Yoga sutra

Even before Pathanjali’s Yoga Sutra, Yoga practices and spiritual disciplines and techniques of Meditation which enable a man to achieve unitive knowledge of the Supreme God are found in the Katha Upanishad, Svetasvatara Upanishad, Taittiriya Upanishad, Maitrayani Upanishad etc., So we can say that the Yoga knowledge has been handed down to us from Pre-Historic times.  

“Sutra” :-  the word Sutra means “thread”.  Literally meaning, the bare thread of an exposition, the absolute minimum that is necessary to hold it together.  Sutras were composed at a period when there were no books.  The entire work had to be memorized and hence were kept as short as possible.  Pathanjali’s Yoga sutras like all other sutras, were intended to be expanded and explained.

Comparison of Yoga & Meditation with the modern Western Psychology :-

Many such comparisons have been made in the past amd some interesting points of similarity and dissimilarity in theory and technique have been noticed.  But the comparison itself seems neither fair nor valid. 

Yoga & Meditation Psychology is a finished product.  

Western Psychology is still developing and along several divergent lines; continually producing new theories and discarding old ones.    

However, one statement can be easily made……..

The majority of western Psychothepists do not, as yet, recognize the existence of the Atman, and do not therefore, attempt to help their patients achieve the union of perfect Yoga.  As for those Psychotherapists, who take a serious interest in Yoga, many of them would state their position somewhat as follows: “ We can help our patients to a certain point – to an adequate degree of adjustment on the psychological level. Beyond that, we are not ready to go.  We recognize the possibility of higher, spiritual integration.  But we prefer not to make it a part of our therapy, because we believe that the two should be kept separate. If a patient wants spiritual integration, we can only send him to a Yoga teacher. Where we leave off, “YOGA begins”.