both negation and expansion of meaning are used to point out the nature of oneself as limitless reality (an-antam brahman), pure perception (jñapti-svarūpa), the witness-being. This reality is the changeless reality of all notions and objects, the inherent reality of the universe in and between every cycle of its manifestation.

Patañjali makes very clear here what is meant by freedom (kaivalya). It is not the disappearance of objects, the disappearance of the world. Freedom is the appreciation of the absence of any conjunction (saṃyoga) of the self with objects, the confusion of mixing the nature of the object with the nature of oneself, which confusion is a form of ignorance (a-vidyā). Once ignorance disappears, is removed, then confusions of ignorance also disappear. There is no reasonable way to interpret the words of this sūtra as a statement that Patañjali advises making the worldly objects disappear.

Kaivalya means being one, non-dual (kevalaḥ ekaḥ bhāvaḥ), which also means the nature of being pure, without non-intrinsic attributes (kevalasya śuddhasya upādhi-rahitasya bhāvaḥ). One is no longer seen as limited by some one thing or notion. This entire universe is but oneself, one non-dual, indivisible whole. This alone is known as complete freedom – not to be mistaken for isolation from the world.

The disappearance is of the ignorance, not of the objects of the world, because what distinguishes the wise from the unwise is simply their knowledge. It is like a child looking at a rock, and a physicist looking at the same rock. The child simply sees what is before its eyes, the physicist sees the rock and knows it is not completely solid, but consists of mass-less packets of energy in mostly empty space, more information than matter. The physicist knows the rock is simply a temporary, massive phenomenal presentation to the human’s senses, but its basic component reality is altogether something else. The phenomenal reality is less real and less amazing than its underlying component reality. But if the rock comes flying his or her way, like the child, the physicist ducks. That much practical reality it has. The physicist does not stop seeing the rock simply as a rock, nor does he or she have to stop perceiving the rock to clearly know its underlying component reality. Similarly here, the yogins know the practical reality of the rock and the absolute reality as themselves in which this rock phenomenally appears, and that it is time to duck.

Sāṅkhya-Yogins, on the other hand, seek to dismiss the objects of the world in kaivalya, even though believing the objects, as prakṛti (nature), are as equally real as themselves. It is as if they are simply closing their eyes in the face of the approaching rock. Their contradiction looms large. This is because of a mechanical interpretation of kaivalya, instead of the knowledge-based kaivalya which Patañjali clearly indicates (YS.4.25–34). Knowledge cannot dismiss what is practically real; it can only dismiss ignorance. Along with that ignorance goes the confusions based on that ignorance, including the belief in the absolute nature of what is only practically real. In fact, knowledge is what discerns the practicality of objects as well.

The freedom of the self is not some new condition of the self gained or accomplished by meditation or any other activity, nor is it the loss of the ability of the senses and the mind to behold their objects. It is merely the loss (a-bhāva) of what cannot withstand inquiry. Freedom is already the nature of the seer. Living one’s life practically in this world with this assimilated knowledge is living in freedom. Then only can we have wise people who may be teachers for the otherwise. The necessity of having a teacher, and hence the necessity of that teacher being liberated even while living, is pointed out often in the scriptures.

Again, Patañjali points out that the ignorance in the form of mutual identification (saṃyoga, YS.2.17) goes away only by knowledge, not by some mechanical, karma stopping of the mind in samādhi. This knowledge has to be a-viplava, one that does not go astray – not float away or get inundated by life’s situations. This is what we have been stating to be a fully assimilated knowledge, not some new information or philosophy about the self and the world that one remembers, can forget, or be distracted from.

The seven-fold nature of the final, assimilated knowledge is not explained in this or the following sūtras. We could assume that there are some missing sūtras, since Patañjali has certainly given a consistent and thorough presentation. The commentators have assumed the task of delineating the seven aspects of this knowledge, and not with convincing success. Vyāsa’s commentary attempt, which everyone seems to follow, looks more related to the various steps one takes to get to this knowledge, than the nature of the final stage itself.

Many of the ancient texts were fixed and essentially frozen by their commentaries. These commentaries established a final form that was thereafter maintained. In the case of the Yoga Sūtras, the commentaries, which became popular by quirk of history (perhaps simply due to the famous names [or titles] of two of those authors – Vyāsa and Śaṅkara – not likely the same as the famous Veda-Vyāsa and Ādi-Śaṅkara) and thus passed down to us, were the Sāṅkhya influenced commentaries. If they skipped over or dropped sūtras that were missing in their original or which contradicted their own views and might have been themselves thought to have been corruptions or incorrect additions, those sūtras would be lost. Certainly the content of the missing sūtra or sūtras that would have detailed this seven-fold nature of knowledge is a significant elision.

