The Six Systems of Hindu Philosophy

by Raghavan Iyer

Theoria and Praxis

Throughout its long and largely unrecorded history, Indian thought preserved its
central concern with ontology and epistemology, with noetic psychology as the
indispensable bridge between metaphysics and ethics, employing introspection and
self-testing as well as logical tools, continually confronting the instruments of cognition
with the fruits of contemplation. Through its immemorial oral teachings and a vast
variety of written texts, the fusion of theoria and praxis, theory and practice, was never
sacrificed to the demands of academic specialization or the compartmentalization of
human endeavor. Diverse schools of thought shared the conviction that true
understanding must flow from the repeated application of received truths. Coming to
know is a dynamic, dialectical process in which thought stimulates contemplation and
regulates conduct, and in turn is refined by them. Although an individual who would
be healthy and whole thinks, feels and acts, gnosis necessarily involves the fusion of
thought, will and feeling, resulting in metanoia, a radically altered state of being. The
Pythagorean conception of a philosopher as a lover of wisdom is close to the standpoint
of an earnest seeker of truth in the Indian tradition.

Indian thought did not suffer the traumatic cognitive disruption caused by the
emergence of ecclesiastical Christianity in the Mediterranean world, where an excessive
concern with specification of rigid belief, sanctioned and safeguarded by an
institutional conception of religious authority and censorship, sundered thought and
action to such an extent that it became common to think one way and act in another
with seeming impunity. The chasms which opened up between thought, will and
feeling provided fertile soil for every kind of psychopathology, in part because such a
fragmentation of the human being engenders inversions, obsessions and even
perversities, and also in part because for a thousand years it has been virtually
impossible to hold up a credible paradigm of the whole and healthy human being. The
philosophical quest became obscured in the modern West by the linear succession of
schools, each resulting from a violent reaction to its predecessors, each claiming to
possess the Truth more or less exclusively, and often insisting upon the sole validity of
its method of proceeding. The slavish concern with academic respectability and the fear
of anathemization resulted in the increasing alienation of thought from being, of
cognition from conduct, and philosophical disputation from the problems of daily life.

Indian thought did not spurn the accumulated wisdom of its ancients in favour of
current fashions and did not experience a violent disruption of its traditional hospitality
to multiple standpoints. The so-called astika or orthodox schools found no difficulty in
combining their veneration of the Vedic hymns with a wide and diverse range of views,
and even the nastika or heterodox schools, which repudiated the canonical “authority”
of the Vedas, retained much of Vedic and Upanishadic metaphysics and almost the
whole of their psychology and ethics. Indian philosophical schools could not see
themselves as exclusive bearers of the total Truth. They emerged together from a long-
standing and continuous effort to enhance our common understanding of God, Man
and Nature, and they came to be considered as darshanas or paradigmatic standpoints
shedding light from different angles on noumenal and phenomenal realities. They
refrained from claiming that any illumination which can be rendered in words–or even
in thoughts–can be either final or complete.

The Six Schools

“It may be pointed out here that a system of philosophy however lofty and true it may
be should not be expected to give us an absolutely correct picture of the transcendent
truths as they really exist. Because philosophy works through the medium of the
intellect and the intellect has its inherent limitations, it cannot understand or formulate
truths which are beyond its scope…. We have to accept these limitations when we use
the intellect as an instrument for understanding and discovering these truths in the
initial stages. It is no use throwing away this instrument, poor and imperfect though it
is, because it gives us at least some help in organizing our effort to know the truth in the
only way it can be known–by Self-realization.” (I. K. Taimni)

The ageless and dateless Vedas, especially the exalted hymns of the Rig Veda, have long
been esteemed as the direct expression of what gods and divine seers, rishis or immortal
sages, saw when they peered into the imperishable center of Being which is also the
origin of the entire cosmos. The Upanishads (from upa, ni and sad, meaning “to sit down
near” a sage or guru), included in the Vedas, constitute the highest transmission of the
fruits of illumination attained by these rishis. Often cast in the form of memorable
dialogues between spiritual teachers and disciples, they represent rich glimpses of
truth, not pieced together from disparate intellectual insights, but as they are at once
revealed to the divine eye, divya chakshu, which looks into the core of Reality, freely
intimated in idioms, metaphors and mantras suited to the awakening consciousness
and spiritual potentials of diverse disciples. However divergent their modes of
expression, they are all addressed to those who are ready to learn, willing to meditate
deeply, and seek greater self-knowledge through intensive self-questioning. The
Upanishads do not purport to provide discursive knowledge, conceptual clarification or
speculative dogmas, but rather focus on the fundamental themes which concern the
soul as a calm spectator of the temporal succession of states of mind from birth to death,
seeking for what is essential amidst the ephemeral, the enduring within the transient,
the abiding universals behind the flux of fleeting appearances.

From this standpoint, they are truly therapeutic in that they heal the sickness of the soul
caused by passivity, ignorance and delusion. This ignorance is not that of the
malformed or malfunctioning personality, maimed by childhood traumas or habitual
vices. It is the more fundamental ignorance (avidya) of the adroit and well-adapted
person who has learnt to cope with the demands of living and fulfil his duties in the
world at a certain level without however, coming to terms with the causes of his
longings and limitations, his dreams and discontinuities, his entrenched expectations
and his hidden potentials. The sages spoke to those who had a measure of integrity and
honesty and were willing to examine their presuppositions, but lacked the fuller vision
and deeper wisdom that require a sustained search and systematic meditation. For such
an undertaking, mental clarity, moral sensitivity, relaxed self-control and spiritual
courage are needed, as well as a willingness to withdraw for a period from worldly
concerns. The therapeutics of self-transcendence is rooted in a recondite psychology
which accommodates the vast spectrum of self-consciousness, different levels of
cognition and degrees of development, reaching up to the highest conceivable self-
enlightenment.

Upanishadic thought presupposed the concrete and not merely conceptual continuity of
God, Nature and Man. Furthermore, Man is the self-conscious microcosm of the
macrocosm, where the part is not only inseparably one with the whole but also reflects
and resonates with it. Man could neither be contemplated properly nor fully
comprehended in any context less than the entirety of visible and invisible Nature, and
so too, ethics, logic and psychology could not be sundered from metaphysics. “Is,” the
way things are, is vitally linked to “must,” the ways things must be, as well as to
“ought,” the way human beings should think and act, through “can,” the active
exploration of human potentialities and possibilities, which are not different, save in
scope and degree, from cosmic potencies. A truly noetic psychology bridges
metaphysics and ethics through a conscious mirroring of rita, ordered cosmic harmony,
in dharma, righteous human conduct that freely acknowledges what is due to each and
every aspect of Nature, including all humanity, past, present and future.
The ancient sages resolved the One-many problem at the mystical, psychological,
ethical and social levels by affirming the radical metaphysical and spiritual unity of all
life, whilst fully recognizing (and refusing to diminish through any form of
reductionism) the immense diversity of human types and the progressive awakenings
of human consciousness at different stages of material evolution and spiritual
involution. The immemorial pilgrimage of humanity can be both universally celebrated
and act as a constant stimulus to individual growth. Truth, like the sun shining over the
summits of a Himalayan range, is one, and the pathways to it are as many and varied as
there are people to tread them.

As if emulating the sculptor’s six perspectives to render accurately any specific form in
space, ancient Indian thinkers stressed six darshanas, which are sometimes called the
six schools of philosophy. These are astika or orthodox in that they all find inspiration in
different ways in the Vedas. And like the sculptor’s triple set of perspectives–front-back,
left side-right side, top-bottom–the six darshanas have been seen as three
complementarities, polarized directions that together mark the trajectory of laser light
through the unfathomable reaches of ineffable wisdom. Each standpoint has its integrity
and coherence in that it demands nothing less than the deliberate and radical
reconstitution of consciousness from its unregenerate and unthinking modes of passive
acceptance of the world. Yet none can claim absoluteness, finality or infallibility, for
such asseverations would imply that limited conceptions and discursive thought can
capture ultimate Reality. Rather, each darshana points with unerring accuracy towards
that cognition which can be gained only by complete assimilation, practical self-
transformation and absorption into it. At the least, every darshana corresponds with a
familiar state of mind of the seeker, a legitimate and verifiable mode of cognition which
makes sense of the world and the self at some level.

All genuine seekers are free to adopt any one or more of the darshanas at any time and
even to defend their chosen standpoint against the others but they must concede the
possibility of synthesizing and transcending the six standpoints in a seventh mode
which culminates in taraka, transcendental, self-luminous gnosis, the goal of complete
enlightenment often associated with the secret, incommunicable way of buddhiyoga
intimated in the fourth, seventh and eighteenth chapters of the Bhagavad Gita.

Although scholars have speculated on the sequential emergence of the darshanas, and
though patterns of interplay can be discerned in their full flowering, their roots lie in the
ancient texts and they arise together as distinctive standpoints. It has also been held that
the six schools grew out of sixty-two systems of thought lost in the mists of antiquity. At
any rate, it is generally agreed that each of the later six schools was inspired by a sage
and teacher who struck the keynote which has reverberated throughout its growths
refinement and elaboration. As the six schools are complementary to each other, they
are traditionally viewed as the six branches of a single tree. All six provide a theoretical
explanation of ultimate Reality and a practical means of emancipation. The oldest are
Yoga and Sankhya, the next being Vaishesika and Nyaya, and the last pair are Purva
Mimansa and Vedanta (sometimes called Uttara Mimansa). The founders of these
schools are considered to be Patanjali of Yoga, Kapila of Sankhya, Kanada of Vaishesika,
Gautama of Nyaya, Jaimini of Purva Mimansa and Vyasa of Vedanta, though the last is
also assigned to Badarayana. All of them propounded the tenets of their philosophical
systems or schools in the form of short sutras, whose elucidation required and
stimulated elaborate commentaries. Since about 200 C.E., a vast crop of secondary
works has emerged which has generated some significant discussions as well as a
welter of scholastic disputation and didactic controversies, moving far away from
praxis into the forests of theoria, or reducing praxis to rigid codes and theoria to sterile
formulas. At the same time, there has remained a remarkable vitality to most of these
schools, owing to their transmission by long lineages which have included many
extraordinary teachers and exemplars. This cannot be recovered merely through the
study of texts, however systematic and rigorous, in a philosophical tradition which is
essentially oral, even though exceptional powers of accurate recall have been displayed
in regard to the texts.

Nyaya and Vaishesika

Nyaya and Vaishesika are schools primarily concerned with analytic approaches to the
objects of knowledge, using carefully tested principles of logic. The word nyaya suggests
that by which the mind reaches a conclusion, and since the word also means “right” or
“just,” Nyaya is the science of correct thinking. The founder of this school, Gautama,
lived about 150 B.C.E., and its source-book is the Nyaya Sutra. Whilst knowledge
requires an object, a knowing subject and a state of knowing, the validity of cognition
depends upon pramana, the means of cognition. There are four acceptable pramanas, of
which pratyaksha–direct perception or intuition–is most important. Perception requires
the mind, manas, to mediate between the self and the senses, and perception may be
determinate or indeterminate. Determinate perception reveals the class to which an
object of knowledge belongs, its specific qualities and the union of the two.
Indeterminate perception is simple apprehension without regard to genus or qualities.
In the Nyaya school, indeterminate perception is not knowledge but rather its
prerequisite and starting-point.

Anumana or inference is the second pramana or means of cognition. It involves a

fivefold syllogism which includes a universal statement, an illustrative example and an
application to the instance at hand. Upamana is the apt use of analogy, in which the
similarities which make the analogy come alive are essential and not superficial.
Shabda, sound or verbal expression, is the credible testimony of authority, which
requires not uncritical acceptance but the thoughtful consideration of words, meanings
and the modes of reference. As the analytic structure of Nyaya logic suggests, its basic
approach to reality is atomistic, and so the test of claims of truth is often effectiveness in
application, especially in the realm of action. Typically, logical discussion of a
proposition takes the form of a syllogism with five parts: the proposition (pratijna) the
cause (hetu), the exemplification (drishtanta), the recapitulation (upanaya) and the
conclusion (nigamana).

However divergent their views on metaphysics and ethics, all schools accept and use
Nyaya canons of sound reasoning. A thorough training in logic is required not only in
all philosophical reasoning, exposition and disputation, but it is also needed by those
who seek to stress mastery of praxis over a lifetime and thereby become spiritual
exemplars. This at once conveys the enormous strength of an immemorial tradition as
well as the pitiable deficiencies of most professors and pundits, let alone the self-styled
so-called exoteric gurus of the contemporary East. Neither thaumaturgic wonders nor
mass hypnosis can compensate for mental muddles and shallow thinking; indeed, they
become insuperable obstacles to even a good measure of gnosis and noetic theurgy, let
alone authentic enlightenment and self-mastery.

The Vaishesika school complements Nyaya in its distinct pluralism. Its founder,
Kanada, also known as Kanabhaksha, lived around 200 C.E., and its chief work is the
Vaishesika Sutra. Its emphasis on particulars is reflected in its name, since vishesha means
“particularity,” and it is concerned with properly delineating the categories of objects of
experience. These objects of experience, padarthas, are six: substance (dravya), quality
(guna), and karma or movement and activity (forming the triplicity of objective
existence), and generality (samanya), particularity (vishesha) and samavayi or
inherence (forming a triad of modes of intellectual discernment which require valid
logical inference). A seventh object of experience, non-existence (shunya), was
eventually added to the six as a strictly logical necessity. The Vaishesika point of view
recognizes nine irreducible substances: earth, water, air, fire, aether (akasha), time,
space, self and mind, all of which are distinct from the qualities which inhere in them.
The self is necessarily a substance–a substrate of qualities–because consciousness cannot
be a property of the physical body, the sense-organs or the brain-mind. Although the
self as a substance must be everywhere pervasive, its everyday capacity for feeling,
willing and knowing is focussed in the bodily organism.

Since the self experiences the consequences of its own deeds, there is, according to
Vaishesika, a plurality of souls, each of which has its vishesha, individuality or
particularity. What we experience is made up of parts, and is non-eternal, but the
ultimate components–atoms–are eternal. Individuality is formed by imperceptible souls
and certain atoms, which engender the organ of thought. At certain times, during
immense cosmogonic cycles, nothing is visible, as both souls and atoms are asleep, but
when a new cycle of creation begins, these souls reunite with certain atoms. Gautama
asserted that even during incarnated existence, emancipation may be attained through
ascetic detachment and the highest stages of contemplative absorption or samadhi.
Though the Vaishesika school wedded an atomistic standpoint to a strict atheism, over
time thinkers accepted a rationalistic concept of Deity as a prime mover in the universe,
a philosophical requisite acceptable to Nyaya. The two schools or systems were
combined by Kusumanjali of Udayana about 900 C.E. in his proof of the existence of
God. Since then, both schools have been theistic. The Jains claim early parentage for the
Vaishesika system, and this merely illustrates what is very common in the Indian
tradition, that innovators like Gautama and Kanada were reformulating an already
ancient school rather than starting de novo.

Purva Mimansa

The Purva Mimansa of Jaimini took as its point of departure neither knowledge nor the
objects of experience, but dharma, duty, as enjoined in the Vedas and Upanishads. As
the accredited sources of dharma, these sacred texts are not the promulgations of some
deity who condescended to step into time and set down principles of correct conduct.
Rather, the wisdom in such texts is eternal and uncreate, and true rishis have always
been able to see them and to translate that clear vision into mantric sounds and
memorable utterances. Hence Mimansa consecrates the mind to penetrating the words
which constitute this sacred transmission. Central to the Mimansa school is the theory
of self-evidence–svata pramana: truth is its own guarantee and the consecrated practice
of faith provides its own validation. Repeated testings will yield correct results by
exposing discrepancies and validating real cognitions. There is a recognizable consensus
amidst the independent visions of great seers, and each individual must recognize or
rediscover this consensus by proper use and concentrated enactment of mantras and
hymns. Every sound in the fifty-two letters of Sanskrit has a cosmogonic significance
and a theurgic effect. Inspired mantras are exact mathematical combinations of sounds
which emanate potent vibrations that can transform the magnetic sphere around the
individual as well as the magnetosphere of the earth. Self-testing without self-deception
can become a sacred activity, which is sui generis.

From the Mimansa perspective, every act is necessarily connected to perceptible results.
One might say that the effects are inherent in the act, just as the fruit of the tree is in the
seed which grew and blossomed. There is no ontological difference between act and
result, for the apparent gap between them is merely the consequence of the operation of
time. Since the fruit of a deed may not follow immediately upon the act, or even
manifest in the same lifetime, the necessary connection between act and result takes the
form of apurva, an unseen force which is the unbreakable link between them. This
testable postulate gives significance to the concept of dharma in all its
meanings–“duty,” “path,” “teaching,” “religion,” “natural law,” “righteousness,”
“accordance with cosmic harmony”–but it cannot by itself secure complete liberation
from conditioned existence. Social duties are important, but spiritual duties are even
more crucial, and the saying “To thine own self be true” has an array of meanings
reaching up to the highest demands of soul-tendance. In the continual effort to work off
past karma and generate good karma, there is unavoidable tension between different
duties, social and spiritual. The best actions, paradigmatically illustrated in Vedic
invocations and rituals, lead to exalted conditions, even to some heavenly condition or
blissful state. Nonetheless, as the various darshanas interacted and exchanged insights,
Mimansa came to consider the highest action as resulting in a cessation of advances and
retreats on the field of merit, whereby dharma and adharma were swallowed up in a
sublime and transcendental state of unbroken awareness of the divine.

In striving to penetrate the deepest arcane meaning of the sacred texts, Mimansa
thinkers accepted the four pramanas or modes of knowledge set forth in Nyaya, and
added two others: arthapatti or postulation, and abhava or negation and non-existence.
They did this in part because, given their view of the unqualified eternality of the
Vedas, they held that all cognition is valid at some level and to some degree. There can
be no false knowledge; whatever is known is necessarily true. As a consequence, they
saw no reason to prove the truth of any cognition. Rather, they sought to demonstrate
its falsity, for if disproof were successful, it would show that there had been no
cognition at all. The promise of gnosis rests upon the sovereign method of falsifiability
rather than a vain attempt to seek total verification in a public sense. Shifting the onus
of proof in this way can accommodate the uncreate Vedas, which are indubitably true
and which constitute the gold standard against which all other claims to truth are
measured. Mimansa rests upon the presupposition of the supremacy of Divine Wisdom,
the sovereignty of the Revealed Word and the possibility of its repeated realization.
Even among those who cannot accept the liturgical or revelatory validity and adequacy
of the Vedas, the logic of disproof can find powerful and even rigorous application. As a
method, it became important to the philosophers of Vedanta.

Vedanta (Uttara Mimansa)

Vedanta, meaning “the end or goal of the Vedas,” sometimes also called Uttara
Mimansa, addresses the spiritual and philosophical themes of the Upanishads, which
are considered to complete and form the essence of the Vedas. Badarayana’s magisterial
Brahma Sutras ordered the Upanishadic Teachings in a logically coherent sequence
which considers the nature of the supreme brahman, the ultimate Reality, and the
question of the embodiment of the unconditioned Self. Each of the five hundred and
fifty-five sutras (literally, “threads”) are extremely short and aphoristic, requiring a
copious commentary to be understood. In explaining their meaning, various
commentators presented Vedantic doctrines in different ways. Shankaracharya, the chief
of the commentators and perhaps the greatest philosopher in the Indian tradition,
espoused the advaita, non-dual, form of Vedanta, the purest form of monism, which has
never been excelled. He asked whether in human experience there is anything which is
impervious to doubt. Noting that every object of cognition–whether dependent on the
senses, the memory or pure conceptualization–can be doubted, he recognized in the
doubter that which is beyond doubt of any kind. Even if one reduces all claims to mere
avowals–bare assertions about what one seems to experience–there nonetheless remains
that which avows. It is proof of itself, because nothing can disprove it. In this, it is also
different from everything else, and this difference is indicated by the distinction
between subject and object. The experiencing Self is subject; what it experiences is an
object. Unlike objects, nothing can affect it: it is immutable and immortal.

For Shankara, this Self (atman) is sat-chit-ananda, being or existence, consciousness or

cognition, and unqualified bliss. If there were no world, there would be no objects of
experience, and so although the world as it is experienced is not ultimately real, it is
neither abhava, non-existent, nor shunya, void. Ignorance is the result of confusing
atman, the unconditioned subject, with anatman, the external world. From the
standpoint of the cosmos, the world is subject to space, time and causality, but since
these categories arise from nascent experience, they are inherently inadequate save to
point beyond themselves to the absolute, immutable, self-identical brahman, which is
absolute Being (sat). Atman is brahman, for the immutable singularity of the absolute
subject, the Self, is not merely isomorphic, but radically identical with the transcendent
singularity of the ultimate Reality. Individuals who have yet to realize this fundamental
truth, which is in fact the whole Truth, impose out of ignorance various attitudes and
conceptions on the world, like the man who mistakes an old piece of rope discarded on
the trail for a poisonous serpent. He reacts to the serpent, but his responses are
inappropriate and cause him to suffer unnecessarily, because there is no serpent on the
trail to threaten him. Nonetheless, the rope is there. For Shankara, the noumenal world
is real, and when a person realizes its true nature, gaining wisdom thereby, his
responses will be appropriate and cease to cause suffering. He will realize that he is the
atman and that the atman is brahman.

Although brahman is ultimately nirguna, without qualities, the aspirant to supreme

knowledge begins by recognizing that the highest expression of brahman to the finite
mind is Ishvara, which is saguna brahman, Supreme Reality conceived through the
modes of pure logic. Taking Ishvara, which points beyond itself to That (Tat), as his goal
and paradigm, the individual assimilates himself to Ishvara through the triple path of
ethics, knowledge and devotion–the karma, jnana and bhakti yogas of the Bhagavad
Gita–until moksha, emancipation and self-realization, is attained. For Shankara, moksha
is not the disappearance of the world but the dissolution of avidya, ignorance.

Ramanuja, who lived much later than Shankara, adopted a qualified non-dualism,
Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, by holding that the supreme brahman manifests as selves and
matter. For him, both are dependent on brahman, and so selves, not being identical with
the Ultimate, always retain their separate identity. As a consequence, they are
dependent on brahman, and that dependency expresses itself self-consciously as bhakti
or devotion. In this context, however, the dependence which is manifest as bhakti is
absurd unless brahman is thought to be personal in some degree, and so brahman
cannot be undifferentiated. Emancipation or freedom is not union with the divine, but
rather the irreversible and unwavering intuition of Deity. The Self is not identical with
brahman, but its true nature is this intuition, which is freedom. Faith that brahman
exists is sufficient and individual souls are parts of brahman, who is the creator of
universes. Yet brahman does not create anything new; what so appears is merely a
modification of the subtle and the invisible to the gross which we can see and sense.
Because we can commune with this God by prayer, devotion and faith, there is the
possibility of human redemption from ignorance and delusion. The individual is not
effaced when he is redeemed; he maintains his self-identity and enjoys the fruits of his
faith.

About a century and a half after Ramanuja, Madhava promulgated a dualistic (dvaita)
Vedanta, in which he taught that brahman, selves and the world are separate and
eternal, even though the latter two depend forever upon the first. From this standpoint,
brahman directs the world, since all else is dependent, and is therefore both
transcendent and immanent. As that which can free the self, brahman is identified with
Vishnu. Whereas the ultimate Reality or brahman is neither independent (svatantra) nor
dependent (paratantra), God or Vishnu is independent, whereas souls and matter are
dependent. God did not cause the cosmos but is part of it, and by his presence keeps it
in motion. Individual souls are dependent on brahman but are also active agents with
responsibilities which require the recognition of the omnipresence and omnipotence of
God. For the individual self, there exists either the bondage which results from
ignorance and the karma produced through acting ignorantly, or release effected
through the adoration, worship and service of Deity. The self is free when its devotion is
pure and perpetual. Although the later forms of Vedanta lower the sights of human
potentiality from the lofty goal of universal self-consciousness and conscious
immortality taught by Shankaracharya, they all recognize the essential difference
between bondage and freedom. The one is productive of suffering and the other offers
emancipation from it. But whereas for Shankara the means of emancipation is wisdom
(jnana) as the basis of devotion (bhakti) and nishkama karma or disinterested action, the
separation between atman and brahman is crucial for Ramanuja and necessitates total
bhakti, whilst for Madhava there are five distinctions within his dualism–between God
and soul, God and matter, soul and matter, one form of matter and another, and
especially between one soul and another–thus requiring from all souls total obeisance to
the omnipresent and omnipotent God.

Suffering is the starting point of the Sankhya darshana which provides the general
conceptual framework of Yoga philosophy. Patanjali set out the Taraka Raja Yoga
system, linking transcendental and self-luminous wisdom (taraka) with the alchemy of
mental transformation, and like the exponents of other schools, he borrowed those
concepts and insights which could best delineate his perspective. Since he found
Sankhya metaphysics useful to understanding, like a sturdy boat used to cross a stream
and then left behind when the opposite bank has been reached, many thinkers have
traditionally presented Sankhya as the theory for which Yoga is the practice. This
approach can aid understanding, providing one recognizes from the first and at all
times that yoga is the path to metaconsciousness, for which no system of concepts and
discursive reasoning, however erudite, rigorous and philosophical, is adequate. More
than any other school or system, Yoga is essentially experiential, in the broadest, fullest
and deepest meaning of that term.

Sankhya

The term “Sankhya” is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit root khya, meaning “to
know,” and the prefix san, “exact.” Exact knowing is most adequately represented by
Sankhya, “number,” and since the precision of numbers requires meticulous
discernment, Sankhya is that darshana which involves a thorough discernment of
reality and is expressed through the enumeration of diverse categories of existence.
Philosophically, Sankhya is dualistic in its discernment of the Self (purusha) from the
non-self (prakriti). In distinguishing sharply between purusha, Self or Spirit, on the one
hand, and prakriti, non-self or matter, on the other, the Sankhya standpoint requires a
rigorous redefinition of numerous terms used by various schools. Even though later
Sankhya freely drew from the Vedic-Upanishadic storehouse of wisdom which
intimates a rich variety of philosophical views, its earliest concern does not appear to
have been philosophical in the sense of delineating a comprehensive conceptual scheme
which describes and explains reality. Early Sankhya asked, “What is real?” and only
later on added the question, “How does it all fit together?”

Enumerations of the categories of reality varied with individual thinkers and historical
periods, but the standard classification of twenty-five tattvas or fundamental principles
of reality is useful for a general understanding of the darshana. Simply stated, Sankhya
holds that two radically distinct realities exist: purusha, which can be translated
“Spirit,” “Self” or “pure consciousness,” and mulaprakriti, or “pre-cosmic matter,”
“non-self” or “materiality.” Nothing can be predicated of purusha except as a corrective
negation; no positive attribute, process or intention can be affirmed of it, though it is
behind all the activity of the world. It might be called the Perceiver or the Witness, but,
strictly speaking, no intentionality can be implied by these words, and so purusha
cannot be conceived primarily as a knower. Mulaprakriti, however, can be understood
as pure potential because it undergoes ceaseless transformation at several levels. Thus,
of the twenty-five traditional tattvas, only these two are distinct. The remaining twenty-
three are transformations or modifications of mulaprakriti. Purusha and mulaprakriti
stand outside conceptual cognition, which arises within the flux of the other tattvas.
They abide outside space and time, are simple, independent and inherently
unchanging, and they have no relation to one another apart from their universal,
simultaneous and mutual presence.

Mulaprakriti is characterized by three qualities or gunas: sattva or intelligent and noetic

activity, rajas or passionate and compulsive activity, and tamas or ignorant and
impotent lethargy, represented in the Upanishads by the colors white, red and black. If
mulaprakriti were the only ultimate reality, its qualities would have forever remained in
a homogeneous balance, without undergoing change, evolution or transformation.
Since purusha is co-present with mulaprakriti, the symmetrical homogeneity of
mulaprakriti was disturbed, and this broken symmetry resulted in a progressive
differentiation which became the world of ordinary experience. True knowledge or pure
cognition demands a return to that primordial stillness which marks the utter
disentanglement of Self from non-self. The process which moved the gunas out of their
perfect mutual balance cannot be described or even alluded to through analogies, in
part because the process occurred outside space and time (and gave rise to them), and
in part because no description of what initiated this universal transformation can be
given in the language of logically subsequent and therefore necessarily less universal
change. In other words, all transformation known to the intellect occurs in some
context–minimally that of the intellect itself–whilst the primordial process of
transformation occurred out of all context, save for the mere co-presence of purusha and
mulaprakriti.

