Krakow Lectures 1. Yoga and Siddhis. Dominik Wujastyk

I've made up my mind to write a number of articles dedicated to lectures given at Yoga Darsana, Yoga Sadhana conference in Krakow. I believe this to be quite acceptable in the context of this blog because at least one third of the papers presented were dedicated to Yoga Sutras. Besides, in consideration of the huge gap between academic community dealing with yoga issues and yoga practitioners, as well as the gap between European and post-Soviet science I believe this to be so far the best way of introducing to our yoga community a number of important ideas advanced at the said conference. With early summer being one of the busiest periods of my year, I shall make this in the form of short messages’ series, although I don’t promise them to come very soon and on a regular basis.

Sutra 1.34. Breath control as a method of gathering chitta up

The next line of Yoga Sutras does not involve any difficulty for translation, as well as for commentary and understanding. 

प्रच्छर्दनविधारणाभ्यां वा प्राणस्य ॥ ३४॥

1.34 pracchardana-vidhāraṇābhyām vā prāṇasya


pracchardana (n.) – a well-known word that in terms of literature on yoga denotes “exhalation”. It consists of the prefix pra + cchardana - a noun produced from the root chṛd – “to eject”, “to outthrow”.

The archetypes of wholeness and “energy loss”

In the previous article dedicated to psychosomatics in Yoga Sutras I draw reader’s attention to the association between the state of “chitta-vikshepa – the scattering of chitta – and somatic responses that has been foregrounded by Patanjali. Let me remind that the word “vikshepa” in the framework of 

“Chitta-vikshepa” term is derived from the verbal root kṣip (क्षिप्) — to throw, with help of the prefix vi- (वि), that corresponds to the Russian “vy-“ and ‘ras-“ [or English “dis-“ as well as the particles“away”, “off”, “out” – transl. note]. Of the other hand I shall refer the reader to the opening articles of this blog where we were discussing in details the category of “chitta” having defined it as “substantiated self-sentiment of one’s mind” and were talking about impropriety of simplified definitions of chitta like “mental processes”, “mind/ consciousness” etc.

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.

Sutras 1.29 - 1.30. «Obstacles to Yoga» and defence mechanisms of psyche

The next two sutras of Patanjali, the lines 1.29 и 1.30, are dedicated to the so-called barriers in yoga: 

ततः प्रत्यक्चेतनाधिगमोऽप्यन्तरायाभावश्च ॥ २९॥

1.29. tataḥ pratyakcetanādhigamo'pyantarāyābhāvaśca 

व्याधिस्त्यानसंशयप्रमादालस्याविरति-भ्रान्तिदर्शनालब्धभूमिकत्वानवस्थितत्वानि चित्तविक्षेपास्तेऽन्तरायाः ॥३०॥

1.30. vyādhi-styāna-saṃśaya-pramāda-ālasya-avirati-bhrānti-darśana-alabdha-bhūmikatva-anavasthitatvāni citta-vikṣepāste'ntarāyāḥ

The traditional translation of these lines is as follows:

Sutras 1.27 - 1.28. The mechanisms of mantras effect (continuation)

In addition to and in confirmation of the foregoing I shall adduce a popular article in which they give the results of the latest speech physiology studies. 

Our particular interest is drawn by the “mechanics of phonetics” section [the original English text is here – transl.note], the investigation in which they have used the state-of-the-art methods of brain study (and I admit to look on this with admiring envy since in our research work we can so far use classical encephalography only) to show that the process of different sounds articulation involves different zones of the brain. 

Sutras 1.27 - 1.28. Sanskrit and mantra-yoga

The following two lines of Yoga Sutras are dedicated to mantras and power of the sound.

तस्य वाचकः प्रणवः ॥२७॥

1.27. tasya vācakaḥ praṇavaḥ

तज्जपस्तदर्थभावनम् ॥२८॥

1.28. tajjapastadarthabhāvanam 

Sutras 27 and 28 tell that “the expression of that (Isvara) is OM (pranava)” and “the repetition of it (Om) in one mind’s eye allows one to experience it (the Isvara)”. Without getting into specifics of what the Om-sound means let us raise a more important question: why do mantras generally exist and how do they work?

