Patanjali Yoga Sutra: Swami Vivekananda

1/ Concept of God: All the forces in nature must come back to the source. So, if you hate someone, hate would come back to you and if you love, love would come back to you completing the circuit. So don’t hate anybody.

From nebulae, the sun, the moon and stars are born; then they dissolve and go back to the nebulae.

Plant takes material from earth, dissolves and gives it back.

Every form in this world is taken out of corresponding atoms and goes back to those atoms.

We shall have to return to the origin called God or absolute or Nature…

From whom all this universe comes out, in whom all that is born lives, and to whom all returns.

2/ Put a seed into the ground and it disintegrates, dissolves after a time, and out of that dissolution comes the splendid tree. Every state must degenerate to become the stately tree. So, the sooner we get out of this state we call “man” the better for us.

When you step beyond thought and intellect and all reasoning, then you have made the first step towards God.

3/ Kant has proved beyond all doubt that we cannot penetrate beyond the tremendous dead wall called reason. But Indian thought seeks and finds something higher than reason that takes us beyond the ocean of ignorance and that is the science of religion.

4/ Eyes do not see. Organ of vision is in the nerve center of the brain.

5/ Thought is a force as is gravitation or repulsion. Mind stuff is ‘chitta’ and waves of thought in it are called ‘vrittis’.

6/ The real universe is the occasion of the reaction of the mind. If a stone is thrown into the water, the water is thrown against it in the form of waves.

7/ Matter is the “permanent possibility of sensation,” said John Stuart Mill. It is only the suggestion that is outside.

8/ Take an oyster for example. You know how pearls are made. A grain of sand or something gets inside and begins to irritate it, and the oyster throws a sort of enameling around the sand, and this makes the pearl. This whole universe is our own enamel, and the real universe is the grain of sand.

9/ Look at the lake. You cannot see its bottom. It has waves, it is muddy or agitated, then you cannot see its button. The bottom of the lake is our true self. Lake is the chitta and the waves are the vrittis.

10/ Activity is the manifestation of lower strength, calmness of superior strength.

11/ When you get angry or miserable, reason it out as how it is that some news is throwing your mind into the vrittis.

12/ We can only have a memory of perception. Memory is when the vrittis of perceived subjects do not slip away. 

13/ Sleep is a vritti which embraces voidness. When sleep throws the chitta into the ripple of memory, it is called a dream

14/ Their control is by practice and non-attachment. Why should we practice? Because each action is like the pulsations quivering over the surface of the lake. The vibration dies out, and what is left? The Samsharas, the impressions. When a large number of these impressions are left on the mind they coalesce, and become a habit. It is said “habit is second nature;” it is first nature also, and the whole nature of man; everything that we are, is the result of habit. That gives us consolation, because, if it is only a habit, we can make and unmake it at any time. The Samshara is left by these vibrations passing out of our mind, each one of them leaving its result. Our character is the sum-total of these marks, and according as some particular wave prevails one takes that tone. If good prevails one becomes good, if wickedness one wicked, if joyfulness one becomes happy. The only remedy for bad habits is counter habits; all the bad habits that have left their impressions are to be controlled by good habits. Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously; that is the only way to suppress base impressions. Never say any man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, and these can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.

15/ Whatever of intelligence we see in nature is but the reflection from this Self upon nature.

16/ The form of the light is moving, it is reflected and cast by the camera upon the wall, and the wall foolishly thinks it is moving. So with all of us: it is the Chitta constantly moving, manipulating itself into various forms, and we think that we are these various forms.

17/ This body is the boat which will carry us to the other shore of the ocean of life. It must be taken care of.

18/ Every new thought that we have must make, as it were, a new channel through the brain, and that explains the tremendous conservatism of human nature. Human nature likes to run through the ruts that are already there, because it is easy. If we think, just for example’s sake, that the mind is like a needle, and the brain substance a soft lump before it, then each thought that we have makes a street, as it were, in the brain, and this street would close up, but that the gray matter comes and makes a lining to keep it separate. If there were no gray matter there would be no memory, because memory means going over these old streets, retracing a thought as it were. But whenever a new subject comes new channels have to be made, so it is not understood so readily. And that is why the brain (it is the brain, and not the people themselves) refuses unconsciously to be acted upon by new ideas. It resists. This is the secret of conservatism.