A better and benign way of looking at this sūtra, though, is to see this as part of Vyāsa’s commentary being later confused as a sūtra in Patañjali’s work. These texts and commentaries were maintained as recopied, edge-to-edge lines of Sanskrit on stacks of palm leaves, not the highly formatted, multi-font texts we have nowadays. There are other possible examples of this mixing up of original with commentary in Patañjali’s Yoga-Sūtra text. This sūtra and Vyāsa’s filling in the answer are all just part of Vyāsa’s commentary, and is not a sūtra in Patañjali’s work. So nothing of Patañjali is lost at all, and that is why there is no follow up sūtra needed to explain the seven-fold nature of this knowledge.

I’ve not seen anyone else suggest this, but it seems a possibility. Other translators in different places suggest that one or more sūtras have crept in from the surrounding commentary, though usually on the clue that those sūtras are missing in some of the existent manuscripts. Not attempting a textual exegesis, that manuscript claim is not being made here.

Alternatively, the seven stages here perhaps introduce the following eight limbs of yoga, where the first two limbs, yama-niyama, are combined into the first of the seven stages, both being the initial stage of karma-yoga. The next sūtra shows how these limbs may be looked upon as prajñā, knowledge, in that they lead to knowledge.

Patañjali does not say that these eight limbs, which include samādhi, create new knowledge. They only remove the impurities that inhibit knowledge. We will discover more about the nature of knowledge in the last (the fourth) pāda (chapter) of these sūtras. Now Patañjali explains the eight limbs of yoga.

The limbs of yoga are effective as a full lifestyle. They are much less effective as part-time (YS.1.13–14). They are explained in order in the following thirty four sūtras, stretching into what the commentaries divide as the third chapter to sūtra 3.8. The pairs, yama-niyama and dhāraṇā-dhyāna, are of special note. Yama-niyama is the basic life of the karma-yogin. Dhāraṇā-dhyāna is the basic life of the jñāna-yogin. These are the two lifestyles discussed in the Bhagavad Gītā. They are essentially the same. That is, both avoid what hinders and observe what helps. The yama-niyama pair is more in regard to one’s activities and attitudes in life, the dhāraṇā-dhyāna pair is more in regard to the quite life of contemplation. This is why both lifestyles are said in the Bhagavad Gītā to be conducive to freedom.

Each of these yamas will be discussed in later sūtras. First, though, is an explanation of the translation of certain of these yamas. A-steya is rendered as non-usurping. This is a rather old terminology, but so is this text. Though the popular meaning is not stealing (steya), as a part of karma-yoga that popular meaning stands out in this list as not needing to be said. Of course one should not behave like a criminal! The deeper meaning is through pairing it with a-parigraha (renunciation of what is given). A-steya, then, is not confiscating what is not given. This is an avoidance of both the act and the attitude of usurping. A-steya is then a satisfaction that what little I have is enough. This is maturity, not just an avoidance of criminal behavior.

In a Victorian way, brahma-carya is often equated with chastity, sexual abstinence. This can and should be a component in a full-time student’s life (particularly as a student from the age of twelve to twenty-four, while living in the teacher’s house!), but the total dedication to this study is so much more than avoidance of unnecessary or inappropriate sex. Traditionally, the term brahma in brahma-carya means the Veda (brahman, scripture). So it meant Veda studies, the life of a scriptural student. Over time and with secular intensions, the expression took on the pre-marital status that a young student was to have. It was only after finishing studies that one was qualified to get married. Until then, one was to remain chaste. The interpretation of brahma-carya as simply chastity is a result of a more and more secular society giving greater weight to the status of marriage than the status of scriptural studies. Moreover, the secular side of modern yoga does not want to promote scriptural studies as part of kriyā-yoga, or as one of the yamas.

A-parigraha (renunciation) of the entire universe is sannyāsa. This renunciation is cognitive, born out of an understanding of reality. A life of sannyāsa encompasses a life of yamas and niyamas. See the Bhagavad Gītā for a complete unfoldment of what constitutes sannyāsa. Only indirectly is sannyāsa defined in terms of a stage in one’s life, like a retirement from competitive society for study and contemplation. Sannyāsa and its less formal equivalent vāna-prasthya (retirement in the forest) lifestyles are well known and accepted stages in the lives of people within the Indian culture.

A more general interpretation of this sūtra, but one that is less likely to be what Patañjali intended, is – [The yamas as virtues] are applicable universally, not limited by [one’s own] social status, location, time, or circumstance, and (would be) a great vow [for anyone who could more fully live in accordance with these virtues].

Together, the yamas and niyamas cover what is expressed in the Bhagavad Gītā as living in keeping with dharma (the universal physical and psychological order in nature). Acting against the universal order – against the natural forces in nature, objective justice, and universal values – is acting against dharma. The yamas and niyamas essentially help connect the individual to the whole, helping the individual to be a better participant in the natural cosmic order.

Patañjali does not take advantage of this understanding. He describes instead how they personally advantage the individual. The same also happens in the third chapter, where Patañjali offers many contemplations ostensibly for gaining superpowers. The values incorporated in these yamas and niyamas may be better understood by referring to their explanation in the Bhagavad Gītā and Śaṅkara’s commentary thereon. Within the limits of these sūtras, this commentary will attempt to bring in a sense of the cosmic order perspective in regard to these values, and to the contemplations in the third chapter.

