Practicing the Yoga Sutras: A Personal Study Guide & Journal

By Carroll Ann Friedmann

For eons, people have suffered from an inability to maintain a steady and peaceful mind. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali offers a practical way to address this challenge. While some of the sutras pertain to “Yoga philosophy,” the majority direct us toward actual practice or a description of the yogic experience.

Practicing the Yoga Sutras by Carroll Ann Friedmann combines clear explanations of this ancient text with prompts for personal discovery and reflection. This book grew out of a decade of studying and discussing the Yoga Sutras with real students, and it reflects this grounded experience. The concise instructions and explanations offered by the Yoga Sutras are still powerful and exceedingly valuable for moving toward peace and knowledge of the Self.

Practicing the Yoga Sutras offers space for personal reflections and self-study notes. This book, which utilizes the sutra translations and definitions from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: Translation and Commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda, is its perfect companion study guide and journal. It may also be used fruitfully in Yoga teacher training, helping students and teachers connect to each other and to Yoga philosophy. Study guides for groups are included. Readers may also learn to chant each sutra using additional material found on the book's website.

This book is designed to take you into a deep and very personal encounter with this text. It will support your practice of Yoga and your personal development whether you are a novice or seasoned practitioner.

Practicing the Yoga Sutras includes:

● Clear translations and simple commentary for each sutra

● Questions for reflection and space to respond with journaling or drawing

● A study guide highlighting key teachings that can be used in groups

● Images that can enhance your interaction with the material

• Language: English
• Publisher: Integral Yoga Publications
• Release date: Mar 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9780932040176

Book preview

Cover.jpgtitle

ISBN 978-0-932040-16-9

Copyright © 2024 by Satchidananda Ashram-Yogaville®, Inc.

Book design and layout by Shiva Hervé

Cover Design by Prashanti Wilson

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher or the copyright holder.

Printed in the United States of America.

Integral Yoga® Publications Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville®, Inc.

108 Yogaville Way, Buckingham, Virginia USA 23921

www.integralyoga.org

For a complete listing of Integral Yoga Publications books: https://shop.btpubservices.com/Publisher/integral-yoga-publications

Dedication

For Sri Swami Satchidananda, my Sadguru, and Dr. M.A. Jayashree, my acharya.

I touch your feet.

Acknowledgments

Chanting the Yoga Sutras led me to want to understand them. Dr. M. A. Jayashree patiently and lovingly took me from hearing to chanting to knowing by heart. At that point, I was ready to study this text. I count her and her brother, Narasimhan, among the most valuable people in my life.

Sri Swami Satchidananda gave many talks to his students concerning the Yoga Sutras, and these were made into his commentary. Lucid, colloquial, simple-but-profound, his text gave me faith that the Yoga Sutras could be understood and, more importantly, lived. I have utilized his translation of these sutras in this book.

My sangha at Ashtanga Yoga Charlottesville has been chanting, studying, and discussing the Yoga Sutras with me for over a decade. Sunday morning Yoga Church with these students led directly to this book. I wrote it to help us and others like us go deeper into Yoga.

Over many years, my husband, Liam Buckley, has discussed these concepts with me, taught Yoga Church and chanted with me, and continues to walk this path of Yoga with me. He is a Yoga scholar in his own right, and I learn from him every day. Liam is my foundation and my heart, and he gives me courage in this and in everything else I do.

I am blessed to belong to a family of writers. My mother and sisters—Elizabeth Friedmann, Marie F. Marquardt, and Lee F. Taylor—received daily installments of this book over many months and gave me excellent feedback. Mom was my copyeditor and always caught what I had missed. They are brilliant and generous and they kept me moving.

I would like to thank Shiva Hervé, who created the beautiful design and layout of this book, Prashanti Wilson for the cover design, and Sam Fisher for the insightful artistic variations of the cover that appear on the website and social media sites.

My special thanks to the donors who help support the service of Integral Yoga® Publications, especially the Harry Wadhwani Family and Rev. Sivani Alderman.

Finally, without Swami Premananda, PhD (Integral Yoga Publications editor) this book would be so very much less. Her deep engagement with Yoga, both personally and philosophically, her excellent eye, honest criticism, and creative insight has made this book a beautiful object and a much truer text than I could have ever done alone. She has gone into new territory with me, and I love and thank her from my deepest heart.