Sutra 1.25. Ishvara and the world tree. The metaphysics of plato

The line 25 of Yoga Sutras compares Ishvara with a seed that contains omniscience (sarva-jnana-bidja):

तत्र निरतिशयं सार्वज्ञबीजम् ॥ २५॥

1. 25. tatra niratiśayaṃ sārva-jña-bījam 

1. 25. In Him [Ishvara] is the complete manifestation of the seed of omniscience. [Engl. transl. by Swami Satchidananda – translator’s note].

This happens to be in a remarkable manner aligned with an amazing line from Katha Upanishad:

Sutra 1.26. Learning from the universe. The problem of yoga schools classicality

The next line of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras that we shall today consider continues the theme of Ishvara.

स पूर्वेषामपि गुरुः कालेनानवच्छेदात् ॥ २६॥

1.26. sa pūrveṣāmapi guruḥ kālenānavacchedāt ॥ 

sa (m.Nom.sg.) - he;

pūrveṣām (m.Gen. pl) – previous, prior, senior; with Genitive case and plural form considered – “of the previous”, “of the senior”;

The Fundamentals of sanskrit grammar

Whenever someone suggests that you translate Yoga Sutras using only a dictionary and without knowing enough about Sanskrit grammar – don’t fall for it! This person is either not aware of what he is talking about and has never been doing it himself, or it is no further than the third or fourth line of the original text that he himself has managed to “advance”. Sanskrit is a fairly sophisticated language which grammar is intricate enough. Words that have been “distorted” in the course of morphologic transformations, including the rules of guna and sandhi, may bear little resemblance to their dictionary forms, while the logic of cases is somewhat different from what we are used to in our languages [Russian and Ukrainian – translator’s note].

Sutra 1.23. Ishvarapranidhana

In the last dozen of my blog posts I have somewhat deviated from the linear and sequential expansion of the Sutra commentary. Many issues required clarification and more detailed consideration, or they were my contemplations that were wandering in such a mysterious way – so far the format of blog allows taking such liberties, unlike the one of the book. But the time has probably come to turn back to successive commentary on Yoga Sutras. And I must admit that this is the first time that I do it with some reluctance. Of course it is not because I have lost interest in the subject – on the contrary, it has become even more profound; this is because the next 4 lines are dedicated to one of rather tricky moments of Yoga Sutras – the concept of ishvarapranidhana, and, correspondingly, that of ishvara. Again, there is nothing dramatic about it; moreover, I’ve got some sound ideas to share on the issue. Yet when we start discussing the subject we come out on a thin ice with turbid waters of religiosity splashing under it. 

The Lessons of Mahabharata and “Traditional” Values

Have you ever paid attention to the fact that allgrand classic epics are utterly tragic and their endingsare worlds away from those happy-ends of Hollywoodthat we are used to? So that even if the principal (allegedly positive) characters attain their goals they experience heavy disappointment all the same.Gilgamesh loses the magical herb of immortality andaccepts his destiny of a mortal man; Rama is not ableto enjoy the company of his wife whose bringing backcost him significant efforts, and so he suffers from loneliness; the Pandavas, the principle characters of Mahabharata, having survived the tragic death of almost all of their relatives and fellows-in-arms during the war that they had launched are ill-fated in their attempts to ascend to heaven alive and end up finding themselves in the realms of the hell (having in factcommitted a ritual suicide). 

The Arabic Translation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras made by Al-Biruni. The Problem of Yoga Impact on Sufism

“And when these [Hindu] books were read to me letter by letter

and I comprehended their contents, my conscience could

in no way have me fail to impart them to those yearning to read them. After all, 

avarice is the worst crime and the deepest sin when it is related to knowledge” . 

Al-Biruni

It was at Vienna conference «Yoga in Transformation…» that I for the first time happened to hear about Kitab Patanjal when Noemie Verdon, the doctoral candidate from Lausanne University, was giving her lecture dedicated to this book. As far as I have understood, the lecturer is today just about the only one world expert in this manuscript, and so I was really lucky to have met this source.