The Sanskrit for Patanjali's Yoga Sutras has existed unchanged for more than 2000 years. No authentic, accurate, and reliable translation of it exists. Purported 'translations' and interpretations do exist, but they are robustly entangled with and distorted by personal beliefs and the continually evolving accumulated teachings of religions and yoga cultures. This book is an unentangled personal translation using definitions contemporary with Patanjali. It includes detailed explanations of the differences between the original Yoga Sutras and eight 'Modern Yoga Sutras' books. The true sutras are, for example, non-religious, free of the mystical 'powers' orientation that flows through many of the books, and unencumbered by teachings of any modern yoga culture. The sutras of the original gravitate around a meditative core tied to interconnecting threads not known of today. Chapter One in this translation describes the nature of yoga, what it is and is not, its history and that of the underlying Samkhya philosophy, among other topics. Chapter Two presents the 196 translated sutras and uses captions to highlight the beauty and logic of their structural flow. Chapter Three explains each sutra in easy to understand terms. Volume 2 encourages and supports critique by describing the actual translation of each sutra and the comparative mistranslations in the Modern Yoga Sutras books.