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Guide to Sanskrit Pronunciation

Preface

Introduction

Book One: Samadhi Pada – Portion on Contemplation

Book Two: Sadhana Pada – Portion on Practice

Book Three: Vibhuti Pada – Portion on Accomplishments

Book Four: Kaivalya Pada – Portion on Absoluteness

Study Guide

About the Author

Guide to Sanskrit Pronunciation

In my own study of the Yoga Sutras, I have found that chanting them in Sanskrit profoundly deepens their impact. On my website, practicingtheyogasutras.com, you will find QR codes that will direct you to MP3 files of the chanted sutras and other Sanskrit chants. When these sutras are spoken or chanted the double-a becomes a longer a-sound, as in "Yogaanushasanam."

The Sanskrit in this book is represented in Roman text without the diacritic marks that indicate certain sounds and pronunciation. I have represented these in a way that will help the reader chant along or be able to more-or-less accurately pronounce the words of the Sanskrit text:

▸▸ The dot under certain letters as the letter i, as in vritti.

▸▸ Two a vowels that merge to form a long-a as two distinct vowels, as in yoga anushasanam.

▸▸ Aspirated s letters as sh, as in drashtu.

▸▸ The c as ch, as in chitta.

▸▸ Stanza-ending h-dot letters as repeating the previous vowel, as in nirodhaha in sutra 1.2.

▸▸ The final h in the body of the text is dropped when the conventional pronunciation of a word does not require it, as in parinamah to parinama or nirodhah to nirodha. 

▸▸ The word sutra would normally be italicized to indicate a non-English word, however because the term is used so frequently throughout the text, it is not italicized.

▸▸ I have pluralized certain Sanskrit words when they appear by themselves in the text by adding an s, as in karmas.

Preface

There are so many published works about the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Why do we need another one? I wrote this book to help students engage the Yoga Sutras intelligently and personally at once. I hoped to write a non-academic but intellectually engaging book that was also easy to understand. This text has grown out of conversations that I have had with real Yoga students who want to know what the Yoga Sutras mean, and whether or not they are relevant and helpful to us today.

This book is in the space between commentary and self-help guide. It contains within it the possibility of a journal. If the reader chooses to make use of the writing bubbles that appear after the reflection questions—whether by drawing, doodling, making notes, writing poetry, and the like—then this will become a very unique book. It is not meant to be shared with others, but to be a place for private thoughts and self-study notes. I hope that it may also be used fruitfully in Yoga teacher training, helping students and teachers connect to each other and to Yoga philosophy.

I have avoided a conversation about different philosophical schools and interpretive arguments centered around this text. I am aware of these evaluations and arguments, but did not find them to be fruitful for my purpose. Thus, you will be certain to find other interpretations of these sutras than the ones that I have offered. I don’t think that this is a cause for concern. Yoga suggests that we develop belief based on our own experience. I hope that a real encounter with the Yoga Sutras will supersede debate and override confusion.

This is meant to be a personal book. Please make it your own.

Introduction

What Has Led You to a Study of Yoga?

If you are like most Western students, you probably started your relationship with Yoga in a studio or gym. You came to a Yoga class because you heard it was good for you. Yoga postures are widely known to relieve stress, make us strong and flexible, and improve our concentration and mindfulness. Yoga may also be used therapeutically to treat diseases of the body. Physical Yoga practices have been used for centuries to develop stronger and more flexible bodies and to improve overall health.

After some months or years of practicing mat yoga, students often want to know what is behind this method of health and why it feels so different from other forms of exercise. They want to understand the philosophy behind the yogic practice. The Yoga Sutras are valuable as self-study or as part of a teacher training. Whatever your own motives, this companion study guide to the Yoga Sutras will help you to apply Patanjali’s Yoga to your own mind and life.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras presents the Yoga methodology in a way that most scholars believe to be a systematization and summary of a number of pre-existing Yoga traditions. The Yoga Sutras are a collection of the ideas and practices that have been proven effective in the experience of many accomplished yogis over a long period of time. While some of the sutras can fall under the category of Yoga philosophy, the majority direct us to an actual practice. The sutras at the end of the work describe experiences that may be had by an accomplished Yoga practitioner. As such, the Yoga Sutras can be understood as a succinct description of the thoughts and experiences of yogis who have come before. With its majority emphasis on actual practice and experience, Patanjali’s text suggests that Yoga is a path of action—it should be practiced in order to be understood.