This imbalance gave rise, first of all, logically speaking, to mahat or buddhi. These
terms refer to universal consciousness, primordial consciousness or intellect in the
classical and neo-Platonic sense of the word. Mahat in turn gave rise to ahankara, the
sense of “I” or egoity. (Ahankara literally means “I-making.”) Egoity as a principle or
tattva generated a host of offspring or evolutes, the first of which was manas or mind,
which is both the capacity for sensation and the mental ability to act, or intellectual
volition. It also produced the five buddhindriyas or capacities for sensation: shrota
(hearing), tvac (touching), chaksus (seeing), rasana (tasting) and ghrana (smelling). In
addition to sensation, ahankara gave rise to their dynamic and material correlates, the
five karmendriyas or capacities for action, and the five tanmatras or subtle elements.
The five karmendriyas are vach (speaking), pani (grasping), pada (moving), payu
(eliminating) and upastha (procreating), whilst the five tanmatras include shabda
(sound), sparsha (touch), rupa (form), rasa (taste) and gandha (smell). The tanmatras
are called “subtle” because they produce the mahabhutas or gross elements which can
be perceived by ordinary human beings. They are akasha (aether or empirical space),
vayu (air), tejas (fire, and by extension, light), ap (water) and prithivi (earth).

This seemingly elaborate system of the elements of existence (tattvas) is a rigorous

attempt to reduce the kaleidoscope of reality to its simplest comprehensible
components, without either engaging in a reductionism which explains away or denies
what does not fit its classification, or falling prey to a facile monism which avoids a
serious examination of visible and invisible Nature. Throughout the long history of
Sankhya thought, enumerations have varied, but this general classification has held
firm. Whilst some philosophers have suggested alternative orders of evolution, for
instance, making the subtle elements give rise to the capacities for sensation and action,
Ishvarakrishna expressed the classical consensus in offering this classification of
twenty-five tattvas.
Once the fundamental enumeration was understood, Sankhya thinkers arranged the
tattvas by sets to grasp more clearly their relationships to one another. At the most
general level, purusha is neither generated nor generating, whilst mulaprakriti is
ungenerated but generating. Buddhi, ahankara and the tanmatras are both generated
and generating, and manas, the buddhindriyas, karmendriyas and mahabhutas are
generated and do not generate anything in turn. In terms of their mutual relationships,
one can speak of kinds of tattvas and indicate an order of dependence from the
standpoint of the material world.

No matter how subtle and elaborate the analysis, however, one has at best described
ways in which consciousness functions in prakriti, the material world. If one affirms
that purusha and prakriti are radically and fundamentally separate, one cannot avoid
the challenge which vexed Descartes: how can res cogitans, thinking substance, be in
any way connected with res extensa, extended (material) substance? Sankhya avoided
the most fundamental problem of Cartesian dualism by willingly admitting that there
can be no connection, linkage or interaction between purusha and prakriti. Since
consciousness is a fact, this exceptional claim involved a redefinition of consciousness
itself. Consciousness is necessarily transcendent, unconnected with prakriti, and
therefore it can have neither cognitive nor intuitive awareness, since those are activities
which involve some center or egoity and surrounding field from which it separates
itself or with which it identifies. Egoity or perspective requires some mode of action,
and all action involves the gunas, which belong exclusively to prakriti. Consciousness,
purusha, is mere presence, sakshitva, without action, dynamics or content. Awareness,
chittavritti, is therefore a function of prakriti, even though it would not have come into
being–any more than anything would have evolved or the gunas would have become
unstable–without the universal presence of purusha. Thus it is said that purusha is
unique in that it is neither generated nor generating, whereas all other tattvas are either
generating, generated or both.

In this view, mind is material. Given its capacity for awareness, it can intuit the presence
of purusha, but it is not that purusha. All mental functions are part of the complex
activity of prakriti. Consciousness is bare subjectivity without a shadow of objective
content, and it cannot be said to have goals, desires or intentions. Purusha can be said to
exist (sat)–indeed, it necessarily exists–and its essential and sole specifiable nature is
chit, consciousness. Unlike the Vedantin atman, however, it cannot also be said to be
ananda, bliss, for purusha is the pure witness, sakshi, with no causal connection to or
participation in prakriti. Yet it is necessary, for the gunas could not be said to be active
save in the presence of some principle of sentience. Without purusha there could be no
prakriti. This is not the simple idealistic and phenomenological standpoint summarized
in Berkeley’s famous dictum, esse est percipi, “to be is to be perceived.” Rather, it is
closer to the recognition grounded in Newtonian mechanics that, should the universe
achieve a condition of total entropy, it could not be said to exist, for there would be no
possibility of differentiation in it. Nor could its existence be denied. The presence of
purusha, according to Sankhya, is as necessary as is its utter lack of content.

Given the distinction between unqualified, unmodified subjectivity as true or pure

consciousness, and awareness, which is the qualified appearance of consciousness in the
world, consciousness appears as what it cannot be. It appears to cause and initiate, but
cannot do so, since purusha cannot be said to be active in any sense; it appears to
entertain ideas and chains of thought, but it can in reality do neither. Rather, the action
of the gunas appears as the activity of consciousness until the actual nature of
consciousness is realized. The extreme break with previous understanding resulting
from this realization–that consciousness has no content and that content is not
conscious–is emancipation, the freeing of purusha from false bondage to prakriti. It is
akin to the Vedantin realization of atman free of any taint of maya, and the Buddhist
realization of shunyata. Philosophical conceptualization is incapable of describing this
realization, for pure consciousness can only appear, even to the subtlest cognitive
understanding, as nothing. For Sankhya, purusha is not nothing, but it is nothing that
partakes of prakriti (which all awareness does).

Sankhya’s unusual distinction between consciousness and what are ordinarily

considered its functions and contents implies an operational view of purusha. Even
though no properties can be predicated of purusha, the mind or intellect intuits the
necessity of consciousness behind it, as it were. That is, the mind becomes aware that it
is not itself pure consciousness. Since this awareness arises in individual minds,
purusha is recognized by one or another egoity. Without being able to attribute qualities
to purusha, it must therefore be treated philosophically as a plurality. Hence it is said
that there are literally innumerable purushas, none of which have any distinguishing
characteristics. The Leibnizian law of the identity of indiscernibles cannot be applied to
purusha, despite the philosophical temptation to do so, precisely because philosophy
necessarily stops at the limit of prakriti. Purusha is outside space and time, and so is
also beyond space-time identities. Since the minimum requirements of differentiation
involve at least an indirect reference to either space or time, their negation in the
concept of indiscernibility also involves such a reference, and cannot be applied to
purusha. Even though Sankhya affirms a plurality of purushas, this stance is less the
result of metaphysical certitude than of the limitations imposed by consistency of
method. The plurality of purushas is the consequence of the limits of understanding.