As in Yoga Sūtra 2.10, this practice here is to see the illogical and false nature of any hindrance as being in fact a hindrance to the truth. Until I am convinced that what I am doing results in the opposite of what I need and want, that ill behavior will remain uninhibited. I may stop doing it for a while. But, having not thought out the nature of that activity and its results, it can unconsciously return back in my life.

Here, the word vitarka is not used in its general sense of reasoning as in sūtra 1.17. Instead, the prefix vi in vi-tarka has the sense of vaiparītya (the reverse of) tarka (logic). This means vi-tarka has the sense of illogic, for which prati-pakṣa-bhāvana (contemplating the contradiction) is required to counteract that illogic, that wrong thinking.

Wrong thinking, even a moral mistake, as is noted in the next sūtra, is seen to be illogical. Within this tradition dharma, the just and right thing to do, will always be the logical thing to do. The most logical will be what takes into account not only what seems best for me, but also best for others, best for the community, best for everyone’s spiritual well being, and best for our shared environment. If all this is considered in one’s deliberation, then such logic will be in keeping with dharma, the most supportive for everyone.

The West tends to view logic as cold and misleading when it comes to doing what’s right. That is often true only because of an out of balance importance to what is me-and-mine. Fixing the me-and-mine balance, reducing the over importance of the individual and of what’s in it for me in relationship to everything else in life, will fix both logic and our emotional heart. Within this balance, treating others as you would want others to treat you is logical, not just a commandment.

If I am just commanded not to do something, I can easily disobey out of a sense of me-and-mine. If I understand it is wrong because it is illogical and not in my interest, then I will be disobeying myself by doing it. That is a more intelligent and powerful argument.

Violence toward another is often an attempt to control. The best approach towards this felt need to control another is to address that felt need within oneself, where a degree of control is more likely to succeed now and be yours later to have in relating to others. A matured non-violent understanding, attitude, and behavior toward others help evoke the same from others towards oneself. It does not always thwart hostility from some, but from some people there may be nothing more effective in the long run.

Along with this non-violent understanding, attitude, and behavior towards others is an equal directing of these towards oneself. Attending to non-violence towards one’s own body and mind, such as clearly knowing their capabilities and not chasing after what they do not really need, will help protect them and keep them from having to need so much protection. Additionally, attending to non-violence towards one’s own body and mind encompasses defending and protecting one’s own body and mind from others, when required. A-hiṃsā as a paramount value and a comprehensive skill is both logical and in keeping with dharma.

An even deeper meaning for a-hiṃsā is the understanding that the one behind these eyes of mine is the very one behind all other eyes. Ātman (the self) is one and the same in all embodiments, in all life-forms. To hurt another is genuinely to hurt oneself.

This understanding and behavior is saintly. There is no more miraculous change than to change one’s own attitudes for the better.

A karma-phala (result of action) requires the willful, conscious power of a doer performing the action and desiring to gain its hoped for reward in order for the eventual result (karma-phala) to be stored in the individual doer’s karma account, and to be enjoyed or bemoaned later, even in succeeding births. An action without this will power, for example, purely accidental, yet not out of carelessness, will not create a lasting karma-phala accrued in one’s karma account for later fruition, though there will be an immediate result of action out of simple cause and effect. One’s head will hurt if it is accidentally bumped, but a residual karma to rebound later is not generated.

We have a will, but its power is variable depending upon how informed and clear each choice is. The less informed and clear our choice, the weaker the will power in that choice, as well the power of the karma result to accrue in keeping with our intention.

An informed, conscious, willful choice is not there (or is not fully developed) for very young children and other creatures lacking a fully functioning facility of choice, a buddhi (intellect). They act and react mostly instinctually from their manas (faculty of notion and doubt, saṅkalpa-vikalpa). We mistakenly think children are willful when they are being adamantine in their cravings of the moment. A craving is not a willful choice; it is itself a result, not a chosen action.

In the karma model, innocent children and animals cannot create new karma-phalas. A lioness will not have to reap the karma result of killing, no matter how horrific it may seem to us. The activity itself, of course, has a result. For every action there will be a reaction. The action of the lioness will result in the death of the prey, but there is no willful mental action beyond just the intelligence to acquire food for survival, right now.

Action is either physical (bodily or vocally) or mental. In willful actions, we are talking of a subtle karma result of the action of the mind – not of a physical action itself and its result. This action of the mind is an action of the willful choice by a mature human.

Satya (truthfulness to ourselves and others) will better inform our not-so-blind actions. Truthfulness will guide our actions to do the most benefit for ourselves in the short and long term, and least harm to others. The more clarity in the intelligence behind our choices and the more pure our will power, uncompromised by our self-serving desires or fears, then the more power behind the fruition of a truly beneficial result.