19/ We must have these four sorts of ideas. We must have friendship for all; we must be merciful towards those that are in misery; when people are happy we ought to be happy, and to the wicked we must be indifferent.

20/ We must remember the definition of this world of ours; it is only the Infinite Existence projected into the plane of consciousness. A little of the Infinite is projected into consciousness, and that we call our world.

21/ Books are infinite in number, and time is short; therefore this is the secret of knowledge, to take that which is essential. Take that out, and then try to live up to it. There is an old simile in India that if you place a cup of milk before a Raja Hamsa (swan) with plenty of water in it, he will take all the milk and leave the water. In that way we should take what is of value in knowledge, and leave the dross.

22/ The pain-bearing obstructions are – ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and clinging to life. The Chitta, or mind-stuff, the Buddhi, determinative faculty, the Manas, or mind, and the Indriyani, or sense organs. These are the instruments for him to see the external world, and the identification of the Self with the instruments is what is called the ignorance of egoism. Through ignorance, we identify ourselves with the mind-stuff, and think we feel pleasure or pain. Attachment is that which dwells on pleasure. We are never attached to anyone in whom we do not find pleasure. Aversion is that which dwells on pain.

23/ As reason cannot come without experience, all instinct is, therefore, the result of past experience. The Samskaras (impressions), fine and hidden, are sleeping in the Chitta. All these past experiences of death, all that which we call instinct, is experience becomes sub-conscious. It lives in the Chitta, and is not inactive, but is working underneath. When a bubble is rising from the bottom of the lake we do not see it, or even when it has nearly come to the surface; it is only when it bursts and makes a ripple that we know it is there. To control our passions we have to control them at their very roots; then alone shall we be able to burn out their very seed. As fried seeds thrown into the ground will never come up, so these passions will never arise. For instance, when a big wave of anger has come into the mind, how are we to control that? Just by raising a big opposing wave. Think of love. Then, if we can raise in our fine nature those fine opposing waves, they will check the fine workings of anger beneath the conscious surface. We have seen now that all these instinctive actions first began as conscious actions, and became finer and finer. So, if good waves in the conscious Chitta are constantly raised, they will go down, become subtle, and oppose the Samskara forms of evil thoughts.

24/ As a spider makes his net out of his own substance, and becomes bound in his net, and cannot go anywhere except along the lines of that net, so we have projected out of our own substance this net-work called the nerves, and we cannot work except through the channels of those nerves. The Yogi says we need not be bound by that. Similarly, we can send electricity to any part of the world, but we have to send it by means of wires. Nature can send a vast mass of electricity without any wires at all. Why cannot we do the same? We can send mental electricity. What we call mind is very much the same as electricity. It is clear that this nerve fluid has some amount of electricity, because it is polarized, and it answers all electrical directions.

25/ Who creates the nerves, and makes all the muscles? You are the manufacturer, out of your own substance. You are the manufacturer of the body, and you live in it. Only we have lost the knowledge of how to make it. We have become automatic, degenerate. We have forgotten the process of manufacturing. So, what we do automatically has to be regulated. We are the creators and we have to regulate that creation, and as soon as we can do that we shall be able to manufacture just as we like.

26/ The roots, the causes, the Samskaras being there, they again manifest, and form the effects. The cause dying down becomes the effect, and the effect becomes more subtle, and becomes the cause of the next effect. The tree bears a seed, and becomes the cause of the next tree, and so on. They bear fruit as pleasure or pain, caused by virtue or vice.

27/ Impressions can be of three qualities: Sattvik (illumination), Rajas (action) and Tamas (darkness). The Chitta has, by its own nature, all knowledge. It is made of Sattva particles, but is covered by Rajas and Tamas particles, and by Pranayama this covering is removed.

28/ Indian thought:  Self, which is beyond all intelligence, and of which intelligence is but the borrowed light.

29/ Just as if a piece of pure crystal be put on a table and a red flower be put near it, the crystal appears to be red, so all these appearances of happiness or unhappiness are but reflections. Certainly intelligence is manufactured.

30/ We know that this matter is continuously changing, what is forming the sun one day, the next day may form the matter of our bodies.

31/ According to this Yoga philosophy it is through ignorance that the Soul has been joined with nature and the idea is to get rid of nature’s control over us. That is the goal of all religions. Each Soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or by philosophy, by one, or more, or all of these – and be free. This is the whole of religion.

32/ This body is just the external crust of the mind. If we have control of the internal, it is very easy to have control of the external.

