Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Book IV · 30 of 34 · tr. Charles Johnston
Sutra 30
Thereon comes surcease from sorrow and the burden of toil. Such a one, it is said, is free from the bond of Karma, from the burden of toil, from that debt to works which comes from works done in self-love and desire. Free from self-will, he is free from sorrow, too, for sorrow comes from the fight of self-will against the divine will, through the correcting stress of the divine will, which seeks to counteract the evil wrought by disobedience. When the conflict with the divine will ceases, then sorrow ceases, and he who has grown into obedience, thereby enters into joy.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →Themes
Detachment Gelassenheitpraxis
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The passage explicitly states that freedom from self-will leads to freedom from sorrow and bondage, which is the core definition of radical letting-go.
All passages →Divine Providencetheology
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The text describes a 'correcting stress' and 'divine will' that actively seeks to counteract evil, indicating active divine ordering.
All passages →Evil As Privationtheology
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Evil is described as the result of disobedience and the absence of obedience to the divine will rather than a positive force.
All passages →Related passages · 7 parallels
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 85 (part 1)
“Section 10 10.
But if Matter is devoid of quality how can it be evil?
It is described as being devoid of quality in the sense only that it does not essentially possess any of the qualities which it admits and which enter into it as into a…”
Shared concept: Evil As Privation — Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 5, Section 1i
“364 The ultimate Godhead is reached only by the Negative Path, and known only by Unknowing.
The Affirmative Path of philosophical knowledge leads only to the differentiated manifestations of the Godhead: e.g.
the Trinity, in Its creative…”
Shared concept: Evil As Privation — Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 4, Section 1u
“For things of the same kind cannot 333 333 Exuberant vitality is per se a good thing and the more exuberant the better, though, like all good things, it is dangerous, and unless properly directed is disastrous.
be wholly contradictory to o…”
Shared concept: Evil As Privation — Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness. (derived)
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 80
“Section 5 5. But, it will be objected, if this seeing and frequenting of the darkness is due to the lack of good, the Soul's evil has its source in that very lack; the darkness will be merely a secondary cause- and at once the Principle of…”
Shared concept: Evil As Privation — Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness. (derived)
neoplatonism|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter XXVII-a
“Moreover, neither is it sufficient to assert, “ that nature, art, and the sympathy of things in the universe, as if they were the parts of one animal, contain premanifestations of certain 188 things with reference to each other; nor that bo…”
Shared concept: Divine Providence — Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Meister Eckhart's Sermons (Field translation)|PREFACE-a
““ Meister Eckhart ,” who has been called the “Father of German thought,” was a Dominican monk, and one of the most profound thinkers of the Middle Ages.
He was born about 1260 A.D.
in Thuringia, and died at Cologne 1327 A.D.
In 1295 he w…”
Shared concept: Detachment Gelassenheit — Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim. (derived)
renaissance_hermeticism|The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori)|Third Dialogue-b
“It is not a fury of black bile which sends him drifting outside of judgment, reason, and acts of prudence, and tossed by the discordant tempest, like those who, having violated certain laws of the divine Adrastia, are condemned to be scourg…”
Shared concept: Detachment Gelassenheit — Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim. (derived)