Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Sufferings or afflictions (Klesas)

Klesas (sufferings or afflictions) have five causes: ignorance, or lack of wisdom and understanding (avidya), pride or egoism (asmita), attachment (raga), aversion (dvesa), and fear of death and clinging to life (abhinivessa). The first two are intellectual defects, the next two emotional, and the last instinctual. They may be hidden, latent, attenuated or highly active.

Avidya, ignorance, or lack of wisdom, is a fertile ground in which afflications can grow, making one’s life a hell. Mistaking the transient for the eternal, the impure for the pure, pain for pleasure, and the pleasures of the world for the bliss of the spirit constitutes avidya.

Identifying the individual ego (the ‘I’) with the real soul is asmita. It is the false identification of the ego with the seer.

Encouraging and gratifying desires is raga. When desires are not gratified, frustration and sorrow give rise to alienation or hate. This is dvesa, aversion.

The desire to live forever and to preserve one’s individual self is abhinivesa. Freedom from such attachment to life is very difficult for even a wise, erudite and scholarly person to achieve. If avidya is the mother of afflictions, abhinivesa is its offspring.

All our past actions exert their influence and mould our present and future lives: as you sow, so shall you reap. This is the law of karma, the universal law of cause and effect. If our actions are good and virtuous, afflictions will be minimized; wrong actions will bring sorrow and pain. Actions may bear fruit immediately, later in life or in lives to come. They determine one’s birth, span of life and the types of experiences to be undergone. When spiritual wisdom dawns, one perceives the tinge of sorrow attached even to pleasure, and from then on shuns both pleasure and pain. However, the fruits of actions continue to entrap ordinary beings.

How to minimize afflictions

Patañjali counsels dispassion towards pleasures and pains and recommends the practice of meditation to attain freedom and beatitude. First he describes in detail the eightfold path of yoga. Following this path helps one to avoid the dormant, hidden sufferings which may surface when physical health, energy and mental poise are disturbed. This suggests that the eightfold path of yoga is suitable for the unhealthy as well as for the healthy, enabling all to develop the power to combat physical and mental diseases.

Cause of afflictions

The prime cause of afflictions is avidya: the failure to understand the conjunction between the seer and the seen: purusa and prakrti. The external world lures the seer towards its pleasures, creating desire. The inevitable non-fulfilment of desires in turn creates pain, which suffocates the inner being. Nature and her beauties are there for enjoyment and pleasure (bhoga) and also for freedom and emancipation (yoga). If we use them indiscriminately, we are bound by the chains of pleasure and pain. A judicious use of them leads to the bliss which is free from pleasure mixed with pain. The twin paths to this goal are practice (abhyasa), the path of evolution, of going forward; and detachment or renunciation (vairagya), the path of involution, abstaining from the fruits of action and from worldly concerns and engagements.

Cosmology of nature

In samkhya philosophy, the process of evolution and the interaction of spirit and matter, essence and form, are carefully explained.

To follow nature’s evolution from its subtlest concept to its grossest or most dense manifestation, we must start with root nature, mula-prakrti. At this phase of its development, nature is infinite, attributeless and undifferentiated. We may call this phase ‘noumenal’ or alinga (without mark): it can be apprehended only by intuition. It is postulated that the qualities of nature, or gunas, exist in mula-prakrti in perfect equilibrium; one third sattva, one third rajas and one third tamas.

Root nature evolves into the phenomenal stage, called linga (with mark). At this point a disturbance or redistribution takes place in the gunas, giving nature its turbulent characteristic, which is to say that one quality will always predominate over the other two (though never to their entire exclusion; for example, the proportion might be 7/10 tamas, 2/10 rajas, 1/10 sattva, or any other disproportionate rate). The first and most subtle stage of the phenomenal universe is mahat, cosmic intelligence. Mahat is the ‘great principle’, embodying a spontaneous motivating force in nature, without subject or object, acting in both creation and dissolution.

Nature further evolves into the stage called avisesa (universal or non-specific) which can be understood by the intellect but not directly perceived by the senses. To this phase belong the subtle characteristics of the five elements, which may be equated with the infra-atomic structure of elements. These may be explained at a basic level as the inherent quality of smell in earth (prthvi), of taste in water (ap), of sight or shape in fire (tej), of touch in air (vayu) and of sound in ether (akasa). The ‘I’ principle is also in this group.

The final stage, visesa, in which nature is specific and obviously manifest, includes the five elements, the five senses of perception (ears, eyes, nose, tongue and skin), the five organs of action (arms, legs, mouth, generative and excretory organs), and lastly the mind, or the eleventh sense. So in all, there are twenty-four principles (tattvas) of nature, and a twenty-fifth: purusa, atman, or soul. Purus permeates and transcends nature, without belonging to it.

