Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
योगसूत्राणि
195 aphorisms describing, in the register of a technical manual, what happens when you systematically quiet the mind.
About 195 aphorisms, so compressed they were never meant to be read without a teacher. They describe what happens when you systematically quiet the mind, and they do it in the register of a technical manual, not a devotional one. The second sutra gives the definition the rest of the book unpacks: yoga is the stilling of the mind's turnings. From there Patanjali maps the obstacles, prescribes an eightfold method running from ethical restraint through posture and breath to absorption, and describes the resulting states with unusual precision. Modern postural yoga has almost nothing to do with it—āsana gets three sutras. Read it as a phenomenology of attention.
योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः ॥
yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥYoga is the stilling of the turnings of the mind.
The definition. Everything else is commentary.
तदा द्रष्टुः स्वरूपेऽवस्थानम् ॥
tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe 'vasthānamThen the seer rests in its own nature.
What is left when the turnings stop.
अभ्यासवैराग्याभ्यां तन्निरोधः ॥
abhyāsa-vairāgyābhyāṁ tan-nirodhaḥThat stilling comes by practice and by non-attachment.
The same two words Krishna gives Arjuna in Gita 6.35.
स तु दीर्घकालनैरन्तर्यसत्कारासेवितो दृढभूमिः ॥
sa tu dīrgha-kāla-nairantarya-satkārāsevito dṛḍha-bhūmiḥPractice becomes firm ground when it is pursued for a long time, without interruption, and with earnest care.
The most practically useful sutra in the book: three conditions, none of them quick.
मैत्रीकरुणामुदितोपेक्षाणां सुखदुःखपुण्यापुण्यविषयाणां
भावनातश्चित्तप्रसादनम् ॥
bhāvanātaś citta-prasādanam
The mind grows clear by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the suffering, gladness toward the virtuous, and equanimity toward the wicked.
Four attitudes, matched to four kinds of people. Vivekananda's “let all beings be happy” is the practice of this sutra.
हेयं दुःखमनागतम् ॥
heyaṁ duḥkham anāgatamThe suffering that is yet to come is what can be avoided.
Not the past, not the present—only the future is in play. A whole therapy in four words.
वितर्कबाधने प्रतिपक्षभावनम् ॥
vitarka-bādhane pratipakṣa-bhāvanamWhen obstructed by harmful thoughts, cultivate the opposite.
Cognitive therapy, sixteen centuries early. Marcus Aurelius 8.47 is the Roman version.
स्थिरसुखमासनम् ॥
sthira-sukham āsanamPosture: steady and comfortable.
All that the Yoga Sutras say about how to sit. Three words.
- Charles Johnston's translation, 1912 (public domain) ↗
- J. H. Woods, with Vyasa's commentary, 1914 ↗
- Vivekananda's Raja-Yoga, 1896 ↗
Where the translation is marked “Aumidhra”, the English is our own plain rendering from the original, made with the public-domain translations above as reference. Where a translator is named, the wording is theirs.
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