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The Study and Practice of Yoga
An Exposition of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
by Swami Krishnananda

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Table of Contents

  • Volume I
    Part I: The Samadhi Pada
  1. The Aim of Yoga
  2. The Foundation of the Discipline in Yoga Practice
  3. A Broad Outline of the Stages of Yoga
  4. Individuality and Consciousness
  5. The Practice of Being Alone
  6. Spiritual Life is Positive, Not Punitive
  7. Initial Steps In Yoga Practice
  8. The Principle of Self-Affirmation
  9. Perception and Reality
  10. Self-Control: The Alpha and Omega of Yoga
  11. The Integrality of the Higher Self
  12. Sublimation – A Way to Reshuffle Thought
  13. Defence Mechanisms of the Mind
  14. The Indivisibility of All Things
  15. Consonance with the Essential Make-up of Things
  16. The Inseparability of Notions and the Mind
  17. Objectivity is Experience Finally
  18. The Dual Process of Withdrawal and Contemplation
  19. Returning to Pure Subjectivity
  20. The World and Our World
  21. Returning to Our True Nature
  22. Practice of Yoga: The Life and Goal of Our Existence
  23. Internal Relationship of All Things
  24. Affiliation With Larger Wholes
  25. Sadhana – Intensifying a Lighted Flame
  26. The Gunas of Prakriti
  27. Problems are a State of Mind
  28. Bringing About Whole-Souled Dedication
  29. The Play of the Gunas
  30. The Cause of Bondage
  31. Intense Aspiration
  32. Our Concept of God
  33. What Divine Love Is
  34. Surrender to God
  35. The Recitation of Mantra
  36. The Rise of Obstacles in Yoga Practice
  37. Preventing the Fall in Yoga
  38. Impediments in Concentration and Meditation
  39. Concentrating the Mind on One Reality
  40. Re-Educating the Mind
  41. Becoming Harmonious with All
  42. How Feelings and Sensation Work
  43. Harmonising Subject and Object
  44. Assimilating the Object
  45. Piercing the Structure of the Object
  46. The Barrier of Space and Time
  47. The Rise from Savitarka to Nirvitarka
  48. Encountering Troubles and Opposition
  49. The Rise to Savichara and Nirvichara
  50. The States of Sanada and Sasmita
  51. Sat-Chit-Ananda or God-Consciousness
  • Volume II:
    Part II: The Sadhana Pada
  1. Yoga Practice: A Series of Positive Steps
  2. A Very Important Sadhana
  3. Practice Without Remission of Effort
  4. The Cause of Bondage
  5. Lack of Knowledge is the Cause of Suffering
  6. The Four Manifestations of Ignorance
  7. Pursuit of Pleasure is Invocation of Pain
  8. The Self-Preservation Instinct
  9. Tracing the Ultimate Cause of Any Experience
  10. How the Law of Karma Operates
  11. The Perception of Pleasure and Pain
  12. The Cause of Unhappiness
  13. Disentanglement is Freedom
  14. Karma, Prakriti and the Gunas
  15. Understanding the Nature of Objects
  16. Consciousness is Being
  17. Cultivating Discriminative Understanding
  18. Understanding World-Consciousness
  19. The Seven Stages of Perfection
  20. The Eight Limbs or Stages of Yoga
  21. The Prepratory Disciplines of Yama and Niyama
  22. Negative Check and Positive Approach
  23. The Principles of Yama and Niyama
  24. Self-Control, Study and Devotion to God
  25. Asana is Fixity of Position
  26. The Importance of Asana and Pranyama
  27. Kumbhaka and Concentration of Mind
  28. The Inclination of the Mind for Concentration
  29. Pratyahara: The Return of Energy
  30. The Application of Pratyahara
  • Part III: The Vibhuti Pada
  1. The Effect of Dharana or Concentrating the Mind
  2. Choosing an Object for Concentration
  3. The Need for Caution When Stirring Inner Potencies
  4. The Interrelatedness of All Things
  5. The Hurdle of the Ego in Yoga Practice
  6. Absorbing Space and Time Into Consciousness
  7. Samyana: The Union of Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi
  8. The Levels of Concentration
  9. Generating the Mood for Yoga
  10. The Integrating Force
  11. The Working of Nature's Law
  12. Removing the Ego with the Process of Samyama
  13. Understanding the Structure of Things
  14. Liberation is the Only Aim of Yoga
  15. Powers that Accrue in the Practice of Samyama
  16. Sublimation of Object-Consciousness
  17. The Transformation from Human to Divine
  • Part IV: The Kaivalya Pada
  1. The Entry of the Eternal into the Individual
  2. The Exhaustion of All Karmas
  3. The Wheel of Karma
  4. Avoiding Karma That Has Not Yet Germinated
  5. Putting an End to Rebirth
  6. The Double Activity in Mental Cognition
  7. Absorption Into Universal Subjectivity
  8. The Dual Pull of Purusha and Objects
  9. The Bestowal of a Divine Gift
  10. Infinity Coming Back to Itself
  11. The Condition Prior to Final Absorption
  12. Recapitulation and Conclusion

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

This is a compilation of the 110 lectures that Swami Krishnananda delivered from March to August in 1976 on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras are a manual on mind control, meditation and mental discipline-a manual for spiritual freedom. Crisp and pithy in rendition, the sutras have an aphoristic quality and urge deeper reflection and dedicated application.

Across various philosophies the denotation of yoga varies. Patanjali uses the term 'yoga' to denote a complete cessation of mental modifications so that consciousness rests within itself in the state of moksha or liberation. This teaching has been delivered through emphasis on practice rather than mere philosophy. This is verily a manual for us to operate the mind and thus our life.

The Yoga Sutras are divided into four padas or chapters. The first chapter, the Samadhi Pada on which this volume is based, focuses on concentration of the mind and the practical aspects necessary for attaining meditative absorption. The second chapter, the Sadhana Pada, is about attaining and holding that single-pointedness through reining in the agitations of the mind by cultivating dispassion, discrimination and dedication. The third chapter, the Vibhuti Pada, focuses on the technique of samyama which is the combination of concentration, meditation and communion for the liberation of the spirit, while the fourth chapter, the Kaivalya Pada, is a metaphysical disquisition which deals with various subjects as a sort of explanation of some of the themes dealt with in the earlier chapter.

It is fitting to draw the reader's attention to the clarity and simplicity with which Swamiji Maharaj comments on these sutras. Swami Krishnananda was the living embodiment of that awareness to which the sutras and all spiritual texts guide. It is commonly said that Sanskrit, the language of the Gods, is by far the only one that has transcended, to some extent, the limitations of vivid expression and bears in it the ability to express the nuances of spiritual processes and the resultant experiences that the great Sages and Masters have experienced and conveyed to us. That Swamiji Maharaj is able to bend the limited English language to yield to his knowledge is a completely humbling experience.

These Yoga Sutras of Patanjali spoken by Swami Krishnananda are being made available to the public for the first time. It is our desire to retain the original lectures in their spoken form to a large extent. There are some unique twists of phrases and application of words that are uniquely Swamiji in origin and it has been sought to allow those to be as they were intended, without undermining the reverence to the English language. Consequently the lectures have been edited in very few places to render them the way Swamiji Maharaj himself spoke them.