Patanjali’s presentation of Yoga practice is divided into four sections, called padas. Pada means foot, as in a unit of measurement, or a section. The first section of the Yoga Sutras is called Samadhi Pada. It describes the goal of Yoga and obstacles to that goal. Patanjali offers us motivation for our practice and a clear understanding of what holds us back. The second section is Sadhana Pada, which explains the practices necessary to reach the goal of Yoga. The third section, Vibhuti Pada, details an accomplished Yoga practice, including the special abilities that may arise in a mature yogi. The final section, Kaivalya Pada, describes the state of total liberation from the suffering of conditioned existence.

There are many wonderful commentaries that have provided students of Yoga with an opportunity to study and understand the meaning of the Yoga Sutras. They range from beautifully accessible and colloquial texts to highly technical and intellectual approaches. They have been written by academic scholars and by practicing monastics. Their variety and volume demonstrate the importance and value of the Yoga Sutras to modern Yoga practitioners and scholars. My own Teacher, Sri Swami Satchidananda, has given us a very beautiful, clear, simple-but-profound translation and commentary on the text. His work has formed the basis of my own experience and understanding of the Yoga Sutras and I have used his translations throughout this manual.

The goal of this workbook is somewhat different than that of a commentary. I would like to give Yoga practitioners an opportunity to encounter and engage the sutras on a very personal level. In my years of teaching this text to students in Yoga teacher training, in university and community settings, I have observed how meaningful and rich the Yoga Sutras are when they are personally applied. This workbook is designed to teach you about yourself and your own mind using the time-tested and proven methods given to us in the Yoga Sutras. The workbook will help you understand Patanjali’s text in light of your own experience. It is my hope that this ancient text comes alive for you and takes you further toward the practical and sublime goals of Yoga!

AS YOU PREPARE TO STUDY, HERE ARE SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR SUCCESS:

1. Choose a half-hour each day, at the same time, preferably in the morning, to devote to this study. Make it part of a simple, daily routine. Set an alarm for the start and finish time. You could also study one sutra per day.

2. Choose a quiet, clean spot with good light and no distractions. Make a steady, comfortable seat with a writing surface and a nice pen or pencil.

3. Let people know. Tell your family or some good friends about your study. If someone wants to join you, use the buddy system.

4. Before you begin each session, prepare. Use the restroom, dress, and make yourself a beverage. Don’t eat while studying. Play music only if it helps you to concentrate.

5. Work through the text in order. Patanjali is very systematic in his presentation, but you may feel like skipping ahead to a section that interests you. The natural tendency of the mind is toward restlessness. For maximum benefit, approach this study in order, from start to finish.

The most important part of any new undertaking is a commitment—sankalpa in Sanskrit. A sankalpa is an intention formed by the heart and mind—a solemn vow, determination, or act of the will. It is a one-pointed resolve to focus both psychologically and physically on a specific goal. Sankalpa is a tool meant to harness the will, to focus and harmonize mind and body. When we set a sankalpa we can expect the mind to push back, much like a child or puppy might when faced with loving discipline. Be prepared for this, and continue in your resolve. You will find that after some days or weeks your sankalpa will become easier. After a regular routine is established, you will start to look forward to and protect your sankalpa.

What days will you study? (The great yogis suggest that anything important to us must be practiced every day.) What time will you study? Where will you study? What do you need to do to prepare to study? What is your intention or goal for this study? What obstacles may arise? How will you work to overcome these obstacles?

Write your sankalpa here:

Yoga Relieves the Pain of Existence

The practice of Yoga, and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, directly address the pain of existence, its causes, and its remedy. If our life feels just fine as-is then we are unlikely to take on a serious practice of Yoga. For almost all of us, some experience of suffering, discontent, restlessness, confusion, or a desire for a better and more satisfying life has led us to a Yoga practice. Serious Yoga practitioners still may experience pain and suffering, but they have decided to try to understand the cause of suffering and to actively search for a remedy in Yoga.

