Paart 2 of Patanjala Yogadarshana Sadhana Pada Foreword

Part 2 of Patanjala Yogadarshan

Sadhana Pada

Foreword

The part 1 of Yogadarshana showed us the progressively deeper attainments of meditative states starting from the practice of overcoming distractions and dwelling on the object of concentration with unwavering attention, and finally culminating in a state of union of the individual soul with the divine consciousness. In part 1, we were taken over the whole expanse of the terrain of the meditative states. Part 2, which is called Sadhana pada, is about the intensive study of the methods to be learnt and followed in the pursuit of the Yogic practices. This part is intended to put the theoretical knowledge which you gained in part1 to the test of actual practice. That is why, you should not be surprised if you find the crucial points of part 1 revisited in part 2. But the purpose of going over them again is not to gain any deeper understanding of those points, but to give you time to take each aspect of Yoga into your hands, master it both theoretically and practically, and finally make Yoga an integral part of your personality and life. The emphasis in this process was on overcoming distractions, and it was brought to our notice again and again that distractions cannot be eliminated; they have to be overcome with a disciplined effort.

Life is taken up by three kinds of actions: survival, understanding, and doing. Survival, when it is dissociated from action based on knowledge, turns into blind reactions to the hostile forces which govern our life. In the absence of vision or perspective, our living is fragmented and wasted in devising strategies of conquests and defenses, and in doing this we encounter enemies, both in the world of nature and in the world of fellow humans. The greater the process of narrowing down, the greater is the fragmentation and alienation of individual life from its source. The result is that we think and feel in terms of differences, divisions and discords.

The first point of emphasis in Sadhana Pada is the need for achieving integration of the act of survival with the acts of understanding and doing the things in an enlightened way and not in a blindfolded way. When our actions are derived from the right understanding, we truly begin to live, not just for our own self, but for all. The Sutras 1 and 2 of Sadhana Pada define this new way of life as Kriya Yoga, i.e. actions which derive from the integration of the yogic insight into life. This is going to be a whole new process, not only of revolutionizing the individual consciousness, but of transforming the very way of life in us and consequently in others. This change is bound to take place because the intensive practice of Yoga has a deeply transformative effect on the individual and his or her environment. This transformation is natural, not induced by arguments, persuasion or proselytizing.

The first Samadhi Pada introduced the concept of Yoga as the practice of bringing the mind under the control of the higher Self. The second section, Samadhi Pada, describes the nature of the actions which spring from the mind which is self-disciplined, and names it as Kriya Yoga. When life is lived in this integrated way, all our actions manifest the right action, the right understanding and the right living, all in a spontaneous and naturally unified way. We shall take up the Sutras from the next chapter onward.