Ishvara Pranidhana — Surrender to the Divine (Yoga Sutras)
Ishvara Pranidhana — devotion to and surrender of all action to the sacred — appears three times in the Yoga Sutras as both Niyama and Kriya Yoga component, and is described as the most direct and complete path to samadhi.
Ishvara Pranidhana (Ishvara = Lord, Pranidhana = devotion, surrender, laying before) is the third element of Kriya Yoga (2.1), the fifth Niyama (2.45), and is separately introduced in 1.23 as a direct path to samadhi. Its threefold appearance emphasizes its centrality to Patanjali's system despite the system's primarily technical character. The Ishvara of Patanjali is rigorously defined: a special Purusha (consciousness) untouched by afflictions, actions, fruits, or samskaras; the supreme teacher; the source of the sacred sound Om. Surrender to this principle means releasing one's claim to be the agent and author of one's life and actions, offering all effort and its fruits to the sacred — which immediately dissolves the Asmita (ego-sense) that is the second klesha. The paradox: true surrender cannot be an act of the ego, yet the ego must make the first gesture.
Or samadhi is attained through devotion to Ishvara.
Bhakti scholar Barbara Stoler Miller notes that Patanjali's inclusion of Ishvara Pranidhana as a complete path alongside the eight-limbed technical system reflects the recognition, common to all Hindu philosophical schools, that devotional surrender bypasses the ego's resistance to transformation in ways that purely technical practice cannot.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali