This book is written for one purpose only. That is to reveal the intrinsic non-dual integrative wisdom and evolutionary purpose that resides within each sentient being, so that the reader may walk in harmony on the beauty path. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is one such book with that focus in mind.
Toward that ultimate culmination, this translation and commentary of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is offered. The Yoga Sutras by itself, without a personal yogic practice, will remain a failure. It is the author's intent that this translation may serve interested human beings realize that profound culmination as their reality in their everyday experience – as sacred presence in UNIVERFSAL NOW AWARENESS.
It is in each and every moment that we contain that awesome creative potential as the opportunity to embody, reflect, and emanate this beauty, love, and joy in celebration of life and evolution; thus reversing the causal factors in human consciousness that lend themselves toward suffering, illness, and ecological destruction. This is thus a very crucial theme for our current time in human history.
What has been needed for a very long time is a 21st` century "Green" translation that is free of dogma, aversion, and anti-nature bias. This face lift of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which will prove to be practical and relevant to the modern Western reader, is already far past due.
It is a fortunate time to bring forward a modern translation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras rooted in the reverence for all life (ahimsa) and relevant to the modern experience especially in the West. By respecting all life we respect our own life and its creator. This is the only authentic healthy response that must be integrated in All Our Relations for the human being affirming our own identification as an integral part of creation and the embodiment of the creative evolutionary force, versus being apart or independent from it. Health and future survival depends upon this vital acknowledgement. It is up to awakened beings to bring forth this awareness and love and embrace it. That is freedom -- taking response-ability for the future.
Because of the recent burgeoning embrace of yoga, many are seeking deeper explanations for their heightened experiences and guidance to move even further into that integrative non-dual state. To that end it is my hope that Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras may help fulfill that primal passion that reconnects us all to what is the Heart of the "Mater" – in yoga.
Throughout this book, the Yoga Sutras are placed within the context of personal practice and experience -- within the assumption of an experiential process oriented integrative and wholistic system. It was necessary to rescue it from the institutionalized traditional, dry, academic, scholarly and left brained commentaries which locked the Yoga Sutras within the prison-like context of a mere philosophical or religious treatise. This translation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is neither religious nor philosophical. It is not an escape nor is it a negation of life and the world, but rather a self empowering nature-positive interpretation based on a careful translation utilizing Patanjali’s own words without imposing pre-established assumptions.
This translation places the Yoga Sutras within a context that is vitally relevant not only to the human being but to all life on the planet. For example placing the sutras within an empirical and experiential base, one frees the reader from other-world escapism, negation of life, mere religious doctrine, anti-nature ideology, conjecture and other such manufactured prejudice and belief systems which are rampant today. For example without ignoring the rise of fundamentalism and fixated belief systems, the discussion on pramana-vrtti in sutra I.7 (what is considered as a proven theory or “right” knowledge) has become refreshingly revealed as very different from that of conventional orthodox Indian academia and traditional thought that has grown up around, obscured, and served to encrypt the vitality and living power of the sutras for almost two thousand years.
Similarly, this book makes a clear distinction between the institutionalized assumption that yoga was a system of withdrawal from nature, life, and direct experience; as distinct from yoga as an integrative process where daily actions, body, breath, mind, nature, and source all come together as a profound mutually synergistic fluid whole – as a profound dance of natural liberation. Once one has become freed from the past patterns of negative conditioning/programming, such a realization flows naturally.
Herein, yoga is thus presented as Patanjali and the ancient mountain yogi tradition intended; i.e., as a method of activating one’s deepest core creative potential in this very life. Instead of presenting yoga as a body negative, nature negative, other worldly, or even self adversarial teaching (which is often the traditional academic approach), yoga is presented more honestly and simply in the context of ahimsa (remediating harm), peacefulness and fulfillment (santosha), simplifying one’s life and activating our natural spontaneous ability to be generous (aparigraha), acting in integrity (asteya), removing the blinders of delusion (satya), self study (swadhyaya), and developing skills in listening for one’s inner voice to be expressed (isvara pranidhana) -- all in order to realize and then spontaneously express one’s own innate inner evolutionary potential
It is the author's experience, that the Yoga Sutras as-it-is, stripped of its externally imposed reifications, prejudices, and philosophical imputations made by intellectual dogmatists will prove to be a reliable field manual and guide. That will disclose our inner teacher and creative healing powers, restoring vision, self confidence, human sensitivity, and sense of being part of a greater whole, rather than being apart from it. .
As a translator, one’s responsibility is to render the original author as truly as possible in the language and context of the time. This can only be done by understanding both languages (Sanskrit and English), both cultures (that of Patanjali’s and the modern West)., and most importantly, yoga, itself.
