It seems fitting, having recently arrived in Mysore – the home of Ashtanga Yoga – that I turn some attention to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

As I have come to appreciate over the past few years of study, Sanskrit is a relatively concise language and translations are often open to fairly variable interpretations which can be, at times, contradictory.

In the West, perhaps due to our culture, we require that there be a clear and precise explanation with one single definition. This certainty – an absolute knowing – is what provides us in the West with a sense of security by which we may rest peacefully at night.

It was explained to me early in my Ayurveda studies that in Indian culture it is acceptable for two contrasting opinions to be correct – even in cases of utter contradiction. For in India, great emphasis is placed on your ability to adequately convey, through logic and reasoning, your point of view.

It is with this perspective that I re-present Patanjali’s second sutra of the first chapter.

yogashchittavrittinirodhah (1.2)

This is the most oft quoted sutra from Patanjali and is simple and illuminating. Directly translated, this sutra means:

Yoga mind fluctuations controlling.

By adding a little grammar we get to:

Yoga is a means to control the fluctuations of the mind.

And this is the translation you will find in most yoga teacher training manuals – with good sense too as yoga is an excellent method to yoking the mind so that we may guide it, rather than having it pull us according to its whims.

When working with Sanskrit is important to remember that English translations are at best an approximation. Much is based on context and, due to the limited grammar of Sanskrit, the result is often an interpretation rather than a strict translation.

Sir O.P. Tiwari, a teacher that I have spent time with in studying the yoga Sutras, prefers the word “disciplined” when translating “nirodhah”. He feels that discipline can be creative, an attribute that “controlling” is not able to convey.

This thought was on my mind as I was reading a book unrelated to Patanjali’s Sutras and I happened upon a alternate translation of the word “vritti”. The word “grooves” – meaning habitual patterns or reflexes – jumped off the page and applied an unusual meaning to the often quoted yoga sutra. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps Patanjali intended that:

Yoga is a means to discipline the mind so as to avoid responding from the (habitual) grooves.

In this rendering, Patanjali intended that yoga is a means to bring us into the “now”, to react as though each situation is presenting itself to us for the first time. Yoga is an aid to stop us reacting impulsively to situations based on how they have occurred in the past, stopping us from reacting based on anticipation. The practice of yoga encourages us to live openly.

Vasant Lad touches on this when he says:

The brain cells enjoy working along a groove made by previous knowledge and memory. Recognition becomes a habitual, conditioned reflex that gives a feeling of security. Repetitive methods, techniques and systems nourish the ego and dull the mind.

Yoga is a means to bring our awareness to the present, avoiding a dulling of the mind that causes us to be neglectful in living out our existence. When we aspire to respond to the moment as it presents itself this time, we connect with life as a dynamic and stirring experience – as it is.