.Sutra 1: Introduction to yoga

Atha: now therefore; yoga: (regarding) yoga; anusasanam: complete instructions

Now, therefore, complete instructions regarding yoga.

Atha: We shall pause and try to find out why the author has used the word atha. He could have used atha yoganu­shasanam, which means, 'here are instructions on yoga', but he used the word atha. Atha means 'now therefore', which means that these instructions on yoga are in connection with some previous instructions. The word atha is used here to denote that, after having purified oneself by karma yoga and after having unified the mental tendencies by bhakti yoga, the aspirant is being given instructions on yoga. By this, it is meant that those instructions on yoga which follow will become intelligible, fruitful and also palatable to those whose hearts are pure and whose minds are at rest, otherwise not. Those who have impure minds and wavering tendencies will not be able to practice what has been instructed in this shastra. Therefore, the word atha has been used in order to emphasize the necessity of qualifying oneself in karma yoga, bhakti yoga and other preparatory systems.

Yoga: The meaning of yoga follows in a subsequent sutra.

Anushasanam: The actual word is shasanam, anu being a prefix to emphasize its completeness. Shasan is a word which means giving a ruling, command, order, and instruction. The word shastra is developed from the word shasan. Shastra does not literally mean scripture. Shastra literally means a process of instructions and rulings. From the same word, another word has evolved — Ishwara, meaning ruler, governor, commander, and which is commonly used for God.

So, you will understand that anushasanam means instruc­tions. You may have read other commentaries on the yoga sutras where the word anushasanam is translated as restatement, exposition, explanation. If you analyze the word properly, you will find that the translations are totally incorrect. They are not at all appropriate to the text because the yoga sutras themselves are so simple, so concise, and so short-worded that they can be neither an explanation nor an exposition; they can only be instructions.

Yoga is this; this is how you practice yoga; these are the conditions of mind; this is how the individual experiments; this is the place of God in yoga — such and other similar matters are dealt with in this notes. There are, of course, expositions, short notes, explanations, commentaries, criti­cisms, etc. on yoga by great scholars like Vyasa, Bhoja, Vijnana Bhikshu and others. So, ultimately, we can take it that the word anushasanam means complete instructions.

Sutra 2: What is yoga?

                                  Yogaschitta vrtti nirodhah

Yogah: yoga-, chitta: consciousness vrtti: patterns or circular patterns nirodhah: blocking, stopping

To block the patterns of consciousness is yoga.

The sutra is a composition of four words: yoga, chitta, vritti and nirodhah.

Chitta is derived from the basic idea of chit, which means to see, to be conscious of, to be aware. Hence chitta means individual consciousness, which includes the conscious state of mind, the subconscious state of mind and also the unconscious state of mind. The totality of these three states of individual mind is symbolized by the expression chitta. Chitta has been differently accepted in Vedanta, but here chitta represents the whole of the individual consciousness, which is comprised of three stages: the sense or objective consciousness, the subjective or astral consciousness, and the unconsciousness or mental state of dormant potentiality. These three states of pure consciousness should be under­stood as the chitta referred to in this sutra.

In the Mandukya Upanishad, the four states or dimensions of consciousness are dealt with in a very lucid form. If you read this Upanishad or a commentary on it, your personal consciousness will become clear to you. In this sutra, chitta represents all the four dimensions of consciousness, but it is a symbol of three dimensions of consciousness. These three dimensions of consciousness are spoken of as chitta, and the fourth dimension is spoken of as atman. In brief, we can say that atman plus chitta is jivatman, the individual awareness; jivatman minus chitta is atman. This- is merely an indirect explanation of the word.

               What do we mean by blocking? Does it mean that we block and stop our- thoughts, visions, respiration, desires and personality complexes? If that is so, then Patanjali is introducing suppression. This is true only so long as chitta is iaken in the light of mind, the instrument of general knowl­edge but when the chitta is understood to be the total consciousness in the individual, giving rise to various mani­festations in the mental or astral realms, and then the doubt regarding the act of suppressing will be rent asunder.

The expression nirodha in this sutra apparently means a process of blocking, but it should not mean an act of blocking the fundamental stuff' of awareness. In fact, it is clear in this sutra that it is an act of blocking the patterns of awareness, not the awareness itself. As a practitioner of yoga, you will certainly agree with this apt expression in the sutra, that the patterns of awareness become blocked in the yogic state of meditation. A little later in this chapter you will learn more about the fundamental structure and the nature, action and reaction of chitta, but in this sutra it is hinted that a different and fundamental state of consciousness can be achieved by blocking the flow of consciousness.

          When you go to bed at night and enter the unconscious state of awareness, what happens to your sense awareness, your body and brain? Do they die, or is it a process of blocking the flow of sense awareness and mental awareness? Certainly it is a state where the psychological functions are cut from the realm of individual awareness. The flow of vrittis changes and therefore you experience a different plane, different objects, events, persons, places and processes. All that is the vrittis, pertaining to a different state of aware­ness due to the process of blocking the normal vrittis. If you analyze all such states where individual awareness manifests

In different modes, forms and dimensions, you will come to the realization that the process of vrittis is different from awareness and that one can block this flow of vrittis and transcend the limitations of awareness or, rather, put an end to this ever-incarnating flow of vrittis.

       This again brings us to the fact that there is a definite Process, unconcerned and different from all that relates with the body, mind, senses and prana, and it is, that awareness which keeps on changing from state to state. This process is consciousness, a state of constant and unbroken awareness.

          There is in us the existence of consciousness which is irrespective of this body; which is with the body and at the same time it can be without the body, or outside it. It is that which is to be blocked. It is not the ordinary thoughts that we have to suppress. These thoughts are just nothing, a mere handful of our awareness. "There seems to be a fantastic area of consciousness, unimaginable, beyond this body, with this body, but sometimes outside this body, and it is infinite. We call it ananta, unending, infinite. So, by certain practices which we will learn about in the next chapter, there can end there will take place an event in which this invisible process of consciousness can be blocked.

         Let us understand it correctly. The flow of consciousness that we are talking about is not the flow of your mind and thoughts; it is not the flow of your feelings, passions and desires; it is not the stock of your emotions and experiences. The word chitta means the consciousness as a whole, in and outside the body, with and without it. In brief, the conscious­ness is like a thread connecting many lives and incarnations. Therefore, the word nirodha does not mean blocking thoughts, desires, ambitions, passions and so forth, but it means the act or acts of blocking the process of conscious­ness responsible for remanifestation.

          Vritta means a circle and vritti means circular. When you throw a stone into a pond, the movements of the water spread outward in the form of circles. In the same manner, the consciousness has its circular patterns; these are neither horizontal nor perpendicular, but circular and so it moves in a circular pattern: Therefore, the attitudes of chitta, the modes of mind, are called chitta vritti