1.23 · Into the Sea

Or through devotion to Īśvara.

Word by word

īśvara

the Lord; the distinct self of 1.24

praṇidhānāt

from devotion; from placing oneself before

vā

or

Where it fits

The 'or' answers Vyāsa's question after 1.22: is graded effort the only way, or is there another? (Woods p. 48). Devotion to Īśvara is a second way. Who Īśvara is follows in 1.24–1.26, and how to approach Īśvara in 1.27–1.28. Devotion returns at 2.1, 2.32 and 2.45.

Reading

One small word, 'or', opens a second road. After the long work of practice and non-attachment, Patañjali says absorption also comes through devotion to Īśvara. Vyāsa says that, won over by devotion, a special kind of love, Īśvara turns toward the practitioner and favours them by intention alone. Who Īśvara is comes in the next three sūtras, and devotion returns at 2.1, 2.32 and 2.45. Readers differ on whether 'or' makes devotion a separate path or a support within the same one.

Vyāsa

“Won over by devotion, a special kind of love, Īśvara turns towards the yogi and favours him by intention alone. And from that intention alone, the gaining of absorption and its fruit become nearest for the yogi.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 48.

Practice

Whatever you hold sacred, a deity, a teacher, the good itself, turn toward it once today in a simple, physical way: a bow, a flower set down, a few words said aloud. Then go about your day and notice whether anything feels lighter.

A question to sit with

What do you turn toward?

Where commentators disagree

In 1.23, whose 'wish' brings the result, and is īśvara-praṇidhāna here the same practice as in 2.1?

Vyāsa

Through a special kind of devotion Īśvara inclines to the yogin and favours him 'merely because of [this yogin's] profound desire'; through that longing the yogin comes very near to absorption and its fruit. (Woods 1914, p. 48)

Vyāsa

Īśvara, drawn towards the yogin by devotion, 'becomes gracious to him by merely wishing' it: on this reading the wish (abhidhyāna) is Īśvara's. (Rama Prasad 1912, p. 40)

Bhoja

Devotion is worship and the giving over of all one's actions to the Lord, the supreme guide, without wanting their fruit. (Tatya 1885, p. 22; Mitra 1883, wisdomlib on 1.23)

Rama Prasad

Renders praṇidhāna in 1.23 as 'feeling the omnipresence' of God, because in the chapter on samādhi it must be contemplative, and in 2.1 as making Him the motive of action, because there it belongs to the yoga of action. (Rama Prasad 1912, p. 87, note)

Key ideas

īśvara (the Lord), samādhi (absorption)