Patañjali
Yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind.
Biography
Indian sage credited with compiling the Yoga Sutras—196 aphorisms systematizing yoga philosophy and practice—sometime between 200 BCE and 200 CE. Whether Patanjali was a single person or a tradition consolidated under one name is debated. The Yoga Sutras describe an eight-limbed path integrating ethical conduct, physical posture, breath regulation, sensory withdrawal, concentration, meditation, and absorption into a comprehensive system for transforming consciousness. The text treats the mind as something that can be systematically trained.
Key Ideas
Chitta vritti nirodha: yoga is cessation of mind-fluctuations.The eight limbs: progressive path from ethics through posture, breath, and meditation.The kleshas: five causes of suffering—ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, fear of death.Samadhi: states of absorbed concentration.
Clinical Relevance
Patanjali's eight-limbed path anticipates the biopsychosocial model by two millennia: ethical conduct, physical practice, breath regulation, and meditation are understood as an integrated system where each component supports the others. The citta vrtti nirodha formulation ('yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind') describes what contemporary psychology calls affect regulation, achieved not through cognitive reappraisal but through the body: posture, breath, and systematic attention training. Yoga-informed therapy draws on this tradition, and trauma-sensitive yoga specifically adapts these practices for clients whose relationship to their body has been disrupted by trauma. Pranayama (breath regulation) has demonstrated effects on autonomic nervous system functioning that align with polyvagal theory.