Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali

A collection of ancient texts providing the foundation for the practice of Raja Yoga, in which oneness with universal consciousness is achieved through disciplined meditation.

Although the practice of yoga predates the author and compiler Patañjali (f.c.150BCE), it is he who is credited with collecting together what has become the canonical text of Raja (Royal) Yoga. Originally written in Sanskrit, the text contains 196 sūtras (rules) organised into four padas (chapters) that communicate the theoretical foundations of the discipline.

"The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga"
---Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali.

Each sūtra is a short aphorism stating one, or part, of the philosophical tenets of Raja Yoga. As we are told in the sūtras, yoga involves training a person's mind through meditation and contemplation to overcome that which is disturbing and unsettling to it. Yogic training, according to the sūtras, is divided into eight limbs, each of which prescribes disciplines that must be adopted in various aspects of life in order to achieve moksha (liberation), the ultimate goal of yoga.

Moksha occurs when the practitioner of yoga is freed from their sense of self. Patañjali claims that union of integration of the self with the Supreme is the result of the subject restraining the fluctuations of their ego, controlling cognition, and finally annihilating the ego. That is, the practitioner ceases to identify themselves as a singular individual and instead identifies with a universal consciousness.

Yoga is one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, and as such, its philosophies and practices are ancient. Indeed, various concepts and cognate uses of the term "yoga" were foundation to many Eastern religions, including Buddhism and Jainism. Although the yoga systems share common roots, there are two predominant schools: the Raja Yoga described in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, and Hatha Yoga taught by Yogi Swatmarama (fifteenth and sixteenth century CE). It is this later form of yoga, with its greater emphasis on the body's role in meditation, that is more commonly taught in health clubs and yoga studios today.
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Source:
"1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think"
-- by Robert Arp.

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