Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Normal breath flows irregularly, depending on one’s environment and emotional state. In the beginning, this irregular flow of breath is controlled by a deliberate process. This control creates ease in the inflow and outflow of the breath. When this ease is attained, the breath must be regulated with attention. This is pranayama.

Prana means life force and ayama means ascension, expansion and extension. Pranyama is the expansion of the life force through control of the breath. In modern terms, Prana is equated to bio-energy and works as follows. According to samkhya and yoga philosophies, man is composed of the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether. The spine is an element of earth and acts as the field for respiration. Distribution and creation of space in the torso is the function of ether. Respiration represents the element of air. The remaining elements, water and fire, are by nature opposed to one another. The practice of pranayama fuses them to produce energy. This energy is called Prana: life force or bio-energy.

Ayama means extension, vertical ascension, as well as horizontal expansion and circumferential expansion of the breath, lungs and ribcage.

Pranyama by nature has three components: inhalation, exhalation and retention. They are carefully learned by elongating the breath and prolonging the time of retention according to the elasticity of the torso, the length and depth of breath and the precision of movements. This pranayama is known as deliberate or sahita pranayama as one must practise it consciously and continuously in order to learn its rhythm.

To inhalation, exhalation and retention, Patañjali adds one more type of pranayama, that is free from deliberate action. This pranayama, being natural and non-deliberate, transcends the sphere of breath which is modulated by mental volition. It is called kevala kumbhaka or kevala pranayama.

The practice of pranayama removes the veil of ignorance covering the light of intelligence and makes the mind a fit instrument to embark on meditation for the vision of the soul. This is the spiritual quest.

(For further details see Light on Yoga, The Art of Yoga and Light on pranayama (HarperCollinsPublishers) and The Tree of Yoga (Fine Line Books).

Pratyahara

Through the practices of yama, niyama, Asana and pranayama, the body and its energy are mastered. The next stage, pratyahara, achieves the conquest of the senses and mind.

When the mind becomes ripe for meditation, the senses rest quietly and stop importuning the mind for their gratification. Then the mind, which hitherto acted as a bridge between the senses and the soul, frees itself from the senses and turns towards the soul to enjoy its spiritual heights. This is the effect of disciplines laid out in sadhana pada. Pratyahara, the result of the practice of yama, niyama, Asana and pranayama, forms the foundation for dharana, dhyana and samadhi. Through practice of these five stages of yoga, all the layers or sheaths of the self from the skin to the consciousness are penetrated, subjugated and sublimated to enable the soul to diffuse evenly throughout. This is true sadhana.

III. Vibhuti Pada

In samadhi pada, Patañjali explains why the intelligence is hazy, sluggish and dull, and gives practical disciplines to minimize and finally eliminate the dross which clouds it. Through these, the sadhaka develops a clear head and an untainted mind, and his senses of perception are then naturally tamed and subdued. The sadhaka’s intelligence and consciousness can now become fit instruments for meditation on the soul.

In vibhuti pada, Patañjali first shows the sadhaka the need to integrate the intelligence, ego and ‘I’ principle. He then guides him in the subtle disciplines: concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana) and total absorption (samadhi). With their help, the intelligence, ego and ‘I’ principle are sublimated. This may lead either to the release of various supernatural powers or to Self-Realization.

Samyama

Patañjali begins this pada with dharana, concentration, and points out some places within and outside the body to be used by the seeker for concentration and contemplation. If dharana is maintained steadily, it flows into dhyana (meditation). When the meditator and the object meditated upon become one, dhyana flows into samadhi. Thus, dharana, dhyana and samadhi are interconnected. This integration is called by Patañjali samyama. Through samyama the intelligence, ego and sense of individuality withdraw into their seed. Then the sadhaka’s intelligence shines brilliantly with the lustre of wisdom, and his understanding is enlightened. He turns his attention to a progressive exploration of the core of his being, the soul.

Intelligence

Having defined the subtle facets of man’s nature as intelligence, ego, the ‘I’ principle and the inner self, Patañjali analyses them one by one to reveal their hidden content. He begins with the intellectual brain, which oscillates between one-pointed and scattered attention. If the sadhaka does not recollect how, where and when his attention became disconnected from the object contemplated, he becomes a wanderer: his intelligence remains untrained. By careful observation, and reflection on the qualities of the intelligence, the sadhaka distinguishes between its multi-faceted and its one-pointed manifestation, and between the restless and silent states. To help him, Patañjali explains how the discriminative faculty can be used to control emerging thought, to suppress the emergence of thought waves and to observe the appearance of moments of silence. If the sadhaka observes and holds these intermittent periods of silence, he experiences a state of restfulness. If this is deliberately prolonged, the stream of tranquillity will flow without disturbance.

