Patanjali: A blog series
For a little over 10 years the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali have been a fairly core part of my spiritual practice.
As with most Sutras, the Yoga Sutras are a series of short statements with deep meaning. The traditional usage would be for students to memorize the sutras, and through repetition, experience and study to unfold their meanings and integrate their teachings into one's life.
My goal in this blog series is to explore some of the impact of each of the fifty-one aphorisms in the first book of Yoga Sutras in my life. For a good introduction to Patanjali, I'd recommend "How to Know God" by Christopher Isherwood & Prabhavanda Prabhavananda (link below). The phrasing of the english translation I use will be from this book, though at times I might reference other translations or the original Sanskrit text.
My usual practice is this: Either when I've devoted some time to meditation or when I have a period in which to think with nothing external that needs doing (on the bus, or waiting for an appointment, for example) I begin going through the sutras one at a time. Once I feel that I've gotten both the wording and the meaning well enough, I move on to the next one, or I'll "zoom in" to a given Sutra, and consider some of its facets.
The blogs tagged "Patanjali Sutras" represent some of my "zooms" - they aren't meant to be definitive, more representational of how the sutras unfold.
I'd love to hear anything that either the aphorisms themselves or my ramblings on them trigger for folks, so feel free to comment.
