The yoga sutras of Patanjali
are the bible of yoga. They present a map of the human condition in terms of
consciousness. Specifically they outline the transformation in awareness that
dissolves the sense of separateness at the root of all psychological suffering.
This transformation occurs as a result of seeing into the functional mechanism
of the mind. By enquiring into the activity of the mind the way it operates
becomes increasingly apparent.
Patanjali outlines eight aspects to this process, known as the eight limbs of yoga: Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi. These eight limbs outline the transformation that is the process of yoga: a natural and efforless infolding from dualistic thinking to open awareness. The first two limbs refer to the manner with which this inner enquiry must be undertaken. For enquiry into the activity and nature of the mind to be fruitful it must be based firmly on sensitivity to that which is actually happening, honesty about that which is actually happening, openness to that which is actually happening, focus on that which is actually happening and generosity with regard to that which is actually happening. These qualities (Yama) must be used as the basis for a content, committed, passionate enquiry into the nature and source of the self (Niyama).
Their utilisation is not one of imposing them, but of using them as lenses through which to clarify that which is actually happening. They serve as specific reminders, or indicators to awareness, of that which is actually happening. If they are utilised in this way we notice the presence of insensitivity, deceit, prejudice, distraction, judgement, halfheartedness, reactivity, complacency, selfindulgence and egoism. In that noticing they are allready being undermined. Utilising the ten principles of yama and niyama in this way they can no longer be more chains with which we bind ourselves to the cross of idealisation. They are no longer used as whipping sticks to reinforce a sense of inadequacy or imperfection. Rather they work indirectly to clarify the stressful presence of their opposites. As a result of the clarification of the stressful, undermining effect of insensitivity, deceit, prejudice, distraction, judgement, halfheartedness, reactivity, complacency, selfindulgence and egoism these begin to dissolve. As they dissolve sensitivity, honesty, openness, focus, generosity, commitment, equanimity, passion, selfawareness and selflessness spontaneously and naturally arise.
In order for the mind to reveal the subtleties of its internal mechanics there must be no external distractions. The first task of yoga is therefore to establish the body in a comfortable stability free from all tension (Asana). While, hypothetically, any means can be used to establish this state it is hard to imagine any as effective as the yoga postures . Through the systematic and effective challenge they give to tension lodged in every muscle group and individual muscle in the body they bring about a comfortable stability free from all tension. This challenge is only effective if the same ten principles of Yama and Niyama are applied to it. When this challenge is well established sensations indicating the structural presence of the body no longer arise. There is no longer a sense of existing as and in a limited physical capsule with specific location and dimensions within space. Patanjali calls this "manifesting the infinite beyond duality". In this beingstate or awarenesstate, which is the first transformation-state of yoga, the structural dualities of the body (frontback, leftright, topbottom, centreperiphery, insideoutside) no longer assert themselves. Instead attention is drawn naturally to the inherent activity of the body: breathing. In this way the sense of separate self, and its dualistic perceptions, begins to be undermined from the level of identification with the body.
When attention is taken by breathing within the lenses of sensitivity, honesty, openness, focus, generosity, commitment, equanimity, passion, selfawareness and selflessness the breath transforms itself quite naturally in the light of this awareness. As each characteristic of each phase of the breath is elucidated, any imposition upon them is revealed. These impositions, left over from the past, act as impediments on the natural, free flow of the breath. They are in fact expressions of tension not only in the respiratory muscles, but also in the mind. As they dissolve in the light of awareness the breath becomes "unhindered (dirgha) and subtle" (sukshma), transcends its dualities, "uncovering the inner light and initiating the mind into meditation". Just as exhaustively challenging muscular tension in the body transcends its structural dualities, so too bringing all of the characteristics of the breath into the light of awareness transcends its functional dualities. Just as the apparent distinction between the front and back is rendered insignificant in Asana, in Pranayama the apparent distinction between the inbreath and the outbreath is rendered insignificant. In this beingstate or awarenesstate (Pranayama), which is the second transformationstate of yoga, the perceptual duality between the breather and the breath no longer asserts itself. Instead attention is drawn naturally to the inherent activity of the mind. In this way dualistic perception arising from the sense of separateself is further undermined from the breath.
Patanjali’s definitions of the third and fourth limbs of yoga, Asana and Pranayama, clarify that to him they are not techniques but transformationstates of awareness. Clearly, however, the well known range of physical yoga postures (asana) are the perfect means to bring about the awarenesstate of Asana. Likewise so called pranayama techniques can very well be utilised to bring about the awarenesstate of Pranayama. However this does not mean that simply by making shapes or playing with the breath we are participating in the transformation process outlined by Patanjali. In the first case the key is the way that we internally activate the shapes so that they are able not only to establish the body in comfortable stability free from tension, but also manifest the infinite beyond duality. In the second case great care must be taken that our approach to the breath does not add further, however subtle, tensions to breath or body. In other words it must not involve the use of the willtochange, which is the primary expression and tool of the sense of separate self.