(When purusa stirs the other principles into activity, it is the path of evolution. Its withdrawal from nature is the path of involution. If purusa interacts virtuously with the properties of nature, bliss is experienced; for such a purusa, prakrti becomes a heaven. If wrongly experienced, it becomes a hell.

Sometimes, purusa may remain indifferent, yet we know that nature stirs on its own through the mutation of the gunas, but takes a long time to surface. If purusa, gives a helping hand, nature is disciplined to move in the right way, whether on the path of evolution or involution.)

The sixteen principles of the visesa stage, are the five elements, the five senses of perception and five organs of action, and the mind. They are definable and distinguishable. At the avisesa stage, all five tanmatras – smell, taste, sight or shape, touch and sound – and ahamkara, ego, are undistinguishable and indefinable, yet nevertheless entities in themselves. At the material level of creation, tamas is greater than rajas and sattva, whereas at the psycho-sensory level, rajas and sattva together predominate.

The interaction of the gunas with these sixteen principles shapes our destiny according to our actions. Effectively, our experiences in life derive from the gross manifestations of nature, whether painful or pleasurable; that is, whether manifesting as physical affliction or as art. The delusion that this is the only ‘real’ level can lead to bondage, but fortunately the evolutionary or unfolding structure of nature has provided the possibility of involution, which is the return journey to the source. This is achieved by re-absorbing the specific principles into the non-specific, then back into the alinga state, and finally by withdrawing and merging all phenomenal nature back into its noumenal root, the unmanifested mula-prakrti, rather as one might fold up a telescope.

At the moment when the seer confronts his own self, the principles of nature have been drawn up into their own primordial root and remain quietly there without ruffling the serenity of the purusa. It is sufficient to say here that the involutionary process is achieved by the intervention of discriminating intelligence, and by taming and re-balancing the gunas to their noumenal perfect proportions, so that each stage of re-absorption can take place. Yoga shows us how to do this, starting from the most basic manifest level, our own body.

Once the principles have been withdrawn into their root, their potential remains dormant, which is why a person in the state of samadhi is but can not do; the outward form of nature has folded up like a bird’s wings. If the sadhaka does not pursue his sadhana with sufficient zeal, but rests on his laurels, the principles of nature will be re-activated to ill effect. Nature’s turbulence will again obscure the light of the purusa as the sadhaka is again caught up in the wheel of joy and sorrow. But he who has reached the divine union of purusa and prakrti, and then redoubles his efforts, has only kaivalya before him.

Characteristics of Purusa

Purusa, the seer or the soul, is absolute pure knowledge. Unlike nature (prakrti), which is subject to change, purusa is eternal and unchanging. Free from the qualities of nature, it is an absolute knower of everything. The seer is beyond words, and indescribable. It is the intelligence, one of nature’s sheaths, which enmeshes the seer in the playground of nature and influences and contaminates its purity. As a mirror, when covered with dust, cannot reflect clearly, so the seer, though pure, cannot reflect clearly if the intelligence is clouded. The aspirant who follows the eightfold path of yoga develops discriminative understanding, viveka, and learns to use the playground of nature to clear the intelligence and experience the seer.

Fulfilment

Everyone has an inborn desire to develop sensitivity and maturity in intelligence. That is why God has provided the principles of nature – so that the seer can commune with them and make the fullest use of them for his intellectual and spiritual growth. Nature is there to serve its master, the seer, purusa or atman, the inner being of man. It becomes an obstacle to spiritual enlightenment when used for sensual pleasure, but on the other hand it can help its master to realize his potential and true stature. It is not the fault of nature if human beings abuse it or fall prey to its temptations. Nature is always ready to oblige, or to remain ineffectual, according to our deeds. When we have overcome our intellectual and emotional defects, nature’s gifts readily serve us for realization of the soul. Having fulfilled their functions, they withdraw.

This true Self-Realization is the peak of development of intelligence. It must be sustained, with uninterrupted awareness, in thought, word and deed: then the purpose of nature’s contact with and withdrawal from the seer are fully understood. All sorrows and hatred are washed away, and everlasting unalloyed peace come to the seeker. Nature continues to taunt throughout life, with afflictions and uncertainties, those who have no discriminative power and awareness.