Why do human beings suffer? We may believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with us; that we carry a sinful or broken nature. We may also believe that our problems are caused by other people and their wrong actions or attitudes. Perhaps we understand suffering as the result of unsatisfactory conditions in our lives.

What do you believe causes your unhappiness, restlessness, sadness, discontent, irritability, or other challenging emotions?

According to Yoga, there is no intrinsic value to ordinary suffering. In fact, it can pollute everything about our human experience and keep us from being useful in the world. A person who is suffering is distracted, perhaps even consumed by the experience. It alienates us from other people and leads to feelings of isolation, depression, fear, and resentment. Suffering is exhausting, leaving much less of our energy available for good use in the world. Suffering can even become so familiar, so conditioned in our experience, that we don’t know how to function without it. When this happens, we become the active creators of our own pain.

Does suffering sap your energy and distract your attention, causing you fear or depression? Describe these experiences with some detail.

Can you identify areas of your life where you have become attached to, or accustomed to, suffering?

What parts of your life would benefit from more of your energy and focused attention?

What thoughts, feelings, or circumstances in your life need relief or change?

The Cause of Suffering is the Mind

In the Yoga tradition of Patanjali, the cause of suffering is precise. We suffer because of the condition of our mind. In Sanskrit, the mind is called chitta (chih-tah). The power of the mind over the human experience is such that it shapes most of our reality. To understand this, we must first assume that basic human needs for food, shelter, and safety have been met. If so, Yoga philosophy explains that the source of our unhappiness is inside us. Our minds are filters that color our experience of everyone and everything—as such, they make up our reality.

For this reason, Patanjali’s description of suffering and his remedy centers in the chitta. Yoga is a science of the mind—a set of mental, physical, and spiritual practices designed to bring the mind under our conscious and willful control. Yoga cleans up and stabilizes the mind, bringing it into a state of clarity. The undisturbed mind is liberated from suffering.

As a set of practices, no religious system is necessary in Yoga. In fact, it can be better to come to it without strong beliefs to prejudice us against its methods. In Yoga, faith comes only as a result of experience. We come to believe that the practices of Yoga work to relieve our suffering because it is happening to us!

Are you willing to experiment on your own mind to discover the cause of your suffering? Do you provisionally accept the idea that your own mind might be the cause of all of your unhappiness?

What exactly do we mean by the mind or chitta? In Western thinking, we usually understand our mind as the part of us that thinks. In addition to the mind, we have a body, senses and emotions. Some of us believe that we also have a spirit—something that outlasts the mind, body, and emotions. We may describe ourselves as mind-body-spirit.

For Patanjali, chitta is understood a bit differently. The mind is not solely a place for thinking, reasoning, and creating. It is also the source of all emotions and desires. Chitta exists in every living thing, but in humans it has reached its highest form because it encompasses reasoning, intellect, and the potential for complex knowledge and understanding.

This chitta is made up of three distinct parts, or functions. These work together to shape our entire experience of ourselves and the world. They work in such seamless harmony that we must concentrate in order to distinguish them. The three parts of the mind are buddhi (boo-dhee), manas (maa-naas), and ahamkara (aah-haam-kah-rah).

The individuating component of the mind, ahamkara, is the ego-sense—the feeling that I am separate and different from others. Ahamkara thinks about me, mine, I, and reacts to all outside information based on how it is likely to affect itself. The ahamkara, also called the ego, stores the impressions of our personal experiences. This bundle of impressions is called smriti (smrih-tee) or memory. Ahamkara remembers whether a certain experience brought pleasure or pain and reacts based on these memories. It evaluates all things as good for me or bad for me, helping me get what I want or keeping me from getting what I want. The ahamkara is the part of the mind that throws tantrums, is elated, depressed, afraid, eager, selfish, blaming, attached, disinterested, cruel, or kind—it is where most of the pain of existence originates.

Describe your experience of ahamkara or ego. How does your sense of me-ness express itself most strongly in your life?

