Sutra 1.31. The concept of psychosomatics in Yoga Sutras

The next line of Yoga Sutras has also been in a way neglected by commentators, probably due to the fact that its translation is rather simple while the words are almost monosemantic in their interpretation. At first glance the understanding of it seems to be simple as well. Yet in fact it is not. The understanding of this sutra from linguistic standpoint is not difficult but the actual meaning of what is said there is astonishing. And I am surprised that no one has ever before paid attention to and done justice to this line and the genius of its author!

The point is that in this sutra, 22 centuries prior to official discovery of psychosomatics by Reich, Jacobson and Lowen, prior to works of Darwin dedicated to the link between muscles and emotions, Patanjali has formulated the key principle of this concept: human psyche is projected onto the body, while our uncontrolled somatic performances are associated with the sphere of emotions.

Sutra 1.2. Chitta, Vritti and Psychosomatics

Following the logic I should have inserted this article after those dedicated to vritti and nirodha, but since it has occurred now I shall break the linear succession in developing the ideas and place it here. There’s nothing you can do – thinking and reasoning are non-linear processes, so that when getting deep to the heart of some matter one continuously comes back to prime postulates conceiving them even deeper, or even reconsidering them J. All the more so that in one of my initial posts I promised the readers that they would witness the intellectual activity in real-time mode…

And so:

Despite its complicacy, let us remember our definition of chitta as the “inner substantial self-sentiment of a person”. It has occurred to me that this definition, just like the concept of vritti, can be well objectified and made more clear if we base this upon the track records of modern body psychotherapy and psychosomatics.