Maharishi Patanjali
Table of Contents
Who is Maharishi Patanjali
Maharishi Patanjali probably lived during the reign of Pushyamitra Sunga (195-142 BC). Because of Maharishi Patanjali, today you get the knowledge of yoga easily. Maharishi Patanjali collected 195 sutras of yoga and propounded Ashtanga yoga.
Later, the 195 sutras propounded by Maharishi Patanjali were considered as the pillars of yoga philosophy. Patanjali was the first and only person who gave Yoga a systematic form by taking it out of faith, superstition and religion.
Definition of yoga according to maharishi patanjali
Yoga is one of the six philosophies of Hinduism but it has nothing to do with religion. Yoga is combined with meditation. Meditation is also considered important in Buddhism and meditation is also related with Islam and Christianity. This book has been written in thousands of languages till now.
Maharishi patanjali yoga sutra
Maharishi Patanjali told the glory of Ashtanga Yoga, which is important for a healthy life. The Ashtanga Yoga means, which Maharishi Patanjali has preached in the second and third padas, are as follows-
1. Yama,
2. Niyama,
3. Asana,
4. Pranayama,
6. Dharana,
7. Dhyana
8. Samadhi
These 8 organs also have their own sub-parts. At present only 3 parts of yoga are in vogue – Asana, Pranayama and Dhyana.
There is also a religious story about the birth of Maharishi Patanjali. It is said that a long time ago, all the sages and sages approached Lord Vishnu and said, "Lord, you took the form of Dhanvantari and gave Ayurveda for the treatment of physical diseases, but still people on the earth have sex, anger. And who are suffering from the desires of the mind, what is the way to get rid of all these disorders? Most of the people are suffering from disorders not only on physical level, but also on mental and emotional level."
Lord Adishesh was lying on the bed of the snake. The thousand-faced Adishesh serpent is a symbol of awareness. He listened to the prayers of the sages and sent Adishesha to the earth as Maharishi Patanjali in the form of awareness. In this way, Maharishi Patanjali incarnated on earth to impart the knowledge of yoga.
In today's era, most people are doing yoga only to get rid of physical problems, but with the help of yoga, both body and mind can be made beautiful.
Patanjali Yoga Sutras
reaching, the goal. This statement, though, apparently, very nice, is also absurd, because there is no such thing as motion in a straight line. Every motion is in a circle. If you could take up a stone, and project it into space, and then live long enough, that stone would come back exactly to your hand. A straight line, infinitely projected, must end in a circle. Therefore, this idea that the destiny of man is progression ever forward and forward, and never stopping, is absurd. Although extraneous to the subject, I may remark that this idea explains the ethical theory that you must not hate, and must love, because, just as in the case of electricity, or any other force,
the modern theory is that the power leaves the dynamo and completes the circle back to the dynamo. So with all forces in nature; they must come back to the source. Therefore do not hate anybody, because that force, that hatred, which comes out from you, must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circuit.
It is as certain as can be, that every bit of hatred that goes out of the heart of man comes back to him full force; nothing can stop it, and every impulse of love comes back to him. On other and practical grounds we see that the theory of eternal progression is untenable, for destruction is the goal of everything earthly.
All our struggles and hopes and fears and joys, what will they lead to? We will all end in death. Nothing is so certain as this. Where, then, is this motion in a straight line? This infinite progression? It is only going out to a distance, and again coming back to the centre from which it started. See how, from nebulæ, the sun, moon, and stars, are produced; then they dissolve, and go back to nebulæ. The same is being done everywhere. The plant takes material from the earth, dissolves, and gives it back. Every form in this world is taken out of corresponding atoms and goes back to those atoms.
It cannot be that the same law acts differently in different places. Law is uniform. Nothing is more certain than that. If this is the law of nature, so it is with thought; it will dissolve and come back to its origin; whether we will it or not we shall have to return to the origin, which is called God or Absolute. We all came from God, and we are all bound to go to God, call that God by any name you like; call Him God, or Absolute or Nature, or by any hundred names you like, the fact remains the same. “From whom all this universe comes out, in whom all that is born lives, and to whom all returns.” This is one fact that is certain. Nature works on the same plan; what is being worked out in one sphere is being worked out in millions of spheres. What you see with the planets, the same will it be with this earth, with men and with the stars. The huge wave is a mighty compound of small waves, it may be of millions; the life of the whole world is a compound of millions of little lives, and the death of the whole world is the compound of the deaths of those millions of little beings.