The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

Yoga involves preventing the mind from being molded into these permutations, the vṛttis, the impressions and thoughts of the objects of the world, such that puruṣa can regain its autonomous nature.

one can only hope to be concentrated or one-pointed—the mind can only flow peacefully—when its rājasic and tāmasic potential have been stilled.

In the Sāṅkhya (literally, numeration) system, the universe of animate and inanimate entities is perceived as ultimately the product of two ontologically distinct categories;

one—friendliness, compassion, etc., from I.33 must be cultivated in all instances.

Through the practice of yoga, the yogī attempts to supplant all the rājasic and tāmasic saṁskāras with sāttvic ones until these, too, are restricted in the higher states of meditative concentration.

If we correlate citta with a garden, sattva with a beautiful bed of fragrant and attractive flowers, and rajas and tamas with weeds and pests, then we have a useful metaphor for the practice of yoga.

When the citta mind has cultivated a state of almost pure sattva,26 the discriminative aspect of buddhi, intelligence, can reveal the distinction between the ultimate conscious principle, the puruṣa soul, and even the purest and most subtle (but nonetheless unconscious) states of prakṛti.

if one maintains one’s practice, then eventually the mind becomes steadfast and concentrated. If one gives up one’s practice, however, one’s mind immediately becomes overwhelmed again.

Īśvara is often concerned more with a philosophical category in these contexts than with specific divine personal supreme beings