Unlocking potential through purpose-driven focus
A different take on Yoga Sutra 1.2
This is the third installment in my series on applying the wisdom of the Yoga Sutra from a mother’s perspective.
Tell me: What’s your one thing that you’re integrating your life toward? Let me know in the comments below!
Focus: a practice and a state
Sutra 1.2: Yoga is the integration and channeling of the fluctuations of the mind.
~From Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra
Or:
Yoga is about focusing the mind on one thing.
The Yoga Sutra presents yoga as a practice with a single purpose: focusing your mind. As I continue to study, practice, and apply yogic wisdom in my life, I’m worrying less about stopping, perfecting, or transcending my mind’s fluctuations and leaning more into integration and channeling.
Sutra 1.2 defines yoga as both a practice and also a state of being. The “exercises” Patanjali offers in the Yoga Sutra are part of a process designed to help you achieve a focused state of mind. Yoga can be used both as a noun—the state of being you attain after practicing focus exercises—and also as a verb—the exercises you practice to achieve a focused state of being.
Looking beyond cessation
Most popular English translations of sutra 1.2 read something like:
Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.1
While cessation may be an accurate translation of the Sanskrit word nirodohah, the only way to stop the mind is to die. The Yoga Sutra is often criticized for not being a practical text because it was written for ascetics who wanted to transcend worldly existence. Transcendence doesn’t fit the needs of mothers.2 If yoga’s main goal is to stop the mind, there wouldn’t be much yoga around today—all the teachers would be dead. On the plus side, you’d be able to identify the charlatans right away.
Translating sutra 1.2 as “yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind" fails to leave room for the fact that yoga practice progresses gradually. I can’t tell you how many people tell me they can’t meditate because they can’t stop their thoughts—this misunderstanding of meditation prevents many people from trying. Turning off constant mental chatter is a daunting task. When you set aside the need to achieve perfection, integrating and channeling thoughts feels like a more gentle, attainable approach to developing focus.
Stuck in the mud
I have a hard time embodying the focus principle. My mind travels a million miles a minute, makes disparate connections, and has a proclivity for diving down information rabbit holes. The other day I started emptying the dishwasher, saw a toy lying on the ground and picked it up to put it away, got distracted by the laundry I forgot to put in the dryer, and started folding clothes to hang in the closet only to realize I was half-way done emptying the dishwasher. My mind operates like a bird stuck in a small cage, frantically trying to escape toward freedom.
At the same time, I often hear myself telling my children, “I can only do one thing at a time.” This slips out when I’m in the kitchen preparing a meal and my kids are demanding, “get me water, get me milk (in a cup with a cap), more snack, not that snack, cut up, no whole, can you get a game for me, I dropped something, I spilled my milk…”
Achieving a transcended state of being doesn’t serve me at this stage in my life. I need to be okay with being in the mud. A focused mind can also help you become more productive and efficient but I also don’t feel the need to maximize productivity and efficiency every day. What happened to just being without the need for achieving any measurable goal?
Purpose-driven focus
While achieving a perfected state of being doesn’t interest me, channeling and integrating my thoughts, daily activities, and life choices toward a focused purpose does resonate.
In Eastern thought your single purpose is called dharma. It’s a destiny you are born to fulfill. Something you can’t not do. It doesn’t have to become your profession or make you money. It doesn’t even have to be productive or efficient. It is why you’re excited to get out of bed in the morning.
Understanding your one core value, your single purpose, your dharma, can change how you choose to spend your time. Committing to your purpose will help you live a more sustainable, integrated, and fulfilling life. The key to sutra 1.2 is about learning how to focus…on your purpose.
How I’m embodying the focus principle
Family has always been my top core value, along with creative expression, freedom, and wellbeing. (See, I can’t just choose one!) My focus right now is figuring out how to integrate and channel yoga into my family life while still allowing space for creative expression and wellbeing. I don’t know for sure what integrated yogic motherhood with a creative writing side-hustle looks like, but Yoga for Women’s Wellbeing is an important piece. I’m okay not knowing the end result. As long as I’m integrating my values every day, I’m embodying sutra 1.2.
What’s your purpose?
So, what’s your one thing? What is your one core value you are building your life around? What is your single purpose in life? I don’t expect you to have a perfect answer right away. Reflect on these questions as you integrate and channel the pieces of your life toward purpose. Let go of achieving focused greatness. Instead, integrate, weave, channel, and flow each day toward meaning and purpose.
Tell me: What’s your one thing that you’re integrating your life toward? Let me know in the comments below!
A chance to connect in person
Speaking of focus, integration, and values, I’m co-leading an in-person Women’s Values workshop in Alexandria, VA with two wonderful therapists this January. We’ll move through exercises to help you better define your own values and how you can integrate them into your own life. Space is limited so sign up here soon if you’re in the DMV area and you’d like to spend a morning in supportive community.
If you’re interested in attending a workshop like this virtually, let me know!
Calling all maidens, mothers, crones, and matriarchs
You can get yoga practices and sutra translations anywhere. Yoga for Women’s Wellbeing is the only place where the content is designed specifically to hold space for women moving through the natural transitions of life—I’m looking at you maidens, mothers, crones, and matriarchs. This space provides support and inspiration for you during your messy moments and reminds you weekly that you are enough as you are. You are going to be okay. If you need that weekly boost, plus occasional practices to help you get out of your head and into your body, then this community is for you.
Become a paid subscriber today. Your wellbeing will thank you. 😊
I’m a fan of Chase Bossart’s thinking around how to translate Sutra 1.2, which is where I pull the integration/channeling interpretation. Bossart is influenced by his main teacher TKV Desikachar.
Okay, I admit transcending a whining toddler does sound pretty nice sometimes…