The transformation-state of Pranayama, in further undermining the roots of dualistic perception, by undermining the duality of the breath, "uncovers the inner light and initiates the mind into meditation". This initiation is represented by the transformationstate of Pratyahara. The mind is habitually set in an external direction, constantly stimulated by and responding to data pouring through the senses. When not deliberately focussed on a specific activity the mind is engaged unwittingly in a random flow of impressions, images, thoughts and feelings that are to a great extent directly conditioned by current sensory input. The transformation of awareness begun in Asana reaches a point where this is no longer the case. The senses begin to lose their power over the mind and no longer present to it their objects. Instead attention is drawn deeper and begins to be taken by mental processes that arise from within.
In his outline of human consciousness Patanjali suggests that the depths of our minds take their shape according to the past. In what he calls the "actiondeposit" remain traces from unresolved past actions (samskara). These traces accumulate moment by moment and coalesce according to innate principles of resonance to form psychological tendencies (vasana). These tendencies are innately volatile. They are constantly seeking resolution of their original traces through action. Accordingly they release impulses into the mind that create perceptions of various kinds: images, feelings, impressions, thoughts etc. These perceptions then, in interaction with sensory data, generate a response in the form of further perceptions and or actions. These tendencies are the source of our conditioned behavioural responses. Vasanas, then are the medium of karma, transforming the effect of past actions into future behaviour through present mental impressions.
Pratyahara is the third transformationstate, in which the impulses arising from the actiondeposit, or soul, do not produce any associative reaction to an initial perception, that habitually would generate a flow of impressions eventually leading to a conditioned (re)action. Rather, the impact of resolving the perceptual split between the breather and the breath has slowed the mind down so that the split between the perceiver and the perception is resolving . Within that narrowing split the mind is filled with a flow of impressions rising from within. This represents a considerable transformation of awareness from the conditioned norm. No longer taking account of data arriving through the senses, the mind is also no longer even reacting from memory to impressions arising from within. In this way dualistic perception arising from the sense of separate self is further undermined from the level of the mind as it is drawn into a meditative state.
Eventually even this internal flow of impressions slows down and stops. Then a single impression arising from the soul becomes suspended in awareness. This is Dharana, the fourth transformation-state. It is here that the movement of the mind appears to have stopped. According to Patanjali meditation consists of Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi, Dharana being the first stage. It is Dharana that inspires the notion that meditation is about stopping the movement of the mind. However, this is a superficial and incomplete understanding.
Firstly the transformation of awareness of the mind’s activity has occurred spontaneously. It is not the result of intent directed towards the stopping of the mind. The initial utilisation of intent is applied only and directly to the physical processes of establishing the body in comfortable stability without tension, and if nnecessary, elucidation of the breath. This process, however, is one of letting go rather than imposing. It is one of relaxing into that which is arising, rather than imposing on it according to some preconceived ideal or conceptualised agenda. Of course, because the mind is conditioned to move away from discomfort into reactive patterns of evasion, a certain effort is initially required to undermine this habit. However it is an effort that is applied to awareness itself, rather than to the content of awareness. It is one by which attention is brought back towards that from which it habitually turns away (vrtti). This bringing back is not in fact an expression of intent in the moment. Rather it is an expression of attention returning to an initial comitment (sauca) or orientation that is the basis of that which is happening.
If a deep, honest commitment to investigate the true nature of the self has actually been made, when the drifting of the mind is noticed, this drift is immediately cut off, and attention returns to the matter at hand. This can be the body as a structure in a yoga posture, or the body in its functioning as the breath. So, in fact, the returning of attention to the activity of the present moment is not brought about by intent, willpower or effort. It is brought about through the agency of Niyama: our content and passionate commitment to enquiry into the nature and source of the self. In other words, the stilling, or stopping, of the mind, results not from intent applied directly to the mind but from immersing oneself in an enquiry guided by Yama and Niyama.
Secondly the mind has not actually stopped. Through the progressive resolving of the split between thinker and thoughts the flow of perception appears to slow down. This slowing down refers not to chronological but psychological time. What is occurring is that the spaces between perceptions are expanding due to the resolving of the split. This expansion can reach the point where there is no sense of movement. What may be a milisecond can seem like eternity. This is a function of perception, rather than an absolute cessation of mental activity and time.
In order to understand the fifth and sixth transformation-states of Dhyana and Samadhi it is necessary to understand the nature of objects. An object is not so much a thing as an event. It is an act of perception. Those characteristics, and their underlying formative qualities, whereby any object is defined and differentiated from any other exist as they are as functions of perception. The characteristics of a cat perceptible to a dog are quite different to those perceptible to a human being. A cat is not the same thing to a human being as it is to a dog. Equally, no person is the same to any other two people; no event is the same to any two participants. Even on the most basic sensory level this remains true. No nervous system exactly replicates the functioning of any other.