This willful power of a human is strengthened when the doer aligns thought, word, and deed in a truthful straight line, in other words, when there is integrity. This power, generated through all three actions of thought, word, and deed will sustain the karma-phala and presumably keep that result more on the top, so that it is retrieved more quickly. Any dilution or pollution of this power through these three sources of action will weaken and delay the fruition of the result, which may as well be harmful or less helpful when inadequate or inappropriate thinking is involved.

When one appreciates everything as the precious glories (vibhūtis) of the Lord, of the total, to be enjoyed freely wherever they are and in whosever temporary possession they are in, then the need to personally possess a few simply drops away. This helps the mind settle and be available for what is really essential in life, including and especially for this teaching.

When this pursuit becomes the only pursuit, the power and tenacity in that inquiry will overcome all obstacles to understanding the scripture.

In cognitive-based renunciation, one comes to clearly understand that unwarranted desire, a sense of lack and inadequacy in oneself, leads to further re-birth, and that knowledge of the self, which possesses nothing yet is everything, removes the ignorance which is the source of desire and re-birth.

There is no basis found in this sūtra to say that the tradition holds a value for discovering or exploring past life experiences, as some claim. If renunciation is the value here, then it would naturally include the renunciation of a me-and-mine notion in those past life experiences too. There is no purpose in renunciation to go there. Nevertheless, there are many commentators and authors who would like to take the student in that direction. The current life holds more than enough to come to the freedom that these sūtras unfold. The karma setup here is that the individual’s mind is wiped of the details of the previous life’s memories, allowing a fresh, clean start to get it right this time. This mind, after many years, has brought you to this teaching, so why regress back into what happened in your past? It may distract you, and this opportunity for the teaching may be missed.

The objective attributes of the body are, of course, what they are. But when the mind also labels these as alluring or repulsive due to the ignorance of mutual identification, namely, “This improves or ruins me,” then this subjectivity needs to be balanced. If one extreme is seen then the other extreme cannot be far away, since an opposite does not exist without its contrary. Moreover, once the subjective nature of the labeling is better appreciated, then the allurement and repulsion is properly placed in one’s mind instead of in the object. This balance and understanding towards one’s own body is easily applicable to the bodies of others too.

This technique of prati-pakṣa-bhāvana (contemplating the contradiction) is useful here. We are not trying to develop a repulsion or disgust with the body or with other bodies. This and all other bodies are glories of the Lord. But, if one is nagged by emotions towards others, they can effectively be jolted back into balance by a one-time realignment, as and when necessary. This is the repulse (an instance of being driven away) regarding the least agreeable aspects of this body being surely present in that other, otherwise alluring, body also.

This is a preliminary discipline to counter-balance the extremes of attachment, so that one can get to a more objective center, from which to progress altogether out of attachment in all its forms, positive and negative, to arrive at an acceptance of all that one sees. But this is an objective acceptance, not a blind acceptance. If something needs fixing, and it is within my means to fix, then cleanliness (śauca) does not stop. It proceeds without attachment.

When the mind attains clarity, the nature of the limitless fullness of oneself, which is the teaching of this tradition, is unimpeded. This is through a discerning knowledge that I am full and complete, untainted by the limitations of the mind and body since, as their witness, I cannot be them, yet they cannot be without me since I am the existence they enjoy.

The body and senses also are allowed to be all they can be, not hindered by an undisciplined and doubting mind and by a weakness of will-power, which erect barriers that are not there. The tapas listed in the Bhagavad Gītā verses 17.14–17 quoted under sūtra 2.1 clearly are reasonable and effective disciplines that directly address the weaknesses the mind may have in assimilating this teaching.

Tapas is sometimes confused with torturing the body or mind. Stories of exaggerated self-torture in local tales get passed down and spread by otherwise well-meaning people – thinking they may be inspiring others, but are more likely discouraging. Self-torture is not what reasonable people would want to do unto themselves, or want others to do unto themselves. Self-violence cannot be the intention or the practice of tapas, since this runs exactly counter to a-hiṃsā (non-violence). One cannot observe both at the same time. Patañjali neither introduces nor suggests any torturous practices in his sūtras.

Self-violence is disrespect for the Lord’s creation, for the temple of the ātman. All these disciplines are to be imbued with satya (truthfulness) and a-hiṃsā (non-violence), the two pillars of all values. A yogin undertakes certain practices because they are the more intelligent to perform. It may be like a medicine that could be unpleasant, though it is corrective. But if the corrective is more destructive than the problem, then such cures should be avoided or dropped. The body and senses cannot attain their success if they are distorted or destroyed in the practice of tapas.

