Yoga Philosophy & Mind Management – Patanjali Yoga Sutras

Yoga Philosophy & Mind Management – Patanjali Yoga Sutras

This course will be an insight into Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, one of the foundations of classical Yoga philosophy of Hinduism. The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali are a collection of 196 Sanskrit sutras (aphorisms) on the theory and practice of yoga. The Yoga Sutras were compiled sometime between 500 BCE and 400 CE by the sage Patanjali in India who synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions.

Patanjali begins his treatise by stating the purpose of his book in the first sutra, followed by defining the word “yoga” in his second sutra of Book 1:[39]

योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः ॥२॥
yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ

— Yoga Sutras 1.2
“Yoga is the inhibition (nirodhaḥ) of the modifications (vṛtti) of the mind (citta)”. Swami Vivekananda translates the sutra as “Yoga is restraining the mind-stuff (Citta) from taking various forms (Vrittis).” Bryant states that, to Patanjali, “Yoga essentially consists of meditative practices culminating in attaining a state of consciousness free from all modes of active or discursive thought, and of eventually attaining a state where consciousness is unaware of any object external to itself, that is, is only aware of its own nature as consciousness unmixed with any other object.

Here’s what you’ll learn and start to experience in the course: