Key idea of the Yoga Sūtras
abhyāsa · practice
Repeated, steady effort toward a settled mind.
Abhyāsa is one of the two means of stilling the mind; the other is non-attachment (1.12). Patañjali defines it as the effort toward steadiness (1.13). Practice here is not any activity, but effort aimed at a mind that stays settled. It becomes firmly grounded when kept up for a long time, without a break, and with care (1.14). These three conditions are the method in brief. 'A long time' rules out the quick result; 'without a break' rules out the occasional burst; 'with care' (satkāra) asks for wholeheartedness, which Vyāsa spells out as discipline, continence, knowledge and faith (on 1.14). Practice also deepens in its aim: the objectless absorption follows practice in letting thought cease (1.18). And when the obstacles scatter the mind, the remedy is practice on a single principle (1.32). Practice never works alone. Without non-attachment it turns into striving; with it, the mind settles.
Vyāsa
“… the stream towards objects is dammed by passionlessness, and the stream towards discrimination has its flood-gate opened by practice in discriminatory knowledge. Thus it appears that the restriction of the mind-stuff is dependent [for its accomplishment upon means] of both kinds”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya in J. H. Woods' translation (1914), p. 34.
How it has been read
Vācaspati Miśra stresses that the two means must operate together, not one or the other separately (on 1.12).
A common misreading
Abhyāsa is often reduced to a daily routine of exercises. In the text it is effort toward a steady mind (1.13), and it is only half the method without non-attachment (1.12).
Where the text defines it
- 1.12 They are stilled by practice and non-attachment.
- 1.13 Of these, practice is the effort toward steadiness.
- 1.14 And practice becomes firmly grounded when kept up for a long time, without a break, and with care.
- 1.18 The other absorption follows practice in letting thought cease; only latent impressions remain.
- 1.32 To prevent them, practise on a single principle.