Patanjali is known as the father of modern yoga. It is not that he invented yoga, he assimilated it into a system. It was already there in various forms and he put it down into a kind of formula called sutras. There are over two hundred different sutras. The yoga sutras are a tremendous document about life. It is unbelievable that one human being could have had this much understanding about life. The vastness of his understanding is simply incredible. Today’s scholars argue that this is not one man’s work; many people must have worked to make this happen because it is so big that it cannot fit into one man’s intellect. But it is one man’s work. Patanjali is probably one of the greatest intellects ever on this planet.

The yoga sutras are probably the greatest document on life and the most uninteresting book on the planet. Patanjali wrote it like this intentionally because the idea is that this is a formula to open up life. He did not want it to become a philosophy. And his mastery over language was such that he wrote it in the form of formulas, in such a way that no scholar would ever be interested in it. It is most uninteresting but if one sutra becomes a reality within you, it will explode you into a completely new dimension of experience. If you read one and make it true in your life, that’s all; you don’t have to read all the two hundred sutras.

Patanjali starts these yoga sutras in a very strange way. The first sutra is just this – ‘…and now, yoga.’ That half a sentence is one chapter of the yoga sutras. It is a very strange way to start a book of that dimension. Intellectually, it does not make any sense, but experientially what it is saying is: “if you still believe that building a new house, or finding a new wife, or getting your daughter married will settle your life, it is not yet time for yoga. But, if you have seen money, power, wealth and pleasure, you have tasted everything in your life and you have realized that nothing is going to work in the real sense and fulfil you ultimately, then it is time for yoga.”

All the nonsense that the whole world is involved in, Patanjali just brushes it aside with half a sentence. This is why the first sutra is “…and now, yoga.” That means, you know nothing works and you do not have a clue about what the hell this is; the pain of ignorance is tearing you apart. Now, yoga. Now there is a way to know.

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