Patanjali’s Yoga Sūtras 1–4

as Procedural Algorithm for the Emergence of Identifiable Realness

by The Druid Finn

 

Abstract

Traditional readings of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras (1.1–1.4) construe them as a psychological or spiritual discipline aimed at stilling the mind and attaining pure awareness. This paper proposes an alternative interpretation: the four sūtras encode, in highly compressed form, a universal procedural algorithm for the emergence of a selected identifiable unit of realness. Read in this way they anticipate both modern information theory and quantum process models of reality.

 

1. Introduction

The Yoga Sūtras open with four concise aphorisms (as abstract of the entire collection). Conventional exegesis interprets them in terms of meditative (rather than actual self-manifestation, hence self-help) practice: yoga is )indirectly defined as cessation of mental fluctuations (1.2), yielding abiding in one’s true nature (1.3), while failure to achieve this results in identification with the fluctuations themselves (1.4).
This paper proposes that, read procedurally, these verses describe not merely a mental discipline but a universal algorithm for how reality itself — at any scale, for instance, the individual jiva — emerges as discrete and identifiable.

 

2. Prior Interpretations

·         Classical commentators (Vyāsa, Vācaspati Miśra) treat the sūtras as psychology of cognition.

·         Modern scholars often translate them into frameworks of phenomenology, depth psychology, or mindfulness.

·         Contemporary process readings sometimes frame citta-vṛtti as information-processing or cognitive fluctuation.
Nowhere, however, are the four sūtras set treated as a generalizable procedural function, akin to a Universal Turing Machine, governing the emergence of a selected real identifiable unit.

 

3. Reinterpreting the Four Sūtras as Procedural Phases

Sūtra 1.1 – atha yoga-anuśāsanam
→ Now, the discipline of yoga.
Phase 1: Initialize the Procedure.
Begin the function whose goal is the emergence (as establishment, manifestation or embodiment) of a selected identifiable quantum of realness (viz. making a dream come true dream … and any dream will do).

Sūtra 1.2 – yogaḥ citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ
→ Yoga is cessation of fluctuations of mind.
Phase 2: Enable Coherence, meaning concentration
Suppress dispersion (or diffusion) and noise (meaning relativity); reduce, concentrate processing to single-minded (to absolute coherent but non-directed) observation (i.e. processing) (viz. achieve de-relativized, meaning absolute, meaning ‘one without a second’ focus).

Sūtra 1.3 – tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe avasthānam
→ Then the seer rests in its own form (nature).
Phase 3: Apply Coherent Processing.
The (cleansed of distraction, meaning ‘otherness’, thus fully concentrated) seer achieves maximum (innate) potential goal achievement capacity, hence survival adaptability (like a newly born).

Sūtra 1.4 – vṛtti-sārūpyam itaratra
→ At other times, conformity with fluctuations.
Phase 4: Become the Identified Real Unit.
Focus @1 (i.e. exclusively) on a selected goal-as-outcome (viz. a dream) and become it (viz. make it come true, thereby becoming true). If absolute coherence holds, the system self-represents as the real identifiable unit it has generated (viz. becoming the dream). If not, it drifts with fluctuations, unable to establish either identity or realness.

 

4. The Missing Function: Real-Making

While the four sūtras set implies the fundamental means of upgraded survival as unique life quantum (viz. jiva), it stops short of highlighting the discontinuous act of real-identity-making. In quantum terms, realness occurs through discrete contact — a strike event that confirms (vis. Particle-like expresses) existence. In procedural terms, this is the decisive step where (quantised) potential becomes (analogue) actual. Adding this as an implicit “fifth function” completes the algorithm.

 

5. Implications

·         Universal Survival Algorithm: The sūtras anticipate the sine qua non of all self-organising systems: initialize, cohere, contact, become.

·         Quantum Analogy: The algorithm mirrors photon behaviour — probability wave → collapse → discrete strike → observable realness.

·         Evolutionary Frame: Any organism survives by stabilising against noise, registering real contacts, and re-asserting identity across iterations.

·         Philosophical Bridge: The reading bridges classical Indian metaphysics with modern procedural ontologies (e.g., Universal Turing Machine, Nature Systems Theory).

 

6. Conclusion

The first four sūtras of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras can be reinterpreted as a compressed (survival subset) algorithm describing the universal procedure by which identity and realness, in other words, analogue existence in real time-space, emerge. This reframing shifts their significance beyond the selected domains of spiritual psychology, positioning them as an early articulation of the logic of survival and existence itself.

 

Addendum

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are a late, possible 4th century, instance (as compilation) as a wide variety of specifically selected self-help practices that originated some 500 BC with the emergence of Samkhya, Buddhist and Jain goal-and-or-self-perfection techniques. The self-help, meaning upgraded survival adaptation methods (as algorithms), are part of the DNA of all living systems at birth, hence natural. The individual elements of the survival algorithm, as procedure, are clearly described in order to raise them into awareness so that they can be systematically applied if and when the natural response, meaning the natural survival application is (culturally, meaning artificially) impaired. Or the (achievement) application is needed to support and sustain a particular belief system, or any other (hence arbitrary) natural or cultural goal.

 

Making Real = “Be what you will”

 

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