The Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali 2.28-31

Speaker 2 Hello,

Yogi.

Welcome to my podcast.

I'm Aiko and on this show we explore ways to put spiritual theory into sustainable practice.

And welcome to again,

We are in this very exciting episode where we're going to start speaking about Ashtanga Yoga.

Yes,

It's,

It's exciting.

Indeed.

It's a very famous term,

Ashtanga Yoga.

And here is the,

Here is where it comes from.

This is the origin.

Okay,

So let's get started right away.

Would you like to read the sutras?

Yes.

So today we will read four sutras.

So I will read them one after the other,

Sanskrit translation,

Sanskrit translation and so on.

And then we will discuss after.

Yo ganga nushthanad,

Asudhi kshaye jnana-diptir aviveka khyate.

Upon the destruction of impurities as a result of the practice of yoga,

The lamp of knowledge arises.

This culminates in discriminative discernment.

Yama niyamasana pranayama pratyahara dharana dhyana samadhayo sthavangani.

The eight limbs are abstentions,

Observances,

Posture,

Breath control,

Disengagement of the senses,

Concentration,

Meditation and absorption.

Ahimsa satyas te ya brahmacharya parigraha yamaha.

The yamas are nonviolence,

Truthfulness,

Refrainment from stealing,

Celibacy and renunciation of unnecessary possessions.

Jati desha-kala samayana vacchinnaha sarva-bhoma maha-vratam.

These yamas are considered the great vow.

They are not exempted by one's class,

Place,

Time or circumstance.

They are universal.

So in text 28 Patanjali explained it by going through the eight limbs of yoga,

The ashtanga.

Ashta means eight and anga means limbs.

One will arrive at discernment and then he lists the eight angas and then he elaborates on the first anga which is yama which in itself has five different parts and those are the parts we will discuss in this episode.

Often people think that yoga is just or mainly the asana,

The poses exercise but actually to think about what is behind ashtanga yoga,

The meaning of it and the yoga philosophy,

That's very important and this is why in these ancient scriptures all these things are mentioned and very little if nothing about the asana in itself.

Yes,

Actually when it comes to the asana section in some sutras from here,

There's asanas are discussed in two or three sutras.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So I'm not saying that all the asanas are not yoga,

This is absolutely not.

But what I mean by saying this is just that it's actually very,

Very important to know this ashtanga yoga and the meaning behind and what are the roots of yoga and why we are doing it.

Yes,

The commentators here are laying stress on this that there is this order of the angas of yoga like that it begins with yama and then niyama,

Then pranayama,

Etc.

And they emphasize that if you don't have like one step in place then you cannot just go to the next step.

It's the kind of the ladder is in a certain order and like you have to begin at the bottom and go up to the top.

So the bottom rung of the ladder is these are these abstentions.

So they are called in Sanskrit ahimsa,

Satya,

Asteya,

Brahmacharya,

Aparigraha.

And the translations for them are roughly no violence,

Truthfulness,

No stealing,

No sex,

No acquisition or desire to acquire.

So this is a very tall order.

And Patanjali says that these are non-negotiable.

He says that in the sutra that follows the listing of these five,

He says that they are for everyone no matter the class,

Time,

Place or circumstance.

Not meaning that no one is allowed to engage in any of these.

It's just that if you want to follow this path of Ashtanga Yoga then these things are non-negotiable.

And while that may sound very rigid there is still some kind of flexibility within that.

It means that these principles are non-negotiable but the way that they are practiced may have some flexibility to them.

For example,

Ahimsa is listed first because it is the most important.

So then if following other parts of these yamas would compromise ahimsa then they cannot be followed.

So for example if you see someone running away from someone else who is chasing them with a knife and the guy with the knife comes up to you and asks which direction they ran and you tell them,

Oh yeah,

They ran in that direction because you want to follow this principle of truthfulness,

Then that is going to lead to violence and therefore that is not considered actual truthfulness.

So that is one example of how one needs to consider all this in a flexible way and with non-violence as the guiding star.