Within the enormous and diverse history of Indian thought, the six darshanas viewed
themselves and one another in two ways. Internally, each standpoint sought clarity,
completeness and consistency without reference to other darshanas. Since, however, the
darshanas were committed to the proposition that they were six separate and viable
perspectives on the same reality, they readily drew upon one another’s insights and
terminology and forged mutually dependent relationships. They were less concerned
with declaring one another true or false than with understanding the value and
limitations of each in respect to a complete realization of the ultimate and divine nature
of things. Whilst some Western philosophers have pointed to the unprovable Indian
presupposition that the heart of existence is divine, the darshanas reverse this
standpoint by affirming that the core of reality is, almost definitionally, the only basis
for thinking of the divine. In other words, reality is the criterion of the divine, and no
other standard can make philosophical sense of the sacred, much less give it a practical
place in human psychology and ethics. In their later developments, the darshanas
strengthened their internal conceptual structures and ethical architectonics by taking
one another’s positions as foils for self-clarification. Earlier developments were
absorbed into later understanding and exposition. Historically, Sankhya assimilated and
redefined much of what had originally belonged to Nyaya and Vaishesika, and even
Mimansa, only to find much of its terminology and psychology incorporated into
Vedanta, the most trenchantly philosophical of the darshanas. At the same time, later
Sankhya borrowed freely from Vedantin philosophical concepts to rethink its own
philosophical difficulties.

Despite Sankhya’s unique distinction between consciousness and awareness, which

allowed it to preserve its fundamental dualism in the face of monistic arguments–and
thereby avoid the metaphysical problems attending monistic views–it could not avoid
one fundamental philosophical question: What is it to say that prakriti is dynamic
because of the presence of purusha? To say that prakriti reflects the presence of purusha,
or that purusha is reflected in prakriti, preserves a rigid distinction between the two, for
neither an object reflected in a mirror nor the mirror is affected by the other. But
Sankhya characterizes the ordinary human condition as one of suffering, which is the
manifest expression of the condition of avidya, ignorance. This condition arises because
purusha falsely identifies with prakriti and its evolutes. Liberation, mukti, is the result
of viveka, discrimination, which is the highest knowledge. Even though viveka might
be equated with pure perception as the sakshi or Witness, the process of attaining it
suggests either an intention on the part of purusha or a response on the part of prakriti,
if not both. How then can purusha be said to have no relation, including no passive
relation, to prakriti? Even Ishvarakrishna’s enchanting metaphor of the dancer before
the host of spectators does not answer the question, for there is a significant relationship
between performer and audience.

Such questions are worthy of notice but are misplaced from the Sankhya standpoint. If
philosophical understanding is inherently limited to the functions of the mind (which is
an evolute of prakriti), it can encompass neither total awareness (purusha) nor the fact
that both purusha and prakriti exist. This is the supreme and unanswerable mystery of
Sankhya philosophy, the point at which Sankhya declares that questions must have an
end. It is not, however, an unaskable or meaningless question. If its answer cannot be
found in philosophy, that is because it is dissolved in mukti, freedom from ignorance,
through perfect viveka, discrimination. In Sankhya as in Vedanta, philosophy ends
where realization begins. Philosophy does not resolve the ultimate questions, even
though it brings great clarity to cognition. Philosophy prepares, refines and orients the
mind towards a significantly different activity, broadly called “meditation,” the rigorous
cultivation of clarity of discrimination and concentrated, pellucid insight. The
possibility of this is provided for by Sankhya metaphysics through its stress on the
asymmetry between purusha and prakriti, despite their co-presence. Prakriti depends
on purusha, but purusha is independent of everything; purusha is pure consciousness,
whilst prakriti is unself-conscious. Prakriti continues to evolve because individual
selves in it do not realize that they are really purusha and, therefore, can separate
themselves from prakriti, whilst there can never be complete annihilation of everything
or of primordial matter.

Whereas Yoga accepted the postulates of Sankhya and also utilized its categories and
classifications, all these being in accord with the experiences of developed yogins, there
are significant divergences between Yoga and Sankhya. The oldest Yoga could have
been agnostic in the sense implicit in the Rig Veda Hymn to Creation, but Patanjali’s
Yoga is distinctly theistic, diverging in this way from atheistic Sankhya. Whilst Sankhya
is a speculative system, or at least a conceptual framework, Yoga is explicitly
experiential and therefore linked to an established as well as evolving consensus among
advanced yogins. This is both illustrated and reinforced by the fact that whereas
Sankhya maps out the inner world of disciplined ideation in terms of thirteen evolutes–
buddhi, ahankara, manas and the ten indriyas–Patanjali’s Yoga subsumes all these
under chitta or consciousness, which is resilient, elastic and dynamic, including the
known, the conceivable, the cosmic as well as the unknown. Whereas Sankhya is one of
the most self-sufficient or closed systems, Yoga retains, as a term and in its philosophy, a
conspicuously open texture which characterizes all Indian thought at its best. From the
Vedic hymns to even contemporary discourse, it is always open-ended in reference to
cosmic and human evolution, degrees of adeptship and levels of initiatory illumination.
It is ever seeing, reaching and aspiring, beyond the boundaries of the highest thought,
volition and feeling; beyond worlds and rationalist systems and doctrinaire theologies;
beyond the limits of inspired utterance as well as all languages and all possible modes
of creative expression. Philosophy and mathematics, poetry and myth, idea and icon,
are all invaluable aids to the image-making faculty, but they all must point beyond
themselves, whilst they coalesce and collapse in the unfathomable depths of the
Ineffable, before which the best minds and hearts must whisper neti neti, “not this, not
that.” There is only the Soundless Sound, the ceaseless AUM in Boundless Space and
Eternal Duration.

Yoga

Almost nothing is known about the sage [Patanjali] who wrote the Yoga Sutras. The
dating of his life has varied widely between the fourth century B.C.E. and the sixth
century C.E., but the fourth century B.C.E. is the period noted for the appearance of
aphoristic literature. Traditional Indian literature, especially the Padma Purana,
includes brief references to Patanjali, indicating that he was born in Illavrita Varsha.
Bharata Varsha is the ancient designation of Greater India as an integral part of
Jambudvipa, the world as conceived in classical topography, but Illavrita Varsha is not
one of its subdivisions. It is an exalted realm inhabited by the gods and enlightened
beings who have transcended even the rarefied celestial regions encompassed by the
sevenfold Jambudvipa. Patanjali is said to be the son of Angira and Sati, to have
married Lolupa, whom he discovered in the hollow of a tree on the northern slope of
Mount Sumeru, and to have reduced the degenerate denizens of Bhotabhandra to ashes
with fire from his mouth. Such legendary details conceal more than they reveal and
suggest that Patanjali was a great Rishi who descended to earth in order to share the
fruits of his wisdom with those who were ready to receive it.

Some commentators identify the author of the Yoga Sutras with the Patanjali who wrote
the Mahabhashya or Great Commentary on Panini’s famous treatise on Sanskrit
grammar sometime between the third and first centuries B.C.E. Although several
scholars have contended that internal evidence contradicts such an identification, others
have not found this reasoning conclusive. King Bhoja, who wrote a well-known
commentary in the tenth century, was inclined to ascribe both works to a single author,
perhaps partly as a reaction to others who placed Patanjali several centuries C.E. owing
to his alleged implicit criticisms of late Buddhist doctrines. A more venerable tradition,
however, rejects this identification altogether and holds that the author of the Yoga
Sutras lived long before the commentator on Panini. In this view, oblique references to
Buddhist doctrines are actually allusions to modes of thought found in some
Upanishads.

