I.33 maitrī-karuṇā-muditopekṣāṇām sukha-duḥkha-puṇyāpuṇya-viṣayāṇāṁ bhāvanātaś citta-prasādhanam.
Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice respectively, the consciousness becomes favourably disposed, serene and benevolent.
[B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sūtras in Popsi Narasimhan p. 24]
By cultivating an attitude of friendship toward those who are happy, compassion toward those in distress, joy toward those who are virtuous, and equanimity toward those who are nonvirtuous, lucidity arises in the mind.
[Edwin Bryant in Popsi Narasimhan p. 24]
I.33 is perhaps one the best known sūtras in the whole of the Yoga Sūtras. Patañjali offers us this sūtra as a way of countering the obstacles that we will likely face in our yoga practice. This sūtra, however, has a scope that goes beyond its usefulness for overcoming obstacles in our practice. When paired with the ethical principles (yamas), I.33 gives us a blueprint for applying the principles of yoga to our social interactions.
Four locks and keys
I.33 gives us four pairings, four respective ways to respond to four different groups of individuals: friendliness toward those who are happy, compassion toward those in distress, joy toward those who are virtuous and equanimity toward those who are non-virtuous. Swāmi Satchidānanda (1914-2002) characterized these four pairings as the four locks and keys. The idea of a lock is that the emotional state of another can lock us into an unhealthy frame of mind. We can become jealous, for example, when we encounter someone enjoying great success. The key to unlock such an unhealthy emotional state in this case would be the cultivation of joyfulness (muditā) toward that person.
Psychology of I.33
I.33 gives a good illustration of the overall psychology that Patañjali lays out in the Yoga Sūtras. We know that ignorance (avidyā), the root cause of human suffering, manifests largely as egoism (asmitā), the strong tendency we have to misidentify with our ego self. This is the reason why emotions such as envy, anger, etc. are so harmful from a yogic point of view. They not only spring from the ego, but in turn, reinforce our identification with the ego. Jealousy occurs because we desire something that someone else possesses. Such a desire is rooted in a sense of our own inadequacy, which arises because we mistakenly believe that our identity resides in our ego self. Jealousy focuses our attention on the imperfections of the ego self, distracting us from that deeper Self which lacks nothing.
Upekṣa
In I.33, upekṣa is given as the appropriate yogic response toward those who are without virtue, or more plainly stated, those whom we think of as propagating evil. “Upekṣa” is most commonly translated as either “indifference” or “equanimity.” This pairing is perhaps the most challenging of the four. We can easily understand why compassion is chosen as the response to suffering, for example, but it is less easy to understand why we are being asked to respond to evil with equanimity or indifference.
Indifference
Indifference is sometimes defined as an absence of compulsion towards one thing over another—for example, tea versus coffee or good versus bad. The very structure of I.33, however, speaks against being indifferent to whether something is good or evil. Upekṣa is the response that Patañjali advocates in the face of evil, not when faced with a choice between good and evil. Patañjali is not attempting here to undermine the reality of the distinction between good and evil. Indifference in the face of a choice between good and evil would amount to callousness and a lack of moral compass. Indifference is also commonly understood to mean a lack of interest or concern for something. One possible (and worrying) reading might be that we need not care about or concern ourselves with evil, that we should not allow evil in the world to distract us from our own spiritual quest. If we situate I.33 in the broader context of Patañjali’s ethical teachings, however, it is clear that he does not advocate that we turn a blind eye in the face of wrongdoing. Having cleared up possible misconceptions, we can now examine why Patañjali teaches us to respond to evil with upekṣa.
Equanimity
In asking us to face evil with upekṣa, Patañjali is asking is to maintain our composure in the face of difficult situations. We can best see the wisdom of this by comparing it to other potential options that are available to us. The emotion of anger ranks high as an appropriate response. If we see someone committing an evil act, then it might seem as though our very humanity requires us to be angry rather than equanimous. In II. 34, however, Patañjali gives anger (krodha) as one of the leading causes of violence towards others. This is the problem with anger—it so easily spirals into violence, causing harm to all concerned. Violence is rarely a solution to a problem and often makes an already difficult situation worse. Anger is often premature, springing from egoism and ignorance of the big picture. For example, we can misread a situation and be quick to anger if we always take things personally, as in a situation of a driver who cuts us off and speeds away in front of us. We can easily see this as a personal affront and cultivate an anger towards that person. We have no idea, though, what is occurring in that person’s life.
We often speak of “righteous anger” as distinct from just plain old anger. We may feel angry because of people going hungry or because of mass incarceration, for example. Surely such anger is justified, we may argue—we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t feel anger at such things. Yet even righteous anger is rarely sufficient on its own and should not be viewed as an adequate and sole response to evil. If this is our sole response, it may be that we are just trying to assure ourselves of our own moral sensitivity, and we can lapse into self-indulgence.
Righteous anger is therefore properly viewed as a stepping stone to action. It might be that righteous anger prompts us to take the necessary action, and hence it can play a valuable role, but it could be argued that we don’t need anger to prompt us to act in the right way. Furthermore, we make better decisions once we move past our initial anger. Emotions such as anger and fear hinder us from carefully assessing any given situation.
Perhaps the strongest argument for upekṣa is that it is the guardian of friendliness, compassion and joy, the other three emotions mentioned in this sūtra. Upekṣa is distinct among the four emotions listed in I.33. Rather than being thought of as a fourth emotion, it is best understood as a nutrient in which to cultivate the other three. In arguing for upekṣa in the face of evil, Patañjali is not counseling inaction, but rather, effective action.
Summary
This past year has been challenging on many fronts, and we can become consumed with the constant stream of bad news. It is all too easy to feel angry and hopeless in the face of so much that is wrong with this world. In I.33 Patañjali is not teaching us to ignore wrongdoing. Instead, he advocates that we respond with composure. This will give us a clarity of vision and action, directing our emotional energy away from emotions that threaten to engulf us and distance us from our deeper Self. In doing so, we can become a force for positive change in the world.
References and Further Study
B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life (Rodale, 2005), especially Chapter Three
Popsi Narasimhan, The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali: An Anthology of Translations (popsi narasimhan, 2018)