One can gain enough of an understanding of limitless reality, of the Lord, so one can proceed to contemplate upon that Lord. One’s worshiped Lord (iṣṭa-devatā) may be just an aspect of the Lord. Any and all of the forces in nature can be looked upon as devatās (deities). A devatā is a manifestation of the Lord, so the Lord can be invoked in that particular form. Recognition of the Lord’s awareful presence in the sacred waters of Gaṅgā, in a temple stone carving, or in the embodiment of Lord Kṛṣṇa, is similar to gaining another’s attention by just touching their hand, instead of having to touch their entire body. This is why the term devatā (deity) was used here. It can have this limited sense, unlike the term Īśvara (Lord) used in sūtra 1.24, that rarely has a limited sense.

The term devatā (deity) here can be extended to nearly all the various descriptions of the gods and goddesses of any and all cultures.

A limited form of the Lord does not limit the Lord itself. Even the worshipers of the gods and goddesses of any and all cultures really worship in their heart, knowingly or unknowingly, the limitless Lord. Though they may be temporarily confused into believing their own version of the Lord is the limitless, since a distinct version or perspective of anything, even of the Lord, can only be something that is limited.

In fact, no one really worships a form, such as an element of nature, the sun, a stone-carving, or a historical person, but only what that form stands for, what it means, what it is a manifestation of. No one keeps staring at their glasses on their nose, but uses them to clearly focus beyond them. The iṣṭa-devatā is the lens adopted to appreciate the formless, limitless reality, called the Lord.

To grow up with such spiritual study and enjoying the presence and support of a personal and family deity is the norm in Veda inspired India. Few Westerners have experienced this quality of interaction with an ever-present and loving deity. The devotee grows up knowing that his iṣṭa-devatā hears and sees all words and gestures and understands their fullest meaning. That Lord is non-judgmental and points always to the way to grow from life’s experiences and challenges – the extra parent, so to speak, that one may need in life. This is an appreciation that fully lends itself to success in the contemplations in these Yoga Sūtras. Anyone can choose an aspect of creation to use as an altar for devotion and meditation. The Lord’s presence is in and available in all things. The student who does not already do so begins a relationship with the Lord as an aspect of nature and as a symbol of what she sees as her most complete and most mature self.

It should again be noticed with due importance that Patañjali has not mentioned any other source or teaching upon which to contemplate than the Veda, as a means of knowledge. Completeness and clarity require a broad and certain basis – physically, emotionally, and logically. The various philosophies throughout history are based on various sets of assumptions that may or may not be true or pertinent. These philosophies may not have such a grand vision of oneself that encompasses the entire universe and accepts all forms of worship. They may not have a vast array of practical, mythical, psychological, and logical teachings that have been lived fully for thousands of years. Those other philosophies may not provide the student such a certain and firm basis that this teaching tradition does provide.

Gradually one comes to the surrender of the belief that one controls the results of one’s actions. When this surrender is fully assimilated, and all of one’s body and mind, and all of one’s actions and their results are no longer mine, but are known as belonging to nature as a manifestation of the Lord, of reality, and further, when one knows that this reality, the Lord, cannot be separate from, and in fact is, oneself, then that is samādhi. There is no second limiting, real thing – no thoughts, no body, no actions, no results which can be misidentified as one’s limited self. Then you understand that which is and always was yourself as complete and free of any sense of limitation.

If one cannot sit erect with head-neck-back in balanced alignment, remaining still and comfortable for a span of 48 minutes, one muhurta, then prior to meditation one can practice various yoga-āsanas (healing postures) to gain the required flexibility and strength to maintain this alert sitting posture. Whatever sitting, after practice, allows one to remain alert and comfortable for a sufficient length of time is called āsana. For more, one can see Śaṅkara’s Brahma-Sūtra-Bhāṣya 4.1.7–11.

Until there is relaxation in the posture, then that stress will keep it from being still and stable. Comfort, on the other hand, is gained not only physically (by repeated practice in flexibility), but also mentally by removing the mind’s focus from the confines of any small bodily pain, and focusing instead on what lacks limitation. The body and its small pains are then, in time, dismissed and dropped in the seat of contemplation on the limitless. If the pains persist, though, better corrective measures should be applied to gain a more painless, still and stable posture.

Samādhi is for gaining complete freedom in all of one’s life. Even to attain comfort in sitting for meditation Patañjali recommends contemplation on the limitless. Even the smallest thing, like breath, can be connected in the seat of contemplation to its cosmic manifestation, intelligently appreciating breath as the life force that pervades this entire universe. Similarly, the space of the body, or the space in the heart, is not different, not separated in anyway, from the entire expanse of the space in this universe, just as a pot does not divide or limit the space of the universe.

Āsana for meditation may involve the visualization of the body, mentally observing the physical body as an object. Start from the top of the head slowly down to the toes, or from bottom up. Bathe in your attention and breath (as life’s energy) each part of the body – the top of the head, forehead, eyes, mouth, jaw, ears, neck, shoulders left and right, chest, and the rest of the lower body, relaxing each of them in turn. Then visualize the entire body, like it was a statue – a living, breathing statue – in limitless space, in the limitless space of awareness in the heart.

Appendix - Nature of the Mind presents effective steps in contemplation.

