What if the final stages of yoga aren’t about flexibility—but inner mastery?
In this episode, I dive deep into Book 3 of the Yoga Sutras, where Patanjali explores the advanced limbs of yoga—Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi—and how their fusion, called Samyama, unlocks not just insight, but mystical abilities (siddhis).
We explore:
🔹 What Samyama really means and why it matters
🔹 The role of concentration, meditation, and absorption in spiritual growth
🔹 Patanjali’s teachings on psychic powers, past lives, and invisibility
🔹 Why the heart (not just the mind) is key to liberation
🔹 The deeper purpose of the siddhis—and how they can distract us from truth
If you’ve been craving a more mystical, nuanced understanding of meditation, consciousness, and freedom, this episode brings Book 3 of the Sutras to life.
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Translations Mentioned:
Reverend Jaganath Carrera: Inside the Yoga Sutras: A Comprehensive Sourcebook for the Study & Practice of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
BKS Iyengar: Light on the Yoga Sutras
Alan Finger: Tantra of the Yoga Sutras: Essential Wisdom for Living with Awareness and Grace
Edwin F Bryant: The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary
Sri Swami Satchidananda: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
FREE Practice: 20 Minute Guided Meditation For Higher Self (For Beginners)
Relevant Blog: What are Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras?
Relevant to Today’s Episode:
✅ 200-hour Online Yoga Teacher Training
🔮 300-hour Online Yoga Teacher Training
🎧 Also Listen to:
#276 – What are Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras – What Every Yogi Should Know
#279 – Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Summary – BOOK ONE Explained
#282 – Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Summary – BOOK TWO Explained
#297 – What is Samkhya Philosophy and How is it Different from Yoga?
© 2025 Uplifted Yoga | BrettLarkin.com
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Transcript:
Brett:
It’s time for you to walk through the world with the confidence and serenity of someone who’s deeply tethered to their inner wisdom. If you have this insatiable hunger to uplift your personal life and make a bigger impact in your wellness career, leveraging yoga’s ancient wisdom, welcome. I’ve certified thousands of yoga instructors online, I teach to over half a million subscribers on YouTube, but I still haven’t remotely quenched my thirst for more yogic knowledge.
I’m Brett Larkin, founder of Uplifted Yoga, and this is the Uplifted Yoga Podcast. Let’s get started. Psychic superpowers, insight into past lives, and the ability to become invisible.
These are just some of the benefits that Patanjali tells us in Book Three of the Yoga Sutras that we can get as yogis. Yes, today we are going into the often overlooked Book Three of the Yoga Sutras. So if you’ve been craving a more mystical, nuanced understanding of meditation, consciousness, freedom, and the siddhis, these yogic superpowers, keep listening.
You are going to love today’s podcast, and you don’t need any knowledge of the sutras or the prior two books to just lean back, jump in, and enjoy. If you are enjoying this podcast, you will absolutely love the courses I have on the eight limbs of yoga inside the Uplifted Membership. Inside the Uplifted Membership is over 700 somatic classes, chakra flows, and courses on kundalini, the eight limbs, archetypes, and so much more.
It’s the best way to release stress and reconnect with the deeper, sacred layer of yoga you’ve been missing. When you join the membership, it also helps support the podcast. So go to barrettlarkin.com forward slash uplifted to become a member today.
And of course, if you want to go on that deeper journey with me, do 100-hour teacher training. Fall registration is closing in just a couple weeks. We’re in the last 10 days or so to sign up.
88% of online courses don’t get finished. But guess what? That’s not true at Uplifted because of the cohort model, the friendships, the live calls. I’ve graduated over 4,000 yoga teachers, and I would love for you to be one of them, even if you’re just training to deepen your own practice.
You can book a call to talk it through. And the link to do that is in the show notes, along with all the translations of the Yoga Sutras that I’m going to read in this podcast, a free 20-minute meditation to meet your higher self. I’m always throwing a lot of resources for you in the show notes to take your practice deeper.
So check those out, and let’s dive in to today’s episode on Book 3 of the Yoga Sutras. Welcome. Get comfy.
Sit back and relax as I go through today Book 3 of the Yoga Sutras. You do not need to have the Yoga Sutras in front of you. If you know what the Yoga Sutras are, fantastic.
