The Truth of the Yoga Sūtras and the Bhagavad Gītā

This article offers a non-dual (Advaita) reading of the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali and the Bhagavad Gītā. Rather than treating these texts as fundamentally dualist, it explores the possibility that they point toward the recognition of unity.

Home / The Satsang blog

A Possible Non-Dual Reading

Summary : This article offers a non-dual (Advaita) reading of the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali and the Bhagavad Gītā. Rather than treating these texts as fundamentally dualist, it explores the possibility that they point toward the recognition of unity.

Drawing on the polysemy of Sanskrit, it shows that key notions such as the seer (puruṣa), the seen (dṛśya), the mind (citta), and liberation (kaivalya) may be understood not as real separations, but as functional tools within the path of practice.

This perspective invites a different reading: not as fixed philosophical systems, but as experiential paths, in which duality subsides, revealing a unity that has always been present.

Text

An Illusion Masking Unity

What if the dualist reading of the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali and the Bhagavad Gītā were not a definitive truth, but simply one way of reading among others, masking a more fundamental unity?

Advaita Vedānta, rooted in the Upaniṣads, affirms the identity of Ātman (the Self) and Brahman (the absolute reality). This non-dual perspective does not present itself as a late construction, but as one of the major orientations of Indian thought, unfolding across centuries in various forms.

Yet the Yoga Sūtras and the Gītā are most often read through interpretive frameworks in which duality — between the seer and the seen, between consciousness and nature — plays a structuring role. These readings, particularly those stemming from traditions such as Sāṃkhya and classical commentaries, have deeply shaped their understanding.

Without dismissing them, another approach may be considered.

The polysemy of Sanskrit, along with the concision of the texts, allows for multiple coherent readings. Depending on the orientation adopted, the distinctions expressed may be understood as ontological separations, or as functional markers serving a process of recognition.

This article proposes to explore this second possibility: to read the Yoga Sūtras and the Bhagavad Gītā from a perspective oriented toward unity, not in opposition to classical interpretations, but by shifting the point of view.

The Vedic Roots of Unity

The Upaniṣads repeatedly affirm the identity of Ātman and Brahman. In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (6.8.7), the formula “Tat Tvam Asi” — “Thou art That” — expresses this non-duality directly.

This orientation does not deny the experience of multiplicity, but questions its status. What appears as separation may be understood as a construction linked to perception, rather than as a real division of being.

In certain readings, this apparent duality is described as māyā, not as a non-existent illusion, but as an interpretation of reality. It may also be evoked, in more symbolic language, as Līlā, a play of manifestation, without necessarily implying a theistic framework.

The Yoga Sūtras: A Possible Reading

The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali are often interpreted within a dualist framework, particularly because of the distinction between puruṣa (the seer) and dṛśya (the seen). This reading, widely developed in traditional commentaries, remains coherent and structured.

However, the text itself, by its brevity and density, does not explicitly impose a systematic ontology.

Let us consider a few sūtras.

Sūtra 1.2 — yogaḥ citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ — is generally understood as the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind. In the classical reading, citta refers to a psychic principle distinct from pure consciousness.

But if one takes into account the polysemy of the term, citta may also be understood as the field of conscious experience as it manifests. In that case, the cessation of vṛttis is not aimed at isolating a separate consciousness, but at clarifying this field until it is no longer fragmented.

Similarly, sūtra 2.17 — draṣṭṛ-dṛśyayoḥ saṃyogo heyahetuḥ — is often translated as the identification between the seer and the seen, the cause of suffering. The term saṃyoga may also be understood as a form of attachment or relational confusion, rather than an ontological union between two distinct entities.

From this perspective, suffering does not arise from a real contact between two separate principles, but from a mode of perception that sustains this separation.

Sūtra 2.23 — sva-svāmi-śaktyoḥ svarūpopalabdhi-hetuḥ saṃyogaḥ may then be read not as the description of a real relation to be dissolved, but as a device of recognition.

Finally, sūtra 4.34 — kaivalya — often understood as isolation — may be approached differently: not as separation, but as an establishment in a recognized nature, free from the confusions that obscured it.

Thus, without contradicting classical readings, it becomes possible to reveal a non-dual coherence, in which distinctions serve the path, but do not define being.

The Gītā: Beyond Apparent Duality

The Bhagavad Gītā presents itself as a dialogue within the framework of the Mahābhārata. It stages apparent tensions: to act or to renounce, to engage or to detach.

But these oppositions are gradually transcended.

When Kṛṣṇa declares, “He who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me” (6.30), he is not offering an intellectual synthesis, but a unified vision in which separation no longer structures perception.

Action itself is no longer in opposition to knowledge. It becomes the expression of an understanding in which subject and object no longer stand apart in any absolute way.

Another Way of Reading

Dualist frameworks have played an important role in the transmission and structuring of these texts. They provide coherence and method.

But they may not be the only possible approach.

By returning to the text, taking into account the polysemy of Sanskrit, and suspending pre-established interpretive frameworks, another reading may emerge. In this reading, duality is no longer a structure of reality, but a provisional tool.

What is distinguished at the beginning of the path may no longer be so at its end.

Conclusion

The Yoga Sūtras and the Bhagavad Gītā may be read either as texts describing a separation to be resolved, or as paths leading to the recognition of an already-present unity.

In this second perspective, practice does not aim to produce unity, but to dissolve what obscures its obviousness.

As the fluctuations subside, what appeared as two may be recognized as one. And what was sought as an attainment is then revealed as that which has never ceased to be.

If you have any questions, please write here:

madhyama.marga@gmail.com