1. PATANJALI YOGA PHILOSOPHY

On 13 Nov 2011 Thought Radio is stating a new series: PATANJALI YOGA PHILOSOPHY.

PATANJALI

            Sage Patanjali—who was he; what was his period?—much is not known about him. As for the date of the the Patanjali Sutras, the guesses of scholars vary widely, ranging from the fourth century B.C. to the fourth century A.D. For the purpose of the talk here, it does not matter about the date, time, and history of Patanjali; what matters is what he said. Yaga philosophy pre-existed Patanjali; Patanjali restated yoga philosophy and crystallized psychology to enable it to connect with the God-head. Therefore it might be fair to say that the Patanjali's Yoga Sutras  (Aphorisms) are not the original exposition of a philosophy, but  a work of compilation and reformulation. References to yoga practices, spiritual disciplines and techniques of meditation which enable a man to achieve unitive knowledge of the Godhead, are to be found in Vedas and Vedanta. Patanjali created Sutras—the simplest meaning of the word sutra is "thread."  A sutra is, so to speak, the bare thread of an exposition, the absolute minimum that is necessary to hold it together, unadorned by a single "bead" of elaboration.  Only essential words are used. Often, there is no complete sentence-structure. There was a good reason for this method though. Sutras were composed at a period when there were no books. The entire work had to be memorized, and so it had to be expressed as tersely as possible. Patanjali's Sutras, like all others, were intended to be expanded and explained. 

In my talks I will expand and explain these Sutras without talking in Sanskrit or Hindi. It will a complete English explanation - Surinder (Sj) -your talkshow host from Ottawa Canada