The transformation from Dharana to Dhyana is a spontaneous one that reflects a further resolving of the perceptual split. In it the initial perception suspended in awareness unravels itself. This unraveling elucidates all of the perceptible characteristics of the initial perceptual object. This elucidation is inherently neither linear nor quantative. It is inclusive and qualitative. The perception or object gives itself up fully to the light of awareness. Patanjali classifies this unravelling according to three criteria: form, implications and context.
The form of an object or perception is the aggregate of coarse and subtle characteristics of which it is constituted. Underlying the defining or perceptible characteristics are formative qualities. The type of these characteristics and qualities vary from one category of perception to another. An image has different characteristics and qualities from a feeling or thought. Obviously every member of each category of perception also has different characteristics than any other member of that category. The underlying, formative qualities include colour, texture, pressure, intensity, dimension, duration etc. These qualities combine to generate the specific characteristics of the form of the object. A bulbous, inflamed nose consists of a specific configuration of redness, pinkness, whiteness, longness, roundness, fullness, which give its form its unique characteristic pattern whereby it is definable as an individual perceptual object.
The implications of an object refers to its origins and impact. All perceptions arising from the actiondeposit into the stillness of Dharana, which are then unravelled in Dhyana, have a specific source or origin. They arise from a vasana, but also from either one specific samskara within that vasana, or a coagulation of resonant samskaras. Each samskara originates in a specific unresolved past action.
All perceptions arising from the actiondeposit into the unconscious mind generate reactions (impact). This chain reaction maybe purely mental or may lead to an action. The specifically conditioned nature of the mind means that certain kinds of perceptions trigger certain kinds of associative reactions and lead to certain kinds of actions. Any kind of action has a causative chain, leading back through the initial (unconscious) perception to an unresolved past action, and forward to its consequences. This chain constitutes the implications of an object (perception). In Dhyana the arising perception does not produce a conditioned unconscious chain-reaction leading to further karma. Instead it reveals to the light of open awareness the totality of its form, its implications and also its context.
Any phenomenon exists within a context. Its significance derives as much from its context as it is inherent in its form or implications. The unravelling of the origins and implications of any perception also sheds light more broadly through the structure of the mind within which it occurs. The context of any perception is the web of interrelated behavioural tendencies and their historical origins, events constituted of objects interacting, within which it has arisen. Elucidation of this web is endless in linear terms. All objects upon thorough investigation elucidate, and derive their significance only from, the inter-relatedness of all other objects. The ultimate context of any perception is the totality of manifestation (prakriti). Within totality no individuated substantiality can be found to pertain to any apparent object. Objects, it turns out, are devoid of any specific, differentiating substance, consisting instead of fluctuation in and of the emptiness that is a fullness of total potentiality.
To the linear mind the form, implications and context of a perceptual object can seem to imply huge amounts of data that would take time to grasp. However the linear modality of the mind has long been suspended. Its suspension brings to the foreground the nonlinear quality of Awareness to which linear characteristics do not apply. Awareness of the form, implications and context of an object does not take time, does not involve data, analysis, evaluation, or judgement. Nor does it directly lead to knowledge in the usual sense. When Dhyana is ripe the elucidation of an object reveals its inherent nonseparateness from all other apparent phenomena. It is non separateness that is known, which Patanjali refers to as emptiness (shunyata). In this way dualistic perception arising from the sense of separate self is further undermined from the level of the mind as it deepens its meditative state.
The elucidation of the nonseparateness of an object from the totality of manifestation undermines the very process of perceiving separate individual objects. Objectness is a function of perception, it is not the nature of that which is. It requires the proliferation and differentiation of perceptible characteristics and qualities. In Samadhi these constituent characteristics and their underlying qualities are elucidated or seen through (paridrsto). This seeing is neither visual nor cognitive. It is a function of awareness or "citisakti" (consciousnessenergy). Objects and their constituent factors when seen through lose their conditioned significance. Phenomena, which are nothing other than perceptual acts, are no longer taken out of their underlying context as separate objects in an objectfield. There is no longer a dissecting of the web of manifestation into defined objects, actions, events and situations. Awareness of becomes simply Pure Awareness within which awareness of (objects) comes and goes. This coming and going is seen to be a play of the mind, a projection based on the perceptual mechanism.
As the conditioned activity of the mind (vrtti) slows down its underlying context and source: citisakti is naturally uncovered. The slowing down of conditioned perception renders perception transparent (empty of substance). Through that transparency the ground within which it spontaneously arises comes to the fore. The background has merged with the foreground, the foreground with the background. The perception of objects can and will still occur. But the tendency to regard any objects, actions, or events as independent and autonomous from the flow of totality, which is thereby overlooked, is being undermined. Instead objects, such as they are, are experienced as being emanations of the totality specific only and momentarily to definable coordinates of space and time. However these co-ordinates are only functions of their definition as such. They also are functions of perception. In Patanjali’s words "unconditional samadhi undermines the sense of self as the projected play of perception and time cease". As objects resolve into the mandalic web of citisakti, so also does the subject lose its significance. In the light of unobstructed citisakti neither subject nor object can sustain their significance. In this way the tyranny of dualistic perception arising from the sense of separate self is fully undermined.