In addition to our lack of definite knowledge about Patanjali’s life, confusion arises
from contrasting appraisals of the Yoga Sutras itself. There is a strong consensus that the
Yoga Sutras represents a masterly compendium of various Yoga practices which can be
traced back through the Upanishads to the Vedas. Many forms of Yoga existed by the
time this treatise was written, and Patanjali came at the end of a long and ancient line of
yogins. In accord with the free-thinking tradition of shramanas, forest recluses and
wandering mendicants, the ultimate vindication of the Yoga system is to be found in the
lifelong experiences of its ardent votaries and exemplars. The Yoga Sutras constitutes a
practitioner’s manual, and has long been cherished as the pristine expression of Raja
Yoga. The basic texts of Raja Yoga are Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the Yogabhashya of Vyasa
and the Tattvavaisharadi of Vachaspati Mishra. Hatha Yoga was formulated by
Gorakshanatha, who lived around 1200 C.E. The main texts of this school are the
Goraksha Sutaka, the Nathayoga Pradipika of Yogindra of the fifteenth century, and the
later Shivasamhita. Whereas Hatha Yoga stresses breath regulation and bodily
discipline, Raja Yoga is essentially concerned with mind control, meditation and self-
study.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is universal in the manner of the Bhagavad Gita, including
a diversity of standpoints whilst fusing Sankhya metaphysics with bhakti or self-
surrender. There is room for differences of emphasis, but every diligent user of
Patanjali’s aphorisms is enabled to refine aspirations, clarify thoughts, strengthen
efforts, and sharpen focus on essentials in spiritual self-discipline. Accommodating a
variety of exercises–mind control, visualization, breath, posture, moral training–
Patanjali brings together the best in differing approaches, providing an integrated
discipline marked by moderation, flexibility and balance, as well as degrees of depth in
meditative absorption. The text eludes any simple classification within the vast
resources of Indian sacred literature and a fortiori among the manifold scriptures of the
world. Although it does not resist philosophical analysis in the way many mystical
treatises do, it is primarily a practical aid to the quest for spiritual freedom, which
transcends the concerns of theoretical clarification. Yet like any arcane science which
necessarily pushes beyond the shifting boundaries of sensory experience, beyond
conventional concepts of inductive reasoning and mundane reality, it reaffirms at every
point its vital connection with the universal search for meaning and deliverance from
bondage to shared illusions. It is a summons to systematic self-mastery which can
aspire to the summits of gnosis.

The actual text as it has come down to the present may not be exactly what Patanjali
penned. Perhaps he reformulated in terse aphoristic language crucial insights found in
time-honoured but long-forgotten texts. Perhaps he borrowed terms and phrases from
diverse schools of thought and training. References to breath control, pranayama, can be
found in the oldest Upanishads, and the lineaments of systems of Yoga may be
discerned in the Maitrayana, Shvetashvatara and Katha Upanishads, and veiled
instructions are given in the “Yoga” Upanishads–Yogatattva, Dhyanabindu, Hamsa,
Amritanada, Shandilya, Varaha, Mandala Brahmana, Nadabindu and Yogakundali–
though a leaning towards Sankhya metaphysics occurs only in the Maitrayana. The
Mahabharata mentions the Sankhya and the Yoga as ancient systems of thought.
Hiranyagarbha is traditionally regarded as the propounder of Yoga, just as Kapila is
known as the original expounder of Sankhya. The Ahirbudhnya states that
Hiranyagarbha disclosed the entire science of Yoga in two texts–the Nirodha Samhita
and the Karma Samhita. The former treatise has been called the Yoganushasanam, and
Patanjali also begins his work with the same term. He also stresses nirodha in the first
section of his work.

In general, the affinities of the Yoga Sutras with the texts of Hiranyagarbha suggest that
Patanjali was an adherent of the Hiranyagarbha school of Yoga, and yet his own manner
of treatment of the subject is distinctive. His reliance upon the fundamental principles
of Sankhya entitle him to be considered as also belonging to the Sankhya Yoga school.
On the other hand, the significant variations of the later Sankhya of Ishvarakrishna from
older traditions of proto-Sankhya point to the advantage of not subsuming the Yoga
Sutras under broader systems. The author of Yuktidipika stresses that for Patanjali there
are twelve capacities, unlike Ishvarakrishna’s thirteen, that egoity is not a separate
principle for Patanjali but is bound up with intellect and volition. Furthermore, Patanjali
held that the subtle body is created anew with each embodiment and lasts only as long
as a particular embodiment, and also that the capacities can only function from within.
Altogether, Patanjali’s work provides a unique synthesis of standpoints and is backed
by the testimony of the accumulated wisdom derived from the experiences of many
practitioners and earlier lineages of teachers.

Some scholars and commentators have speculated that Patanjali wrote only the first
three padas of the Yoga Sutras, whilst the exceptionally short fourth pada was added
later. Indeed, as early as the writings of King Bhoja, one verse in the fourth pada (IV. 16)
was recognized as a line interpolated from Vyasa’s seventh commentary in which he
dissented from Vijnanavadin Buddhists. Other interpolations may have occurred even
in the first three padas, such as III.22, which some classical commentators questioned.
The fact that the third pada ends with the word iti (“thus,” “so,” usually indicating the
end of a text), as it does at the end of the fourth pada, might suggest that the original
contained only three books. However, the philosophical significance of the fourth pada
is such that the coherence of the entire text need not be questioned on the basis of
inconclusive speculations.

Al-Biruni translated into Arabic a book he called Kitab Patanjal (The Book of Patanjali),
which he said was famous throughout India. Although his text has an aim similar to the
Yoga Sutras and uses many of the same concepts, it is more theistic in its content and
even has a slightly Sufi tone. It is not the text now known as the Yoga Sutras, but it may
be a kind of paraphrase popular at the time, rather like the Dnyaneshwari, which stands
both as an independent work and a helpful restatement of the Bhagavad Gita. The Kitab
translated by al-Biruni illustrates the pervasive influence of Patanjali’s work throughout
the Indian subcontinent.

For the practical aspirant to inner tranquillity and spiritual realization, the recurring
speculations of scholars and commentators, stimulated by the lack of exact historical
information about the author and the text, are of secondary value. Whatever the precise
details regarding the composition of the treatise as it has come down through the
centuries, it is clearly an integrated whole, every verse of which is helpful not only for
theoretical understanding but also for sustained practice. The Yoga Sutras constitutes a
complete text on meditation and is invaluable in that every sutra demands deep
reflection and repeated application. Patanjali advocated less a doctrinaire method than a
generous framework with which one can make experiments with truth, grow in
comprehension and initiate progressive awakenings to the supernal reality of the Logos
in the cosmos.

The word yoga is derived from the Sanskrit verbal root yuj, “to yoke” or “to join,”
related to the Latin jungere, “to join,” “to unite.” In its broadest usages it can mean
addition in arithmetic; in astronomy it refers to the conjunction of stars and planets; in
grammar it is the joining of letters and words. In Mimamsa philosophy it indicates the
force of a sentence made up of united words, whilst in Nyaya logic it signifies the
power of the parts taken together. In medicine it denotes the compounding of herbs and
other substances. In general, yoga and viyoga pertain to the processes of synthesis and
analysis in both theoretical and applied sciences. Panini distinguishes between the root
yuj in the sense of concentration (samadhi) and yujir in the sense of joining or
connecting. Buddhists have used the term yoga to designate the withdrawal of the mind
from all mental and sensory objects. Vaishesika philosophy means by yoga the
concentrated attention to a single subject through mental abstraction from all contexts.
Whereas the followers of Ramanuja use the term to depict the fervent aspiration to join
one’s ishtadeva or chosen deity, Vedanta chiefly uses the term to characterize the
complete union of the human soul with the divine spirit, a connotation compatible with
its use in Yoga philosophy. In addition, Patanjali uses the term yoga to refer to the
deliberate cessation of all mental modifications.

