Patanjali Yoga Sutras

Consciousness & Speech Series XIII – part one

Baba Rampuri discusses Sage Patanjali & the Patanjali Yoga Sutras.

There are few names associated with the modern yoga movement that surpass the authority of the sage Patanjali, and his text, The Yoga Sutras. Both are held in high esteem not only by the yoga movement, but thought of in traditional Indian culture and Sanatan Dharma as the very source of the Yoga Darshana, or the yoga system. One of the major modern yoga organisations has even adopted their brand name after one of Patanjali’s most important sutras in his famous text.

Patanjali Yoga Sutras speak about consciousness, and Patanjali deploys the word for consciousness, citta, more than any other word (except particles such as “thus”) in the text. Curiously, the second most used word is jnana, knowledge. So, especially within the context of this conversation on Consciousness and Speech, we will discuss the The Yoga Sutras as an ‘application’ of the metaphysics of Speech, perhaps the most dominant element in traditional Indian culture — the progressive path of liberation from the vicissitudes and fluctuations of worldly existence, the experience of unconstructed awareness, and the knowledge of the self.