I. Samādhi Pāda · The obstacles (1.30–1.32)
1.30 · The Nine Rocks
Illness, dullness, doubt, carelessness, heaviness, craving, false seeing, not reaching a stage, and not staying there: these scatterings of the mind are the obstacles.
Word by word
- vyādhi
- illness
- styāna
- dullness
- saṃśaya
- doubt
- pramāda
- carelessness
- ālasya
- heaviness (Vyāsa: lack of effort from heaviness of body or mind)
- avirati
- craving
- bhrānti-darśana
- false seeing
- alabdha-bhūmikatva
- not reaching a stage
- anavasthitatvāni
- not staying there
- citta-vikṣepāḥ
- scatterings of the mind
- te
- these
- antarāyāḥ
- obstacles
Where it fits
1.29 promised that the obstacles would fall away; Vyāsa now asks what they are and how many (Woods p. 63). Nine are listed, and they are called scatterings of the mind, the distracted state Vyāsa named under 1.1. 1.31 adds their felt signs, and 1.32 the remedy.
Reading
These nine obstacles run through the whole set: every card's reversed meaning names one of them. Patañjali calls them scatterings of the mind. They move from illness of the body and dullness of the mind, which Vyāsa calls its unreadiness for work, through our attitude to practice (doubt, carelessness, heaviness, craving), to false seeing, and finally to the two problems of progress itself: not reaching a stage, and not staying there. Vyāsa calls them the nine foes of yoga, and says they arise only with the mind's movements. Naming them is half the work. 1.32 gives the remedy.
Vyāsa
“The nine obstacles are the scatterings of the mind. … Doubt is a thought that touches both alternatives: 'It might be like this; it might not be like this.' … These nine scatterings of the mind are called the stains of yoga, the enemies of yoga, the obstacles of yoga.”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 63–64.
Practice
Read the nine names slowly. Mark the one that has most often stopped your practice in the past year, and the one active today. Write one small step against today's obstacle, and take it before evening.
A question to sit with
Which obstacle is in the river today?