Key idea of the Yoga Sūtras
nirodha · stilling
The settling of the mind's movements; the definition of yoga itself.
Nirodha is the key word of the definition: yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind (1.2). It is not forcing thought to stop. It comes about through two means held together, practice and non-attachment (1.12). Vyāsa reads the sūtra closely: because it does not say 'all' movements, absorption that still has an object also counts as yoga (on 1.2). Nirodha then deepens by stages. In absorption with an object, the mind still rests on an object (1.17). In the other absorption only latent impressions remain (1.18). Book III describes nirodha as a change in the mind itself: impressions of going outward give way, impressions of stilling appear (3.9), and the mind's flow becomes calm through those impressions (3.10). At the end even the impression left by wisdom is stilled, and everything is stilled (1.51). Then the seer rests in its own nature (1.3).
Vyāsa
“Hence the mind-stuff being disgusted with this [discriminative discernment] restricts even this Insight. When it has reached this state, [the mind-stuff], [after the restriction of the fluctuations,] passes over to subliminal impressions (saṃskāra). This is the [so-called] seedless concentration.”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya in J. H. Woods' translation (1914), p. 9.
How it has been read
Nirodha is rendered 'restriction' (Woods), 'cessation', 'restraint', 'stilling' or 'settling', and the choice shapes how the practice is heard. The commentators read the end point literally: in seedless absorption nothing at all is an object of awareness (1.51).
A common misreading
Nirodha is often taken to mean suppressing thoughts by force. The text pairs it from the start with non-attachment (1.12), and its mature form is a calm flow sustained by its own impressions (3.10).
Where the text defines it
- 1.2 Yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind.
- 1.12 They are stilled by practice and non-attachment.
- 1.18 The other absorption follows practice in letting thought cease; only latent impressions remain.
- 1.51 When even that is stilled, everything is stilled: this is absorption without a seed.
- 3.9 The transformation of stilling: impressions of going outward give way, impressions of stilling appear, and the mind is pervaded by the moment of stilling.
- 3.10 Its flow becomes calm through impressions.