yoga-aphorisms-of-patanjali, Yoga
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//-->The Yoga Aphorisms of PatanjaiTRANSLATED WITH A NEW COMMENTARYBY SWAMI PRABirtA ANDA0 .9AND CHRISTOPHER16 SRI RAMAKRISHNA MATH ROADMYLAPORE MADRAS - 600 004INDIASRI RAMAKRISHNA MATHPUBLISHED BY© THE PRESIDENTSRI RAMAKRISHNA MATHMADRAS-600004FIRST PUBLISHED1953,BYVEDANTA SOCIETY OFSOUTHERN CALIFORNIAALL RIGHTS RESERVED2 5M3C 2 82---PRINTED IN INDIAPHOTOCOMPOSED ATAUROPHOTOSE'TTERS, PONDICHERRYPrinted atMadras-21PON OLL1 OFFSET PRESS,PUBLISHER'S NO 1 EIt is with great pleasure that we present to our readers theIndian Edition of 'How to know God' by Swami Prabhavananda.This English translation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras wasoriginally published by the Vedanta Society, Southern Californiafor the benefit of Western readers who do not know Sanskritand yet are interested in Indian psychology which plumbs thedepths of the human mind. Swami Prabhavananda who has tohis credit such lucid expositions as `Srimad Bhagavad Gita,the wisdom of God', `Narada's way of Divine Love' and the'Sermon on the Mount according to Vedanta' has taken specialpains in this book to present the philosophy and practice ofYoga in a non-technical, up-to-date phraseology that can beunderstood and enjoyed by all enquiring minds. For the benefitof our Indian readers we have added also the text of Patanjali'sSutras in Devanagari.We are sure that they will find the book eminently helpful intheir spiiitual practice. We are thankful to Swami Prabhava-nandaji and the Vedanta Society, Southern California forkind permission to bring out this Indian edition.Sri Ramakrishna MathMadras-600 004.PUBLISHERCONTENTSTranslators' ForewordThe Yoga Aphorisms of PatanfaliI.II.YOGA AND ITS AIMSYOGA AND ITS PRACTICE157112135151HI. POWERSIv.LIBERATIONWords Explained and Subjects Discussed in the TextA.lfaty-V2eigge'ret/;:M.A.TRANSLATORS' FOREWORDPatanjali's Yoga Sutras (Aphorisms) are not the originalexposition of a philosophy, but a work of compilation andreformulation. References to yoga practices--spiritual dis-ciplines and techniques of meditation which enable a man toachieve unitive knowledge of the Godhead—are to be found,already, in the Katha, Swetaswtara, Taittiriya, and MaitrayaniUpanishads, very many centuries earlier. Indeed, the yogadoctrine may be said to have been handed down from pre-historic times.What Patanjali did was to restate yoga philosophy andpractice for the man of his own period. But whatwashisperiod? And who was Patanjali? Hardly anything is knownabout him. Some authorities believe that there were actuallytwo Patanjalis, one a grammarian and the other the author ofthe Sutras. Others deny this. As for the date of the Sutras, theguesses of scholars vary widely, ranging from the fourth centuryB.C.to the fourth centuryA.D.The simplest meaning of the word sutra is "thread". A sutrais, so to speak, the bare thread of an exposition, the absoluteminimum that is necessary to hold it together, unadorned by asingle "bead" of elaboration. Only essential words are used.Often, there is no complete sentence-structure. There was agood reason for this method. Sutras were composed at aperiod when there were no books. The entire work had to bememorized, and so it had to be expressed as tersely as possible.Patanjali's Sutras, like all others, were intended to be expandedand explained. The ancient teachers would repeat an aphorismby heart and then proceed to amplify it with their own corn-
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