Every method of self-mastery, the systematic removal of ignorance and the progressive
realization of Truth, can be called yoga, but in its deepest sense it signifies the union of
one’s apparent and fugitive self with one’s essential nature and true being, or the
conscious union of the embodied self with the Supreme Spirit. The Maitrayana
Upanishad states: “Carried along by the waves of the qualities darkened in his
imagination, unstable, fickle, crippled, full of desires, vacillating, he enters into belief,
believing I am he, this is mine, and he binds his self by his self as a bird with a net.
Therefore a man, being possessed of will, imagination and belief, is a slave, but he who
is the opposite is free. For this reason let a man stand free from will, imagination and
belief. This is the sign of liberty, this is the path that leads to brahman, this is the
opening of the door, and through it he will go to the other shore of darkness.”

Thus, yoga refers to the removal of bondage and the consequent attainment of true
spiritual freedom. Whenever yoga goes beyond this and actually implies the fusion of
an individual with his ideal, whether viewed as his real nature, his true self or the
universal spirit, it is gnostic self-realization and universal self-consciousness, a self-
sustaining state of serene enlightenment. Patanjali’s metaphysical and epistemological
debt to Sankhya is crucial to a proper comprehension of the Yoga Sutras, but his distinct
stress on praxis rather than theoria shows a deep insight of his own into the phases and
problems that are encountered by earnest practitioners of Yoga. His chief concern was to
show how and by what means the spirit, trammelled in the world of matter, can
withdraw completely from it and attain total emancipation by transforming matter into
its original state and thus realize its own pristine nature. This applies at all levels of self-
awakening, from the initial cessation of mental modifications, through degrees of
meditative absorption, to the climactic experience of spiritual freedom.

Patanjali organized the Yoga Sutras into four padas or books which suggest his
architectonic intent. Samadhi Pada, the first book, deals with concentration of mind
(samadhi), without which no serious practice of Yoga is possible. Since samadhi is
necessarily experiential, this pada explores the hindrances to and the practical steps
needed to achieve alert quietude. Both restraint of the senses and of the discursive
intellect are essential for samadhi. Having set forth what must be done to attain and
maintain meditative absorption, the second book, Sadhana Pada, provides the method
or means required to establish full concentration. Any effort to subdue the tendency of
the mind to become diffuse, fragmented or agitated demands a resolute, consistent and
continuous practice of self-imposed, steadfast restraint, tapas, which cannot become
stable without a commensurate disinterest in all phenomena. This relaxed
disinterestedness, vairagya, has nothing to do with passive indifference, positive
disgust, inert apathy or feeble-minded ennui as often experienced in the midst of
desperation and tension in daily affairs. Those are really the self-protective responses of
one who is captive to the pleasure-pain principle and is deeply vulnerable to the flux of
events and the vicissitudes of fortune. Vairagya implies a conscious transcendence of
the pleasure-pain principle through a radical reappraisal of expectations, memories and
habits. The pleasure-pain principle, dependent upon passivity, ignorance and servility
for its operation, is replaced by a reality principle rooted in an active, noetic
apprehension of psycho-spiritual causation. Only when this impersonal perspective is
gained can the yogin safely begin to alter significantly his psycho-physical nature
through breath control, pranayama, and other exercises.

The third book, Vibhuti Pada, considers complete meditative absorption, sanyama, its
characteristics and consequences. Once calm, continuous attention is mastered, one can
discover an even more transcendent mode of meditation which has no object of
cognition whatsoever. Since levels of consciousness correspond to planes of being, to
step behind the uttermost veil of consciousness is also to rise above all manifestations of
matter. From that wholly transcendent standpoint beyond the ever-changing contrast
between spirit and matter, one may choose any conceivable state of consciousness and,
by implication, any possible material condition. Now the yogin becomes capable of
tapping all the siddhis or theurgic powers. These prodigious mental and moral feats are
indeed magical, although there is nothing miraculous or even supernatural about them.
They represent the refined capacities and exalted abilities of the perfected human being.
Just as any person who has achieved proficiency in some specialized skill or knowledge
should be careful to use it wisely and precisely, so too the yogin whose spiritual and
mental powers may seem practically unlimited must not waste his energy or misuse his
hard-won gifts. If he were to do so, he would risk getting entangled in worldly concerns
in the myriad ways from which he had sought to free himself. Instead, the mind must
be merged into the inmost spirit, the result of which is kaivalya, steadfast isolation or
eventual emancipation from the bonds of illusion and the meretricious glamour of
terrestrial existence.
In Kaivalya Pada, the fourth book which crowns the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali conveys the
true nature of isolation or supreme spiritual freedom insofar as it is possible to do so in
words. Since kaivalya is the term used for the sublime state of consciousness in which
the enlightened soul has gone beyond the differentiating sense of “I am,” it cannot be
characterized in the conceptual languages that are dependent on the subject-object
distinction. Isolation is not nothingness, nor is it a static condition. Patanjali throws light
on this state of gnosis by providing a metaphysical and metapsychological explanation
of cosmic and human intellection, the operation of karma and the deep-seated
persistence of the tendency of self-limitation. By showing how the suppression of
modifications of consciousness can enable it to realize its true nature as pure potential
and master the lessons of manifested Nature, he intimates the immense potency of the
highest meditations and the inscrutable purpose of cosmic selfhood.

The metapsychology of the Yoga Sutras bridges complex metaphysics and compelling
ethics, creative transcendence and critical immanence, in an original, inspiring and
penetrating style, whilst its aphoristic method leaves much unsaid, throwing aspirants
back upon themselves with a powerful stimulus to self-testing and self-discovery.
Despite his sophisticated use of Sankhya concepts and presuppositions, Patanjali’s text
has a universal appeal for all ardent aspirants to Raja Yoga. He conveys the vast
spectrum of consciousness, diagnoses the common predicament of human bondage to
mental ailments, and offers practical guidance on the arduous pathway of lifelong
contemplation that could lead to the summit of self-mastery and spiritual freedom.

Further Reading:
• Bhagavad Gita for Awakening — The endless spiritual treasures of this essential
scripture have been mined by saints, scholars, and devotees throughout the ages.
Through a unique combination of exhaustive study and scholarship, and insight
and wisdom gleaned from personal experience, Abbot George Burke’s
commentary offers new gems that will enrich all true seekers.
• Upanishads for Awakening — Sanatana Dharma in its primal form is to be found in
the Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitaryeya,
Chandogya, Brihadaranyaka, and Svetashvatara Upanishads. These eleven texts
(upanishad means “teaching”–literally “that which was heard when sitting
near”) are attached to the Vedas, the ancient hymns of the Indian sages, and also
knows as Vedanta, the End of the Vedas. These articles provide useful
commentaries on these important scriptures. By Abbot George Burke
• A Brief Sanskrit Glossary — A great aid for students of Eastern thought, this glossary
illumines the many sanskrit terms found in the scriptures and commentaries
found on this site.