Four reasons for Revisiting The Yoga Sutras

A good place to start is with the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The Yoga Sutras is a series of short points ('aphorisms') each embodying seeds of information which then need to be reflected on in relation to each other to develop the full story.

This elaboration was normally done firstly by the gurus (traditionally, teachers who had achieved enlightenment or made greater progress towards it) who could elaborate the meanings in the text in the course of 'satsang' or discourse to students and coaching students through understanding the meaning in the text properly and incorporating the meaning into their lives, and secondly through students themselves reading, memorising, and reflecting on and internalising the philosophy in relation to their lives. The meaning in the Yoga Sutras was not necessarily intended as prescriptive - the Yoga Sutras themselves called for critical study to understand the teachings correctly before proceeding. The idea was that the reflection on and practice of the teachings would internalise the teachings as a living and growing body of knowledge within the student.

The Yoga Sutras are problematic for a modern audience for several reasons.

• First, the Yoga Sutras were originally written in Sanskrit, and then translated into English (and other languages).
• The Yoga Sutras have been handed down over thousands of years
• The context of the Gurus teachings and associated practices froma diversity of schools of thought has not been transmitted as strongly as the texts and interpretations of the texts themselves
• The main communication of the Yoga Sutras was to and from spiritually Focused aspirants and accordingly the Yoga Sutras have a more ascetic tone than may have been originally intended (and, consequently, may be less useful for a significant proportion of the modern population who may find it difficult to live an ascetic life even if they wanted to)
  

The consequence, in my opinion, is that much of the original meaning of the Yoga Sutras has been lost in translation. My objective in this discussion is to uncover some of this original meaning and relate some of these underlying principles of 'the dharma' usefully to modern life.