KNOW THYSELF
THE YOGA SUTRAS
We all know, there is a science which investigates what is going on inside our heads. They call it psychology. However, Psihi is a Greek word meaning soul.
Every Greek will repeat that word countless times in his life adding to it my though. Each time when there is a deeper feeling in their soul about other being they will say psihi mou. My soul. But they are not saying it to their own soul. They feel another soul and they say what they feel.
Maybe in your language there is no such expression and you may not say (so easily) to other person “my soul” but you do have the same feelings and the same soul.
Know Thyself, Just a Proverb or Possibility?
In central Greece, in Delphi, on the Mt. Parnassus in winter there is a lot of snow, in summer a lot of sun and there is a Temple of Apollo which is today visited by the most enthusiastic tourists from all over the World. The history also says that in the columns were engraved the 147 aphorisms and one of those concise aphorisms reads: Know Thyself (γνῶθι σεαυτόν: gnōthi seauton).
Logicians will study ancient Greek and Latin ideas making their brain swelling and in the end their brain will found out that Know Thyself is just a proverb. Doers will not read that much but use it as a possibility.
If both can get to know what is inside of the mind, then yes, the Greeks knew it.
Mixed Ancient Wisdom
Everything will be easier if we were just piles of bones and flesh, and liters of blood and lymph. But we are not and that is where confusions come from.
That work and practice about how to be well in the head and heart is an advice of ancient Indians too, both thinkers and doers.
It is about Yoga and Yoga is not separated from life.
The Yoga Sutras are an in-depth guide which begins with personal and collective psychology and over the highest personal philosophy leads to the evolution of the soul.
The practice of Yoga – if you patiently read the whole website you will see that you also practice one or another Yoga – which is neither dry talk around nor juicy practice of physical postures, leads to the state which is much beyond the ordinary logical experience, to the metaphysical, intuitive insight of the mind at his highest frequencies.
Man's Mind
Man is never satisfied. He always feels something to be missing in his life especially in a life of a westerner. The Western societies especially those the most developed whatever that hierarchy may mean, unlike Eastern, look perfectly polished. But even western people get sicknesses.
Why do people get mental or physical illnesses if everything is so perfect?
About the Yoga Sutras
The Yoga Sutras are experiences which are written very clearly and precisely. These are divided into four chapters:
1. Aims of Yoga, or samadhi pada with 51 sutras which explains the aim of concentration, the psychosomatic obstacles and how to overcome them.
2. Practice of Yoga, or sadhana pada with 54 sutras which explains the nature and causes of obstacles and how to eliminate them. This chapter is actually meant for those who are at the beginning of the path.
3. Divine or supernatural powers, or vibhuti pada with 56 sutras, defines the higher concentration, the synthesis of the previous practices and the result, explains the concept of time, how to apply the highest experience and the results which lead to the perfection of the recognition.
4. Liberation, or kaivalya pada with 33 sutras, the chapter about the genesis of the extraordinary powers, changes and their cause, explains the form of time, connection to the source and its highest reflexion. Kaivalya means aloneness as a freedom of the soul from the bondage of body, mind, desire and pride of success.
The classical eight folded Yoga of Patanjali begins with the Sutra 29 of the second chapter and ends with the Sutra 4 of the third chapter.
The most of the quoted translations of the Yoga Sutras on this Website are translations by Swami Prabhavanananda and Christopher Isherwood from the „Patanjali, Yoga Sutra“ (Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai).
All texts written on the entire Website are based on my life experiences, self-studies and studies.
Yoga is not separated from life.