Insights into Yoga Sutra Aphorism I.2

Already in the second aphorism of the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali lays out for us what Yoga is. It literally translates as "The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga." Yoga is a concentrated effort designed to bring the practitioner to stop identifying with the Ego, thereby eliminating one's false sense of self which is based on forms and identification with things. Through this elimination, the practitioner is better able to realize that he/she is not separate from the true Self (the formless consciousness beyond the Ego - that part of us that cannot be conceptually defined).

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