If the body has an itch, mentally scratch it with attention and let it go. You have an appointment later – note it and let it drop for now. A memory of what someone said to you arises – acknowledge its current significance, then drop it for the time being.

With repeated practice one can sit and quickly shut out awareness of the physical environment, including one’s body. The attention then can shift to the more subtle – the breath, the mind, the teaching, and oneself. This alone is Patañjali’s advice concerning āsana. One needs to be able to sit still and comfortable, without bodily affliction, in order to contemplate subtle reality. Other yoga āsanas and practices are for addressing health and related concerns that might be a distraction for the mind (YS.1.30).

Established in this (tasmin sati) does not mean when this (āsana) is perfected (siddha). That could take a lifetime and beyond. The breath control practices here only require one to be able to have a stable, comfortable sit, which naturally blocks out the environment, including the pains and itches of the body. The mind can then start to fully contemplate upon the infinite, the cosmic aspect of a topic of contemplation.

Between inhalation and exhalation, introduce a pause. This pause is the first step in prāṇāyāma (controlling the breath). Because of the continual necessity for this major source of life-energy, this pause naturally draws one’s attention to the quiet subtleness of the life-breath. If the mind wanders away from this attention on the breath, recognize the distraction, acknowledge that the distraction too is present in this same life-force that pervades the universe, and gently bring it back. Do not scold the mind for wandering. The art of continually bringing the mind back to its topic is what meditation is. This prāṇāyāma (breath control) naturally calms the mind into its own quiet, subtleness, and thus fulfills its expressed purpose as the fourth limb of yoga.

Prāṇāyāma can be a simple practice learned in a few sessions, which is good enough for settling into contemplation. Its more elaborate practices need careful instruction and direction from a skilled and experienced teacher, but are not necessary for the following next step in prāṇāyāma.

The other three prāṇāyāmas are the bāhya (outward), abhyantara (inward), and stambha (stoppage). In the fourth, breathing continues, but no attention is placed on controlling the out-going or in-coming movements, or holding of the breath. Rather attention is placed only upon the presence of the breath. One’s breathing then becomes effortless and imperceptible. During this time the conscious controlling of the breath stops and the inward and outward breaths would become naturally equal (sama). This then becomes the more subtle, simple witnessing of the presence of the breath without attention to controlling the breaths, also called prāṇa-vīkṣaṇa. One moves from there to the next more subtle step of withdrawing the senses.

The practices of āsana and prāṇāyāma will bless any practitioner. They are skills that can be gained and enjoyed for themselves. Indeed, for adept yogis they are simple, reasonable ways to promote a healthy life that supports the commitment to knowledge. Nevertheless, breathing techniques have an observable effect on the thought processes (YS.1.31) and the ability to contemplate on and with them.

The dullness (tamas) of the mind is lessened by oxygenating the body and brain through prāṇāyāma. Restlessness (rajas) is lessened by attention put on the quiet, still subtleness of the breath. Then, the natural clarity (sattva) of the mind will become more predominant. But a clear mind needs correct thinking to be brought in. We are not looking for an empty-headed samādhi.

Like samādhi, prāṇāyāma cannot give knowledge. Prāṇāyāma quietly awakens the mind for entering into contemplation, and contemplation (samādhi) is for sitting undistracted in appreciation of what one already understands, but has not yet assimilated as firm knowledge in one’s heart.

The senses are by their nature led by the mind. If the mind lacks discipline and gives up the lead, then the senses, like wild horses yoked to a chariot with an unskilled driver, will drag the mind through the fields of their objects. When the mind gains the discipline and skill of the yamas and niyamas, the rāga-dveṣas (attraction and aversion toward objects) diminish. With the help of āsana and prāṇāyāma, the mind experiences a composure that is naturally available. When that informed and composed mind takes lead of the senses, then the senses will naturally follow suit, like well trained horses anticipating the subtle orders of their master.

The senses seeming to take on the nature of the mind is the key to gaining control of the senses. One has to command the mind by an informed intellect to not allow the mind’s attention to be stolen away against one’s will. The informed intellect is one that is clear about what is hindering (kliṣṭa) and what is helpful (a-kliṣṭa) in this discipline. Such an intellect will guide the other functions of the mind to remain in this discipline.

It is not by blocking sensory experiences that we command the senses. You can close your eyes in the seat of meditation, but the other senses remain wide open. They will do their job regardless. You cannot live your life in a sensory deprivation chamber. In meditation, as well as in your life, you simply have to choose not to let your mind be distracted by following after a sound, smell, or any other sensation that is not your current concern. That choice can only have effect when it is backed by a clearly ascertained understanding of what is one’s goal, what is the appropriate discipline for that goal, and how to undertake that discipline.

If the intellect is not maintaining this control, then the preceding yamas and niyamas should be revisited. They concern the values, and the meaning of the values, that the intellect needs to invoke in the mind to control the senses and the body.