If you’ve listened to Book 1 and 2’s podcast, even better. But you don’t need any prior knowledge to just soak in the magic of Book 3. And if you don’t know, the Yoga Sutras are divided into four books. Most yoga teacher trainings focus primarily on the first two books.
It’s pretty rare to do a deep dive into Book 3 and 4, which is something I promised would do, and I’m fulfilling on that promise today. We are going to go through Book 3. And I’m actually really excited because this section of the sutras is really about refining our perception, achieving inner mastery, and it’s very much about the subtle body and our subtle awareness, and the often misunderstood psychic powers that are mentioned in this book. Yes, I said psychic powers.
And we’re going to unpack all of that together. We’re going to look at multiple translations. I always love to do that, and I encourage you to do the same.
The key themes that we’re going to see in this book are that Book 3 of the Yoga Sutras is really focusing on the mechanics of meditation. The book is going to actually kick off by defining the final three limbs of yoga. So get excited.
This is the advanced class. And then we’re going to learn about these siddhis. That’s spelled S-I-D-D-H-I-S.
These superpowers that yogis can achieve. The overarching journey of this book is how we go on this pathway from concentration. So we’re going to start with concentration to at the end in the final sutras, talking about kaivalya, liberation, this state of total freedom and pure consciousness.
So let’s start this magical party with looking at Reverend Carrera’s translation of the sutras. So I’m going to be reading from that one first, starting with Sutra 3.1. And we’re going to see that these first sutras are defining those last three limbs on our eight-limbed path of yoga. Sutra 3.1 says Rana is the binding of the mind to one place, object, or idea.
3.2 Dhyana is the conscious flow of cognition towards that object. Sutra 3.3 Samadhi is the same meditation when the mind stuff, as if devoid of its own form, reflects the object alone. I promise we’ll pause in a moment, but let’s just keep going and get through these first couple.
3.4 The practice of these three, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi, those last three limbs, upon one object is called Samyama. Key vocab word. Samyama means to be perfectly controlled.
3.5 By mastery of Samyama, knowledge born of intuitive insight shines forth. 3.6 Its practice is accomplished in stages. 3.7 These three, referring to Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi, are more internal than the preceding five limbs.
Okay, let’s pause. Let’s define some key terms. Let’s debrief.
So 3.1, we’re introduced to this vocab, key vocab word, Dharana. And this is the sixth limb of yoga. It’s that focus, concentration, fixing the mind.
So looking at that candle or fixing the mind to that mantra. Then in 3.2, we learn about the next limb, the stage after that. Dhyana, meaning meditation, uninterrupted flow of concentration.
So basically, instead of forcing myself to focus on the candle or focus on the mantra, that process in this stage becomes effortless. I no longer have to try. My concentration is just merged naturally on the candle.
It’s like that engine revving, efforting part from Dharana, the concentration, the fixing the mind is over. And now I’m just bound. I’m connected to that of that which I have been concentrating upon.
And that could be a deity, a candle, a mantra, your breath. And this is leading us obviously in Sutra 3.3 to the last limb, Samadhi, absorption, merging either with the object of your focus or merging with universal consciousness. Samadhi is often also translated as bliss.
And then I’m going to so date myself. But you know how we often see conjoined words like like when two celebrities get together, like Brangelina, right? Brangelina means Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And when that whole thing happened, Samyama, this key vocab word, it’s S-A-M-Y-A-M-A.
In 3.4, it’s basically the word that represents the combo of these last three limbs, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. So we could define Samyama as the unified practice of those three stages. And in Iyengar’s translation, he says that threefold practice of concentration, meditation, and then absorption or bliss is it’s through that process of mastery that we receive the light of wisdom.
Or Edwin Bryant says these three taken together constitutes Samyama. By mastering Samyama, the light of knowledge dawns. Then things start to get complicated.
And for the sake, because I think there’s actually juicier, more interesting things a little later in this book, I’m not going to go too deep into this. But if you were wondering, there are multiple flavors or types of Samadhi. There’s not just one type of Samadhi.
And so Sutra 3.8 speaks to that. Even these three are external to the seedless Samadhi. And the Samadhi that’s talked about here in 3.8, Nirbija Samadhi, is the deepest Samadhi.
And I like Alan Finger’s translation of this. His translation of 3.8 is, but even these three stages are external or gross compared to the stage of Nirbija Samadhi, which is Samadhi that has no point of focus and carries no seed of future karma. 3.9, staying with Alan’s translation, even when the mind has moved into effortless focus, subtle impressions of thoughts are always arising and subsiding.
