Danam: Ch 2 Overview

An Overview of the Second Chapter of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

Chapter 1 outlined the approach to yoga for someone with a calm, focussed mind. Most people are not starting from that position, so the second chapter covers practices appropriate for the rest of us.

The chapter begins by describing a “yoga of action,” that is, something we can do, rather than a particular state of mind that is ultimately not under our direct control. This active yoga consists of three elements: discipline, self-knowledge, and acceptance. All of us are affected by basic forces: there are things we long for; things we dislike or fear and try to avoid; we want to protect our view of ourself, our ego; and we are prone to anxiety and fear of death. The basis of all these drives is a fundamental misunderstanding about what is real, what is permanent, what will make us happy, what is pure. Developing discipline, self-knowledge and acceptance will help to reduce the effect of these drives, and to develop the sense of wholeness, or integration that was discussed in the first chapter.

Though these problems can be reduced by the yoga of action, it is meditation that will finally overcome them. When we are driven by our likes and dislikes, by our prejudices and fears, we tend to do things that cause problems for us later on. If we want to avoid building trouble for the future, we need to address the cause of the trouble: that we are confused about who we really are. At the root of the confusion is our misunderstanding about what is real, and when we remove this misunderstanding we can experience freedom. The escape route that Patanjali suggests is to develop unwavering discrimination by following the eightfold path of yoga (this is where the term "astanga," as in "astanga yoga," comes from - it literally means "eight limbs"):

Yama - guidelines for relating to other people
Niyama - guidelines for personal discipline
Asana - physical postures
Pranayama - breath control
Pratyahara - controlling the senses
Dharana - concentration
Dhyana - meditation
Samadhi - complete integration.

It is interesting to note that these days yoga is thought of as mainly a system of physical postures, but a very small part of what Patanjali wrote is about postures. In fact, there are only 3 sutras about postures, compared with 16 about the ethics of yoga.

Chapter Two Translation