Sutra 1.37. Emotions and Wholeness

In the recent articles of the blog I have wandered a little off the point of Yoga Sutras’ text sequential analysis in favor of sharing interesting reports made at Krakow conference. Now I’m coming back on the track of the main issue.

Let me remind the reader that starting from sutra 1.33. Patanjali draws a successive specification of the mind integrity (chitta-prasadanam) attainment methods - the methods that outline the principles of numerous yoga schools, techniques and traditions.

Sutra 1.36. Methods of Chitta stabilization. Part 5. Grand Thoughts and Reflections on abstract notions as a part of yoga

The next sutra can be well understood in the context of the previous ones, and it complements the earlier sutra 1.35 in terms of logic. Let me remind that the latter stated that the activity filled with an object, a target, facilitates retaining of personal wholeness. Or, to be more specific, it prevents chitta from scattering (chitta-vikshepa). The sutra 1.36 suggests another elegant method of chitta control. As always, we shall start with translation, the more so in this case it is not at all difficult.

Sutra 1.35. Methods of chitta stabilization. Part 4. Thoughtless brains beget evil ideas

In the next lines Patanjali proceeds with methods of chitta stabilization and bringing together that, as you might remember, have been already said to include the development of Anahata experience and control of breath. The line 1.35 offers one method more, yet its interpretation requires that we overcome a few challenges.

The first challenge is the fact that there are two variants of this line reading:

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”.

Sutra 1.32. Methods of chitta stabilization. Part one. Totalness

Having laid down the criteria of chitta scattering (chitta-vikshepa) in shloka 31, Patanjali dedicated further 8 shlokas (32 to 39) to methods aimed at withstanding this state, while another 2 shlokas that follow (40 and 41) speak about the results of “bringing” chitta together. So far as these methods are quite applicable and highly topical, I shall be giving a consequent review of each of them in the next few articles.

Now, sutra 32 goes as follows:

तत्प्रतिषेधार्थमेकतत्त्वाभ्यासः ॥ ३२॥

1.32 tat pratiṣedha-artham eka-tattva-abhyāsaḥ

Sutra1.2. Chitta-Vritti-Nirodha and Shamanic Experience

In this blog, as well as in other works of mine, I have more than once mentioned shamanic roots of yoga much as of other psychopractices. However there comes a question: are the key goals and practices of yoga as laid down by Patanjali correlated with analogous goals and practices of shamanism? It may be difficult to see the commonality at first (and unsophisticated) glance; but in terms of a more detailed analysis based upon an attempt to comprehend the underlying content of the psychotechnical experience described by means of available metaphors rather than the externals that each system is known by, the continuity of shamanism and yoga in this aspect will become obvious. 

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. 

Sutras 3.1 - 3.3. Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi: Basic Considerations

Since the next lines of the Yoga Sutras text already contain the category of Samadhi used by Patanjali, at this stage it becomes fairly appropriate to start figuring out the meaning of this term, let alone that this notion probably comes as the most mystified one of all (well, maybe, except for the Chitta J). In order to understand the scale of its misunderstanding let us use the definition given in the Wikipedia [the Russian version of the Wiki – trans. note]. 

Samadhi (Sanskrit: समाधि, samādhi IAST, “wholeness, unity; implementation, performance; composure”) – in scope of the Hinduism and Buddhism meditative practices – it is the state when the very idea of personal individuality (but not the consciousness) disappears and there emerges the integrity of the perceiving subject and the perceived object. The Samadhi is the state of (spiritual) enlightenment achieved by means of meditation when the mind becomes very still and all contradictions between the internal and the external world (the subject and the object) vanish, when the individual consciousness as a microcosm merges with the cosmic absolute as a macrocosm. The Samadhi is the last stage of the Noble Eightfold Path that brings the person most close to the state of Nirvana.