The Yoga Sutra was originally written in Sanskrit by Patañjali in India. Sanskrit is a language comprised of sounds. These sounds are considered the building blocks of the universe.
The Yoga Sutra came after the ancient Indian text, the Upanashads. The Upanashads is a series of stories encrypted with life lessons, similar to the bible.
Thousands of years later, sometime in 400 CE, Patañjali took the messages from the Upanashads and other yogic philosophy and wrote the Yoga Sutra, as a manual for achieving Samadhi, the goal of a yogic life. Patañjali also wove in threads of Buddhism, like vipassana (deep concentration meditation) which had interwoven itself with the yogic tradition throughout India.
Sanskrit, a holy language is unlike English in that each word has pages of interpretations and meanings. As such, there are no exact ‘correct’ translations of the Yoga Sutra. Rather, phrases are interpreted by the sounds which surround them.
Below are the first three sutras of the Yoga Sutra, with two common translations.
I.I Atha yoganusanam
With Prayers for divine blessings, now begins an exposition of the sacred art of yoga (Iyengar)
Now concentration is explained (Vivikananda)
The opening sutra suggests that life existed before yoga, but now is the time for yoga. This sutra honors what came before yoga, but also asserts that now, is the time for yogic messages to be shared. It’s a pretty straight forward introduction!
I.II. Yoga cittavrtti nirodhah
Yoga is the cessation of movements in the conscious (Iyengar)
Yoga is to still the patterns of consciousness (Vivikananda)
The second sutra has a clear message. You are not the cittvritti- your minds endless cycle of thoughts. Cittvrtti is also your karma- thoughts are powerful materializers! Cittvrity is not only the thoughts, but even more so- the way your thoughts are thunk. And through yoga, we learn to still our minds. We learn to break the patterns of thoughts that tend to incessantly repeat in our minds. Sutra #II informs us that yoga is a great method to cittavrtti nirodhah (still the patterns of the monkey mind). What happens next is the best part…
I.III Tada drastuh svarupe avasthanam
Then, the seer dwells in his own true splendor (Iyengar)
Then you will know that you are the seer and you are all awareness. This is the goal, and it can be attained through yoga.
Got to keep reading to get to the meat of yoga according to Patañjali. The rest of the book is great and describes the methodology in detail. For a less traditional and extremely pleasant, digestible, and beautiful version of the Yoga Sutras, check out the awesome edition by B. Ravikanth.
Jessica T. Arena, Esq. 