Holding this tranquil flow of calmness without allowing the intelligence to forget itself, the seeker moves towards the seer. This movement leads to inner attention and awareness, which is in turn the basis for drawing the consciousness towards integration with the inner self. When this integration is established, the seeker realizes that the contemplator, the instrument used for contemplation, and the object of contemplation are one and the same, the seer or the soul: in other words, subject, object and instrument become one.

Bringing the intelligence, buddhi, to a refined, tranquil steadiness is dharana. When this is achieved, buddhi is re-absorbed by a process of involution into the consciousness, citta, whose inherent expression is a sharp awareness but without focus. This is dhyana. The discrimination and unwinking observation which are properties of buddhi must constantly be ready to prevent consciousness from clouding and dhyana from slipping away. Buddhi is the activator of pure citta.

When the sadhaka has disciplined and understood the intelligence, the stream of tranquillity flows smoothly, uninfluenced by pleasure or pain. Then he learns to exercise his awareness, to make it flow with peace and poise. This blending of awareness and tranquillity brings about a state of virtue, which is the powerful ethic, or sakti, of the soul, the culmination of intelligence and consciousness. This culturing of intelligence is an evolution, and virtue is its special quality. Maintenance of this civilized, cultured, virtuous state leads to a perfect propriety, wherein the intelligence continues to be refined, and the sadhaka moves ever closer to the spiritual zenith of yoga.

Properties of yoga

Patañjali guides the refined sadhaka in tracing the movements, order and sequence of each action and thought that arises. By retracing his steps through yogic discipline, the sadhaka coordinates his thoughts and actions so that there is no time gap between them. When there is absolute synchronicity of thought and action, the yogi is freed from the material limitations of time and space and this generates extraordinary powers. Patañjali describes these powers as vibhutis, or properties, of yoga.

The properties of yoga are many. Experiencing even one of their extraordinary effects is an indication that the sadhaka is on the right path in his practice of yoga. However, see the next section, ‘Caution’, on page 37.

1 He begins to know the past and future

2 He understands the language of all people, birds and animals

3 He knows his past and future lives

4 He reads the minds of others

5 If necessary, he can define even the precise details of what is in the minds of others

6 He becomes invisible at will

7 He can arrest the senses: hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell

8 He knows the exact time of his death by intuition or through omens

9 He is friendly and compassionate to all

10 He becomes strong as an elephant and his movements are as graceful as a peacock

11 He clearly sees objects near and far, gross and fine, and concealed

12 He knows the working of the solar system

13 He knows the functions of the lunar system and through that, the position of the galaxies

14 He reads the movements of stars from the pole star and predicts world events

15 He knows his body and its orderly functions

16 He conquers hunger and thirst

17 He makes his body and mind immobile like a tortoise

18 He has visions of perfected beings, teachers and masters

19 He has the power to perceive anything and everything

20 He becomes aware of the properties of consciousness

21 By knowing the properties of consciousness he uses consciousness to light the lamp of the soul

22 Divine faculties which are beyond the range of ordinary senses come to him because of his enlightened soul

23 He leaves his body consciously and enters others’ bodies at will

24 He walks over water, swamp and thorns

25 He creates fire at will

26 He hears distant sounds

27 He levitates

28 He frees himself from afflictions at will and often lives without a body

29 He controls nature’s constituents, qualities and purposes

30 He becomes lord of the elements and their counterparts

31 He possesses an excellent body with grace, strength, perfect complexion and lustre

32 He has perfect control over his senses and mind, and their contact with the lower self or the ‘I’ consciousness

33 He transforms body, senses, mind, intelligence and consciousness to utmost sharpness and speed in tune with his very soul

34 He gains dominion over all creation and all knowledge

Caution

These powers are extraordinary. The appearance of any one of them indicates that the sadhaka has followed methods appropriate to his evolution. But he should not mistake these powers for the goal of his search. For onlookers they may seem to be great accomplishments, but for the sadhaka they are hindrances to samadhi. Even celestial beings try to seduce the sadhaka. If he succumbs to these temptations, misfortunes overwhelm him.

If a yogi gets carried away by supernatural powers and uses them for fame, he fails in his sadhana. He is like a man who tries to save himself from the wind only to get caught up in a whirlwind. A yogi who attains certain powers and misconstrues them for his goal is caught in their effects and exposes himself to their afflictions. Therefore, Patañjali warns the sadhaka to renounce these accomplishments, so that the gates of everlasting bliss may open for him. He is counselled to develop non-attachment which destroys pride, a cardinal pitfall for those who acquire powers.

Adherence to the practice of yama and niyama, as described in sadhana pada, will ensure that the sadhaka does not get caught up in these powers, or misuse them.

Moment and movement

Moment is subjective and movement is objective. Patañjali explains that the moment is the present and the present is the eternal now: it is timeless, and real. When it slips from attention, it becomes movement, and movement is time. As moment rolls into movement, the past and the future appear and the moment disappears. Going with the movements of moments is the future; retraction of this is the past. The moment alone is the present.

Past and future create changes; the present is changeless. The fluctuations of consciousness into the past and future create time. If the mind, intelligence and consciousness are kept steady, and aware of moments without being caught in movements, the state of no-mind and no-time is experienced. This state is amanaskatva. The seer sees directly, independent of the workings of the mind. The yogi becomes the mind’s master, not its slave. He lives in a mind-free, time-free state. This is known as vivekaja jñanam: vivid, true knowledge.

Pure intelligence

Exalted intelligence is pure and true, untainted and uncontaminated. It distinguishes, clearly and instantly, the difference between similar entities, without analysing them according to rank, creed, quality and place.

This intelligence is true, pure and clean, as is the very soul. The yogi who possesses it is free from pride and prejudice. His intelligence and consciousness now rise to the level of the soul. As honey tastes the same from whichever side of the honeycomb it is taken, so, in the yogi, the body cells, senses, mind, intelligence, consciousness and conscience equally reflect the light of the soul. All parts of the seer appear as the soul. This is kaivalya. It comes when the powers which attract the misguided, but distract the yogi’s consciousness, are renounced.

IV: Kaivalya Pada

Kaivalya means exclusiveness, or eternal emancipation. It is release from karma: the consequences and obligations of our actions. Kaivalya is an absolute, indivisible state of existence. In it, the yogi is stripped of thoughts, mind, intellect and ego, and freed from the play of the gunas of nature, sattva, rajas and tamas. He becomes a gunatitan, a pure, flawless person.

In vibhuti pada, Patañjali describes the supernatural powers that attend such exalted yogis and how the renunciation of these powers results in kaivalya: the crowning end of the yogic sadhana, a state of fullness of the soul and of unique aloneness.

This chapter, Kaivalya pada, is impressive and exhaustive. One of its main themes is that the content of consciousness is pure, absolute and divine, provided it is unsullied by action, be it white (sattvic), grey (rajasic) or black (tamasic). The absolute nature of consciousness is to be realized by propitious birth, spiritual fervour and meditation. The cleansing transformation of consciousness liberates life-energy which accelerates the process of self-evolution. Progressively, one disentangles oneself from life’s preoccupations with dharma, duty; artha, means of livelihood; and kama, worldly enjoyment. This transcendence leads to freedom, or moksa. Consciousness, released from the attributes of nature, dissolves in the soul, purusa.

This chapter deals with the necessary rejection by yogis of the supernatural powers which attend their spiritual ascent, and indicates how such men and women, who have in a sense left the world behind, may then serve the world.

Five types of Yogis

Kaivalya pada opens with the contention that prodigious yogic powers may be inborn, acquired by merit accumulated through practice in former lives. They may also be attained through use of herbs (ausadhi), incantation (mantra), devoted discipline (tapas), meditation (dhyana) and total absorption (samadhi).

In these five types of yogis, nature’s energy, which later becomes known as kundalini, flows with ever-increasing abundance, preparing them to receive the infinite light of the soul. If misused, this energetic current will vanish, after destroying its user. This is why tapas and samadhi are held to be the best of the five: they provide a firm foundation for stable growth, which prevents the yogi from misusing the energy built up through his practices.

The yogi’s judicious use of natural forces can be compared to the farmer who floods his fields one by one within their earthen banks, letting the water thoroughly drench the soil before breaking open a new channel into another. For safety’s sake, the yogi employs method and restraint so as to use nature’s energy (sakti) intelligently to gain wisdom.

Talent

It takes talent to grasp nature’s potential and measure its use. The danger is that power leads to pride and builds ego, eclipsing one’s essential divinity. The root of the ego is the same pure consciousness; it is its contact with external phenomena that generates desire, the seed of impurity. Purity is humility. When sullied by cleverness it becomes pride, which causes consciousness to dissipate itself in the fluctuations of thought. Tapas and samadhi are the most reliable means to acquire yogic talent.

Actions

Actions are of four types. They are black, white, grey, or without these attributes. The last is beyond the gunas of rajas, tamas and sattva, free from intention, motivation and desire, pure and sourceless, and outside the law of cause and effect that governs all other actions. Motivated action leads eventually to pride, affliction and unhappiness; the genuine yogi performs only actions which are motiveless: free of desire, pride and effect.

The chain of cause and effect is like a ball endlessly rebounding from the walls and floor of a squash court. Memory, conscious or sublimated, links this chain, even across many lives. This is because every action of the first three types leaves behind a residual impression, encoded in our deepest memory, which thereafter continues to turn the karmic wheel, provoking reaction and further action. The consequences of action may take effect instantaneously, or lie in abeyance for years, even through several lives. Tamasic action is considered to give rise to pain and sorrow, rajasic to mixed results, and sattvic to more agreeable ones. Depending on their provenance, the fruits of action may either tie us to lust, anger and greed, or turn us towards the spiritual quest. These residual impressions are called samskaras: they build the cycles of our existence and decide the station, time and place of our birth. The yogi’s actions, being pure, leave no impressions and excite no reactions, and are therefore free from residual impressions.

Desires and impressions

Desires, and knowledge derived from memory or residual impressions, exist eternally. They are as much a part of our being as is the will to cling to life. In a perfect yogi’s life, desires and impressions have an end; when the mechanism of cause and effect is disconnected by pure, motiveless action, the yogi transcends the world of duality and desires and attachment wither and fall away.

Time

Yogic discipline eradicates ignorance, avidya. When illusion is banished, time becomes timeless. Though time is a continuum, it has three movements: past, present and future. Past and future are woven into the present and the present is timeless and eternal. Like the potter’s wheel, the present – the moment – rolls into movement as day and night, creating the impression that time is moving. The mind, observing the movement of time, differentiates it as past, present and future. Because of this, the perception of objects varies at different times.

Though the permanent characters of time, the object and the subject remain in their own entities, the mind sees them differently according to the development of its intelligence, and creates disparity between observation and reflection. Hence, actions and fulfilments differ. An illustration of this would be that we recognize the difference between what is involved when a murderer kills for money, a soldier kills for his country and a man kills defending his family against bandits. It is all killing, but the implications are radically different in each case, according to the development of the individual.

The yogi is alert to, and aware of, the present, and lives in the present, using past experience only as a platform for the present. This brings changelessness in the attitude of the mind towards the object seen.

Subject and object

Earlier chapters point out that whereas nature is eternal, its qualities or gunas, are ever-changing. This blending of the gunas creates diversity in the mind so that it sees objects in different ways. The object is the same and the mind, too, is the same. But the same mind has many qualities of mood and behaviour. This fragmentation is the cause of avidya. The mind divided by the gunas moulds and remoulds man. As the gunas move in rhythmic unity, intellectual development differs qualitatively in each person and each one sees objects differently, though their essence does not change.

The yogi studies the uniqueness of that rhythmic mutation, keeps aloof from it, and rests in his own essence, his soul. This essence, and the essence of the perceived object, are the same for him. Through self-examination, he realizes that objects do not change, but that he himself fabricates their apparent changes. He learns to perceive without prejudice, aware that objects exist independently, irrespective of his cognition of them. His clear, unpolluted mind sees objects as they are, separate from him and therefore unable to leave an impression on him. Being free from bias, he is free from karma.

Cit and citta (universal and individual consciousness)

The unalterable seer (cit) is the Lord of the consciousness. He is ever-present, changeless, constant, ever-luminous. The seer can be both subject and object at the same time. He is aware of all mutations taking place in his mind, intelligence and consciousness. He knows that they are his products and that they may taint him as long as avidya and asmita survive.

The seer is the seed, and consciousness the seedling. Mind is the stem, and vrittis, the fluctuations or thought-waves, are the leaves, relayed via mind through the single consciousness, the stem, back to the seed.

Consciousness and its branches, intelligence, mind and thought, become objects of the seer. The branches have no existence of their own without consciousness, and consciousness has none without the seer. It borrows light from the seer and extends towards intelligence, mind and thought. As it is not self-illumined it cannot be at once subject and object. It is a knowable object to the seer just as the objects of the world are knowable to it.

The cit (seer, soul, cosmic consciousness) is a passive, omniscient witness, whereas the citta (created or ‘sprouted’ consciousness) is active, impressionable and engaged, because it is involved in a direct relationship with the outside world. But when that involvement is analysed, controlled and brought to stillness, the citta gravitates towards its source, the cit, and takes on its characteristics, so that for the realized being cit and citta become one. The problem is that for the average person, the sprouted consciousness appears to be the seer, while in reality it merely masks the seer. Studying citta, we come to understand that it has no light of its own, but is dependent on its progenitor, the seer. Until this realization dawns, consciousness acts as a prism, distorting vision. Once it merges with the seer it becomes a perfect reflector, as well as a reflection, mirroring its own pure image, the soul reflecting on the soul.