Presents all the 195 Yoga Sutras professed by the legendary Maharishi PATANJALI. He affirmed that Yoga is not only limited to Asanas, but also aims at outer and inner purification; control and balance of the self; meditation and complete absorption. And finally union with the Self.
Comprises of all the 8 limbs of Ashtanga Yoga: 5 external and 3 internal, Yama; Niyama; Asana; Pranayama; Pratyahara; Dharana; Dhyana; and Samadhi.
The book fully utilizes available technology to aid elaboration of the commentary on Yoga Sutras which are admittedly terse. Charts and tables as well as graphs and pictures adore the book practically on every page so that the reader finds it helpful to enhance his understanding. Stories and quotations from the spiritual greats are added to widen comprehension. This then is a book that is truly unique in its presentation that would find ready acceptance by Yoga teachers and students alike all over the world. All those students and teachers of Yogasanas who wish to go beyond Asanas and aim at avoidance of mental modifications and the resultant stressful life would find this book a boon.
Prof. S V Subramanyam is a multifaceted personality, a technocrat entrepreneur, professor of management science, management consultant, software exporter and an eloquent speaker, all rolled in one. His spiritual pursuits and Yoga training stretch over three decades. A keen student of Vedanta and a Yoga practitioner, he has several publications on the anvil on Upanishads, Narada Bhakti Sutras and commentaries on Adi Sankara's works like Bhaja Govindam and Sadhana Panchakam.
Prof. Subramanyam has degrees in Mathematics, Engineering and Management Science. He had his higher education in Germany and was a Carl Duisburg Gescellshaft scholar. His post graduate education and training and his subsequent experience in German industry as well as his Vedantic spirit of inquiry and reasoning enables him to bring forth precision and thoroughness to any subject that he teaches or writes about.
For the modern day computer oriented individuals world wide, who are keen on learning Yoga and going beyond Asanas to enhance understanding of spiritual science and increase awareness, Prof. Subramanyam uses tables, diagrams, charts, extensively besides stories and quotations from the great spiritual texts in his commentaries on Patanjali Yoga Sutras.
INTRODUCTION
1. What is Yoga?
The word Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root “yuj” meaning to bind, join, attach and yoke, to direct and concentrate one’s attention on, to use and apply. It also means union or communion. It is the true union of our will with the will of God.
2. Is Yoga a means or an end?
It is both. Yoga is the process of taking us back home to our un-obscured true nature. Hence it is a means. Yoga is a state of Union. Hence it is the end.
3. Is Yoga a Science?
Yoga is a science. It is not a vague, dreamy drifting or imagining topic. It is an applied science, a systematized collection of laws applied to bring about a definite end. It takes up the laws of psychology, applicable to the unfolding of the whole consciousness of man on every plane, in every world, and applies those rationally in a particular case. This rational application of the laws of unfolding consciousness acts exactly on the same principles that you see applied around you every day in other departments of science.
4. Is Yoga a religion? Is Yoga Hinduism?
No. Yoga has nothing to do with religion. It is a systematic method of understanding one’s true self. Yoga accepts that God as a special person can be used by the seeker in seeking liberation. Yoga is not Hinduism, as it is commonly known as.
5. Is Yoga a philosophy?
No, it is not, in the sense of being a hypothesis. Instead it embodies mostly a practical do it yourself type of instructions.
6. Is Yoga metaphysical?
No. It does not bother about distant questions about past lives, heaven and hell or God or Satan. Yoga is concerned with the present. With the ‘Now’, with the current problem caused by ignorance, called mind. It gives practical ways to avoid mental modifications so that perception becomes clear, so that one obtains freedom from bonding duality.
7. What is Patanjali Yoga about?
Patanjali’s Yoga is essentially related to the mind and its modifications. It deals with the training of the mind to achieve oneness with the Self. Incidental to this objective are the acquisition of siddhis or powers
8. What is the aim of Patanjali Yoga?
The aim of Patanjali Yoga is to set man free from the cage of matter, thus removing his ignorance. Mind is the highest form of matter and man freed from this dragnet of Chitta or Ahankara (mind or ego) becomes a pure being. The mind or Chitta is said to operate at two levels; intellectual and emotional. The aim is liberation.
9. Is Patanjali Yoga and Hatha Yoga same?
Some of the eight aspects (Ashtanga) like Asana and Pranayama that Patanjali prescribes as part of the steps towards spiritual progress, constitute a very important part of Patanjali Yoga Sutras. These parts are so important that a whole branch of specialized knowledge has sprung up out of these two important aspects. That is what is now referred to as Hatha Yoga.
10. What do we know about Patanjali?
He lived a few millenniums before Gautam Buddha, and was a great philosopher. His best known work is Yoga Sutras or Aphorisms on Yoga. The path outlined is called Raja Yoga or the sovereign path. It is so called because of the regal, noble method by which the self is united with the over self.
11. Is Patanjali the originator of Yoga?
Patanjali was not the author or originator of Yoga. He has only compiled and reformulated what was already orally given down the generations for centuries. He was the first to reduce the teachings to writing for the use of students and rightly so he is regarded as the founder of Raja Yoga school.
12. Is Yoga sutras a sermon?
No. It is no preaching either. It is just a set of principles and dictums which when practised and followed will lead the aspirant to the state of Union.
13. What is “Sutra’?
Sutra means thread. Sutra in this context could be interpreted as a terse link or thread of essential points. These “threads” are extremely terse, stating concisely, and often concisely and precisely, essential points or techniques.
Originally these teachings were oral and were explained and interpreted by commentaries from a teacher guiding the student. Sutra (aphorism) enshrines, in a few words, vast expanses of meaning, vast depths of fundamental significance.
The following Sanskrit verse defines a sutra:
Alpaksharama samdigdhe saravat vishvato mukham,
Asto Bhamanavadhyam cha sutram sutra vido viduhu.
A sutra should be:
i. Concise, consisting of minimum number of letters.
ii. Clear, without doubt with regard to the meaning.
iii.Convey the essence of an Upanishadic Statement.
iv. Multi-faceted. Reflect all aspects of the subject.
v. Without glorifications
vi. Faultless (There should be no defects in the words and meanings).
14. In which language were the Sutras written?
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali were originally written in Sanskrit which is an
Indo-European language. Sankrit is the oldest of the Indo-European languages still in active use.
15. Which are the early commentaries written on Patanjali Yoga?
i. Rajamartandavritti of Bhojadeva
ii. Yogasutrapradipika of Bhavaganesha
iii.Yogasutravritti of Nagojibhatta
iv. Yogasiddhantacharika of Narayanathirtha
v. Yogasudhakara of Sadasivabrahmendra
In recent times the commentaries of Swami Vivekananda and Swami Lahari Mahasaya are from amongst the best.
16. A final question, how should one proceed with the study?
Remember Lord Buddha’s “Four Reliances”:
i. Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality,
ii. Rely on the meaning, not just on the words,
iii.Rely on the real meaning, not on the provisional one,
iv. Rely on your wisdom mind, not on your ordinary judgemental mind.
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