In the last post I resisted the urge to look up a quote I made from the Yoga Sutras. (Trying to reduce time spent composing posts) Of course I had to look it up afterwards, which lead to discovery of a revered commentator on the sutras.
So today I'm taking time to write about my favorite sources for studying the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and then will finish by clarifying the quote in the previous post.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with Translation and Commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda:
My first source is a skinny book I spied in the library stacks on my way to the elevator. I was checking out a book on the Rig Vedas which turned out to be way over my head. I had never heard of the yoga sutras, but the same customer who inspired me to look up the Rig Vedas turned out to have a different version of the sutras. The one I found was a translation with commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda. Some of his American disciples had recorded his talks about the sutras and made a book of them in 1978.
Satchidananda's commentary is a bit like yoga for dummies, I took to it like a cheap bottle of ammonia, using it on all my dirty mind's splotches. Amazing stuff I thought, and marveled that it had been so readily available all my life.
After a year or two studying Satchidananda's little paperback (I eventually purchased my own used copy) I got to wondering what the words in sanskrit sounded like. The Satchidananda book has each sutra written first in Sanskrit, followed by a phonetic spelling of the Sanskrit in English, then a fairly literal English interpretation of the Sanskrit. All sutras from the first two chapters had, in addition to the translation, a page or two of commentary about what the individual sutra meant in the context of the whole collection.
It's not at all complicated as I make it seem; the back cover calls Swami's advice practical and down-to-earth and I wholeheartedly agree. There's also a handy glossary and index in the back and some helpful info about pronunciation. That book effectively communicated yoga's all encompassing depth of wisdom to me. But eventually I wanted to hear the sutras.
Dr. Katy Poole video of chanting the first three sutras:
My search for the sound of the sutras landed at SanskritForYoga by Dr. Katy Poole. This is a link to the video which introduces the First Three Sutras.
Kofi Busia (audio): chanting all four chapters of yoga sutras:
Once I got those first 3 down I went off in the interwebs to search for more. The result was kofibusia.com and here is a link to his text version of the first chapter. He has a link at the top right for the audio. Eventually I recorded the file for chapter 1 on my little digital voice recorder (aka dvr) and discovered a more handy method of playing them. I put index stops in the file so I can jump right to the sutra i'm currently trying to memorize.
I like the large font for the devanagari script on the kofibusia site. (I think Devanegari is the name of the letters used to write Sanskrit) Big letters aren't just for kindergartners, I often wished for a set of placards with each letter to hang around the walls of my study.
Hindibhasha site for learning Devanagari script:
There is a site called hindibhasha.com that has assembled all the characters according to vowels, consonants etc with clickable files for sound and basics about the character. I can't use it on my phone since it doesn't have flash. It is a fun way to learn the script used to write the sutras. Nowadays, I use the wikipedia article on Devanagari. It is nowhere near as fun as the hindi bhasha site but it does have more extensive info.
Swamij.com extensive translation and commentary of sutras:
The last source is one I keep open in the list of pages on my phone's browser in addition to the kofibusia page. I go to the kofibusia page when I just need a quick look at a sutra I can't quite remember. When I want a word-for-word translation I go to swamij.com. I put another link to swamij at the very bottom of this post. I picked the page for sutras 2.26-2.29 because it includes the sutra I thought I was quoting in my last post.
This brings us to the promised clarification. In my last post I mentioned a sutra listing an 'end of desire to know anything' as one of the symptoms of liberation.
I thought it was the sutra that indicated an end of desire to know anything, but the sutra only alludes to the seven insights without actually naming them. Swami Satchidananda (book) lists the seven insights in brackets with the translation of the sutra:
27. Tashya=his; saphada=sevenfold; prantabhumi=in the final stage; prajna=wisdom.
One's wisdom in the final stage is sevenfold. [One experiences the end of 1) desire to know anything more; 2) desire to stay away from anything; 3) desire to gain anything new; 4) desire to do anything; 5) sorrow; 6) fear; 7) delusion.]
Comparing the above translation (which does not include the beautiful commentary by Swami Satchidananda) to the translation by Swamij.com we get introduced to the commentary of Vhyasa as a source of the specific insights. Below is the paragraph by Swami Jnaneshvara with the list (copied straight from swamij.com)----
"Seven types of insight: The commentator Vyasa describes these seven insights briefly. It is important to understand that the insights are meant to be indicative of the final stages of discriminative knowledge, not that these are to serve as a checklist, or goals of powers to attain. These seven are a reflection of the consequences from the whole process of Yoga described in the Yoga Sutras
1. The deep inner sources of future suffering, which would have played out as karma, have been identified, and the mind is no longer drawn towards those thought patterns.
2. The root causes or deep impressions providing the potential for that karma to play out have been removed, with nothing more needing to be done with them.
3. Through the mastery (nirodhah) attained by deep absorption (samadhi), the wisdom of realization has been attained.
4. Discrimination has brought sufficient discriminative knowledge that nothing further remains about which to inquire.
5. Buddhi, the higher discriminative aspect, has fulfilled its purpose and stands alone, with nothing more to do.
6. The activities of buddhi, no longer needed, come to rest as a stone, which has rolled down a mountain, having no need to arise again.
7. Pure consciousness, Purusha, stands alone, in its true, eternal Self."
That's my rundown on my favorite sources for studying the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
Here is the link to Swamij.com page with Seven Types of Insight. Chapter One: Sutra 27
