Birth
Born in Classical India
Little is known of his life beyond the work attributed to him. He compiled what others had practiced for centuries into a single thread of aphorisms.
Words
“Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of the mind.”
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Patanjali compiled the Yoga Sutras, 196 short aphorisms that systematize the philosophy and practice of yoga. Drawing on older traditions, he defined yoga as the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind. His eight-limbed path moves from ethical restraints through physical postures and breath control to progressively deeper states of meditation, culminating in samadhi, a state of complete absorption. The text is terse, almost mathematical. Centuries of commentary have grown around it.
