Patanjali Yoga (An Old and Rare Book)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

There is no subject more fascinating than Yoga; but nothing other than Yoga is more shrouded in obscurity; this obscurity lies in the profundity and depth of thought rather than in any lack of books or teachers. It is the age-old science of Being and Becoming demanding great mental effort of the practitioner; the science is not for the mentally lazy or obtuse, the unpractical or the dreamy, It is a common truism that man is born free but everywhere we see him in chains. The chain is not forged by any outside political tyrant but by one's own tyranny of the mind and the senses, and, Yoga helps one break those fetters.

The Sanskrit 'yoga' is the ancestor of the English 'yoke'. Yoga means integration, union-the 'mystical union' with the Godhead, the spiritual union with the Aatmaa, the Reality.

Once the exclusive privilege of the few, the elite and the initiated, Yoga has now become very popular, both in the Orient and the Occident, and to that extent cheap and vulgar-a price extracted (or expropriated) by the democratic spirit. Hence have arisen several spurious and debased forms of Yoga. But sage Patanjali, a contemporary of PaaNinee (whose age was the fifth century B. C.), has compiled and bequeathed to us in his less than 200 suutras an authoritative philosophy and technique of Yoga in a manner which is a marvel of condensed and systematic exposition, noted for its precision, exactitude and terseness.

'suutra' means 'thread', the thread of the discourse, the exposition.

Patanjali Yoga suutras are formulas, aphorisms that lend themselves to be expatiated, amplified. The work is a classic guide to spiritual life. In our book each suurta is transcribed in English. (A key to pronunciation is given separately.) The commentary that follows is sought to be given in as non-technical a language as possible.