With ahiṃsa (non-violence) in your life, when the world has no need of fear from you, then you can relax your ninja stance against the world and allow the Lord as the natural order to provide your sustenance. With satya (truthfulness) in your life, will power is strengthened by your mind, words, and deeds being in natural alignment. With asteya (non-usurping) in your life, the cravings of the senses are filtered through your assimilated values. With brahma-carya (pursuing the scripture) in your life, those values you have can be better assimilated through the more universal perspective the scripture invokes. With aparigraha (renunciation) in your life, a cleaner and simpler lifestyle will bring balance back from living your life for the sake of your senses to living your life for the sake of the highest goals your intellect can envision. Similarly, the niyamas (physical and mental cleanliness, contentment, prayerful discipline, studying one’s Veda, and intelligently surrendering to the Lord) will move one’s center of attention from sensory phenomena to contentment and contemplation of the reality stage upon which all these phenomena dance.

Pratyāhāra (withdrawal of the senses) is at its core vairāgya – non-attachment to and non-identification with sense objects, as well as with thoughts that are equally objects within awareness.

Compare this with Yoga Sūtra 2.41. This sūtra emphasizes the importance of an informed understanding of the erroneous ways of thinking that increase the distraction and agitation of the senses. An informed intellect bests the various forms of mechanical sense denial, because the point of this mastery is to command calmness in and out of the seat of meditation, not just when the senses can be temporarily denied.

One of the Sanskrit words for the mind is hṛd or hṛdaya (heart or center). When the scripture talks of the heart, it means the buddhi (intellect). The hṛd of anything is its center. The individual’s subtle body, which includes the mind and intellect, pervades the entire physical body, and at its center is the intellect. This tradition does not accept that the heart and mind should be separated in any way. The intellect is where one’s deepest convictions are. Where the intellect is, where this heart is, that is where the senses will naturally be directed. If the intellect, the heart, is weak and unstable, then the senses will be in charge.

The preceding five limbs of yoga deal with being in keeping with dharma – being an objectively virtuous and just citizen in the world, relatively free from conflicts and actions that result in conflicts. Additionally, one gains the ability to sit quietly in meditation, dropping attention towards sense stimuli. This creates the meditative environment for the mind to turn its attention to a selected contemplation. This chapter on siddhis (accomplishments) begins with the first siddhi – the skill of contemplation. That skill is developed in the next three limbs of yoga, namely, dhāraṇā (restraining the pursuit of unwanted or hindering thoughts in contemplation), dhyāna (retaining the flow of wanted or helpful thoughts in contemplation), and samādhi (contemplation resulting in assimilation). The chapter (pāda) ends with the teaching on the ultimate fulfillment – contemplation on the reality of the world and the puruṣa (YS.3.43–53). This contemplation leads directly to Patañjali’s goal of yoga, kaivalya (complete freedom), the ultimate siddhi.

Sūtras 3.16–42 point out an additional accomplishment. This is the acquisition of a cosmic perspective towards objects in the universe in contemplation. This helps one gain and abide in limitless freedom. This accomplishment is connected to specific side-effects (gauṇa-phalas, by-products, secondary to the main goal) in the contemplations of this section. These side-effects are the superpowers mentioned, but deemphasized by us. They too are called siddhis in Sanskrit.

The student should avoid confusing these superpower siddhis with the main accomplishments in yoga. These superpowers play a part in the popular spiritual literature within this tradition, namely the Purāṇas (legends dealing with creation stories and the deities), such as the Viṣṇu-Purāṇa, and the Iti-hāsas (epic histories), such as the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahā-bhārata. These superpowers are typically attributed to heroes or demons, and are key to advancing a story within a particular legend or epic. The quests for superpowers were and are a part of the practices of some yogis, as well as of shaman practitioners from around the world in cultures old and new. Patañjali gives mention of them in this chapter, though he too deemphasizes their import (YS.3.37).

The mention of these superpowers is more to connect these helpful cosmic contemplations to what the Indian practitioner has read in these very popular legends and epics that tell how these powers can be helpful and can be detrimental. In the West, where there may not be exposure to this literature, there could be an over-tendency to take these superpowers out of context, and as being the most interesting and so necessary pursuits in yoga.

There is no separate, special, or unique experience or capacity that one needs to fulfill the knowledge yogins seek. Every experience, every object, every thought, when viewed in keeping with the cosmic whole, reveals that whole. The task of this commentary, in keeping with the scripture of this tradition and with Patañjali, is to clearly indicate the real purport of these sūtras as the development of the three principle siddhis: skill in contemplation, the gaining of a cosmic perspective in the mind that certain contemplations can give if understood in the light of this tradition’s physics and metaphysics of life, and then the final goal of kaivalya. In the contemplations we will elaborately explore how the contemplations are employed in gaining a cosmic perspective, and then briefly note the purported side-effect superpowers and their connection with the topic of the contemplations.

