The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are the founding text of classical yoga. In 196 short aphorisms, or sutras, they set out what yoga is, why the mind suffers, and a practical path to freedom. Almost every teacher training in the world, including ours, studies them. They are short enough to read in an afternoon and deep enough to study for a lifetime.
What the Yoga Sutras are
A sutra is literally a "thread": a compressed statement meant to be memorised and then unpacked by a teacher. The text is attributed to Patanjali, about whom almost nothing certain is known. Scholars date it roughly to the early centuries of the common era, though estimates range more widely. It systematises earlier ideas, drawing on Samkhya philosophy, into one clear method. The oldest and most important commentary is the Yoga Bhashya attributed to Vyasa, and nearly every later reading builds on it.
The four chapters
1. Samadhi Pada: on absorption (51 sutras)
The first chapter defines yoga and describes its goal. It opens with the most famous lines in the text: atha yoganushasanam, "now, the teaching of yoga" (1.1), and yogash chitta vritti nirodhah, "yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind" (1.2). When that happens, "the seer abides in its own nature" (1.3). The chapter names the five kinds of mental movement (vrittis): right knowledge, error, imagination, sleep and memory. It gives the two pillars of all practice, abhyasa (steady practice) and vairagya (non-attachment) (1.12), and describes the stages of samadhi.
2. Sadhana Pada: on practice (55 sutras)
The second chapter is for those who are not yet steady. It begins with kriya yoga, the yoga of action: discipline (tapas), self-study (svadhyaya) and surrender to Ishvara (2.1). It diagnoses the five kleshas, the causes of suffering: ignorance, ego, attachment, aversion and the clinging to life (2.3). Ignorance is the root of the others. It then introduces the eight limbs of yoga (2.29) and explains the first five in detail, including the only instruction on posture in the whole text: sthira sukham asanam, "posture should be steady and comfortable" (2.46).
3. Vibhuti Pada: on powers (56 sutras)
The third chapter describes the last three limbs, concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana) and absorption (samadhi), which together are called samyama (3.4). Much of the chapter lists the extraordinary abilities, siddhis, said to arise from samyama, and then warns that they are obstacles to the real goal if they become a source of pride.
4. Kaivalya Pada: on liberation (34 sutras)
The last chapter is the most philosophical. It discusses karma, the impressions (samskaras) that shape the mind, and the nature of perception, and describes kaivalya: the freedom of pure awareness, no longer identified with the changing mind.
Five sutras worth knowing by heart
- 1.2 yogash chitta vritti nirodhah: yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind.
- 1.12 abhyasa vairagyabhyam tan nirodhah: they are stilled by practice and non-attachment.
- 1.14 practice becomes firmly grounded when it is done for a long time, without break, and with devotion.
- 2.16 heyam duhkham anagatam: the suffering that has not yet come can be avoided.
- 2.46 sthira sukham asanam: posture should be steady and comfortable.
The Yoga Sutras and modern practice
The Sutras say very little about postures, and nothing about the sequences taught in most classes today. Those come largely from the later Hatha tradition, described in texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. What the Sutras offer is the purpose behind the practice: every asana and breath exercise is meant to serve a steadier, clearer mind. That is why they remain the philosophical core of teacher training.
How to start reading them
Read a translation with commentary rather than the bare sutras, which are too compressed to make sense alone. Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga (1896) brought the text to the West and is still readable. Swami Satyananda's Four Chapters on Freedom reads it from a practitioner's point of view, and Edwin Bryant's translation offers a detailed scholarly companion. Read slowly, a few sutras at a time, and come back to them: they read differently after a few years of practice.
Studying the Sutras with us
Patanjali's Yoga Sutra is a core part of the philosophy module on our 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training, alongside Samkhya, the Bhagavad Gita and the Hatha texts, and it is studied in more depth on the 500 Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training.
