The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali Quotes

“excessive renunciation in and of itself does not necessarily guarantee that one is freed from the potential reemergence of undesirable saṁskāras.”
― Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

“As has been discussed at length, the Yoga school holds that not only is consciousness, ātman/puruṣa, separate from the objects of consciousness, but the goal of the entire system is precisely for consciousness to be aware of itself as a separable, unchanging entity and thereby be extricated from its enmeshment in the world of objects. It is autonomous and independent. In contrast, liberation in Buddhism, nirvāṇa, is attained precisely when one ceases to identify with consciousness as an eternal, unchanging self and realizes that consciousness depends on objects of consciousness and does not exist without them. Consciousness is not autonomous or independent; it is dependent or interdependent on its objects—the very opposite of the Yoga position. In other words, whereas in Yoga, one must identify with and strive to realize the ātman, in Buddhism, one must cease identifying with or clinging to the notion of and striving for the liberation of an ātman; hence, in philosophical discourse, Buddhism is sometimes referred to as an-ātmavāda the system that does not believe in an ātman. But, argues Vijñānabhikṣu, in order to reject something, there must be two entities: the rejecter and the thing to be rejected. If the notion of ātman becomes the thing to be rejected, who is the rejecter of the notion? Or, as Hariharānanda puts it, if one aspires to liberation by thinking, “Let me be free from misery by suspending the activities of the mind,” there will remain a pure me free from the pangs of misery. The self behind or beyond the mind is the real experiencer of this process. If one denies the ultimate existence of such an agent, then one is faced with the often-marshaled question: For whose sake is liberation sought? In any event, Vyāsa puts forth the position of Yoga in distinction to the Buddhist view: Consciousness, puruṣa, is eternal and immutable, the subject of experience, and liberation involves detaching it from the objects of experience in the form of the evolutes of prakṛti. As an interesting aside, the term for suffering, duḥkha, seems to have been coined by analogy to its opposite, sukha, happiness. Kha refers to the axle of a wagon, and su- is a prefix denoting good (and duḥ-, bad). Thus in its old Indo-Aryan, Vedic usage, sukha denoted a wagon with good axles (that is, a comfortable ride). The Indo-Aryans were tribal cowherders, and one can imagine that comfortable wagons for their travels on the rough, unpaved trails of their day would have been a major factor in their notions of happiness and comfort.”
― Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

“By cultivating an attitude of friendship toward those who are happy, compassion toward those in distress, joy toward those who are virtuous, and equanimity toward those who are nonvirtuous, lucidity arises in the mind.”
― Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

“Detached from the external contact [of the senses with their objects] a person finds happiness in the ātman. Such a person, engaged in practicing the yoga of Brahman [the Absolute Truth], experiences eternal happiness. Material pleasures are born from the contact [of the senses with the sense objects]; they have a beginning and an end, and so they are the source of unhappiness. The wise do not delight in them. (V.21–22)”
― Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary