THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI
“The Book of the Spiritual Man”
An Interpretation By
Charles Johnston
Bengal Civil Service, Retired;
Indian Civil Service, Sanskrit Prizeman;
Dublin University, Sanskrit Prizeman
Contents
| INTRODUCTION TO BOOK I |
| BOOK I |
| INTRODUCTION TO BOOK II |
| BOOK II |
| INTRODUCTION TO BOOK III |
| BOOK III |
| INTRODUCTION TO BOOK IV |
| BOOK IV |
INTRODUCTION TO BOOK I
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are in themselves exceedingly brief, less than tenpages of large type in the original. Yet they contain the essence of practicalwisdom, set forth in admirable order and detail. The theme, if the presentinterpreter be right, is the great regeneration, the birth of the spiritualfrom the psychical man: the same theme which Paul so wisely and eloquently setforth in writing to his disciples in Corinth, the theme of all mystics in alllands.
We think of ourselves as living a purely physical life, in these materialbodies of ours. In reality, we have gone far indeed from pure physical life;for ages, our life has been psychical, we have been centred and immersed in thepsychic nature. Some of the schools of India say that the psychic nature is, asit were, a looking-glass, wherein are mirrored the things seen by the physicaleyes, and heard by the physical ears. But this is a magic mirror; the imagesremain, and take a certain life of their own. Thus within the psychic realm ofour life there grows up an imaged world wherein we dwell; a world of the imagesof things seen and heard, and therefore a world of memories; a world also ofhopes and desires, of fears and regrets. Mental life grows up among theseimages, built on a measuring and comparing, on the massing of images togetherinto general ideas; on the abstraction of new notions and images from these;till a new world is built up within, full of desires and hates, ambition, envy,longing, speculation, curiosity, self-will, self-interest.
The teaching of the East is, that all these are true powers overlaid by falsedesires; that though in manifestation psychical, they are in essence spiritual;that the psychical man is the veil and prophecy of the spiritual man.
The purpose of life, therefore, is the realizing of that prophecy; theunveiling of the immortal man; the birth of the spiritual from the psychical,whereby we enter our divine inheritance and come to inhabit Eternity. This is,indeed, salvation, the purpose of all true religion, in all times.
Patanjali has in mind the spiritual man, to be born from the psychical. Hispurpose is, to set in order the practical means for the unveiling andregeneration, and to indicate the fruit, the glory and the power, of that newbirth.
Through the Sutras of the first book, Patanjali is concerned with the firstgreat problem, the emergence of the spiritual man from the veils and meshes ofthe psychic nature, the moods and vestures of the mental and emotional man.Later will come the consideration of the nature and powers of the spiritualman, once he stands clear of the psychic veils and trammels, and a view of therealms in which these new spiritual powers are to be