The buddhi is the intellect—the rational, discriminating part of the mind. It makes decisions, and takes action. Buddhi includes the will, the mind’s ability to judge right from wrong, and the assimilation of knowledge into understanding. Wisdom, discernment, discretion, intuition, and conscience arise from the buddhi. For this reason, it is a very important part of the chitta—when it is strong and well-formed it has the ability to provide excellent direction to the entire mind.

Contemplate your own buddhi mind. How does it work for good in your life? Would you describe your buddhi as clear and strong, confused and weak, or somewhere in between?

The buddhi receives outside information from the part of the mind called manas. The manas records impressions gathered by the sense organs, the indriyas (in-dree-yaas), from the outside world. The sense organs are neutral collectors of data from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin. They deliver raw information to the manas, which records these sensations and filters them based on past experience. This part of the mind tends to actively avoid certain sense experiences and to chase others if it is heavily influenced by ahamkara. Thus, it can be blind to certain information while amplifying other information. Manas is working when children see a tomato on their plate and refuse to eat it because they hate tomatoes. Manas is the gatekeeper, messenger, bouncer, and traffic cop of the mind. Everything that comes into our awareness or intellect from the outside world has passed through the filter of manas.

Describe the filter of your manas—what does it welcome into perception? What sense impressions does it reject or avoid? How does it filter your experience of the world?

The chitta-bundle of buddhi, manas, and ahamkara is the precise target of the study and practice of Yoga. Yogis accept full responsibility for their own thought-forms and for the action of their minds. They don’t blame the past or other people for their own thoughts and feelings.

Instead, they concentrate on disciplining and changing their own mind so that it no longer causes suffering. The mind must be in a state of willingness to change in order to benefit from Yoga.

Some minds may not be ready to benefit from Yoga practice:

The Scattered Mind > This type of mind is restless, passionate, distracted, challenged by sustained concentration, motivated by desire, ambitious, and unsatisfied. It is unable to stay focused on careful and deep practice because it is frequently pulled away by something else.

The Lazy Mind > This type of mind is inert, overwhelmed, depressed, challenged by constructive thought, pessimistic, blaming, or hopeless. It will find many excuses to avoid practice, experiencing it as too difficult, dry, boring, tasteless, or uninteresting. It is not interested in much beyond getting through the day.

The Pleasure-Seeking Mind > This type of mind shrinks from difficult tasks, dislikes effort, and prefers to have pleasant and interesting experiences. It is prone to boredom and insists on comfort. It constantly asks, What’s in it for me? It is impatient and wants instant results or it will move on to the next thing.

Each of these undesirable mental states can be transformed through disciplined practice into being ready for the deeper experience of Yoga. The Yoga Sutras recognize the preponderance of these mental states and address their causes and their remediation.

Take a moment to honestly look at the condition of your own mind. Evaluate it. Is it ready for the deep benefits of focused study or does it need more preparation?

The Nature of Real and Unreal

Our chitta-mind may form our entire experience of life. However, it is also in a relationship with something completely different than itself. The nature of this relationship is the key to its well-being. It is very important to understand that, in the Yoga Sutras, the chitta is of a different substance than the True Self, or Atman (aaht-maan). Patanjali’s work rests on the distinction between two opposites—The Real and the unreal—Purusha (poo-roo-shah) and prakriti (prah-krih-tee). The relationship between Purusha and prakriti and their fundamental distinction form the basic nature of Reality in the Yoga Sutras. Yoga presents a contrast between what is real/permanent/unchanging and what is unreal/transitory/illusory. While you don’t have to believe in this view to practice Yoga fruitfully, these concepts are very important in understanding Patanjali’s philosophy.

Purusha is Pure Consciousness. It is Source. The first and eternal cause. It is Witness—aware of everything all the time without being affected by this awareness. It is not and never has been subject to change. Purusha is the Seer. Purusha is of the nature of Sat (saat), Chid (chidh), and Ananda (aa-naan-da). Sat is Being—Purusha is continual Being throughout eternity. Chid is Knowledge or Awareness—everything is always knowable by Purusha. Ananda is Bliss—Purusha is always in a state of perfect fulfillment.

Does your own culture, religious background, or experience include a concept similar to Purusha? Describe it.

