The Four Means of Achieving Yoga — Alternative Paths
Sutra 1.20 lists five means for achieving the highest samadhi states: Shraddha (faith), Virya (energy/courage), Smriti (memory/mindfulness), Samadhi (absorption), and Prajna (wisdom) — offering multiple entry points into the yogic path.
Sutra 1.20 — 'shraddha virya smriti samadhi prajna purvakah itaresham' — describes the path of the ordinary practitioner who is not born with the spontaneous samadhi described in the previous sutra (1.19, for those who have cultivated yoga in previous lives). For everyone else, the path proceeds through five successive supports: Shraddha (faith/confidence — the orientation of the whole person toward the goal), Virya (energy, courage, vitality — the active force of practice), Smriti (mindfulness, memory — the capacity to remember the teaching and maintain awareness moment-to-moment), Samadhi (the natural arising of absorption from sustained practice), and Prajna (wisdom — the discriminative understanding that deepens through all the preceding). Each stage supports and generates the next: genuine faith generates the energy for practice; sustained practice generates mindfulness; mindfulness deepens into absorption; absorption produces wisdom. The path is not a single leap but a progressive, mutually-reinforcing cultivation of five interlocking capacities.
For others, the path proceeds through faith, energy, mindfulness, samadhi, and wisdom.
The Buddhist Five Spiritual Faculties (Panca Indriya) — Saddha (faith), Viriya (energy), Sati (mindfulness), Samadhi (concentration), and Panna (wisdom) — are virtually identical to Patanjali's five means in sutra 1.20, suggesting that both traditions discovered the same five interdependent capacities as the foundation of contemplative development through independent empirical investigation.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
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- What the Yoga Sutras say about doubt
Sutra 1.20 gives the ordinary practitioner five supports in order: shraddha, virya, smriti, samadhi, prajna. Faith stands first and wisdom last, so the tradition asks for provisional confidence before it offers any evidence. Anyone who requires proof at the outset is being told plainly that this path will not begin.