Admittedly every translation will have its bias. The most common translations are based on the samkhya interpretation which is a strong dualistic coloring of the yoga sutras based on the idea of isolation, withdrawal, negation, and escape from existence, nature, the body, and life itself. Samkhya is entirely reductionist, while Yoga is integrative.. While it is true that both systems utilize some of the few terms, it’s overall aims and goals are quite different,
This translation and commentary will not regurgitate the standard fare, nor will it pretend to speak for the mainstream traditionalists. This translation and commentary will however break that mold in a respectful spirit. Hence it would not be politically correct in a strictly traditional academic setting. If the reader wants to conform or learn conventional wisdom and orthodoxy there are many other books to chose from. If however one desires to incorporate the deep spiritual blessings of authentic yoga in their daily lives in which to enliven and empower it – if one wants to get in touch with their dormant innate creative/ evolutionary power – if on wants to be shaken free from past programming, limitations, dogma, conditioning, and afflictions -- if one wants to improve their yogic practice in order to facilitate these, then this translation and commentary may prove to be an adjunctive.
So I have attempted to take Patanjali’s word for what he is saying over that of the traditional academic commentators and use Patanjali’s own words to make such distinctions. This translator assumes consistently that Patanjali belonged to the ancient tradition of mountain yogis who lived in caves, forest hermitages, and river banks for at least the millennia preceding and practiced a yoga similar to that of Gautama Buddha. In fact the teachings of Buddha and Patanjali are very similar. These yogis were practicing yogis and sages, not scholars nor orthodox Brahmins studying texts and performing ritual in the traditional manner. Far fetched as it may seem, their practice was as Patanjali describes in the Yoga Sutras, rather than as study.
If there is thus any bias on my part it is from the point of view of the mountain yogi, non-dual Buddhism, tantra, deep ecology, the alchemical tradition, and wholism. It is irrefutable that Pada III is strongly tantric and that Patanjali was familiar with both tantra, Buddhism, and the alchemical tradition. It is irrefutable that Patanjali was a non-dualist. So if there is any bias to this translation I would admit such, but with the declaration that it is an honest intent to translate the Yoga Sutras given that every translation suffers from some bias (intentional or not). Because this translation is non-traditional and unconventional does not make it insincere, rather I suspect that it may prove more authentic and more vitally relevant than the standard fare.
The author has gone to great lengths to justify where and why his translation varies from the academic mainstream. Unlike most other translations and commentaries this work is full of practical examples many of which come from the translators personal experiences. Such is due to the translator's long dedication to the practice of yoga and also to the study of the Yoga Sutras which has lasted over 40 years. I have studied the Yoga Sutras in person at the feet of with Hari Das Baba, Dr. Ramamurti Mishra (Sri Brahmananda), Swami Veda Bharati, Sri Pungaliya, Sri Swami Satchidananda and others. Humble gratitude is due to my teachers, Swami Muktananda, Swami Vishnudevananda, Yogeshwar Muni, and Swami Kripalvananda..
This book comes complete with an annotated glossary, a interlineal English only translation, an annotated translation with commentary of all four chapters, an additional chapter on the historical background of the Yoga Sutras, a Yoga FAQ, a preface, forward, table of contents, and index.
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Patanjali's Yoga Sutras Made Accessible: An Essay Designed to rescue the Yoga Sutras from excess intellectualization/elaboration
An Ashtanga (Eight Limbed) Yoga Meditation Practice
Beloved Yoga Teacher, Sri Dr. G. K. Pungaliya Essay on Patanjali and Jnaneshwar Sri Pungaliya was an ardent student of yoga, and subsequently became a modern master. Here Sri Pungaliya shares his insight on Samkhya, Patanjali, and Sri Jnaneshwar.
Yogiraj Shyamacharan Lahiri's Translation of the Yoga Sutras A more classic but inspired translation by the Grandson of Lahiri Mahasaya. This is very long download in PDF format.
Yoga Sutra Translation by Chester Messenger A refreshing, little known, and sincere work of a life-long meditator.
Links to over 25 Different Web Based English Translations of the Yoga Sutras. at HRIH.NET. Most of these translations are unoriginal and offer little insight. They are mostly an exercise in grammar, semantics, and epistemology.
A Sanskrit to English Annotated Glossary
Professor Whicher's commentary on Prakrti and Purusa
Alien Gods: Samkhya Interpretation of Nature (using Brahmacarya as the example)
A Review of Ian Whicher's. The Integrity of the Yoga Darsana: A Reconsideration of Classical Yoga by Georg Feuerstein
Yoga as seen in the Light of Vipassana by S. N. Goenka
A Short History of the Yoga Sutras
"Is Yoga a Religion": an astute and concise article by Georg Feuerstein
An article entitled "Is Yoga a Religion", by Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati
Yoga is not a Religion, by Shakti Das
Proceed to Chapter One of the Yoga Sutras: Samadhi Pada