Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Book II · 53 of 55 · tr. Charles Johnston
Sutra 53
Thence comes the mind's power to hold itself in the light. It has been well said, that what we most need is the faculty of spiritual attention; and in the same direction of thought it has been eloquently declared that prayer does not consist in our catching God's attention, but rather in our allowing God to hold our attention. The vital matter is, that we need to disentangle our consciousness from the noisy and perturbed thraldom of the psychical, and to come to consciousness as the spiritual man. This we must do, first, by purification, through the Commandments and the Rules; and, second, through the faculty of spiritual attention, by steadily heeding endless fine intimations of the spiritual power within us, and by intending our consciousness thereto; thus by degrees transferring the centre of consciousness from the psychical to the spiritual. It is a question, first, of love, and then of attention.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →Themes
Meditationpraxis
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The passage explicitly discusses the 'faculty of spiritual attention' and heeding intimations as a practice to transfer consciousness.
All passages →Prayerpraxis
Direct address to the divine, whether petitionary, contemplative, or liturgical; speech and silence offered upward.
The passage centrally discusses prayer as a practice that consists of allowing God to hold attention rather than catching it.
All passages →Ritual Puritypraxis
The maintenance of a state of cleanliness—physical, moral, or spiritual—required for encounter with the divine.
Purification through Commandments and Rules is listed as a necessary first step toward liberation.
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