Patanjali Yoga Sūtra on Clubhouse

Description

Pātañjalayogaśāstra 🙏🏿🌅 The Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali is a collection of Sanskrit sutras on the theory and practice of yoga - 196 sutras. The Yoga Sutra was compiled sometime between 500 BC and AD400 by the sage Patanjali in India who synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions. Before the 20th century, history indicates that the medieval Indian yoga scene was dominated by the various other texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Vasistha, texts attributed to Yajnavalkya and Hiranyagarbha, as well as literature on hatha yoga, tantric yoga and Pashupata Shaivism yoga rather than the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali

Patañjali divided his Yoga Sutras into four chapters or books (Sanskrit Pada), containing in all 196 aphorisms, divided as follows:

Samadhi Pada (51 sutras). Samadhi refers to a state of direct and reliable perception (pramāṇa) where the yogi's self-identity is absorbed into pure consciousness, collapsing the categories of witness, witnessing, and witnessed. Samadhi is the main technique the yogi learns by which to dive into the depths of the mind to achieve Kaivalya (liberation). The author describes yoga and then the nature and the means of attaining samādhi.
This chapter contains the famous definitional verse: "Yogaś citta-vritti-nirodhaḥ" ("Yoga is the restraint of fluctuations/patterns of consciousness").
Sadhana Pada (55 sutras). Sadhana is the Sanskrit word for "practice" or "discipline". Here the author outlines two systems of Yoga: Kriyā Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga (Eightfold or Eightlimbed Yoga).