The Nine Obstacles — Antarayas
Patanjali lists nine obstacles that scatter and agitate the mind on the path of yoga: disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, craving, delusion, non-achievement, and instability.
Sutra 1.30 identifies nine obstacles (antarayas — 'that which stands across the path') that arise on the spiritual path: Vyadhi (disease), Styana (dullness, lack of motivation), Samsaya (doubt), Pramada (carelessness, heedlessness), Alasya (laziness), Avirati (craving for sense pleasure), Bhranti Darshana (false or confused perception), Alabdha Bhumikatva (non-achievement of samadhi states), and Anavasthitatvani (inability to maintain what has been achieved). Sutra 1.31 adds five accompanying symptoms of these obstacles: pain, depression, trembling of the body, disturbed inhalation, and disturbed exhalation. This comprehensive catalogue of spiritual obstacles is arguably the most psychologically sophisticated inventory of spiritual difficulties in any pre-modern text.
Disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, craving, delusion, non-achievement, and instability scatter the mind.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman's The Meditative Mind identifies Patanjali's antarayas as a remarkably accurate clinical taxonomy of the obstacles encountered in contemporary mindfulness-based interventions, confirming their practical relevance 2,000 years after their formulation.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
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- What the Yoga Sutras say about breath and pranayama
Among the signs that accompany a scattered mind, the text lists disturbed inhalation and exhalation. Breath is treated as a readout of the mind's state before it is treated as a lever on it.
- What the Yoga Sutras say about habit and discipline
Of the nine obstacles in 1.30, three are failures of discipline by name: styana (dullness), alasya (laziness), and anavasthitatva (inability to hold what has been gained). Sutra 1.31 adds their symptoms — pain, depression, trembling, disturbed breathing. The text expects you to lose ground and describes how it will feel.
- What the Yoga Sutras say about doubt
Sutra 1.30 places samshaya third among nine obstacles, alongside disease, laziness and craving. The company matters: doubt is grouped with physical and energetic conditions rather than with wrong opinions. Sutra 1.31 lists its symptoms as pain, depression, trembling, and disturbed breath.