Seven states of wisdom

After explaining the functions of nature and of the seer, Patañjali speaks of the seven states of understanding or wisdom (prajña) that emerge from the release of nature’s contact with the seer. First let us identify the seven corresponding states of ignorance, or avidya:

1 smallness, feebleness, insignificance, inferiority, meanness

2 unsteadiness, fickleness, mutability

3 living with pains, afflictions, misery, agony

4 living with the association of pain

5 mistaking the perishable body for the Self

6 creating conditions for undergoing sorrow

7 believing that union with the soul (yoga) is impossible, and acting as though that were so

The seven states of wisdom are:

1 knowing that which has to be known

2 discarding that which is to be discarded

3 attaining that which has to be attained

4 doing that which has to be done

5 winning the goal that is to be won

6 freeing the intelligence from the pull of the three gunas of nature

7 achieving emancipation of the soul so that it shines in its own light

These seven states of wisdom are interpreted as right desire, right reflection, disappearance of memory and mind, experiencing pure sattva or the truth (reality), indifference to praise and blame, reabsorption of phenomenal creation, and living in the vision of the soul. They may be further simplified as:

1 understanding the body within and without

2 understanding energy and its uses

3 understanding mind

4 consistency of will

5 awareness of experience

6 awareness of pure quintessence, sentiment and beauty

7 understanding that the individual soul, jivatman, is a particle of the Universal Spirit, Paramatman

The Yoga Vasista correlates this sutra (II.27) with the seven stages of individual development:

1 study and cultivation of the company of wise men

2 capacity to solve problems

3 development of non-attachment

4 dissolution of inherent faults

5 working towards the bliss in which a half-sleeping and half-wakeful state is experienced

6 experience of a deep sleep state

7 attaining a state in which purity, tranquillity and compassion flow out towards others.

The seven frontiers of awareness also correlate with the five sheaths or kosas of the body. Consciousness is the sixth, and the inner self, the seventh.

Patañjali describes the seven states of awareness as:

1 emerging consciousness (vyutthana citta)

2 refraining consciousness (nirodha citta)

3 tranquil consciousness (santa citta)

4 one-pointed consciousness (ekagra citta)

5 sprouted consciousness (nirmana citta)

6 rent consciousness (chidra citta)

7 pure consciousness (divya citta)

(See III.9, 10, 11; IV.27 and 29.)

It is also possible to consider the ethical, physical, physiological, neurological, emotional, intellectual and spiritual domains as the seven states of awareness. When one rests on the vision of the soul, divinity is felt in this empirical state.

The Yogic disciplines

The yogic disciplines are yama (restraint) and niyama (practice or observance). These disciplines channel the energies of the organs of action and the senses of perception in the right direction. Asana (posture) results in balance, stillness of mind, and power to penetrate the intelligence. Through Asana we learn to know the body well and to distinguish between motion and action: motion excites the mind while action absorbs it. Pranayama (control of energy through restraint of breath) and pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses) help the sadhaka to explore his hidden facets, and enable him to penetrate the core of his being. dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (total absorption) are the fulfilment of yogic discipline, the essence or natural constituents of yoga. They develop when the other five disciplines have been mastered. Actually, all eight intermingle and interweave to form the whole seamless body of yoga.

Yama

There are five yamas: ahimsa (non-violence or non-injury), satya (truthfulness), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacarya (continence) and aparigraha (freedom from avarice or non-covetousness).

Intending no harm in word, thought or deed; being sincere, honest and faithful; being careful not to misappropriate another’s wealth; being chaste and not coveting the possessions of others or accepting gifts, are the practices of yama. It is essential they be observed and followed. They are to be practised individually and collectively irrespective of lineage, place, time, condition or career. The yamas are mighty universal vows, says Patañjali.

Effects of Yama

If the sadhaka adheres to the principles of ahimsa, all beings around him abandon their hostile behaviour. By observance of satya, spoken words fructify into action. All kinds of treasures are bestowed on him who observes asteya. For a brahmacari (a chaste or celibate person), vigour, vitality, energy and spiritual knowledge flow like a river. One who observes aparigraha will come to know of his past and future lives.

Niyama

The five niyamas are to be followed not merely as individual, but also as spiritual, disciplines. They are: sauca (cleanliness or purity), santosa (contentment), tapas (religious fervour), svadhyaya (study of the sacred scriptures and of one’s own self) and Isvara pranidhana (surrender of the self to God).

sauca is of two types, external and internal. One’s daily bath is external; Asana and pranayama cleanse one internally. They help to cleanse one’s thoughts, words and actions, and make the body fit for its Lord to dwell in. Santosa brings about a state of cheerfulness and benevolence. Tapas is a burning effort involving purification, self-discipline and austere practice. It is religiousness or devoutness in the practice of yoga. Tapas purges and purifies the body, senses and mind. Svadhyaya enlightens the practitioner with the knowledge of his inner immortal being. Isvara pranidhana brings the inner being to his creator, the Supreme God.

