The History and Language of the Yoga Sutras
Patanjali’s yoga sutras are the oldest known written text on Yoga but before they were written down it was an oral tradition transmitted by repetition and memory. Conciseness was essential.
The Yoga Sutras are an amazing resource to understand yoga, yourself and the nature of reality. Composed in Sanskrit (The worlds oldest Spiritual language), Each sutra is a thread of wisdom in a blanket of timeless truth.
Heres the definition of the word Sutra, taken from Wikipeidia:
The Sanskrit word Sūtra (Sanskrit: सूत्र, Pali: sutta, Ardha Magadhi: sūya) means “string, thread”. The root of the word is siv, “that which sews and holds things together”. The word is related to sūci (Sanskrit: सूचि) meaning “needle, list”, and sūnā (Sanskrit: सूना) meaning “woven”.
So it’s the thread we are weaving, but the relationship to the needle and the woven are also inherent in the word.
And I can’t think of a better analogy for this body of work on what yoga is and how to do it.
BECAUSE Yoga is union, of the see-er the seen the seeing!
Now the mystery, Who Was Patanjali?
So Who is the mastermind weaving this sutra text of wisdom? Good question.
This very deep sacred text is surprisingly largely attributed to a mythological half man, half snake, (see image above). We studied the yoga sutras in my teacher training but they forgot to mention this fact. Imagine my surprise when I googled the author, its a fascinating thing to have a real text attributed to a mythological being.
Those who believe Patanjali’s yoga sutras ‘ Of course ‘ were written by a person, may be right. However they can’t seem to agree on exactly who he was or when he lived, which I don’t think is an accident. It is not uncommon in the ancient Indian wisdom traditions for the Authors personal identity to be obscured, to keep the focus on the teaching itself.
Stepping beyond the individual self to discover a universal/cosmic sense of inter-connectedness is the goal of yoga. We need to be able to be open to a broader experience of life than only the rational and analytical aspects of mind. If interested read more in this great article by embodied philosophy.
A Yoga practise is an invitation to a broader and deeper relationship with life itself, beyond what you think. Yoga invites us to question what we think we know about whats real and what isn’t. To know that there is much you don’t yet know is a great place to start. Let’s step into the mystery together.
Join a Yoga class to study this beautiful ancient wisdom of self discovery
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