THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI

"The Book of the Spiritual Man"

An Interpretation By

Charles Johnston

Bengal Civil Service, Retired;

Indian Civil Service, Sanskrit Prizeman;

Dublin University, Sanskrit Prizeman

INTRODUCTION TO BOOK I

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are in themselves exceedingly brief, less

than ten pages of large type in the original. Yet they contain the

essence of practical wisdom, set forth in admirable order and detail.

The theme, if the present interpreter be right, is the great regeneration,

the birth of the spiritual from the psychical man: the same theme

which Paul so wisely and eloquently set forth in writing to his disciples

in Corinth, the theme of all mystics in all lands.

We think of ourselves as living a purely physical life, in these material

bodies of ours. In reality, we have gone far indeed from pure physical

life; for ages, our life has been psychical, we have been centred and

immersed in the psychic nature. Some of the schools of India say that

the psychic nature is, as it were, a looking-glass, wherein are mirrored

the things seen by the physical eyes, and heard by the physical ears.