The key ideas

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Patanjali, commentary by Swami Satchidananda, 1978

Why do your thoughts give you no peace even when everything outside is fine? Patanjali's ancient text answers this in one hundred and ninety-six short sayings, and Swami Satchidananda, who opened Woodstock, explains them in plain words. You will learn where the restlessness of the mind comes from, what the eight limbs of yoga are and why posture is only the third of them.

Who it is for

For anyone who does yoga and wants to understand what it is built on. And for anyone who has never set foot on a mat but is tired of the noise in their own head.

There's no value in digging shallow wells in a hundred places. Decide on one place and dig deep.

The monk who opened Woodstock

On the fifteenth of August 1969 a helicopter appeared over a farm in New York State. Out of it stepped an Indian monk in orange robes, with long hair and a beard, and he climbed onto the stage of the Woodstock festival. In front of him were some four hundred thousand young people. The organisers had invited him to set a peaceful tone for the festival. The monk said that music is a celestial sound, and that with its help miracles can be worked. His name was Swami Satchidananda.

Satchidananda was born in 1914 in the south of India. For many years his teacher was Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, and in 1966 Satchidananda came to New York. There he founded a school called Integral Yoga. It brings together exercises for the body with work on the mind, and its motto is: truth is one, paths are many. In 1978 his main book came out: Patanjali's ancient text with the Sanskrit original, a translation and a commentary. The commentary grew out of simple talks with his students, so it reads easily.

Almost nothing is known about Patanjali himself: scholars even argue about which century he lived in. His Yoga Sutras are one hundred and ninety-six short sayings, divided into four parts. Each sutra is only a few words long, and without explanation many of them cannot be understood.

The most surprising thing about this book is that it says almost nothing about poses. For Patanjali, yoga is a science of the mind. It explains where restlessness comes from, why we suffer and how to calm our thoughts step by step. You will learn what the famous eight limbs of yoga are, and see how ancient rules work in an ordinary day.

Why you cannot see the bottom of the lake

Patanjali's second sutra is four words long: “yogas chitta vritti nirodhah”. Satchidananda translates it as: the restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga. Chitta is the whole mind, with its thoughts, memory and feelings. Vritti are the waves that run across it all the time. Nirodha is their stilling. For an attentive student, Satchidananda writes, this one sutra would be enough, because all the others only explain it.

He explains it through the image of a lake. While there are ripples on the water, you cannot make out the bottom. When the water settles, you can see what lies in the depths. That bottom is the true self, which Patanjali calls the Seer. The next sutra says: then the Seer abides in its own nature. The rest of the time, the fourth adds, it seems to take on the form of the waves.

From this comes a simple thought. When you say “I am angry” or “I am in despair”, you are identifying yourself with a wave. But a wave is a movement of the water, not the water itself.

Satchidananda quotes a Sanskrit saying: as the mind, so the person; bondage or liberation are in your own mind. That is why yoga cares little about remaking the outside world. If you master your mind, he says, you master everything, and there is nothing left in the world that can bind you.

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About the author

Patanjali was an ancient Indian sage, the compiler of the Yoga Sutras; almost nothing is known about his life. Swami Satchidananda (1914–2002) was an Indian yoga teacher who lived in the United States from 1966 and founded Integral Yoga.

All books by this author: Patanjali, commentary by Swami Satchidananda

Terms from the book

  • Buddha
  • Sanskrit
  • Ahimsa
  • Brahmacharya
  • Woodstock: A rock festival held on a farm in New York State in August 1969, one of the best-known music festivals in history.
  • Sivananda: Swami Sivananda (1887–1963), an Indian teacher of yoga and Vedanta from Rishikesh, and Satchidananda's teacher.
  • Rishikesh: A town in northern India on the banks of the Ganges, at the foot of the Himalayas. It is known for its ashrams and yoga schools.
  • Integral Yoga: The school of yoga Satchidananda founded. It brings together exercises for the body, breathing, meditation, service and the study of texts.
  • Sutra: A short saying in an ancient Indian text. Literally “thread”. The Yoga Sutras consist of 196 such sayings.
  • Chitta: In the Yoga Sutras, the mind as a whole: thoughts, memory, feelings and the sense of self.
  • Vritti: The waves, or modifications, of the mind: any thoughts and states that arise in the chitta.
  • Nirodha: Stilling, restraining the waves of the mind. A word from the second sutra, where Patanjali defines yoga.
  • Seer: Patanjali's name for the true self, the pure consciousness that watches the mind and is not the same as it.
  • Abhyasa: Practice: a steady effort to keep the mind calm. One of the two pillars of yoga for Patanjali.
  • Vairagya: Non-attachment, freedom from craving for what has been seen or heard of. The second pillar of yoga for Patanjali.
  • Raga: Attachment to what is pleasant. Literally “colour”, “tint”.
  • Samskaras: Impressions, traces of past experience in the mind. According to yoga, habits and character are made of them.
  • Kleshas: Patanjali's five causes of suffering: ignorance, identifying with the body and mind, attachment, aversion and clinging to life.
  • Avidya: Ignorance: taking the passing for the eternal, and what is not you for yourself. According to the sutras, the root of the other kleshas.
  • Asmita: Identifying yourself with the body and mind, the sense that “I am this body, these thoughts”.
  • Dvesha: Aversion to what is unpleasant, the other side of attachment.
  • Abhinivesha: Clinging to life, the fear of death. According to the sutra, even the wise have it.
  • Kriya Yoga: For Patanjali, the yoga of action: tapas, study and offering the fruits to the highest. Not to be confused with the practice of the same name in Yogananda's school.
  • Tapas: Literally “heat”. For Satchidananda, accepting pain for the sake of purification without causing pain to others.
  • Svadhyaya: The study of texts that remind a person of their true self.
  • Ishvara pranidhana: Offering your actions and their fruits to the highest principle, Ishvara.
  • Bhagavad Gita: An ancient Indian poem, part of the epic Mahabharata, and one of the central texts of Hinduism.
  • Yama: The first limb of yoga: five vows about how you treat others, from non-violence to non-possessiveness.
  • Satya: Truthfulness.
  • Asteya: Not taking what belongs to others.
  • Aparigraha: Non-possessiveness: not taking or keeping more than you need.
  • Niyama: The second limb of yoga: five rules for yourself, from purity to devotion.
  • Saucha: Purity of body and mind, the first of the rules of niyama.
  • Santosha: Contentment with what you have. According to the sutra, the highest joy comes from it.
  • Asana: The third limb of yoga: a steady and comfortable posture, above all for meditation.
  • Pranayama: The fourth limb of yoga: control of the breath.
  • Pratyahara: The fifth limb of yoga: withdrawing the senses from outer objects.
  • Dharana: The sixth limb of yoga: holding the mind on one place or object.
  • Dhyana: The seventh limb of yoga, meditation: an unbroken flow of attention towards an object.
  • Samadhi: The eighth limb of yoga: a state in which only the object of contemplation remains, and the mind seems to forget itself.

All terms

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