Yoga Sutra

Chapter 1. Integration

Now, the teaching of yoga.

Yoga is to still the patterning of consciousness.

Then pure awareness can abide in its very nature.

Otherwise awareness takes itself to be the patterns of consciousness.

There are five types of patterns, including both hurtful and benign.

They are right perception, misperception, conceptionalization, deep sleep, and remembering.

Right perception arises from direct observation, inference, or the words of others.

Misperception is false knowledge, not based on what actually is.

Conceptualization is based on linguistic knowledge, not contact with real things.

Deep sleep is a pattern grounded in the perception that nothing exists.

Remembering is the retention of experiences.

Both practice and nonreaction are required to still the patterning of consciousness.

Practice is the sustained effort to rest in that stillness.

This practice becomes firmly rooted when it is cultivated skillfully and continuously for a long time.

As for nonreaction, one can recognize that it has been fully achieved when no attachment arises in regard to anything at all, whether perceived directly or learned.

When the ultimate level of nonreaction has been reached, pure awareness can clearly see itself as independent from the fundamental qualities of nature.

At first the stilling process is accompanied by four kinds of cognition: analytical thinking, insight, bliss, and feeling like a self.

Later, after one practices steadily to bring all thought to a standstill, these four kinds of cognition fall away, leaving only a store of latent impressions in the depth memory.

These latent impressions incline one to be reborn after one leaves the body at death and is dissolved in nature.

For all others, faith, energy, mindfulness, integration, and wisdom form the path to realization.

For those who seek liberation wholeheartedly, realization is near.

How near depends on whether the practice is mild, moderate, or intense.