Nirodha Parinama is the moment when the mind lets go of its attachment to an arising mental impression. Mastery of Nirodha Parinama allows the mind to move into stillness. So what’s being described here in 3.9 is like when the mind is like a lake with no ripples in it.
Mental stillness. We have space between our thoughts. It’s like when you’re in Shavasana and you can watch the mental movements of the mind without attachment.
Nirodha, you may recognize that key vocab word as restraint or stilling the fluctuations of the mind. And then again, we’re going to see the sutras doing that thing that they do. 3.10 is going to build on this concept.
So when Nirodha Parinama becomes continuous, it forms its own samskara or habit of letting go of thoughts before they become distractions. This is how the mind becomes free to enter into the state of Samadhi. 3.11 Samadhi Parinama is the moment when the mind becomes completely absorbed in its point of focus.
Then the mind is no longer aware of any thought impressions that may distract from Samadhi, which is the experience of pure consciousness. Stay with me. Stay with me.
3.12 Ekagrata Parinama is the moment when the mind is coming out of being absorbed in Samadhi. The natural tendency in this transition point is to be instantly pulled back into the many arising thoughts and impressions. So this is like us grabbing our cell phone and checking our messages after meditation.
3.13 Ekagrata Parinama allows the mind to stay connected to the essence of its object of focus so that it maintains the insights from Samadhi. So that would be like duality, polarity has been resolved in our mind and we are walking through the world and potentially having conversations or eventually checking our phone, but we’re still very unified with the candle or the object of our focus. So what these Parinamas are describing are the very subtle transitions that allow the mind to move into Samadhi, sustain Samadhi and move back out of Samadhi.
And a key point here is that you can’t force this process. No matter how hard you might try, you can’t force the vritti, the mind chatter into stillness. Thoughts and reactions don’t just stop moving in the sense that like a train would stop moving when you put on the brakes.
Instead, it’s like the mind is making these little adjustments. It’s like a teeter-totter, like a seesaw, right? It’s like the mind is making these teeny tiny adjustments to allow for a moment of a still point. And then maybe you have, you know, this deepest, beautiful Samadhi that kind of emerges on its own.
But then those super subtle adjustments, you know, you’re fluctuating again. And those super subtle adjustments and fluctuations are these Parinamas. So Nirodha, remember Nirodha meaning restraint.
Nirodha Parinama is the transition that the mind makes when it’s directing its attention away from all the thoughts, emotions, reactions, and we’re like moving towards Samadhi. And then Samadhi Parinama is the sustained moment of dynamic stillness. That’s where I’m visualizing like the seesaws completely level with the ground, right? And Ekagrata Parinama is the adjustments that we’re making to keep that seesaw at the still point.
And it’s what we want as we then move out of this process to come back into interaction with the world of the senses. And a great analogy you can think about here that I learned from Alan is the idea of balancing on one foot. So if you’ve ever practiced tree pose, which you probably have if you’re listening to this podcast, that stillness that we find in our tree pose when we’re on one leg doesn’t come from gripping and tightening and holding the breath and clamping down.
Rather, it comes from our Drishti, our focus on a single point in front of us, while our body makes these tiny, tiny micro adjustments in our foot and our ankle and our upper body. And often these micro adjustments are so small that they become imperceptible to us as we stand in balance. And if we have that Drishti, the breath and the mind slow down.
And if we keep our attention focused, we can keep gracefully, gradually adjusting in such a way that we can actually come out of tree pose and put our other foot back on the ground without it being awkward or falling over. I promise we’re going to get into mystical powers and all the things soon. But the next three sutras are really describing the subtle dynamics of the three Parinamas and how those tie in in a bigger way to the evolution of consciousness and how things are manifest in our material world.
So switching away from Alan Finger now and back to Reverend Carrera 3.13, by what has been said, meaning the prior sutras 3.9 to 3.12, the transformation of the form, characteristics and condition of the elements and the sense organs are explained. Teen, the substratum, meaning prakriti, continues to exist, although by nature it goes through latent, uprising and unmanifest phases. 3.15, the succession of these different phases is the cause of the different stages of evolution.
And this sutra is alluding to the gunas. It’s basically saying the reason we see changes in objects is because of the interplay of the gunas. Anything that’s manifest is subject to the gunas, the three gunas being rajas, tamas, and sattva.
And I’m not going to dig too much into all of this for now because this is very much going down a very deep road into tantric philosophy. And actually, there is a podcast about samkhya philosophy as well. It’s talking about how things get manifest and come into form through the gunas, the tattvas.
So I will link that episode in the show notes. I want us to keep moving because there’s a lot more interesting things, I think, in this book. So let’s keep going.
3.16, by practicing samyama on the three stages of evolution comes knowledge of the past and future, says Reverend Carrera. Okay, so this is where things get exciting because now we have knowledge of the past and the future. And what does that really mean? Edward Bryant translates this saying by samyama on the threefold changes, meaning the changes of properties, the changes of characteristics, and the changes of conditions that those prior three sutras talk about this kind of evolutionary process.
So if we place our attention on that, knowledge of the past and future arises. And the suggestion here is that when we’re in a state of incredibly deep meditation, time can often feel pliable. That’s, I think, what this means.
I don’t think it’s literally saying, like, we have a crystal ball, we know what’s going to happen in the future. And we can recall things from past lifetimes. I think it’s more saying, like, when we choose to enter a state of deep meditation and choose to meditate on the process of evolution, we can start to see patterns more clearly.
We start to have this inner vision of karmic cycles. We’re seeing the big picture, not just the big picture, but patterns. And this knowing the past and future that’s alluded to in 3.16 would be an example of one of the siddhis.
They’re not just psychic tricks, but, like, these magic powers that yogis have. So, again, this isn’t fortune telling, it’s intuitive pattern recognition. You perceive karmic arcs or cycles with clarity.
And I think an imitation here would be to think about, like, when was a time you had an inner knowing about what was going to happen? Not based on logic, but because of, like, a deep presence where you’re like, I’ve seen this play out before, or I know how this is going to go down. And it’s not something you could explain logically. That’s what Sutra 3.16 is talking about.
And this is fun because now we get to learn about more siddhis or powers in 3.17. A word, its meaning, and the idea behind it are normally confused because of superimposition upon one another. By samyama on the word or sound produced by any being, knowledge of its meaning is obtained. That is a very confusing way, Reverend Carrera, to translate the core idea behind this, which is that samyama on the meaning behind words leads us to basically be able to understand many languages, all languages.
Allen translates this 3.17 by saying, Like, the word cookie could make me want to crave a cookie and also like cookie, but also make me think of my mom who didn’t let me have a cookie, or, you know, all those different things. But by practicing samyama on the sound of a word and becoming aware of the mind’s thoughts connected with that word, one gains understanding of the essential meaning of any word or sound made by living beings. So basically, this is referring to an understanding of communication beyond language.
And I think the bigger metaphor here is that when we get very good at yoga, good meaning, you know, being able to achieve samyama and practice these meditative states and integrate them into our life, we suddenly have this deep empathy for other people. We’re able to pick up on unspoken truths that maybe aren’t being said. Think about how people have different learning styles or different ways that they communicate.
It’s like we’re picking up on all of that subtext that someone else who’s not as attuned to subtle body practices might miss. Like we’re seeing what and hearing what someone else might miss because we’re so much more attuned. So when we’re listening to someone as yogis, it means that we’re actually privy to not just what the person’s saying, but their true motivation, the intent behind what they’re saying.
For those of you who have animals or pets, like your pet makes a certain sound and you know the intention behind that sound. Sutra 3.18 says, by direct perception through samyama of one’s mental impressions, knowledge of past births is obtained. Now, remember, we are operating in a culture framework at the time that believes in reincarnation.
But the idea here, and this is Reverend Carrera’s words, is that by tuning our attention inward and observing our subconscious impressions and noting when and how and why they manifest, we are going to see themes. We’re going to see keynote thoughts, essential plot lines around which we start to see our current life was formed. We’re going to start to recognize that, oh, I’m acting this way because that originated from a past action, or maybe even something that happened in a previous lifetime that I’m not aware of.
I like Alan Fingers’ translation of this 3.18. He says, one gains awareness of past lives by practicing samyama on the latent karmic impressions, aka samskaras, that drive one’s 3.19. By practicing samyama on the body language of others, one gains insight into their mental impressions. Again, I think this is saying, as advanced yogis, we can read other people’s energy or subtle cues that a non-yogi might miss. So this isn’t like we’re mind readers, but we have this energetic attunement.
