Yoga Sutras: Lists and Integrations

Behind the practice lies the intention, and studying the Yoga Sutras is a wonderful way to put our yoga practices in context.

The Yoga Sutras were an oral tradition finally written down by Patañjali around 500 BCE. A grammarian and yogi, Patañjali took some big concepts regarding enlightenment and distilled them into a simple and elegant set of "sutras", or sentences. In this lecture, Richard will go through some basic Sanskrit theory and apply them to some key lists in the Sutras.  Patañjali’s framework is a great tool in discovering your layers of existence.

The Sutras catalog the causes of pleasure and pain, types of true and false knowledge, and obstacles on the path of enlightenment. With all of this to overcome, what is a yogi to do?  Patañjali has a coherent and useful plan.

This workshop is mostly lecture, but we will move through a few postures as a respite from sitting still and to demonstrate the intention of a few Sutras.