Posture (Āsana)
'Steady and comfortable' — the settled seat that frees the mind to go deep.
Āsana is the yoga posture. For Patañjali it is simply the seat that is 'steady and comfortable' — a body settled enough that it no longer distracts the mind, the minimal physical basis for long meditation. Haṭha-yoga greatly expanded this, describing many specific postures to discipline and purify the body before breath-control and meditation. The familiar modern image of yoga as a wealth of postures grows from this haṭha elaboration, far beyond Patañjali's single spare definition.
How it traveled
- Yoga-sūtraKāśī (Varanasi) · 375explains
- Haṭhayoga-pradīpikāKāśī (Varanasi) · 1450explains
- Gheraṇḍa-saṃhitāKāśī (Varanasi) · 1700explains
Key passages(11)
Having in a cleanly spot established his seat, firm, neither too high nor too low, made of a cloth, a skin, and Kusha-grass, arranged in consecution:
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If a wise man hold his body with its three erect parts (chest, neck, and head) even , and turn his senses with the mind towards the heart, he will then in the boat of Brahman cross all the torrents w
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