The more that we regulate our nervous system, the more that we practice these advanced meditative concepts, the more we can sense our own inner calm, the more attuned we’re able to be to other people. And then 3.20 is kind of like a caveat. It says, but this does not include the support in the person’s mind, such as the motive behind the thought, as that is not the object of the samyama.
So basically, we might have these insights, but we can’t ever truly know the underlying motives of someone else. So it’s kind of fun. That’s just kind of like a disclaimer.
But then 3.21, by practicing samyama on the form of one’s own physical body, one gains the ability to not be perceived by the eyes of an observer. This is done by suspending one’s own physical projection of light or illumination.
So basically, you can make yourself invisible. That’s like literally what that says. You can make it so you are not seen.
Now, I think there is a bigger analogy or metaphor here that is saying not so much that we get the superpower of invisibility, but that we actually enter this state of egolessness. In Carrera’s commentary, he talks about how the yogis understood that we take in the world through waves of light, and that we then pass those images onto our brain center. And he thinks this sutra is kind of referencing the idea that yogis can actually intercept the light that reflects off their bodies and make it seem like they have disappeared.
So again, all of this falls under the idea of these siddhis, these magical skills that we get when we’re ninja yogis. And I like how Alan translates this as like, we gain the ability not to be perceived by the eyes of an observer. And I mean, it just makes me think like sometimes I’m meditating, and I’m in our bedroom, and it’s like, I’m so still and so quiet.
Like my husband might come in and out of the bedroom, and he doesn’t even realize that I’m there. He doesn’t even notice me. And it’s because maybe I’m so deep in meditation, or my energy is so still.
I don’t know. I invite you to reflect on this. But it gets better because in 3.22, it talks about how we actually can also make it so we’re not smelled.
So if you have like body odor, guess what? You could get rid of it. No, I’m just kidding. But it says, in the same way, one is able to suspend one’s own projection of sound, touch, taste, and smell from being perceived by others, which is kind of the same thing that the previous sutra was saying.
It’s like people might not perceive us, and we can essentially suspend our own projections of sound, touch, taste, and smell. 2.3 is talking about karma. So it says one can either be active and quick to manifest or dormant and slow to manifest.
By practicing samyama on how fast a person’s karma is unfolding, one can gain foreknowledge of the time of death. Say what? So it’s important here to understand that there are two kinds of karma. There’s quickly manifesting karma and slow manifesting karma.
But by practicing samyama on them, we can potentially foresee our own death. And I think this is because if we’re doing all of this samyama, we’re perceiving the karmas that have brought our present life into being and have been the basis of the vital things that we need to learn. We can also see what lessons we have yet to complete.
And when those lessons are completed, I guess it’s time to graduate from our present birth and then either attain self-realization or go back into a recarnation cycle, according to the beliefs at the time. So knowing when you were going to die, that would be another one of these siddhis or superpowers that we can potentially achieve. 3.24, by practicing samyama on the qualities of unconditional love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, one gains the strengths of these qualities.
So remember, samyama is that durana-dhyana-samadhi combo. So when we’re doing samyama on something, remember I gave the example of a candle or a mantra or a deity. Here, just to make sure we’re getting this, we’re doing samyama on different things.
If we do samyama on the cycle of evolution, remember I talked about that earlier when we were talking about the gunas, there’s going to be certain types of benefits. When we do samyama on the two different types of karma that we have going on in our life, there’s going to be potentially that knowing our time of death benefit. Here in 3.24, it’s saying by doing samyama, focusing on a quality we want to have, like friendliness, for example, or loving kindness, we’re going to cultivate that quality and be able to transmit it to others.
And Reverend Carrera’s translation is super interesting. He mentions here the saints, saints and sages throughout history, who mysteriously were able to do miracles and change the lives of others with virtuous qualities. So at the highest, highest level, maybe something that we can aspire to.
Sutra 3.25, by samyama on the strength of elephants, meaning if we choose to do focus concentration, then effortless concentration, then samadhi, focusing on the strength of elephants as our point of focus and other such animals, their strength is obtained. And this doesn’t need to be a literal elephant. That was just an example, or an example that Patanjali gave.
