What’s the ultimate goal of yoga? How many of us strive to avoid rebirth, as originally taught? If priorities have changed, what does liberation mean in the twenty-first century?
I think it’s important to ask these questions. Unless we acknowledge that traditional texts might have different objectives, it’s tempting to assume that they say what we think. The most striking example is the Yoga Sūtra, which is generally seen as the blueprint for practice, despite teaching ways of renouncing the world. Although Patañjali’s text offers useful ideas for reducing suffering, its eventual aim is detachment from matter to rest in awareness – an otherworldly outcome that sounds like the end of embodied existence.
Material things are “devoid of any purpose [when] the power of consciousness is situated in its own essential nature,” says the final sūtra, 4.34.1 There’s no follow-up line about life in the world as a liberated being. Instead, it’s preparation for death, physically untangling oneself through “indifference,” to quote Yoga Sūtra 1.16.2
This is not an anomaly. A thousand years later, the Haṭha Pradīpikā (4.107–109) says: “The yogi who is completely released from all states and free of all thoughts remains as if dead. He is liberated. [He] knows neither smell, nor taste, nor form, nor touch, nor sound, nor himself, nor others.”3 This harks back to the earliest definition of yoga in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (6.11) as “restraint of the senses,” along with the mind.4 It’s also common to read about yogis being “like a stone” or “a piece of wood,” as in the Mahābhārata (12.294.14–17).5
Most yoga texts aren’t very worldly. Their concern is a spiritual quest that regards being embodied as a step to transcendence. Although later traditions present this more positively, Patañjali’s views on the subject are stark. Yoga Sūtra 2.40 describes “disgust for one’s own body and non-contact with others.” The earliest commentary – which scholars think he wrote too – says a yogi “desires to give up his own body,” becoming “unattached to it, an ascetic.”6
This world-renouncing tendency has a long history. Yoga began as an answer to karma, whose cyclical process of cause and effect spans endless lifetimes. If actions leave mental impressions that spark more activity, shutting down completely reverses the process. Some yogis still do that. One modern example is Hariharānanda Āraṇya, who spent much of his life in caves and wrote an influential book about the Yoga Sūtra and its goal of “isolation”.7
Patañjali’s term for this state is kaivalya, detaching consciousness from everything else. This is explained in sūtras 2.17 and 2.25. Since connection with the objects of perception causes suffering, the solution is eternal separation. This is easily missed because of the assumption that yoga means union. It does in some contexts, but not in Patañjali’s dualist system.
Its overall framework can also confuse us. The “eight limbs” of aṣṭāṅga-yoga are promoted today because one of them is āsana. However, this word just means “sitting” in Sanskrit and no postures are taught in the Yoga Sūtra. The commentary on 2.46 names a dozen ways to sit, but non-seated postures aren’t mentioned in texts until the medieval era, while classes based on sequences are even more recent – perhaps not much older than a hundred years.
Patañjali’s method is one-pointed focus on a meditative object. The final three parts of his eightfold model (dhāraṇā, dhyāna and samādhi) are all degrees of this, refining perception to transcend the mind. The rest are preparations for focusing inward, from ethical behaviour (yama and niyama) to controlling the breath (prāṇāyāma), which supports mental steadiness.
There’s of course no obligation to go all the way and abandon the world. The Yoga Sūtra has plenty to offer if we look at it differently. But we need to admit that’s what we’re doing. It’s not just a case of reframing translations to sound less ascetic. To avoid more confusion, we have to distinguish what texts say from the ways we interpret them.
Patañjali’s analysis of human psychology supports worldlier readings. That starts with the three-part “yoga of action” (kriyā-yoga), combining self-discipline (tapas), study of scripture (svādhyāya) and the service of a higher ideal (īśvara-praṇidhāna).8 This leads to samādhi by removing afflictions in the mind, facilitating freedom from moment to moment.
These mental kleśas are rooted in ignorance. Misidentifying ourselves with our bodies and passing thoughts, we try to control life to get what we want and avoid our dislikes. However, this endeavour is futile, so we suffer. Yoga works like medicine to heal our confusion. But before we can find the right dose, we need a clearer definition of what healing means.
The commentary on sūtra 2.15 explains our predicament, echoing the Buddha’s noble truths: “As medical science has four divisions – illness, cause of illness, recovery and therapeutics – so this philosophy of salvation has four parts, viz. the cycle of births, its cause, liberation and the means of liberation.”9 In that analysis, the source of the problem is desire – the engine of karma – so the answer is purification by withdrawal.
What if liberation meant minimising suffering for us and for others? Attempts to remove it completely seem idealistic. Although sūtra 2.16 vows that “suffering that has yet to manifest is to be avoided,” unwanted things happen and the body decays until it dies.10 What can be changed is the way we respond to what’s in front of us.
