The Yoga Sutras: A Summary by Miranda Hope (Step 1 Student at SCHYS)

The Sutras of Patanjali

We’ve got a problem, we humans. It’s our brains, our thought-machines, which for many of us, if left unattended, stash memories, labels, and stories and then churn out thoughts, more labels, more stories, illusions, fantasies, distractions, ruminations, worries, comparisons, judgments, competitions, expectations day in and day out. And, to make matters worse, every thought seems true, is compelling, is sticky, tells us that we are it and it is us, wants to drag our awareness to all kinds of distracted, distorted, sometimes excruciating, unmanageable places.

When things are fine, we barely notice that this is a problem. When we suffer, ALL we notice is that this is a problem, but we feel trapped, incarcerated by our own heads and nervous systems.

The Yoga Sutras are a way out. The key to our jail cell is: If I calm the mind, I notice: I am not my thoughts. I am the peaceful watcher of my swirling, compelling thoughts.

I. Samadhipada. Contemplation.

First step is to notice that in this moment, this NOW, everything is usually fine. Next, to absorb this text, these 196 sutras, this guidebook from lack of awareness to awareness, we must want peace, want relief from being dragged around, jerked around by the mind, like we’re waterskiing behind a boat with no driver.

So, what is this mind thing, anyway? What does it do? It does tasks that are sometimes beneficial, sometimes harmless and sometimes harmful. Why can’t we calm it and keep it calm? Because of distraction and illusions, illness, doubt and fatigue, lack of will, lack of vision, interactions with people and our own jealousies, judgments, and pettiness. It’s like asking why things are not more calm at the center of a stirred-up beehive. It’s those darn bees.

Most of us, we’re just not naturally magnanimous souls and our smallness leads to our own suffering and the suffering of those around us. Some people are born pure and peaceful, the rest of us have to work at rising to a new plane, a new vibration. We have to be humble, bow, realize that we are not always driving, that our little controlling limited ego selves might as well just go ahead and submit to something larger – ANYTHING larger. We need to ask for help, study and concentrate. And, if we do, inevitably, invariably, well, then we get to be not just peaceful and calm, not just clear, but crystal clear. Diamond clear. We get to have a sparkling intellect. We get to be the lighthouse and we can share the light with others. We get to be transparent. We don’t have to suffer anymore. Seems hard. Seems worth it. Stay tuned.

II. Sadhanapadah. Practice.

But it is work, no doubt about it. We have to rid the body of impurities, study ourselves, our habits, and really be humble. Because we’ve got this tendency towards getting things wrong over and over again. Moods, habits; desiring, clinging; aversions; fears, anxieties, insecurities. They are powerful forces that will suck us into suffering every time and they pop up like Whack-a-Mole. AND, our autopilot state is to REACT to every single one.

So, here’s the bad news: it takes a real and constant vigilance to sidestep a life of almost total confusion. If we aren’t reflecting and building discipline and clarity, we’re probably getting something wrong.

But here’s the good news: The Witness Self. That swarming hive of mental functions (vrttis), obstacles (antarayas) and poisons (kleshas)? It’s not our truest, most real Self. It’s just misunderstanding. It’s just because misperception is sticky and tricky, pretending to be absolutely real and critical, when it is really just a movie on the screen.

The sutras don’t say, “stop doing that,” they tell us how to change. First, we can focus our energy on the perceiver (ourselves) rather than the perceived. Next, we can clear up distracting, painful frictions between us and others: be kind, honest, trustworthy, and generous, both in control of and free with our energy and possessions. We can treat ourselves well: be clean – inside and out, relaxed, nourished and well-slept, content, selfaware, and deeply humble. We can practice asana with both alertness and relaxation. We can let the life force flow through the body strong and free. And then, it’s as though the heavy lifting of finding mental calm has been done for us – obstacles are reduced, the mind can focus, the distractions weaken, and the senses can be restrained and mastered. Again, the goal is to exit the unexamined life of suffering. The sutras show us the way. But what is on the other side of the door?

III. Vibhuti Pada. Accomplishments.

The last three limbs of raja yoga lead to one-pointed awareness, deeper knowledge of anything and everything, and the siddhis, defined as supernatural powers (Satchidananda).

Something about the word “superpowers” causes my skepticism to flare and the following thought to arise: “You knoooow, actually, I’m good. The first two Padas are for me, thanks.” But how could a genius sage be so RIGHT for the first 106 sutras (Padas I and II) and then be suddenly, come Pada III, wrong?

So, here we go.

In a three-tiered process (samyama) we learn to concentrate, train the mind, focus and study, bind it to just one thing (dharana), not just for a moment, but for a long time continuously, steady and smooth (dhyana), like “pouring oil from one pot to another.” (Satchidananda) Now we are free from thoughts and also the body and also time, past and future, and space. And eventually, we are able to experience full absorption and thereby become free of self, object, meditation, all (samadhi)—useful and active and liberated. If that isn’t a superpower, I’m sure I don’t know what is.

Diving deeper, shedding old ideas and habits, receiving secrets, diving deeper, finding the “substratum” of surging Prakriti, diving deeper, seeking, ever seeking, going down to transcend, going inward to shine a light outward, uncovering truth, finding the light of solid knowledge where before there was so much churning darkness and ignorance. Beautiful.

We listen harder. We understand words more purely. We find meaning where before there was only confusion. We begin to know things we never knew before. I’m in.

Samyama leads to knowledge of past birth, an ability to make the body invisible, and a retreat from the senses so total that sound, touch, taste, and smell disappear. We can learn the time of our deaths. Whatever we meditate upon, actualizes. Friendliness. Strength. Knowledge of subtle things. Meditate on the sun and understand the solar system; on the moon and understand the stars’ arrangement; on the North Star to know the movement of the stars. If we bring our disciplined and diamond clear minds right to the core of a thing and study its we can know it, really Know it. Naval gaze to know the organs of the body. Concentrate on the pit of the throat to know and cease hunger and thirst.

The sutras offer more practical pairings of the goals of a meditation and the objects upon which to focus. For calm under any circumstances? The chest. For supernormal capabilities? The source of high intelligence. To understand anything, meditate with “fresh and spontaneous attempt(s)” and understanding arises. “ (Desikachar, III.33) Wait, meditation should be “fresh and spontaneous?” Meditation? Fresh and spontaneous? Like … eating a ripe peach off the branch? Like an unplanned road trip on a warm spring day?

Deep meditation (Samyama) on the heart reveals the qualities of the mind. (Desikachar, III.34) as “the heart is considered to be the seat of the mind.” How moving and true. Samyama on the difference between the unchanging Witness (Purusha) in us and all the distortions leads to knowledge of what is Real and what is not, which in turn enables us to escape from the jail that is frequently the experience of self.

Both practical and esoteric, the list continues. Meditation to manage pain, heat the body, develop our hearing and sight, understand physics, elements, matter, time and change, and acquire a colorless, featureless, transparent mind.

And then we arrive at the ultimate goal: immediate, spontaneous FREEDOM, ours for the having! Unless – and this is a big UNLESS – unless we cling to our new found superpowers or grab status from the attaining of them, which is arrogance masquerading as spirituality. Nothing opens a trap door to a spiritual square one like power and arrogance, this go around clinging not to thoughts, ideas and habits but to freedom itself.

Here we have an ode to meditation’s ability to lead us out of perpetual confusion and towards clarity, wisdom and freedom. It is a Force that first says, quietly, compassionately, “hush,” right before it seeks, focuses, and drills down to rise up and out of suffering.

IV. Kaivalya Pada. Absoluteness.

And in the end, the calm, clarity and wisdom were in each of us all along as our truest self, our birthright.

A thousand years after Patanjali gathered the sutras, Michelangelo (1475-1564) said, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

Yoga and meditation and the sutras reveal that we are all Michelangelo, chipping away at our hard-wiring. And, we are all also the chisel. And, we are all also the peaceful, wise form trapped within the block.

When the superfluous material is gone, we live in pure clarity, free from superfluous fluctuations, free from desires, free even from the desire to be free.