While the symbolism is impressive, Patanjali would have been much happier if more people followed his teachings on yoga. It is probably not true, the statement that more people practice Yoga in California than in India, but it feels like it ought to be true in an India that has reverted to ritualism in its mainstream. Patanjali wrote his Yoga Sutras to encourage people to practice yoga, not to think about it or dispute about it. His insistence on practice is matched only by that other great Sutra exponent, Miyamoto Musahi, in his GO-RIN-NO-SHO or Book of Five Rings. Sutras are a unique form of spiritual transmission, consisting of an epigram or very, very short paragraphs that deals with some aspect of spiritual experience. They are the ultimate precis of practice and experience, boiled down and condensed to diamond hard clarity and brilliance. Of the sutra writers it was said they would rather lose a son than add an unnecessary or superfluous word. The Yoga Sutras are an astonishing achievement, for nobody has been able to add anything significant to the text in 2500 years. The best that people can do is to write commentaries upon it much like Patanjali is supposed to have done with Panini. Patanjali's 196 sutras are thus an achievement of staggering proportions, far more impressive than any mythic origins could be. The book of Yoga Sutras is, of course, best experienced personally for what you get out of it is proportional to your effort. From my personal practice of meditation I can only say that before I began meditation it was an interesting book but after meditation became a habit it is a book that literally glows with light. The Yoga Sutras are an infallible touchstone to discern your stages of progress and to ascertain you are not veering off into interesting distractions of paranormal abilities and the manifestation of occult powers or experiences. The merging of the individual consciousness with the Universal Self is his only concern - everything else is a dalliance with the irrelevant and dangerous. From my experiences I have also devised a theory [no facts, merely a hunch] as to who Patanjali was. It seems he was a member of the ritualistic dominant faith who came to learn what the fuss about this peculiar new system of breath and meditation called yoga was. Finding it hugely effective he codified its core tenets and truths just as the Brahmins had previously codified the rules for sacrifices and rituals. Yoga was, like the Yakshas from whom it likely originated, the common thread in the competing faiths of Jainsim, Buddhism and Hinduism in the 5th century BCE. Patanjali gave the Hindu version, for want of a better term, but unlike many other authors he is completely free of any sectarian prejudice. It simply does not matter what religion you belong to, you can use the Yoga Sutras with great profit and absolutely no compromise with your faith. Yoga chittavritti nirodhah "Yoga is the cessation of movements in consciousness". This is the famous definition of Yoga that kicks off his exposition. Step by step he builds his edifice, taking you into deeper levels of understanding of the mind, the body, their interaction, and the Consciousness, which pervades all. Patanjali tells you of the path, warns you of the pitfalls, explains the workings of karma, constantly cautious that years of accomplishment can be destroyed by a few moments of unaware indulgence. The subsidiary physical and intellectual benefits of practicing yoga are not left out; nowhere is there any call to monasticism, self-torture or deprivation, rather an exhortation to live life more abundantly, with more awareness, pervades the text. Again, what you get out of it will depend on your level of progress and awareness. Like an infinite spiral the Yoga Sutras communicate at various levels at various stages of life. The text is now seeing multiple new commentaries and it would not be going too far to say that it is undergoing a great resurgence. Yoga has become a possession and phenomenon of the entire world. In India there has been a revival of Patanjali iconography, driven by the tourist trade, which is perhaps the strangest fallout of this new phase in Yoga. Patanjali images are now bestsellers and amongst the highest priced spiritual artifacts in the market! Well, why not, it is long overdue validation. As the popular invocation goes, "Let us bow before the noblest of sages, Patanjali, who taught yoga for serenity and sanctity of the mind, grammar for clarity and purity of speech, and ayurveda for perfect health. Let us prostrate before Patanjali, an avatar of Anatha or Adishesha, whose upper body is human, whose arms hold the conch and discus who is crowned by a thousand headed serpent. Where there is Yoga, there is prosperity and bliss, there is freedom." - Rohit Arya <<back Archive