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 1.33. Meditation for overcoming hostility

As it has been said earlier, maitri - “amicability” - comes as one of the yogi’s basic features. Yet most people, especially those brought up in the post-USSR environment, have difficulties in experiencing this feeling. For several generations they were being habituated to take counter-revolutionists, Germans, Americans, capitalists and others of the kind for foes. The habit of hostility (that is a direct opposition to amicability) and aggressive attitude to the Universe has become a deep-seated feature which extirpation requires some dedicated practices.

Sutra 1.33. Methods of chitta stabilization. Part 2. Yogi’s “Virtues” of anahata nature

In his next sutra Patanjali offers a totally different and very original approach to the issue of restoring the integrity of chitta that is grounded upon development of anahata experience:

मैत्रीकरुणामुदितोपेक्षाणां सुखदुःखपुण्यापुण्यविषयाणां 

भावनातश्चित्तप्रसादनम् ॥ ३३॥

1.33. {maitrī-karuṇā-muditā-upekṣāṇāṃ} {sukha-duḥkha-puṇya- apuṇya-viṣayāṇāṃ} bhāvanātaś {citta prasādanam}


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

Sutras 1.3 - 1.4. Svarupa. Genuine inwardness, or what happens after vrittis have been overcome??

The subject of chitta scattered character (chitta-vikshepa) that we have investigated in the previous articles allows returning to a more thorough consideration of the term that Patanjali introduced yet in the third line. Namely, the category of “svarupa” or, making it verbatim, “own form”, “proper form”, “proper inwardness”. Let me remind that the line as a whole goes as follows:

1.3. At that time (in the state of chitta-vriddhi-nirodha) the drashtar’s (the inner observer’s) svarupa (own form)

1.4. otherwise – merger with vritti

Chitta-vikshepa and energetic ties

There is a direct link between the theme of Chitta-vikshepa and another fundamental subject that Yoga and other esoteric systems have in their arsenal, namely – the subject of energetic “cords” or, as we refer to them in our slangy word – “tails and trails”. For non-practitioners I shall remind that when we speak about energetic cords, or ties, we mean a state when having had a disharmonious interaction with another person one has some stressing-out emotions left in respect of the said person so that in his mind (consciously or unconsciously) he returns to this communication (for instance, trying to explain post factum something that he hadn’t managed to explain live), or when the presence of the said person or some reminder of him comes as something unpleasant, results in breach of chakra or even occurrence of psychosomatic disease.

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.