Book 1, Sutra 8: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Incorrect Knowledge
The 5 Mind States or Vrittis are:
1. Pramana - Correct knowledge/perception which includes sense perception, logic and verbal testimony
2. Incorrect perception
3. Imagination
4. Sleep (passivity)
5. Memory
To understand Sutra 8 or incorrect knowledge we have to know that our world is made up of triplicities. In the ancient wisdom teachings the major triplicity is Spirit- Soul- Body. Spirit is known as the first aspect, soul is known as the second aspect and the physical body or form is known as the third aspect.
The Raja yoga system is a system of mind training and meditation that teaches us to function from our second aspect – the soul. In doing this, we then have an affinity to the second aspect or ‘soul’ in all things and beings – this is also known as the quality or ‘being’ behind the form and is our essential reality.
Raja Yoga seeks to create a merging of the lower and higher self. When this happens the intuition guides us and the ‘light of the soul’ flows to us in our daily living with family and work. This is the whole point of the meditation practice – that we live as souls in human form.
This sutra we learn that when we base our information on the form side, the externals or the third aspect, then that information will be incorrect. If we want to perceive the truth we need to connect to the second aspect or higher - the ‘beingness’ behind the form, not the form through which ‘life’ is expressing itself.
Those beings who have reached a high state of consciousness, called the Adepts* (who have taken five out of seven initiations) never judge the state of a being through its form or physical body. The level of soul consciousness alone can contact or have rapport with the Buddhi or Christ principle in a physical atom, in a human or in a planet (the idea being that all forms have a consciousness that enlivens them).
* ‘Adept. A Master, or human being who, having traversed the path of evolution and entered upon the final stage of that path, the Path of Initiation, has taken five of the Initiations, and has therefore passed into the Fifth, or Spiritual kingdom, having but two more Initiations to take.’
- Alice Bailey, Letters on Occult Meditation
References
Patañjali, & Bailey, A. (2013). The light of the soul : its science and effect : a paraphrase of the Yoga sutras of Patañjali. London.
Bryant, E. F. (2015). The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali. North Point Press.
Iyengar, S. (2012). Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. HarperCollins UK.
Paramhansa Yogananda. (2013). Demystifying Patanjali: The Yoga Sutras. Crystal Clarity Publishers.
Satyananda Saraswati, Swami. (2013). Four chapters on freedom : commentary on yoga sutras of Sage Patanjali. Yoga Publications Trust.
Sounds True. Second Initial. Michael Singer 2024-2025 The Michael Singer Podcast [Audio podcast]. Website. https://resources.soundstrue.com/michael-singer-podcast/