This is keeping the mind from straying to other places, other areas of thought, that hinder or are not the topic of the contemplation. Dhāraṇā naturally culminates in the following dhyāna. When the mind is not where it should not be, then it is where it should be. All the preceding disciplines have given the mind this strength to settle down and the wisdom to know what to settle into. Like for pratyāhāra, it succeeds from an informed intellect that can stay alert to when the attention strays from the contemplation topic. Remember, we are talking about the mind here. Restraint in thinking does not mean suppression. It is not like the physical restraint of a pet. It is a cognitive alertness allowing the most appropriate and helpful thinking to arise and remain, in and out of the seat of meditation (see comm. on YS.1.2).

The Contemplation Process

There is a progression from pratyāhāra through dhāraṇā to dhyāna – from redirecting the mind’s attention away from the external to being only upon the chosen topic of contemplation. But this directing inward is directing the mind toward the more inward truth of everything, not seeking isolation from the external world.

The student generates a systematic practice that establishes a firm seat of meditation. There may be a confirmation of one’s intention to address the mind and to nurture a friendly and supportive relationship with one’s emotions. The student attends to āsana (including visualizing the parts of the body to relax them), prāṇayāma, and pratyāhāra. The student acknowledges the physical environment around, and mentally affirms that this particular time is for oneself not for everything else – including your body, health, finances, family, neighbors, co-workers, friends, foes, politics, and the world. They will all be there afterwards. Now is the time for this mind to attend to its own purpose in freeing itself, no matter what the environment.

Then, beginning japa (quiet or silent chant), the student repeats a sacred mantra whose meaning he or she knows, for example, Om īśāya namaḥ, meaning, “Om (see sūtra 1.27) I surrender all ownership and identification with this body, mind, and senses unto the natural cosmic order that is the embodiment of the Lord.” I am one with the Lord that manifests and enlivens this entire universe, which is the reality into which all universes resolve in sleep as well as at the ends of time.

If one finds that the mind tends to drift during the mental repetition of the mantra, use the voice to softly chant the mantra for a time. We can often control our body – here, the voice – better than our mind, so vocalization may be introduced to bring the mind back. Returning to mental repetition, make the chant non-physical. Keep the mouth, tongue, and vocal chords still during the chant. This keeps the chant in the more absorbing depth of the intellect. The mental chant can be disassociated from the rhythms of the breath. Let the chant sometimes occur during in-breaths as well as during the change over from the in and out breaths. An additional technique is keeping the tongue still in the middle of the mouth without touching any part inside the mouth.

Appreciate in the heart, in the center of one’s certitude and conviction, the truth of the mantra. Do not think about the mantra or its meaning; simply behold its truth, as to how it encompasses you and your universe.

Let the silent pause between chants and between words of the chant lengthen, and sometime stop, while beholding their meaning. The chant and silence are oneself, pure awareness. They resolve in the reality of oneself as the meaning of the mantra. They come out of the reality of oneself, they appear, and they resolve back into oneself. The truth of the mantra is the truth of oneself.

Once the silence of oneself is foremost, let the chant drop. There is only oneself as the self-evident reality and truth of the mantra.

One may recognize other thoughts or perceptions arising. If these thoughts or perceptions are felt to be distractions, recognize that they are all within your awareness, the truth of oneself. If it is a sense perception, that could only be from a contact of one of the senses with its object. Being a contact, there can be no distance between your sense organ and the object, whether it is the sense reaching out to the object or the medium of the object reaching to the sense organ. Even the notional distance or the calculated estimation of the distance between the seat of the sense and the seat of the object are a notion or estimation within the mind right now. There is no distance or separation of that notion or estimation in the mind from awareness. The sense or notion of the time elapsed also only occurs right now in the mind within awareness. Simply appreciate that these thoughts are well within the order and convention of the mind. The entire mind is within the Lord’s order. This thought and its object are both a manifestation of the Lord, the reality that is the Lord. Bring back the mantra which holds this fact and carries the sense and wisdom of surrender and freedom from identification with the mind and its separate thoughts.

This understanding of the nature of thought, sense perceptions, objects, distance, and time will be unfolded in this text in keeping with the teaching tradition here and in the scriptures.

The absorption discovered in contemplation is natural, unforced, and all-encompassing. Give depth to that absorption by introducing thoughts that express the truth of the identity of the Lord and oneself. These are the contemplation of one’s choosing. They may only be the mantra one has used for japa. They may be words of the teacher or from scripture that the student finds particularly meaningful and helpful. They may be prati-pakṣa-bhāvanas (YS.2.33–34) that counteract an affliction that is hindering your progress in yoga. Do not be content with aimless pondering, wandering through a disconnected enjoyment of some part of the whole truth. Keep in the mind well thought out expressions that encompass a truth you wish to always remain in your heart. This truth should be clearly seen as the truth of oneself in and out of contemplation.

Again, when the mind strays during contemplation, see that thought and its object as not outside of the truth one is contemplating, then, having been brought back to the truth, remain in its contemplation – with or without words.

For the steps involved see Appendix - Suggested Steps in Contemplation.