33/ The means of destruction of ignorance is unbroken practice of discrimination; discrimination between the real and unreal.

34/ We require no-one else to make us happy, for we are happiness itself. 

35/ Receiving gifts destroys the independence of the mind, and makes us mere slaves. Therefore, receive nothing. When the Yogi does not receive presents from others he does not become beholden to others, but becomes independent and free, and his mind becomes pure, because with every gift he receives all the evils of the giver, and they come and lay coating after coating on his mind, until it is hidden under all sorts of coverings of evil.

36/ ​​The more you fly from nature the more she follows you, and if you do not care for her at all she becomes your slave.

37/ An unbroken flow of knowledge to that object is Dhyana.

The mind tries to think of one object, to hold itself to one particular spot, as the top of the head, the heart, etc., and if the mind succeeds in receiving the sensations only through that part of the body, and through no other part, that would be Dharana, and when the mind succeeds in keeping itself in that state for some time it is called Dhyana (meditation).

38/ How do we know that the mind has become concentrated? Because time will vanish. The more time vanishes the more concentrated we are. So the definition is given, when the past and present come and stand in one, the more concentrated the mind.

39/ Body is an unreal dream, and we think we are all bodies. This non-discrimination is the cause of misery, and it is caused by ignorance. 

40/ The two causes of evolution advanced by the modens, viz., sexual selection and survival of the fittest, are inadequate. Suppose human knowledge to have advanced too much as to eliminate competition, both from the function of acquiring physical sustenance and of acquiring a mate. Then, according to the modems, human progress will stop and the race will die. And the result of this theory is to furnish every oppressor with an argument to calm the qualms of conscience, and men are not lacking, who, posing as philosophers, want to kill out all wicked and incompetent persons (they are, of course, the only judges of competency), and thus preserve the human race! But the great ancient evolutionist, Patanjali, declares that the true secret of evolution is the manifestation of the perfection which is already in every being; that this perfection has been barred, and the infinite tide behind it is struggling to express itself. These struggles and competitions are but the results of our ignorance, because we do not know the proper way to unlock the gate and let the water in. This infinite tide behind must express itself, and it is the cause of all manifestation, not competition for life, or sex gratification, which are only momentary, unnecessary, extraneous effects, caused by ignorance. Even when all competition has ceased; this perfect nature will make us go forward until everyone has become perfect. Therefore there is no reason to believe that competition is necessary to progress. In the animal the man was suppressed, but, as soon as the door was opened, out rushed man. So, in man there is the potential god, kept in by the locks and bars of ignorance. When knowledge breaks these bars the god becomes manifest.

41/ When the Yogi has attained to that state of perfection, the actions of that man, and the Karma produced by those actions, will not bind him, because he did not desire them. He just works on: he works to do good, and he does good, but does not care for the result, and it will not come to him.

42/ Experiences becoming fine become impressions; impressions revivified become memories. The word memory here includes unconscious co-ordination of past experience, reduced to impressions, with present conscious action.

43/ The object being the same, perception and desire vary according to the various minds.

44/ Mind is not self-luminous, being an object. If you pay deep attention to one thing you lose another. If the mind were self-luminous there would be no limit to the impressions it could receive.

45/ All the various ideas that arise making us belive that we require something external to make us happy are obstructions to that perfection.

46/ One of the Buddhist scriptures sums up what is meant by the Buddha (which is the name of a state). It defines it as infinite knowledge, infinite as the sky. Jesus attained to that state and became the Christ. 

47/ And thus through pleasure and pain, through good and evil, the infinite river of souls is flowing into the ocean of perfection, of self-realization.

Practical tips:

48/ Repetition of Om! Every idea in mind has a corresponding word. Om is the word of lord/ energy/ nature. Repetition is important as the impressions live long.

49/ Pranayama: throwing out and restraining the breath. He means that you simply throw the air out, and draw it in, and hold it for some time, that is all, and by that, the mind will become a little calmer.  By this process of breathing we can control all the various motions in the body, and the various nerve currents that are running through the body. 

50/ This is another sort of concentration. Think of the lotus of the heart, with petals downwards, and running through it the SuCumna; take in the breath, and while throwing the breath out imagine that the lotus is turned with the petals upwards, and inside that lotus is an effulgent light. Meditate on that.

Or by meditation on anything that appeals to one as good, anything that will concentrate the mind.

: ))