योगसूत्रYoga SūtrasOpen in the app

III. Vibhūti Pāda · sūtras 3.25–3.34

Inner maps

What this passage does

Saṃyama now maps the cosmos and the body. The light of the luminous mind (1.36) reaches the hidden and the distant (3.25); the sun, moon and pole star give the heavens (3.26–3.28); the navel, throat, chest and crown give the body (3.29–3.32). Then 3.33 says intuition alone can give all of it, and 3.34 turns saṃyama on the heart, where the mind comes to know itself.

Learning goals

The argument, step by step

  1. Directing the light of the luminous inner activity gives knowledge of the subtle, the hidden and the distant.
  2. Saṃyama on the sun, the moon and the pole star gives knowledge of the worlds, the arrangement of the stars and their movements.
  3. Saṃyama on the navel circle gives knowledge of how the body is arranged.
  4. On the hollow of the throat hunger and thirst cease; on the tortoise channel comes steadiness.
  5. On the light in the crown comes vision of the perfected ones.
  6. Or everything comes through intuition, the dawn of the knowledge born of discernment.
  7. On the heart, the mind comes to understand itself.

The sūtras

  1. 3.25 pravṛttyālokanyāsāt sūkṣmavyavahitaviprakṛṣṭajñānam
    By directing the light of the luminous inner activity comes knowledge of the subtle, the hidden and the distant.
  2. 3.26 bhuvanajñānaṃ sūrye saṃyamāt
    Saṃyama on the sun gives knowledge of the worlds.
  3. 3.27 candre tārāvyūhajñānam
    On the moon, knowledge of the arrangement of the stars.
  4. 3.28 dhruve tadgatijñānam
    On the pole star, knowledge of their movements.
  5. 3.29 nābhicakre kāyavyūhajñānam
    On the navel circle, knowledge of the arrangement of the body.
  6. 3.30 kaṇṭhakūpe kṣutpipāsānivṛttiḥ
    On the hollow of the throat, hunger and thirst cease.
  7. 3.31 kūrmanāḍyāṃ sthairyam
    On the tortoise channel, steadiness.
  8. 3.32 mūrdhajyotiṣi siddhadarśanam
    On the light in the crown of the head, vision of the perfected ones.
  9. 3.33 prātibhād vā sarvam
    Or everything, through intuition.
  10. 3.34 hṛdaye cittasaṃvit
    On the heart, understanding of the mind.

Study

This run of sūtras directs saṃyama out to the sky, then inward through the body, and ends with the mind knowing itself. It begins with light. 'By directing the light of the luminous inner activity comes knowledge of the subtle, the hidden and the distant' (3.25). Vyāsa identifies that light with the luminous state of 1.36, cast on its object like a beam (Woods p. 253).

The sky comes first. 'Saṃyama on the sun gives knowledge of the worlds' (3.26). Vyāsa's comment here is the longest in the pāda: a Purāṇic cosmology of seven worlds, hells below, Mount Sumeru at the centre and ring-shaped seas, ending with the whole World Egg as a tiny particle of nature, 'like a firefly in the sky' (p. 255). Vācaspati reads Vyāsa's 'door of the sun' as a channel in the body, so some readers take the sun here as an inner point. The moon gives the arrangement of the stars (3.27), and the pole star, dhruva, 'the fixed', gives their movements (3.28).

Then the body, rising from navel to crown. The navel circle gives knowledge of the body's arrangement (3.29), and Vyāsa lists the three humours and seven tissues of the medicine of his day (p. 260). The hollow of the throat ends hunger and thirst (3.30); Vyāsa's wording is that they no longer torment one (p. 260). The tortoise channel in the chest gives steadiness (3.31), like a snake or lizard at rest (p. 261). The light in the crown gives sight of the siddhas, perfected beings who move between earth and sky (3.32; p. 261). Later haṭha yoga built a system of cakras on such points; whether Patañjali meant more than these places is debated.

3.33 turns the list with one small word: 'Or everything, through intuition.' Vyāsa calls this intuition tāraka, 'the one that carries across', the first form of the knowledge born of discernment, which comes as the glow of dawn comes before the sun (p. 261). The full sun is 3.54, where the same word returns. So the separate saṃyamas are not the only road, and none of them is the destination.

Finally saṃyama turns on the heart: 'On the heart, understanding of the mind' (3.34). Vyāsa places it in the Upaniṣadic 'city of Brahman', where there is a small lotus, a dwelling (p. 262). After sky and body, attention reaches the knower of both, and that sets up the turn to the self at 3.35.

Readers differ, as elsewhere in this pāda, on how literally to take these results. The passage has a shape a teacher can use either way: attention can be pointed like a lamp; it can rest on the body's centres and feel them; and it can turn back on the mind that is attending. Two cautions belong in any class. Nobody should look at the sun. And 3.30 is a claim about deep practice, never a reason to go without food or water.

For discussion

  1. What does 3.25 suggest attention is like, and how does Vyāsa link it to 1.36?
  2. Why might the sky sequence run from sun to moon to pole star (3.26–3.28)?
  3. What changes in the list when 3.33 says 'or everything, through intuition'?
  4. How is the intuition of 3.33 different from a hunch? Use 3.54 in your answer.
  5. Why might the run end with the heart and the mind (3.34) and not with the crown (3.32)?

A common misreading

That the navel, throat, chest and crown here are the cakras of later haṭha yoga. Patañjali names places, and Vyāsa describes them in the terms of his own day (humours, tissues, a tortoise-shaped channel); reading the later cakra system back into these sūtras is debated.

A practice for the room

Lead a short seated body scan along the passage's route, breathing naturally throughout. One minute with attention at the navel, feeling the breath move there. One minute at the hollow of the throat. One minute at the centre of the chest, letting the body be as still as is easy. One minute at the crown, noticing whatever is there, even if only space. Close with a hand on the chest and the silent question: 'What is my mind like right now?'