1.33 maitrī-karuņā-muditā-upekșāņām sukha-duhkĦa-puņya-apuņya-vișyāņām bhāvanātaś-citta-prasādanam
Translation and Interpretation:
Feuerstein translates this as, "The projection of friendliness, compassion, gladness and equanimity, towards objects--[be they] joyful, sorrowful, meritorious or demeritorious--[bring about] the pacification of the conciousness."
Given its obscene ill use by masters of war from Vietnam to present, the English word "pacification" might have bad connotations here. The sanskrit "prasādana" is made by "pra" plus the verb for "to sit" ("<sād"). So "citta-prasādanam" literally means something like sitting down of consciousness. This leads Sudarsha to translate the sutra as, "prasādana, calming, settling citta [is as follows]: (you can) radiate friendliness, compassion, delight [or] equanimity toward good/bad, distress/pleasure."
The folks at Himalaya Esoteric Spiritual University defend the claim that this sutra is the fundamental one concerning the ethics of yoga. They explicate the relevant Sanskrit terms in the following manner:
maitrī - benevolence, friendship, loving kindness, liking, love;
karuņā - sympathy, compassion, pity, empathy;
muditā - satisfaction, enjoyment, joy, integrity;
upekșā - impartiality, tolerance, indifference, neutrality, tranquillity
citta-prasādanam - a state of purified or silenced consciousness (citta, the Consciousness (of the body, mind, and heart) remains in the state
of eternal (PRA) being (SD), which is immeasurable purity, eternal tranquillity (prasādana), or the vibration/energy of the name (NAM) of eternal silence or being (prasād).
Ties to Christianity:
The connections are clear. Not only is the yogin to (1) be friendly (everyone brothers and sisters), compassionate (as the Samaritan), joyful (water into wine, fellowship, the kingdom at hand), and tolerant (judge not lest ye be judged, forgive trespassors, dine and celebrate with those different (and this includes class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and religion) than you), but she is also to (2) manifest these traits towards all things, including sorrowful and demeritorious, objects (love your enemy). (3) Likewise, the peace that is promised is indistinguishable from the what Christians in the contemplative tradition hold to be the case when people are receptive to God and heaven and earth overlap.
Implications for practice:
Interestingly, in Jois' ashtanga (from așţa = eight, ańga = members or limbs) vinyasa (linking asanas (poses) together in a graceful flow) yoga (I highly recommend David Swenson's fantastic book and DVD, albeit they must not substitution for taking classes with actual teachers), all positions involve holds that last for multiples of five inhalation-exhalation pairs. And you start your morning practice with five A sunrise salutations and five B sunrise salutatations. At this point in my practice, I find that a really good way to take enough time with each breath (and to get the most out of greeting the sun) is to meditate on the five terms above: (1) maitrī, (2) karuņā, (3) muditā, (4) upekșā, (5) citta-prasādanam. I don't just meditate on the terms but try to feel the meaning of each one. By doing this I not only control my breath better and take the time I need, but I come closer to embodying the liberatory promise of yoga. When you get to the fifth inhalation-exhalation or fifth sunrise salutation you can feel some of the peace that comes through embodying the first four virtues.
Further thoughts:
Sutra 3.23 will talk about the point where a yogin must constrain the first three sentiments above (Vyāsa argues that it does not apply to the fourth sentiment). This could be read as just the Aristotelian injunction not to overdo anything, but in the context of the surrounding sutras I think maybe the point is that very, very advanced yogins will transcend their attachments to everything, even ultimately their desire to transcend attachments. And this is another way in which yoga and Christianity overlap, while there are all sorts of things one should do to pursue liberation, in the end grace is still required. That yoga holds that grace is actual shows that it is not clearly "pessimistic" in a way that contradicts Christianity (unlike many Hindu philosophies, it also does not hold that the perceived world is illusory and false, and it is also mono-theistic; I like to think that natural science and the process theology tradition in Christianity explain the world from a point of view within time and yoga (and Kant and Schopenhauer) supplements this by showing what follows from the fact that "part" of us and the universe are outside of time). In any case, the paradoxical transcendence of all attachment is far down the road and something most of us will only have brief moments of in this lifetime.
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