But really the idea is that any image of great strength, whether it’s an animal that inspires us, an archetype, if we do our meditation practice focusing on that thing, we can tap in to the qualities of that thing. So for the sake of time, I’m going to keep going because we have many more sutras here being like by doing samyama on the moon, we gain astronomy knowledge by doing samyama on our throat, we’re able to not be hungry or thirsty anymore, which would be really helpful if I was a yogi meditating in a cave and need to, you know, not be hungry and thirsty. That’s sutra 3.31. So we have like a list that goes like on and on and on and on and on about all the different things that we can choose to meditate on.
Like 3.33 says by samyama on the light at the crown of the head, sahasrara chakra, visions are obtained. More specifically, we’re able to gain the ability to tune in to the same visions that the yoga masters had access to. And then I love this sutra 3.34. Patanjali cracks me up.
This is like other little disclaimer. At the end of this section, he kind of says all of this insight can also be gained through spontaneous intuition. Basically, he’s saying that some people, because of their karma, can just naturally and effortlessly have all of these kinds of insights and understanding that would take other people or the rest of us significant practice.
So it’s sort of like you might be really lucky, and some people just can naturally do all this. So maybe you’re one of the lucky ones, or maybe you’re like the rest of us kind of going through these limbs and having to practice a lot of different meditative techniques. And I’m skipping ahead some here, but like 3.39 is an interesting sutra.
It’s like by loosening the cause of bondage, meaning bondage to the body, and by knowledge of the channels of activity of the mind stuff, entry into another body is possible. So again, it’s talking a lot about reincarnation. And then we keep going, like we’re still going even in sutra 3.43. We’re talking about like by doing samyama on the relationship between the body and ether, meaning like air, lightness.
Ether is often called akasha, the subtlest of the elements. This helps us travel more easily into the next life or the next body. So let’s say with the siddhis, I’m going to skip forward a little bit to 3.49. This is Alan Finger’s translation.
By this mastery over the senses and the organs of perception and knowledge, one can function at the speed of the mind, which is beyond the realm of the physical senses. This gives understanding of how nature’s finer forces unfold into the matrix of this plane. And I like his commentary here.
He says in the tantric framework, a human being is a microcosm of the macrocosm. So a human being is a microcosm of the macrocosm, which is the universe. So it makes sense that these eight limbs are more of like a reoccurring cycle than a one-way street.
Following the eight limbs is not a simple one-way street to liberation. In tantra, liberation does not exist. We don’t get there by having an end goal and like going through a checklist.
Instead, liberation is about becoming skillful at living in the world with awareness of what we have gained through our experience of samadhi. So if you’re interested in this, like 300-hour teacher training with me is where it’s at because we go very deep into this in addition to talking to Alan himself about this tantric philosophy as well as samkhya philosophy. But an idea of my own that I wanted to bring into this sutra 3.49 and also 3.50, which is mastery of the elements, mastery of the senses.
Those of you who are familiar with Ayurveda, these verses are discussing the bhutas, the elements, and how samyama can give us power over them. And the Ayurvedic view teaches that the human body is composed of the five mahabhutas. We learn about this in 300-hour as well, the great elements.
So we have earth, water, fire, air, and ether. So mastery over the elements in these sutras like 3.49 and 3.50, I think can absolutely be interpreted as like mastery over the entire body-mind system because to master the elements is to master your physiology, your psychology, your subtle energetics, your makeup. So when you’re reading this, if you do read this on your own time, it’s a doozy, but if you do, like when you see things like instead of levitation, which you might see in some translations, it’s like control over the air element is a way you could think of that.
And this mastery over the elements we can also think of as like nervous system mastery, embodiment. So rather than viewing a lot of what’s mentioned in Book Three of the Yoga Sutras as like literal powers, levitating or becoming invisible or whatnot, my invitation is to think of these verses as suggesting to you that you might have sovereignty over your perception, what you’re choosing to take in, over your identity. I think what these lines are trying to tell us is that a yogi has the ability to become radically self-directed and someone who’s no longer thrown around by like the emotional weather, physical discomfort, problems, frustrations.
We’re able to be unshakably grounded and we have mastery over our own mind-body system. So maybe that looks like we have like freedom from sensory overwhelm or disassociation. Maybe it means we have instant clarity or we have discernment very quickly in like high-stakes situations.
