Which came first, yoga or the obstacles to attaining it?

This obstacles are disease, idleness, doubt, heedlessness, sloth, lack of detachment, erroneous conception, not attaining any yogic stage, and instability to stay in a yogic stage. They are the distractions of the mind.

“Anything that prevents the yogin from cultivating the attitude of inward-mindedness [pratyakcetana] is considered an obstacle, be it physical or illness or psychic disorder”, says the indologist Feuerstein when explaining this sutra. This obstacles are removed by devotion to ishvara, says Patañjali in the previous sutra. And Vyasa, the commentator par excellence, notes that these obstacles prevent us from attaining the state of yoga because they occur along with the vrttis:

“These occur along with the modifications of the mind. In their absence the above said modifications of the mind do not take place”

But this is not just for Yoga; it seems to be true for every dimension of our life; it’s not possible to settle down in a relationship if there is doubt or apathy; or to accomplish any important task with carelessness or laziness. I think that this sutra it’s self-explained. I just would like to comment on two points:

First, I’m not sure how can devotion to ishvara help us to prevent these disturbances, mainly when Patañjali held such a pragmatic view of yoga practice. I found two interesting comments that, in some way, help me to understand it. The first is from Swami Hariharananda Aranya: “Bodily disturbance and illness should be removed by wholesome and measured diet taken only after the food previously taken is digested. This is the sure way of killing illness. By special devotion to God, refinement and good sense will come which will prompt the yogin to take good and limited quantity of food at proper intervals and he will take proper care of his health, so that he will never lose that good sense”. The next comment is from “Changing Minds” a book that looks at yoga sutra from the point of view of cognitive neuroscience: “Therefore, repetition of pranava, that is, mantra style or other form of meditation, may be helpful in remedying some of the antarayas (disturbances) and visepas (distractions), at least in terms of providing relief from stress and over-activation of the sympathetic nervous system”. And stress is a major cause for the rest of the obstacles. So, in my skeptic point of view, ishvara works like an “inspiration”… we do all the job to get better, to remove this obstacles, thinking that anything else is helping us, but it’s only based on faith (sraddha), some kind of hidden self-confidence that works like a charm… some kind of useful but inert placebo pill.

Second. A couple of weeks ago I read an article entitled: “They’ve cracked it at last! The chicken DID come before the egg”; in this article, the researchers said that the chicken comes first, because the formation of egg shells relies on a protein found only in a chicken’s ovaries. Therefore, an egg can exist only if it has been inside a chicken. What it has to do with Patañjali and this sutra?

Vyasa notes in his commentary to this sutra that “These nine distractions of the mind are known as impurities of yoga, foes of yoga (and) obstacles to yoga”. For me, and for most of the people that I know in the tiny “yoga world”, these nine OBSTACLES that prevent us from attaining the state of yoga are also, in our time and this corner of the world, the main forces that drive us to get in touch with yoga at first time: most of the people I know approached to yoga because was told that it would help them to relief some backache, or to recover from surgery (disease), or to relax, or overcome some depression (languor), or to improve their concentration (idleness), and a long list of etc. So, it seems that these obstacles are the reasons that push us toward yoga in the first place.

vyadhi – sickness, disease, disorder, ailment

styana – languor, idleness, apathy

samshaya – doubt, indecision, irresolution , hesitation

pramada – heedlessness, carelessness, negligence

alasya – sloth

avirati – lack of detachment, dissipation, incontinence

bhranti – false, confusion, error

darshana – vision, perception

alabdha – not obtaining

bhumikatva – stage, ground

anavasthitatva – instability, unsteadiness

citta – consciousness, mind

vikshepa – distraction

te –they, these

antaraya – obstacle, disturbance, impediment