.

And now let’s focus on the text itself. The first thing I did was to study the paragraphs that describe the practical part. These are the so called 8 yoga steps or Ashtanga Yoga – this is how  this particular text has been called by some people.Explanations start with paragraph 28, part 2. Paragraph 29 has the 8 steps. The first and the second step – each one  contains 5 parts. Paragraph 30 quotes the 5 parts of step one. And paragraph 31 contains some additional explanations as to step one. This is how paragraphs 29 and 30 are normally interpreted:

29. Moral behaviour (yama) , interpersonal behaviour (niyama), poses (asana), breathing control (pranayama), sense retreat (pratiyahara), concentration (dharana), meditation (dhayana), and profound self-awareness (samadhi) – these are the 8 steps of Yoga.

30. Nonviolence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), nonstealing (asteya), chastity (brahmacharia) and non-greediness (aparigraha) constitute yama.

32. Purity (shaucha), content (santosha), asceticism (tapas), doctrine (svaadhyaaya) and devotion to God ( ishvarapranidhana) constitute niyama – interpersonal behaviour. It is obvious the person involved is required to perform certain behaviour roles.

And here is another option of the first two steps:

30. Yama – literally restraining, taming, controlling. The first article or anga from the octuple way Patanjali propagates. It includes the moral norms that are the foundation of spirituality. According  to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras  they are five in number :  I. Ahimsa , non – hurting; II. Satya – verity; III. Asteya – restraining avarice; IV. Brahmacharya – chastity; V. Aparigraha – non receiving  of anything by anybody.

32. Niyama – literally restrain, limitation, control. The second article, anga , from the octuple way propagated by Patanjali. It consists of 5 practices : I. Shaucha – purity ( internal and external);

II. Santosha , satisfaction; III. Tapas ,asceticism; IV. Svadhyaya , learning;  V. Ishvara – pranidhana, devotion to God.

My attention  was drawn by  the imposition of certain rules with the first step. But let us start with NONVIOLENCE. This is such an unclear word. Its precise meaning is not to use any force. But there is nothing in the universe that can exist without using force/strength. We use strength in order to breathe. We need strength to be able to eat,  to chew our food. Not to mention everything else. Had interpreters had another meaning in mind they should have mentioned it instead of nonviolence. When I first altered the text I replaced nonviolence with nondamage. And I think this already  had a clear meaning. Using strehght but at the same time not causing any damage to anybody is something totally different. And still nondamage is not the right word that should be there – but I will come back to that point later on.

Using the word nondamage makes the following words – veracity, nonstealing and nongreediness unnecessary; simply because both stealing and lying cause damages, and greediness leads to stealing and lying. Hence nondamage summarizes all three words.

Truthfulness is SATYA , which comes out of SAT – reality,actuality.AS to chastity – brahmacharya – I can say that it consists of two words; brahma – translated as absolute, overall,  and charya – translated as learning, pursuing.

The last one is PARI GRAHA . PARI has the meaning of accumulation, acceptance,preparation. There are three words in paragraph 41 – part 1 – GRAHITR, GRAHANA and GRAHJE that should have a similar meaning to GRAHA. But what hey actually mean there is – subject of cognotion, object of cognition and the very act of cognition. Where is cognition where is greediness? Words having common roots have nothing in common ! And this is valid for  a language dating back to thousands of years ago, when there wasn’t such a variety of sensible and senseless  words as there is  in modern languages!

So I came to the conclusion that the five words that had been used were misleading. Maybe that was done on purpose aiming at concealing the real meaning of the text.

This is still to be investigated.

So we are moving ahead towards the second step and its five parts.

First is purity. But what kind of purity are we talking about? If it is a matter of external cleanliness it seems you have to stop causing harm, stop stealing , lying or having sexual intercourse in order to start bathing yourself. Or if it is a matter of internal, mental purity  then a person who does not steal, cause harm, lie or show greediness can be considered to be a clean one.So there are things that are strangely doubling themselves and intertwining in these two steps.

I have always wondered – what is the point of that contentment? Should a person pretend to be content, if he is not? Isn’t this  self deception? And if you are content with everything then why should you change and free yourself?

Asceticism usually means imposing limitations, suppressing your own self. I can not understand why this word is to be found here if there are five parts of the first step and the precedent two of the second ster. After you have adopted the seven limitations what should you impose upon? And isn’t this asceticism a violation of the principle of non-harming ?

Doctrine ( svaadhjaja) is not  a very good interpretation. Some translations use the word self knowledge which is slightly  more precise but it is not the correct one either. The parts constituting the word are SVA –own,personal,own self and DHJAAJA  which has a similar meaning with another word from the text – DHJAANA. The presumable meanings of these words are : meditation, pondering, introspection,contemplation. I think the closest meaning of SVAADHJAAJA is introspection into your own self.

SHVARA  PRANI  DHAANAA – this is exactly how the word is being written – II have divided it into three separate words. SHVARA has been modified by interpreters into ISHVARA and they have interpreted it as God whom people should devote to. SHVARA is just a word and there are no names of people, gods or animals in the text. PRANI has a similar meaning to PRAANA ( the main means ), and

DHAANAA has a similar meaning to DHJAANA and DHJAAJAA. I have been interpreting this part since the very beginning as entering superlative alternative/love.

I have to mention that the majority of parts of the first and second steps are in fact the Rules of Djainism that should be strictly observed by every Djainist. Following these rules often led people to tormenting themselves turning their lives into suffering and agony. And this is violation of the first part – NON – HARMING.