That would be that refined perception. Maybe that means we’re like tapping into intuition without needing like proof, like we’re operating from that inner vision. And I think another really important point about this whole section of Book Three is that Patanjali is speaking to the chakra system that we see in tantric and hatha yoga texts without using the word chakra.
But the implication of chakra-based work is like 100% there. There are certain sutras that are mentioning points like the heart or the bindu, which correspond to chakra centers. Remember we had that one about the throat.
One of my favorites, which we skipped, how did we skip it? Was this idea of doing like Samyama on the heart, 3.35. So Satchitananda, his translation is simple, by Samyama on the heart, knowledge of the mind is obtained. That’s interesting, right? Alan says 3.35, practicing Samyama on the heart center frees the mind from being trapped by the limitations of the senses and gives clarity and understanding of the subtle aspects of the mind. So this Samyama on the heart is like, this is the very early beginnings, everyone, of like our heart chakra meditation.
So I think on first read, you might not think that Book Three is like this really incredible book about the subtle body, but it actually, I would argue definitely is. He’s talking about meditative practices and often meditating on specific points in the body. And Upanishadic texts that we see that predate the Yoga Sutras in the fourth century do discuss chakras and nadis, even earlier than a lot of the classical Hatha texts.
So while Patanjali is never using the word chakra or nadis, the practices that he’s outlining here in Book Three absolutely align with subtle body work. And I love that, that 3.35 because it places the heart at the center of yogic insight instead of the third eye, which I think often we more commonly associate, you know, kind of that enlightenment idea with. And I always love, in my own teaching, I’m always talking about the heart.
The heart is the fulcrum chakra. So it’s not a journey up, it’s an orbit. And if we had to pick one destination, I would actually pick the heart.
And here in Patanjali’s like powers chapter, he’s even pointing us to the heart as a very valuable destination. There is one other kind of warning or caveat sutra, if we want to call it out, because I always love when Patanjali does that. 3.38, he says, these extrasensory powers can become obstacles to being in samadhi because they themselves are manifestations in the world of the senses and can create attachment to the things of the senses.
So that’s just to let you know that if you are experiencing any of these city, like superpower type things that to be careful because they can become obstacles to nirbija samadhi if we get overly focused on them. So this is coming back to the idea of we’ve got to stay humble, right? Even our intuitive gifts can become ego traps if we’re not careful. So to close out this book, we have a triplet of sutras that’s talking about how samyama creates freedom from karmic attachments.
Then we have two more verses about how samyama creates viveka, and that is a super fun vocab word that’s definitely in 300. We focus on that. Viveka is basically clarity.
It’s clarity. It’s the ability to perceive things as they really are without the coloring of your individual mind. And this viveka, this clarity, and these are the last two sutras, then leads to kaivalya, which I mentioned at the beginning, meaning that the mind becomes free from the gunas.
It enters liberation, kaivalya, total freedom, and we are alone in pure awareness. So when we are in a state of samadhi, we’re able to perceive everything as it is without any influence or prejudice from our thoughts and other mental activity. And Allen often describes viveka as it’s like basically watching a movie, but instead of being absorbed in the story, you’re paying attention to the frames between the pictures and then the spaces between animations.
And it’s kind of like when you’re doing that, you’re understanding the story of the movie, but also the light of how the movie is being reflected and projected onto the screen. And he says, this is an analogy of how we might understand viveka, like seeing things as they really are from a much larger perspective. And once we achieve that, we can understand our own background consciousness as the viewer.
And this witness consciousness is always the same, ideally, no matter what experience we’re having. And he says, kaivalya comes from doing samyama, doing our meditation on this space between the unfolding actions of our experience, meaning like relating to our unfolding karma in the most efficient and graceful way without getting stuck in our interpretation, without getting stuck in the story. So basically, kaivalya is this liberation, this freedom to respond to what’s happening right now in our life, our individual karma, in a way where we’re also holding the much bigger context or the much bigger picture in mind and are able to resolve things in a non-reactive way.
That’s what the liberation is. So when we’re like, kaivalya, liberation, liberation from what? Liberation, friends, from karma, from this cause and effect. Karma is the lessons that we’re here to learn on this plane of consciousness.
So you know, this is a lot. This is not easy. You can see now like why yoga teacher trainings like skip book three, because it’s just like, very like, what is happening? It’s a lot.
