Monk Soup 🍲

The Yoga Sutras


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Selected verses from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a foundational text of classical yoga philosophy. It offers seekers a comprehensive guide for mastering the mind, transcending ego, and achieving spiritual enlightenment, emphasizing self-discipline, mindfulness, and inner transformation.

I highly recommend the translation by Prabhavananda. You can find it under the title, "How To Know God". Published by Vedanta Press.

https://www.vedanta.com/store/how_to_know_god_patanjali_aphorisms.htm

1.2 Yoga is the control of the thought-waves in your mind.

1.3 When the mind is perfectly still, then you abide in your true Self.

1.4 When not in this state of yoga, you remain identified with the thought-waves.

1.12 Thought-waves are controlled by means of practice, and non-attachment.

1.13 Practice is the repeated effort to follow the disciplines which give permanent control of the mind and its thought waves.

1.14 Practice becomes firmly grounded when it has been cultivated for a long time, uninterrupted, with earnest devotion.

1.15 Non-attachment is self-mastery; freedom from desire.

1.23 Concentration of the mind may also be attained through devotion to God.

1.29 Hence comes knowledge of ultimate reality, super-consciousness. And destruction of the obstacles to that knowledge.

1.34 The mind may also be stilled and calmed by expulsion and retention of the breath.

1.36 Concentration of the mind may also be attained by fixing the mind upon the Inner Light in the lotus of the heart. It is beyond sorrow.

1.39 Or by fixing the mind upon any divine symbol that inspires you.

1.40 The mind of a yogi can concentrate upon any object of any size, from the atomic to the infinitely great.

1.41 Just as a transparent crystal takes color from the object which is nearest to it, so the mind identifies with the object of its concentration, and seems to take on its qualities. This is known as samadhi. 

2.20 The experiencer is pure consciousness. It appears to take on the changing colors of the mind. But in reality, it is unchangeable.

2.3 Ignorance of this creates all the other obstacles: egoism, attachment, aversion, and clinging to life.

2.5 To regard the non-eternal as eternal, the impure as pure, the painful as pleasant, and the non-self as Self, this is ignorance. 

2.6 To identity consciousness with that which merely reflects consciousness, is egoism.

2.17 Pain is caused by false identification of the experiencer with the objects of experience.  This kind of pain may be avoided.

2.26 Ignorance is destroyed by awakening to your true Self, Universal Consciousness, the Infinite One.

2.28 As soon as all impurities have been removed by practicing the eight parts/limbs of yoga, one’s spiritual vision opens fully.

2.29 The  eight parts of yoga practice are: abstaining from doing evil, doing various observances, having proper posture, control of the breath, withdrawing the mind from the senses, steady concentration, meditation, and total absorption.

3.1 Concentration is holding the mind in one place or fixing it on a divine form, either within the body, or outside it.

3.2 Meditation is an unbroken flow of mental focus toward the object of concentration.

3.3 In meditation, when the true nature of the object shines forth, and is not distorted by the mind of the perceiver, that is absorption (samadhi).

4.29 He who remains undistracted even when he is in possession of all psychic powers, achieves the samadhi called the “cloud of virtue”.

4.30 Then comes cessation of ignorance, the cause of suffering, and freedom from the power of karma.

4.34 Since matter and energy no longer have any purpose to serve for the Atman, they resolve themselves into Prakriti. This is liberation. The Atman shines forth in its own pristine nature, as pure consciousness.

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Monk Soup 🍲By Mokshadas