| ~ Yoga Sutras of Patanjali ~ |
 THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI"The Book of the Spiritual Man"Interpretation byCharles Johnston 1912 Bengal Civil Service, Retired; Indian Civil Service, Sanskrit Prizeman; Dublin University, Sanskrit Prizeman Edited by Rev. Lux Newman Church of Spiritual Science ©2007 All Rights Reserved The Yoga Sūtras date
from around 200 BC. Patañjali has often been called the
founder
of Yoga because of this work, although in reality he is a more major
figure. The Yoga Sūtras, as a treatise on Yoga, build on the Samkhya
school and the Hindu scripture of the Bhagavad
Gita
(see also: Vyasa).
Yoga, the science of uniting one's consciousness, is also found in the Puranas,
the Vedas
and the Upanishads. Still,
this work is certainly a major work among the great Hindu scriptures
and serves as the basis of the yoga-system known as Raja
Yoga.
Patañjali's Yoga is one of the six schools or darshanas of Hindu
Philosophy.
The sūtras
give us the earliest reference to the popular term Ashtanga
Yoga which
translates literally as the eight limbs of yoga. They
are yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana
and samadhi.
§ INTRODUCTION TO BOOK I Spiritual
Man born from the Psychical Man
BOOK I Book of Spiritual Consciousness INTRODUCTION TO BOOK II Growth of the Spiritual Man BOOK II Book of the Means of Soul Growth INTRODUCTION TO BOOK III Powers of the Spiritual Man BOOK III Book of Spiritual Powers INTRODUCTION TO BOOK IV Introducing the "Mechanism of Salvation" BOOK IV Consciousness of the Self |