Traditions / Advaita Vedanta / Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
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Advaita Vedanta · classical text

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

With the commentary of Vyasa

Translator: Charles Johnston (1867–1931), 1912.

Source: Charles Johnston, New York

Licence: Public Domain. Charles Johnston's 1912 translation, originally self-published in New York under the title The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: The Book of the Spiritual Man. Strict public domain. Lightly modernised by Soul Spirit Self.

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The classical text on yoga as the systematic stilling of the modifications of mind. Patanjali's compact aphorisms map the entire territory between ordinary distracted awareness and the recognition of the witness. Bridges the territory between Samkhya, Yoga, and Vedanta.

From the text

The Yoga Sutras stand at a particular junction in the Indian contemplative tradition. They are not Vedanta proper, but they are the most systematic account of how the mind moves from distraction to absorption, and as such they have been read alongside the Advaita texts for nearly two millennia.

Patanjali’s central claim in the opening verses is austere: yoga is the stilling of the modifications of the mind. When the modifications are stilled, the seer abides in its own form. When they are not stilled, the seer takes itself to be a modification.

Book one — On absorption

1.1

Now, the exposition of yoga.

1.2

Yoga is the stilling of the modifications of the mind.

1.3

Then the seer abides in its own form.

1.4

At other times, identification with the modifications.

[ The opening sutras. The remaining hundred-and-ninety-two continue across four books — Samadhi-pada on absorption, Sadhana-pada on practice, Vibhuti-pada on the powers, and Kaivalya-pada on liberation. The complete Woods translation is at the source linked above. ]