योगसूत्रYoga SūtrasOpen in the app

I. Samādhi Pāda · sūtras 1.5–1.11

The five movements

What this passage does

Before the movements can be stilled they must be known. This passage sorts them by effect, afflicting or not (1.5), lists five kinds (1.6) and defines each (1.7–1.11). Putting valid knowing and sleep on the list shows that stilling is neither correcting errors nor going blank. It ends with the question of means.

Learning goals

The argument, step by step

  1. The movements are of five kinds, and any of them can be afflicting or not.
  2. The five are valid knowing, error, imagination, sleep and memory.
  3. Valid knowing comes from perception, inference and reliable testimony; error rests on a form that is not the thing itself.
  4. Imagination follows words with no real object behind it, and sleep rests on the experience of absence.
  5. Memory keeps what was once experienced, and can arise from any of the five, so the list closes on itself.
  6. Since every kind is a movement, even true knowing and sleep must be stilled, which raises the question of means answered at 1.12.

The sūtras

  1. 1.5 vṛttayaḥ pañcatayyaḥ kliṣṭākliṣṭāḥ
    The movements are of five kinds, some afflicting and some not.
  2. 1.6 pramāṇaviparyayavikalpanidrāsmṛtayaḥ
    Valid knowing, error, imagination, sleep and memory.
  3. 1.7 pratyakṣānumānāgamāḥ pramāṇāni
    Valid knowing comes from perception, inference and reliable testimony.
  4. 1.8 viparyayo mithyājñānam atadrūpapratiṣṭham
    Error is false knowledge, resting on a form that is not the thing itself.
  5. 1.9 śabdajñānānupātī vastuśūnyo vikalpaḥ
    Imagination is knowledge that follows from words, with no real object behind it.
  6. 1.10 abhāvapratyayālambanā vṛttir nidrā
    Sleep is the movement of mind that rests on the experience of absence.
  7. 1.11 anubhūtaviṣayāsaṃpramoṣaḥ smṛtiḥ
    Memory is not letting go of something once experienced.

Study

Having said that the seer takes the form of the movements (1.4), Patañjali must say what they are. He sorts them twice. First by effect: 'The movements are of five kinds, some afflicting and some not' (1.5). Then by kind: 'Valid knowing, error, imagination, sleep and memory' (1.6). The next five sūtras define each in turn. It is a map of mental life in a few lines.

The sorting by effect comes first, and that is telling. Vyāsa says afflicting movements are caused by the kleśas and are the field where the store of karma grows, while the others have discernment as their object. A non-afflicting movement stays so even in a stream of afflicting ones. And movements leave impressions, which produce further movements: so the wheel of movements and impressions turns without rest (Woods pp. 16–17). The task is larger than stopping mistakes. It is to change what the wheel lays down.

Vyāsa's definitions are precise. Perception is chiefly concerned with the particular, inference with the general (Woods p. 20), a distinction that returns at 1.49. His example of inference is the moving moon and the unmoving Vindhya hills. Testimony holds when the speaker has seen or inferred the thing. Error is not valid because valid knowing overturns it, as seeing one moon overturns seeing two, and Vyāsa identifies this error with avidyā in its five parts, the afflictions of 2.3 (Woods p. 24). Imagination is neither valid knowing nor error, yet speech runs on it (Woods p. 26). Sleep must be a movement, he argues, because on waking we remember how we slept (Woods p. 29). Memory may arise from all five, itself included (Woods p. 30).

He then sums up. All these movements have pleasure, pain and delusion as their nature, to be explained among the afflictions (2.7–2.8). All must be stilled, because only from their stilling comes absorption, with or without an object (Woods p. 32).

Readings differ most over vikalpa: imagination, conceptualisation, verbal construction. It is the same word 1.42 uses for the blend of word, thing and idea, so a rendering that keeps the link helps. Vyāsa also treats dreams under memory, so 1.10 is usually read as dreamless sleep.

Two inclusions carry the argument. Valid knowing is a movement, so yoga is more than replacing false thoughts with true ones. Sleep is a movement, so a dull or blank mind is not the goal. A practitioner who can tell which kind of movement is present, and whether it afflicts, has the first tool for the work 1.12 describes.

For discussion

  1. Why might Patañjali sort the movements by their effect (1.5) before he sorts them by kind (1.6)?
  2. Valid knowing is on the list of movements to be stilled. What does that tell us about the goal of yoga?
  3. Vyāsa argues that sleep is a movement because we remember how we slept. Is the argument convincing? What follows from it?
  4. Give an example of vikalpa (1.9) from your own speech this week. Is it useful, misleading, or both?
  5. How does Vyāsa's wheel of movements and impressions explain why habits of mind are hard to change?

A common misreading

That yoga aims only to correct wrong thinking, or else to make the mind blank. Patañjali lists valid knowing and sleep among the movements (1.6), and Vyāsa says all five must be stilled for absorption to arise (Woods p. 32).

A practice for the room

Sit together for eight minutes. Ask everyone to rest with eyes closed and, each time a thought appears, to name its kind silently using the five of 1.6: knowing, mistake, imagining, drowsiness or memory. There is no need to be sure; a quick label is enough. After five minutes, drop the labels and sit for two minutes, noticing the small gap after a thought is named. End with a bell.