Литагент HarperCollins - Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

B.K.S. IYENGAR

Light on the Yoga

Sutras of Patañjali

Thorsons

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Thorsons is a trademark HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Published by Thorsons 1996

Published by The Aquarian Press 1993

First published in Great Britain by George Allen & Unwin, 1966

Copyright © B.K.S. Iyengar 1993

B.K.S. Iyengar asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007145164

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007381623

Version: 2017-02-21

This work is my offering to

my Invisible, First and Foremost Guru

Lord Patañjali

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword by Godfrey Devereux

Introduction to the New Edition by B.K.S. Iyengar

Patañjali

The Yoga Sutras

Themes in the Four Padas

Samadhi Pada

Sadhana Pada

Vibhuti Pada

Kaivalya Pada

Yoga Sutras Text, translation and commentary

Part I Samadhi Pada

Part II Sadhana Pada

Part III Vibhuti Pada

Part IV Kaivalya Pada

Epilogue

Appendix I A Thematic Key to the Yoga Sutras

Appendix II Interconnection of Sutras

Appendix III Alphabetical Index of Sutras

Appendix IV Yoga in a Nutshell

List of Tables and Diagrams

Glossary

Index

Invocatory Prayers

A note from Sir Yehudi Menuhin

Hints on Transliteration and Pronunciation

List of important terms in the text

On Yoga

Acknowledgements

By the same author

About the Publisher

Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras are the bible of yoga. However, their inaccessibility in the hands of scholars and academics has left yoga practitioners adrift with neither chart nor compass. B.K.S. Iyengar’s translation, based on over fifty years of dedicated and accomplished practice and teaching, is unique in its relevance and utility to contemporary yoga practitioners. The depth of his practice and understanding shines through his elucidation of the often terse and obscure sutras. Iyengar’s ability to elucidate Patañjali in pragmatic terms is an extension of his clarification of the subtlety and integrity of yoga practice. This is most evident in the rigorous precision with which he understands and articulates the body in yoga postures. However, it goes further and much deeper than that. In his unique investigation of alignment, Iyengar not only reveals the therapeutic necessity of stuctural integrity in the body, but also its subtle and equally necessary impact on the flow of energy and consciousness in the mind.

What Iyengar has proved, for those willing to apply themselves to test it, is that the apparent divide between matter and spirit, body and soul, and physical and spiritual is only that: apparent. Through his insistence on structural integrity he has opened the spiritual doorway to millions of people for whom the mind would otherwise never give up its subtleties. Here, in his presentation of Patañjali, that door is flung wide open. This is especially clear, to even the least academically minded student, in his profound and practical interpretations of the sutras relating to Asana and pranayama. Here, especially, Iyengar’s genius comes as a great gift of clarity and insight that can only deepen the understanding and support the practice of any keen student.

Iyengar’s incomparable experience as an Indian teacher of Westerners, combined with his experience as a Brahmin and participant in a genuine lineage of the yoga tradition, gives his perspective an authority and authenticity that is all too often lacking. It offers a lucid and pragmatic interpretation of the insights and subtleties of yoga’s root guru. To practice yoga without the profound and panoramic inner cartography of the Yoga Sutras is to be adrift in a difficult and potentially dangerous ocean. To use that map without the compass of Iyengar’s deep and authoritative experience, is to handicap oneself unnecessarily. No yoga practitioner should be without this classic and invaluable work.

I express my sense of gratitude to Thorsons, who are bringing out my Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali in this new attractive design, as a feast not only for the physical eyes but also for the intellectual and spiritual eye.

As a mortal soul, it is a bit of an embarrassment for me with my limited intelligence to write on the immortal work of Patañjali on the subject of yoga.

If God is considered the seed of all knowledge ( sarvajña bijan ), Patañjali is all knower, all wise ( sarvajñan ), of all knowledge. The third part of his Yoga Sutras (the vibuti pada ) makes it clear to us that we should respect him as a knower of all knowledge and a versatile personality.

It is impossible, even for sophisticated minds, to comprehend fully what knowledge he had. We find him speaking on an enormous range of subjects – art, dance, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, physics, chemistry, psychology, biology, neurology, telepathy, education, time and gravitational theory – with a divine spiritual knowledge.

He was a perfect master of cosmic energy; he knew the pranic energy centres in the body; his intelligence ( buddhi ) was as clean and clear as crystal and his words express him as a pure perfect being.

Patañjali’s sutras make use of his great versatility of language and mind. He clothes the righteous and virtuous aspects of religious matters with a secular fabric and in so doing is able to skilfully present the wisdom of both the material and the spiritual world, blending them as a universal culture.

Patañjali fills each sutra with his experiential intelligence, stretching it like a thread ( sutra ), and weaving it into a garland of pearls of wisdom to flavour and savour by those who love and live in yoga, as wise-men in their lives.

Each sutra conveys the practice as well as the philosophy behind the practice, as a practical philosophy for aspirants and seekers ( sadhakas ) to follow in life.