योगसूत्रYoga SūtrasOpen in the app

I. Samādhi Pāda · sūtras 1.1–1.4

What yoga is

What this passage does

The opening sets the terms for the whole text. 1.1 announces the subject, and 1.2 defines yoga in one short line: in Sanskrit just two words, the second a compound of three. 1.3–1.4 then give the seer's two conditions: resting in itself when the mind is still, and seeming to take the mind's shape at all other times. Everything that follows serves the move from 1.4 back to 1.3.

Learning goals

The argument, step by step

  1. 1.1 announces the subject: from here begins the teaching of yoga.
  2. 1.2 defines yoga as the stilling of the movements of the mind, so everything that follows concerns the mind and its movements.
  3. When the movements are stilled, the seer rests in its own nature: the stilling reveals what was already there.
  4. At all other times the seer seems to take the form of the movements, and this is the ordinary human condition.
  5. So the work of the text is to understand the movements (1.5–1.11) and to still them (1.12 onward), turning the condition of 1.4 into that of 1.3.

The sūtras

  1. 1.1 atha yogānuśāsanam
    Now, the teaching of yoga.
  2. 1.2 yogaś cittavṛttinirodhaḥ
    Yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind.
  3. 1.3 tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe 'vasthānam
    Then the seer rests in its own nature.
  4. 1.4 vṛttisārūpyam itaratra
    Otherwise, the seer takes on the form of the mind's movements.

Study

The opening is a compact argument in four steps. 1.1 says what the book is: 'Now, the teaching of yoga.' 1.2 gives the definition: 'Yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind.' 1.3 gives the result: 'Then the seer rests in its own nature.' 1.4 gives the alternative: 'Otherwise, the seer takes on the form of the mind's movements.' A claim, its result, and the condition the claim is meant to change.

Vyāsa reads 'now' as marking the start of a new subject, and at once says that yoga is samādhi, absorption, a quality of the mind found in all its states. He names five: restless, dull, distracted, one-pointed and stilled (Woods pp. 3–4). Only the last two count as yoga in the full sense. Under 1.2 he explains why the mind has states at all. It is made of the three guṇas, tending to clarity, activity and inertia (Woods p. 8). As the covering of inertia and the pull of activity thin, the mind grows clear, until it is nothing but the discernment of the difference between the mind and the self. Even that discernment is finally stilled, and the result is seedless absorption, in which nothing becomes an object of awareness. So, Vyāsa concludes, yoga is of two kinds (Woods pp. 8–9).

One detail of wording matters. Vyāsa notes that 1.2 does not say 'all' movements, and so absorption with an object also counts as yoga (Woods p. 8). The definition covers a range, from a mind that is steadier to one in which nothing moves. That is why the pāda can spend most of its length on stages.

1.3 and 1.4 describe one seer in two conditions. Vyāsa insists the seer itself does not change: at rest it is as it is in liberation, and when the mind is outward-turned it does not seem so, though it is the same (Woods p. 13). Under 1.4 he quotes an older sūtra, which Woods assigns to Pañcaśikha: 'there is only one appearance, and that appearance is knowledge', and compares the mind to a magnet that serves the self merely by being near. The link between them, he says, has no beginning (Woods p. 14).

Readings differ. Vācaspati hears in anuśāsana a teaching that follows an earlier one, so that Patañjali hands on what was taught before. Nirodha is rendered restraint, cessation, stilling or settling; some readers hear suppression of thought, others a quieting. Some take 1.2 alone as the definition, others 1.2 and 1.3 together, the stilling and what it reveals.

For practice the passage changes the question. The aim is neither better thoughts nor no thoughts. It is to notice that one has been taking the form of the movements (1.4), and to let them settle so that what was always there can be seen (1.3).

For discussion

  1. 1.3 says the seer rests 'in its own nature'. If nothing new is gained, what exactly changes when the movements are stilled?
  2. Vyāsa points out that 1.2 does not say 'all' movements. What does that small omission allow the rest of the pāda to do?
  3. Using Vyāsa's magnet image, how can the seer seem to take the mind's form (1.4) without itself changing?
  4. Why might Patañjali define yoga by what happens in the mind, and not by a posture, a breath or a belief?

A common misreading

That yoga, by this definition, means emptying the mind or forcing thought to stop. Vyāsa counts absorption with an object as yoga too (Woods p. 8), and 1.6 puts sleep, the most blank of states, among the movements to be stilled.

A practice for the room

Seat the group comfortably, eyes open or closed. Ring a bell, or simply say 'now' (1.1). For three minutes, each person silently notices which of Vyāsa's five states they are in: restless, dull, distracted, one-pointed or stilled. For three more minutes, whenever a thought arises, note it silently as 'a movement' and let it go without following it. Close with a minute of silence, then invite anyone who wishes to name in one word what changed.