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August 1999

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About the Author

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About How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, 

    Translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood

 

"The most practical guide to the ancient science of yoga." 

 

How To Know God makes the ancient wisdom and inspiration of the yogi, Patanjali, 

come alive with with insight and practical applications for the modern world. More than just 

an interpretation of Patanjali's teachings on the subject of yoga, the book is a "how to" guide 

for spiritual seekers who want to practice the techniques and experience the mental and 

spiritual benefits of a science that has served mankind for thousands of years.

 

 

About the Authors

 

Patanjali (from the book)

 

Little is known about Patanjali.  Some authorities believe that there were actually 

two Patanjalis, one a grammarian and the other author of the Sutras [lessons]...

As for the date of the Sutras, the guesses of scholars vary widely, ranging from the 

fourth century B.C. to the fourth century A.D.

 

Swami Prabhavananda

 

Christopher Isherwood

 

  

What People are saying about

 

Roger Ebsen, Spiritwalk Foundation

 

This book is our current text in our Spiritwalk Meditation and Study Group.  We are enjoying 

it so much that we decided to decrease our usual alacrity and take this one in depth.  Here 

following the edicts of Patanjali we gain knowledge of  the nature of psychic energy and the

workings of the human mind as a way to liberation from many of the problems of human 

existence.  I consider this an essential  text  in the study of human consciousness.  

 

 

Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World."

 

"A rendering at once lively and profoundly instructive of a world classic... 

remains as vividly topical, as realistically to the point as when it first saw the light.---

 

Books for inner Development.

 

"A beautiful translation and our personal favorite by far." 
 

 

The Publisher Vedanta Press says 

 

"A major work on the practice of yoga and meditation. Learn how you can control your mind 

and achieve inner freedom and peace through methods taught for over 2,000 years.  

Our most popular title.

 

 

 

 

Reading from the Book

 

How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, 

    Translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood

 

In this reading, Patanjali is teaching the mediation of intrusive, distracting and disruptive "thought-waves".  He discusses the nature of these thought-waves and the remedy for the 

disturbance they create...

 

12.  They [thought-waves] are controlled by means of practice and non-attachment.

13.  Practice is the repeated effort to follow the disciplines which give permanent control 

      of the thought-waves of the mind.  

14.  Practice becomes firmly grounded when it has been cultivated a long time,

      uninteruptedly with earnest devotion

15.  Non-attachment is self mastery; it is freedom from desire for what is seen or heard.

 

 

The waves of the mind can be made to flow in two opposite directions--either toward the 

objective world ("the will to desire") or toward true self knowledge ("the will to liberation").

Therefore both practice and non-attachment are necessary.  Indeed, it is useless and even

dangerous to attempt one without the other.  If we try to practice spiritual disciplines without

attempting the thought waves of desire, our minds will become violently agitated and perhaps

permanently unbalanced.  If we attempt nothing more than a rigid negative control of the 

waves of desire, without raising waves of love, compassion and devotion to oppose them,

then the result may be even more tragic.  This is why certain strict puritans suddenly and 

mysteriously commit suicide.  They make a cold, stern effort to be "good" -- that is, not to 

think "bad" thoughts--and when they fail, as all human beings must, they cannot face the humiliation, which is really nothing but hurt pride, and the emptiness inside themselves.  

In the Taoist scriptures we read:  "Heaven arms with compassion those whom it would not

see destroyed."

 

The spiritual disciplines which we are to practice will be described in due course.  They are 

known as the eight "limbs" of  yoga.  Perseverence is very important, in this connection. 

No temporary failure, however disgraceful and humiliating, should ever be used as an 

excuse for giving up the struggle.  If we are learning to ski, we are not ashamed when we 

fall down, or find ourselves lying in some ridiculous entangled position.  We pick ourselves 

up and start again.  Never mind if people laugh, or sneer at us.  Unless we are hypocrites 

we shall not care what impression we make upon the onlookers.  No failure is ever really a 

failure unless we stop trying altogether--indeed, it may be a blessing in disguise, a much 

needed lesson.

 

Non-attachment is the exercise of discrimination.  We gradually gain control of "painful" 

or impure thought-waves  by asking ourselves:

 

 

Why do I really desire that object?

 

What permanent advantage should I gain by possessing it?

 

In what way would its possession help me toward greater knowledge and freedom?

 

They show us that the desired object is not only useless as a means to liberation but 

potentially harmful as a means to ignorance and bondage; and, further, that our desire

is not really desire for the object-in-itself at all, but only a desire to desire something, 

a mere restlessness of the mind.

 

It is fairly easy to reason all this out in a calm moment.  But our non-attachment is put to 

the test when the mind is suddenly swept by a huge wave of anger or lust or greed. Then 

it is only by  a determined effort of will that we can remember what our reason already 

knows--that this wave, and the sense-object which raised it, and the ego-sense which 

identifies the experience with itself, are all alike transient and superficial--that they are

not the underlying Reality....

 

 

 

            Music to Read By

 

           

  

Paul Horn: INSIDE the Taj Mahal

 

 

 

 

 

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