There’s magic powers, there’s, this is very complex, like incredibly subtle information, very open to interpretation. Like Carrera, his translation of 3.55 and this viveka concept is a little different. He’s saying like viveka is the flawless experience of the entirety of the created universe, all of its phases, changes and conditions, past, present and future all at once.
Like that is viveka. I think like one way to practically think of this viveka or clarity that’s coming to mind to me is like, have you ever been in a moment and you’re about to react and you’re able to see how you’ve reacted in the past? Like say I want to snap at my husband or something and I’m able to see how I’ve done that in the past. What will happen? Like I’m actually able to see exactly how it’ll unfold and what our dynamic will be and what the rest of my evening will be if I say that thing.
And I’m able to have awareness of the past, awareness of the future and then actually make a different decision in the now based on all of that information. So is that like helpful, friends, as like a practical example of how I’m kind of like time-traveling, I can see the past, I can see the future, I can see my karmic patterns, I can see like the overall thing that I’m here and meant to learn. That’s like this viveka, like when you’re in a moment, but the moment is not one-dimensional, it’s like multi-dimensional because you can see all the different patterns of yours that are at play, the way it will unfold if you do the thing.
And like that’s the level of clarity that I think most of us are interested in coming to yoga for. And it’s been really fun because I feel like especially this year, at least for me personally, like things are really good in my relationships. I feel like I have a lot of these superpowers.
I’m really tuned into my body and able to care for my body like better than ever, ever before. I’m able to make, I have more discernment, like I’m able to see all the different things at play, my patterns, and actually act differently in the world. I’m able to read other people’s body language and subtle cues and their energy better than ever before.
And we can also take the view that samadhi is like essentially a flow state. Like when you’re working on something that you really enjoy, like for me that right now would be like my book, like when I’m in it and I’m working on it, it’s like time does warp, like I can time travel, right? Like it feels like 10 minutes, but I’ve actually been working for two hours or sometimes I’ve done something really enjoyable and it feels like it was so luxurious and so long and it turns out it only took 20 minutes. But again, it’s those last three limbs when we’re concentrated on something and then absorbed with it and then entering that flow state if you choose to define samadhi as like a flow state where you’re merged with that thing, whether it’s your writing or your editing or your artwork, you and the thing become one.
Well, yeah, when that happens, like really crazy things happen surrounding that, like in time shifts and warps, you get crazy cool insights or like know exactly what the thing needs to be, which we could relate to like these psychic abilities mentioned by the siddhis. So to me, like the siddhis are the most interesting part of this book, you know, very mechanical information about the tiny seesaw fluctuations of what samadhi looks like. It’s interesting, but it’s not as helpful.
But I think getting creative about how you think about the siddhis is really, really fun. And as we close out this book three, Vibhuti Pada, which I should have defined earlier, what does vibhuti mean? Vibhuti can be translated like most Sanskrit words many ways, but it can be translated as power, manifestation, attainment, glory. It’s basically implying that there’s this unfolding of our inner potential through deep concentration and practice, which is exactly what this book is about.
It’s also used in spiritual contexts as the word for sacred ash, like the residue that’s left over after a transformation. So we could think metaphorically that, you know, this book is about those sacred gifts, the residue that arises when we transcend our ego, when our practice has really burnt away all the big distractions and mind chatter and something more subtle and powerful is able to be revealed or received inside us. And so I invite you to think this week about what powers, siddhis, are arising in your life right now as thanks to your yoga and meditation practice that may not necessarily be supernatural, but that you can see are ways that you are able to handle things or show up or move through the world that weren’t accessible to you maybe three to five years ago.
I hope this episode has inspired you to take a look at the very often intimidating Vibhuti Pada, Book Three of the Yoga Sutras. If you enjoyed this episode, definitely listen to my podcast on Book One and Two. Thank you so much for being here all the way to the very end.
And until we connect again next week, take care of you. Loving what you’re learning on the podcast? Apply the ancient science of yoga to your daily life, surrounded by incredible peers in my uplifted 200-hour online yoga teacher training, or grow into your role as a leader of others in my 300-hour professional program for yoga teachers, which is also a high-level business mastermind. At any time, I would love to welcome you into my Yoga for Self Mastery course to help you uncover your personal blueprint to serenity, or join my Uplifted Yoga membership for an all-access pass to my most popular yoga courses, thematic class plans, and practice calendars.
Don’t forget to prioritize your well-being and get on your mat today. From my heart to yours, namaste.
