The Chapter on Concentration

Now, the discipline of yoga is taught

Yoga is the stilling of the modifications of the mind

Then the seer abides in its own true form

At other times, the seer takes the form of the modifications

The modifications are of five kinds, and each may be painful or non-painful

The five modifications are: right knowledge, wrong knowledge, imagination, sleep, and…

Right knowledge arises from direct perception, inference, and trustworthy testimony

Wrong knowledge is false cognition, not based on the actual form of its object

Imagination is verbal cognition that has no real object behind it

Sleep is the modification that rests on the cognition of absence

Memory is the retention, without loss, of an object previously experienced

These modifications are stilled by practice and dispassion

Practice is the effort to stay in stillness

Practice becomes firmly grounded when it is continued for a long time, without…

Dispassion is the conscious mastery of one who has no thirst for objects seen or heard…

The highest dispassion is the absence of thirst even for the gunas themselves, born of…

Cognitive samadhi is accompanied by reasoning, reflection, bliss, or pure I-am-ness

The other samadhi, preceded by practice of cessation, leaves only latent impressions

For those merged in prakriti and for the bodiless, samadhi arises from their very…

For others, samadhi is preceded by faith, energy, mindfulness, deep absorption, and wisdom

Success is near for those of intense urgency

Even among the intensely urgent, there are gradations — mild, middling, ardent

Or, by surrender to Ishvara

Ishvara is a special purusha, untouched by afflictions, karma, its fruits, or latent…

In Ishvara is the unsurpassed seed of all knowing

Ishvara is the teacher of even the ancients, being unconditioned by time

The expressive name of Ishvara is Om

Repeat it and contemplate its meaning

Through that, consciousness turns inward and obstacles disappear

The obstacles are disease, dullness, doubt, negligence, laziness, craving, false vision,…

The symptoms of distraction are suffering, despair, trembling of the body, and disturbed…

To prevent these obstacles, practice on a single principle

The mind is clarified by cultivating friendliness towards the happy, compassion towards…

Or, by exhaling and retaining the breath

Or, by the arising of a refined perception of a subtle object, which binds the mind to…

Or, by contemplating the sorrowless inner light

Or, by taking as object the mind of one who is free from attachment

Or, by taking as object the knowledge gained in dream or dreamless sleep

Or, by meditation as one chooses

The mastery of such a yogi extends from the smallest atom to the greatest magnitude

When the modifications have dwindled, the mind, like a clear crystal, takes the colour of…

When engrossment is mixed with the imagination of word, meaning, and knowledge, it is…

When memory is purified and the mind, as if empty of its own form, shines with the object…

By the same process, samadhi with reflection and without reflection on subtle objects is…

The realm of subtle objects extends to the unmanifest

All these are samadhi with seed

In mastery of samadhi without reflection, the inner self becomes serene

There, wisdom is truth-bearing

It differs in scope from wisdom gained through scripture or inference, because it deals…

The latent impression born of that wisdom obstructs other impressions

When even this last impression is stilled, all is stilled, and that is seedless samadhi