And we could speak for very long about ahimsa and the understanding of ahimsa because if you say just non-violence many people might understand it in a different way.

So maybe we can say what Edwin Bryant wrote in his book and what is our understanding of non-violence.

Yeah,

So he,

Edwin Bryant,

Emphasizes very much and of course following the commentators emphasizes vegetarianism which is just a very kind of very basic principle of non-violence to not kind of eat the flesh from other beings,

Killing others for your own survival.

That is like the very basic principle.

Then of course that can be refined further to kind of try as far as possible not to kill any,

Like for example killing insects,

Which of course one may accidentally do and of course the principle is to not do it on purpose or with malice.

Then there are also like levels of or dimensions of violence.

There is physical violence,

There is mental violence,

There is violent speech.

So like even kind of thinking ill of others or speak bad of others is also considered violence.

And of course we are not condemning anyone who is eating meat or fish or thinking bad about someone else,

But it's good to think about it.

Like if you think something bad about someone who mistreated you or whatever,

You should just reflect about your anger,

Your angry thoughts and things like this because these are also in a sense violence.

Yeah,

So then we have satya,

As I mentioned a minute ago about truthfulness.

So as we said,

One should be truthful but not in a way that is violent.

And of course,

For example,

One can say the truth about others but in a way that is hurtful or one can do it in a way that is non-violent.

So like the difference between constructive criticism and kind of just criticism out of spite for example.

And of course we should also think about being truth to ourself,

To our values.

Often we don't even realize,

It's not so easy to realize that sometimes we are just not truthful to our values.

Sometimes we might just think,

Oh I think this is right,

This is wrong,

And then you just do the opposite yourself.

So it's important to be truthful also towards ourself.

Yeah,

This also goes into this body,

Mind and speech.

It's like to speak truthfully,

Also to act truthfully.

And like you said,

According to our values which is kind of the truth of our mental truthfulness.

And the third one is asteya,

So no stealing.

This one is of course very obvious.

I think no one would kind of object to this,

Like no one,

Or at least no one would kind of openly object to this.

And maybe that's why it's brought up,

Maybe it's kind of a more subtle stealing that it's talking about.

Commentators even brought up not taking things even if we find them,

If someone has just lost them,

Even then we shouldn't take them just because taking someone else's property is stealing.

As Patanjali said,

There are no exceptions,

No matter what class you come from,

What time it is,

What place you're in,

Or what circumstance you're in,

It is never right to steal.

So here the question about Robin Hood comes.

That's a very good one,

Yeah.

Yeah exactly,

Like for example,

If telling the truth would lead to violence,

It's not actually really following the principle of satya,

Like we said.

Then also stealing,

For example,

If,

Like let's say someone needs a band-aid very fast and you don't have one on you,

So you kind of run and steal it or something.

What if someone is starving and then walk to a shop and they have no money and they are poor and they're just gonna steal a very small little apple to go through the day?

This is where it becomes difficult,

Like should you beg instead of stealing,

For example?

Or is it in some circumstances okay?

Yeah,

But like we said,

With this one,

So there is some kind of,

In principle it's not.

.

.

Yeah,

If it becomes untruthful and if it becomes violence,

Then that's the circumstances where.

.

.

Yeah.

So maybe starvation is violence actually.

Yeah,

Like letting someone starve.

If you're letting someone starve just to avoid stealing,

Then if we see,

If allowing someone to starve would be counted as violence,

Then stealing to feed them would not break the yama of.

.

.

Asteya.

Yeah,

And also I think like in this specific circumstance,

As you mentioned before,

If someone would go and beg and just say,

I don't have food for today probably,

Hopefully the owner will give more than just an apple.

Yeah.

Then we have a very good one,

The next one.

Brahmacharya,

No sex.

Yeah,

This must be the toughest one.

Like,

If no stealing is like the easiest one to accept,

Then probably this one is the hardest one to accept.

And it would actually be very rare for a modern yogi to actually be following this,

Especially because it also counts the subtle,

Like thinking of sex or speaking of sex.

So,

This is actually a path,

Like Ashtanga Yoga is originally a path that is meant for ascetics,

Meaning people who leave the world to dedicate themselves fully to yoga.

And as time goes on,

Like,

The ideas from the Yoga Sutras are going to be planted elsewhere.

I mean,

They have been planted elsewhere outside of their original context.

For example,

They have come to modern cities like New York or Paris,

Stockholm,

Where following principles like this is not going to be very easy.

And as you were mentioning in another talk we had,

That since each of these yamas need to respect the other ones,

So for example,

Attempting to become totally celibate when is not able to,

Would actually break the satya principle,

The honesty and truthfulness principle.

Yeah,

To oneself.

Yeah.

And so therefore there is room for kind of like modifying one's sex life,

That it's not like exaggerated or.

.

.

In a way that one can.

.

.

Can respect all the others yamas,

So without violence,

With truthfulness and without stealing in a way,

Not cheating.

So,

You keep it with your partner and you try not to overcome the line,

Let's say.

Yeah.

And then we have the last one,

Is aparigraha.

No acquisition or desire to acquire.

And I guess I just said that maybe the no sex is the most difficult,

But no acquisition or desire to acquire is also probably just as difficult.

And this emphasizes again that this Ashtanga Yoga is a path for ascetics.

But again,

This can also be understood in an essentialist way,

That no unnecessary acquisition or desire to acquire unnecessary things.

Obviously the things you need for your practice you can have.

And this is not saying as a law,

Trying to impose on you that you can't have things or desire to have things.

But since this path is about realizing your inner self,

Which is non-material,

If you're too attached to material things,

That is hard to align with this main priority of self-realization.

Yeah.

And of course,

As we are not ascetic,

That doesn't mean that we should ignore those principles.

We should understand what is behind those principles and try to adopt them in our life to reach a level of truthfulness and honesty within ourselves.

And of course,

Do some introspection and integrate them more and more.

Yeah,

Like in an organic way.

If we actually have the desire for self-realization,

It is going to be natural that we integrate these principles more and more.

Yeah,

If you think about them very generally,

Like in a generic way,

They're very basic.

Like if you do violence,

You go to jail.

Like when you are in court,

You have to swear to God that you're going to say only the truth because that's very important.

And if you don't say,

Then you're going to go to jail.

And not stealing,

Say itself.

No sex.

Again,

If it's not consensual,

Well,

You can go to jail also for that.

So,

There are a sort of basic principle like in life in general.

The point is where you draw the line,

Where it becomes too much or enough.

Yeah.

So,

Like,

It seems that these things can be,

These like ideals can be pursued even in a non-ascetic setting,

As you say.

And like the commentators kind of say to have one thing in place and then go on to the next.

But if we would have to follow that,

Then we couldn't do asanas at all until we are accomplished in all these other steps.

But I believe rather that you will not really get out of asana as much as you could if you followed all these prior steps.

There is like,

There is a further depth to asana that will be gained by working on these preliminary principles.

But of course,

One can still do basic asanas.

I mean,

The way asana is defined in the Yoga Sutras is to sit steadily and comfortable.

And of course,

We have to sit steadily and comfortable even if we are not accomplished celibate monks.

But yeah,

There are ways to enrich that asana experience.

Yeah.

And of course,

They help each other out,

Like doing asana properly help like create a sort of inner balance that will bring you into more clear thoughts that will bring you to follow these principles more easily.

And if you follow this principle more easily,

Then you're going to get to inner balance.

So to do the asanas is going to be easier.

So it's a catch 22.

A good one.

Yeah,

It's like the reverse of catch 22.

Yeah.

I got to Google what that would be called.

Yeah.

So next,

We're going to speak about the Niyamas.

Yes.

So Patanjali,

He lists the Niyamas and then he discusses the Yamas and Niyamas together.

So that will be in the next episode.

Thank you and see you next time.

Bye.

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