योगसूत्रYoga SūtrasOpen in the app

I. Samādhi Pāda · sūtras 1.17–1.22

Kinds of absorption

What this passage does

What the two means produce. Absorption with an object has four stages (1.17); the other kind leaves only latent impressions (1.18). Vyāsa reads 1.19–1.20 as two routes to that second kind: a temporary one arising from a state of being, and the yogis' route through faith, energy, memory, absorption and wisdom. 1.21–1.22 grade how soon it comes.

Learning goals

The argument, step by step

  1. Absorption with an object is accompanied by four forms, from coarse to subtle: vitarka, vicāra, bliss and the sense 'I am'.
  2. The other absorption follows practice in letting thought cease, and in it only latent impressions remain.
  3. For the bodiless and those dissolved in nature it arises from their state of being, and so it does not last.
  4. For others it is preceded by faith, energy, memory, absorption and wisdom, each leading to the next.
  5. It is near for those whose urgency is intense, and because urgency itself is mild, middling or intense, nearness is graded too.

The sūtras

  1. 1.17 vitarkavicārānandāsmitārūpānugamāt saṃprajñātaḥ
    Absorption with an object is accompanied by the forms of coarse thought, subtle thought, bliss and the sense 'I am'.
  2. 1.18 virāmapratyayābhyāsapūrvaḥ saṃskāraśeṣo 'nyaḥ
    The other absorption follows practice in letting thought cease; only latent impressions remain.
  3. 1.19 bhavapratyayo videhaprakṛtilayānām
    For the bodiless and those dissolved in nature, it arises from their state of being.
  4. 1.20 śraddhāvīryasmṛtisamādhiprajñāpūrvaka itareṣām
    For others, it is preceded by faith, energy, memory, absorption and wisdom.
  5. 1.21 tīvrasaṃvegānām āsannaḥ
    It is near for those whose urgency is intense.
  6. 1.22 mṛdumadhyādhimātratvāt tato 'pi viśeṣaḥ
    Even among these there is a further difference, as the urgency is mild, middling or intense.

Study

With the two means in place (1.12–1.16), Vyāsa asks how the resulting absorption is to be described (Woods p. 40). The passage answers in two parts: what absorption is (1.17–1.18), and how it is reached, by whom and how soon (1.19–1.22).

1.17 describes absorption with an object (saṃprajñāta) by four forms that accompany it. Vyāsa defines vitarka as the mind's gross direct engagement (ābhoga) with its object, and vicāra as the subtle one. Ānanda is delight, and asmitā is awareness of a single self. Then he subtracts. The first stage has all four. The second has lost vitarka, the third vicāra too, and the fourth even bliss, leaving the sense 'I am' alone. All of these, he says, rest on an object (Woods p. 40). The ladder runs from coarse to subtle, and 1.42–1.44 return to its first two rungs.

1.18 names 'the other', which Vyāsa himself calls asaṃprajñāta, absorption not conscious of an object (Woods p. 42). It follows practice in the thought of cessation, and only latent impressions remain. Its means, Vyāsa says, is the higher non-attachment of 1.16, because practice with an object cannot bring about a state without one. In it the mind is as if it did not exist (Woods p. 42).

Vyāsa then divides objectless absorption by its cause (Woods p. 43). 1.19 is the kind that arises from a state of being, in the bodiless, whom he takes to be gods, and in those dissolved in nature. They know something like liberation until the mind, its task unfinished, returns. 1.20 gives the yogis' way: faith, energy, memory, absorption and wisdom. Faith, Vyāsa says, is the mind's clear serenity, protecting the yogi like a kind mother; from faith comes energy, from energy memory, and so on to the wisdom that knows things as they are (Woods p. 46).

1.21–1.22 grade the speed. Vyāsa sorts practitioners into nine kinds by method and intensity (Woods p. 47), and finds absorption nearest of all for one whose method is strong and whose urgency is extreme (Woods p. 48).

Readings differ. Vitarka and vicāra are rendered reasoning and reflection, gross and subtle thought, or, in Woods, deliberation and reflection; Vyāsa's definition ties the difference to how gross or subtle the object is. Commentators gloss bhava in 1.19 in different ways. The five qualities of 1.20 match a list well known from Buddhist texts, and scholars debate how the traditions shaped each other. Saṃvega in 1.21 is read as the force of non-attachment or as the vigour of practice.

For practice the passage gives two cautions and an encouragement. Pleasant states with an object are real stages, not the end. A state that resembles freedom can still be temporary if it rests on conditions (1.19). And the way is the same for everyone; what differs is the urgency one brings to it.

For discussion

  1. In 1.17 each stage drops one element. What might it mean that bliss falls away before the sense 'I am'?
  2. Why, according to Vyāsa, can practice that rests on an object not by itself bring about absorption without one?
  3. 1.19 describes a state that looks like liberation but does not last. What might be an everyday equivalent in a practitioner's life?
  4. Vyāsa calls faith the mind's clear serenity. How does that differ from belief, and why might it come first in 1.20?
  5. 1.21–1.22 grade urgency. What does the text gain by admitting that some arrive sooner than others?

A common misreading

That the blissful stage of 1.17 is the goal of meditation. Bliss is the third of four forms of absorption with an object, and Vyāsa says all four still rest on an object (Woods p. 40); the text goes on to absorption without one (1.18, 1.51).

A practice for the room

Place one simple object where everyone can see it, such as a flower or a bowl. Two minutes: take in its overall shape and colour. Two minutes: attend to the finest detail you can find. One minute: notice any quiet pleasure in attending. One minute: notice only that you are here, aware. Then two minutes with eyes closed, resting without any object. Ring a bell at each change and give each instruction in one short sentence.