Prakriti includes everything that has a name, a form, and is subject to change. Prakriti is all phenomena, all matter, all movement, all sound, all impulse. Prakriti is in a constant state of flux and movement. It is anything and everything we call nature, but it also includes our own mind, body, and senses, and all of their activities and perceptions. If it can be described, it is prakriti. If it can be sensed or even thought about, it is prakriti. The most significant attribute of prakriti is changeability.

List what belongs to prakriti in your own life. Begin with the most concrete and move to the more subtle.

Is there anything that you are finding difficult to classify as either Purusha or prakriti? Write it down for further discussion, reflection or inquiry.

Purusha is cause, prakriti is effect. Purusha is unmanifest, prakriti is manifest. Purusha is Spirit, prakriti is matter—anything that is encompassed in Einstein’s E=mc2. Purusha, the Seer, is the witness to prakriti, the seen.

However, this relationship is much more intimate than simple Seer and seen. Prakriti exists as an appearance of Purusha in visible form in the material world. Without manifest prakriti, Purusha would be the Witness and there would be no manifestation witnessed. Prakriti is the vehicle used by Consciousness to help us become aware of the difference between the Real and the unreal. A very rough analogy is that Purusha is the blank screen upon which the prakriti/movie is our mind-body-sense complex—manifesting all of the qualities and experiences that we think of as me.

Come up with another metaphor to describe the relationship between the Seer and the seen, the driver and the vehicle, the permanent and the changing?

The Three States of All Matter and the Mind

Every single manifestation of prakriti, including the human mind, is formed by three fundamental conditions—the three (goo-naas) gunas. These gunas combine to produce all phenomena and matter. As humans, we are constantly subject to the gunas; our minds, bodies, and senses are the direct result of their myriad combinations. These three are sattva (saat-vah), rajas (raa-jaas), and tamas (taa-maas), and everything in existence can be described as sattvic, rajasic, or tamasic—or some combination of these three.

Sattva guna is the base state, and most desirable for the yogi. It is characterized by lucidity, tranquility, wisdom, discrimination, non-attachment, happiness, peacefulness, and the absence of pain. Sattvic objects have beauty, balance, utility, and order and they are pleasant to touch, use, and observe.

Sattvic foods are nourishing, fresh, pleasant to smell, delicious, and easy to digest. Sattvic experiences promote harmony, peacefulness, order, effectiveness, strength, and focus. In the mind, sattva gathers attention to one-pointedness. A sattvic mind is centered, effective, steady, and skillful. It is very effective in its efforts, and avoids excess or dissipation of focus. It is peaceful and contented.

In your own life, mind, and environment, where do you see sattva or sattvic qualities present? Include your home or workplace, your relationships, your food, your thoughts and emotions, any anything else.

When sattva becomes disturbed or agitated, the result is rajas. This second guna is characterized by hankering, attachment, energetic endeavor, passion, power, restlessness, distraction, craving, rushing, and disorder.

Rajasic objects are stimulating, exciting, disturbing, off-balance, intense, startling to the senses, bright, colorful, loud, and obtrusive. Rajasic food is spicy, salty, hot, intense, over-embellished, creates craving, and speeds up digestion so it can cause a burning gut. The rajasic mind is scattered. It chases activity, stimulation, and pleasure and will not tolerate stillness or boredom. It is usually planning, scheming, desiring, resenting, and obsessing; it is never satisfied.

Reflecting as you did for sattva, where do you see rajasic qualities or states in your home, workplace, food, activities, and mind?

The third guna is the result of the exhaustion or sinking of rajas—a giving-up of its drive and desire. Tamas is the state of stillness, inertia, ignorance, delusion, disinterest, lethargy, sleep, disinclination toward constructive activity, depression, self-indulgence, and gluttony.

Tamasic objects are dirty, stinky, in disrepair, dull, leaden, immobile, and ugly. Tamasic food is heavy, fatty, dead, oily, stale, rotten, over-processed, poisonous, non-nourishing, sedating, and old.

A tamasic mind is darkening. It moves toward laziness, dullness, stubbornness, depression, indulgence, lecherousness, deception, injury of self and others, and is drawn to pain. The tamasic mind just doesn’t care.

What tamasic qualities are