Patanjali Yoga Sutras Instructions for Yoga Teacher Training Students

By Fred Busch

Patanjali is the author and compiler of what are known as the Yoga Sutras. There are 4 Chapters that comprise over 190 Sutras about how to attain liberation using the mind.  Patanjali describes the obstacles most of us face in the way of Enlightenment and then outlines many systems for overcoming or dissolving those obstacles.  This is a veritable instruction manual where formulas are codified that when employed always deliver the results.

Sutra 1.4 says, “Otherwise he is of the same form as the thought-streams.”

In this Sutra Patanjali is describing how when you are not present and your mind wonders, then your being is experiencing reality as the picture of the moving thoughts.  The thought streams or thought bubbles when they are allowed to capture our life force and our attention create false reality for us.  Our consciousness becomes consumed and reflects the thought streams and this is one of the causes of suffering.