Actually, the observance of yama brings about niyama, and the practice of niyama disciplines one to follow the principles of yama. For example, non-violence brings purity of thought and deed, truthfulness leads to contentment, non-covetousness leads to tapas. Chastity leads to the study of the self, and non-possessiveness to surrender to God. Similarly, cleanliness leads towards non-violence, and contentment towards truthfulness. Tapas guides one not to misappropriate another’s wealth. Study of the self leads towards chastity, and surrender to God frees one from possessiveness.

By now, the reader is acquainted with the causes of afflictions. Not only do yama and niyama help to minimize and uproot them; they are also the firm foundation of spiritual experience. They are the ethical disciplines which show us what must be done and what must be discarded. They are the golden keys to unlock the spiritual gates.

Sooner or later, improper use of words, impure thoughts and wrong actions result in pain. Pain may be self-inflicted (adhyatmika), due to fate or heredity (adhidaivika), or to imbalance of elements in the body (adhibhautika). It may be caused by lust, anger or greed, indulged in directly, by provocation or by compliancy. The resulting sorrows may be mild, moderate or intense.

The causes of lust, anger and greed can be countered directly by self-analysis, or subdued by invoking their opposites: balance, poise, peace and harmony. Because the latter dualistic approach may cause one to hide from the facts, the former is the better approach. The use of analysis, study and investigation requires courage, strength and discretion. The evocation of opposite tendencies is not a cure, but a help. The first is a direct method of purification; the second an indirect method of appeasement. Patañjali suggests that both should be followed to speed progress.

Asana and its effects

Asana means posture, the positioning of the body as a whole with the involvement of the mind and soul. Asana has two facets, pose and repose. Pose is the artistic assumption of a position. ‘Reposing in the pose’ means finding the perfection of a pose and maintaining it, reflecting in it with penetration of the intelligence and with dedication. When the seeker is closer to the soul, the Asanas come with instantaneous extension, repose and poise.

In the beginning, effort is required to master the Asanas. Effort involves hours, days, months, years and even several lifetimes of work. When effortful effort in an Asana becomes effortless effort, one has mastered that Asanas, In this way, each Asana has to become effortless. While performing the Asanas, one has to relax the cells of the brain, and activate the cells of the vital organs and of the structural and skeletal body. Then intelligence and consciousness may spread to each and every cell.

The conjunction of effort, concentration and balance in Asana forces us to live intensely in the present moment, a rare experience in modern life. This actuality, or being in the present, has both a strengthening and a cleansing effect: physically in the rejection of disease, mentally by ridding our mind of stagnated thoughts or prejudices; and, on a very high level where perception and action become one, by teaching us instantaneous correct action; that is to say, action which does not produce reaction. On that level we may also expunge the residual effects of past actions.

The three origins of pain are eradicated by Asana as we progress from clear vision through right thinking to correct action.

To the new student or non-practitioner of yoga a relentless pursuit of perfection in Asana may seem pointless. To advanced students, a teacher teaches a whole Asana in relationship to what is happening in a single action. At this subtlest level, when we are able to observe the workings of rajas, tamas and sattva in one toe, and to adjust the flow of energy in ina, pitgala and susumna (the three principal nanis, or energy channels), the macrocosmic order of nature is perceived in even the smallest aspects. And when the student then learns how the minutest modifications of a toe can modify the whole Asana, he is observing how the microcosm relates to the whole, and the organic completeness of universal structure is grasped.

The body is the temple of the soul. It can truly become so if it is kept healthy, clean and pure through the practice of Asana.

Asanas act as bridges to unite the body with the mind, and the mind with the soul. They lift the sadhaka from the clutches of afflictions and lead him towards disciplined freedom. They help to transform him by guiding his consciousness away from the body towards awareness of the soul.

Through Asana, the sadhaka comes to know and fully realize the finite body, and merge it with the infinite – the soul. Then there is neither the known nor the unknown and only then does the Asana exist wholly. This is the essence of a perfect Asana.

Pranayama and its effects

Patañjali states that there must be a progression from Asana to pranayama, but does not mention such a progression in the other branches of yoga. He states that pranayama, should be attempted only after perfection is attained in Asana. This does not mean one Asana alone, as is sometimes suggested.

It should be understood why one Asana is not a sufficient basis for the study of pranayama. In pranayama, the spine and the spinal muscles are the sources of action and the lungs are the receiving instruments. They must be trained to open and to extend backwards, forwards, upwards and outwards, and the spinal muscles straightened, cultured and toned to create space and stimulate the spinal nerves to draw energy from the breath. Inverted postures, forward bends, backbends – the whole range of postures – are therefore essential if we are to derive from pranayama the maximum benefit with the minimum strain.