Much of our pain is self-inflicted. The problem is a voice in the head that declares itself “me” and pursues satisfaction. This narrative phantom demands our attention, providing personal commentary on “my life.” Getting lost in ideas about difficult feelings makes them worse. We fare little better with happier states, instinctively hoping they’ll continue.
Tuning out of this chatter is taught elsewhere as self-inquiry. “It is not the mind that a man should seek to apprehend,” says the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad (3.8). “Rather, he should know the one who thinks.”11 Paying attention to gaps between thoughts, we can rest in awareness and let it expand – at least temporarily.
Patañjali’s aim is to stay there. Yoga Sūtra 2.26 says “the means to liberation is uninterrupted discriminative discernment,” distinguishing the subtlest parts of the mind from the innermost witness.12 A little of this discipline cuts through attachment to fixed ideas. It might not result in kaivalya, but it can free people up to behave in less afflicted ways.
For that to happen, it has to be prioritised. We don’t automatically become less conditioned by self-centred patterns. Defining it as an objective is therefore important. The Buddha had a helpful framework in this context. “Abandon what is unskilful,” he taught. “This abandoning of what is unskilful is conducive to benefit.” The aim instead is to “develop what is skilful.”13 The Pāli word for this is kusala, which also means wholesome or good.
Buddhist practice seeks to counter defilements with positive qualities. The kleśas of greed, ill-will and delusion (rāga, dveṣa and avidyā in Patañjali’s system) are replaced by charity, kindness and wisdom. Related ideas are found in Yoga Sūtra 1.33, which says friendliness, compassion, joy and equanimity produce mental clarity. For Patañjali, the goal is always stillness, not better relationships. However, these ideas can promote being kinder.
In the end, that’s the simplest yardstick: do our actions, thoughts and speech help to minimise harm? If not, can we change them? In Yoga Sūtra 2.33, Patañjali suggests that if “harassed by negative thoughts, one should cultivate counteracting thoughts.”14 This steadies the mind to support the precept of non-harming. A line in the commentary reminds practitioners: “I have taken refuge in yoga-dharma by offering protection to all living beings.”15 Yet if we do this by retreating to a cave, who protects them from suffering inflicted by others?
Traditional texts suggest limited agency. The Bhagavad Gītā (2.50) redefines yoga as “skill in action,” detaching from outcomes instead of engagement.16 However, it warns in verse 3.27: “He whose mind is confused by egoism imagines ‘I am the doer’ [since] actions in all cases are performed by the qualities of material nature.”17 We might feel moved to resist injustice, depending on our tendencies and previous conditioning. Then again, we might not.
“Better one’s own duty, though imperfect, than the duty of another well performed,” the Gītā explains (18.47).18 Although accepting one’s lot is a source of contentment, it also functions to uphold the caste system. The way to be free is to know one’s place in the social order – a message that many repackage to sound more appealing.
We’re almost bound to reinterpret texts to fit modern priorities. The only question is whether we admit it. It’s really up to us what we choose to prioritise. There’s little point pretending we can follow ancient teachings to the letter. To turn the Gītā’s ideas about duty inside out, we have to find our own role and decide how to play it. Is there anywhere else to be free except here and now?
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Daniel Simpson is the author of The Truth of Yoga, an accessible guide to yoga history and philosophy. Find out more at truthofyoga.com.
Edwin Bryant, The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali (New York: North Point Press, 2009), 457. ↩
Bryant, Yoga Sūtras, 57. ↩
Brian Akers, The Hatha Yoga Pradipika (New York: YogaVidya.com, 2002), 111. ↩
James Mallinson and Mark Singleton, Roots of Yoga (London: Penguin Classics, 2017), 17. ↩
Johannes Bronkhorst, The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993), 46. ↩
Mallinson and Singleton, Roots of Yoga, 83. ↩
Hariharānanda Āraṇya and P. N. Mukerji, Yoga Philosophy of Patañjali (Albany: SUNY Press, 1983). ↩
Bryant, Yoga Sūtras, 169. ↩
Āraṇya and Mukerji, Yoga Philosophy, 147. ↩
Bryant, Yoga Sūtras, 212. ↩
Patrick Olivelle, Early Upaniṣads (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 353. ↩
Bryant, Yoga Sūtras, 234. ↩
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, translation of Aṅguttara Nikāya I.58 (2002), accessed April 16, 2021: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN2_19.html. ↩
Bryant, Yoga Sūtras, 234. ↩
Mallinson and Singleton, Roots of Yoga, 82. ↩
Winthrop Sargeant, The Bhagavad Gītā (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2009), 135. ↩
Sargeant, Bhagavad Gītā, 184. ↩
Sargeant, Bhagavad Gītā, 708. ↩
Further Reading
