KARMADOGG: Sutra 2,42: Santosha

Yoga Sutra 2,42

santosha anuttamah sukha labhah

• santosha = contentment
• anuttamah = unexcelled, extreme, supreme
• sukha = pleasure, happiness, comfort, joy, satisfaction
• labhah = is acquired, attained, gained

From an attitude of contentment (santosha), unexcelled happiness, mental comfort, joy and satisfaction is obtained.

Santosha means being content without looking to outside things to provide happiness. Some may think that being content means forcing oneself to accept what they can't control. But that is not santosha. Santosha is a genuine and all-pervading feeling of peace with whatever “is" at the moment. In other words, santosha is not a fatalistic attitude, but an opening up to the continuous experience of life and trying to best act in every moment – given our circumstances.

In working to develop santosha, we try and identify our personal 'likes' and 'dislikes,' and then to retreat from these attitudes as we recognize they are only shadows of self-grasping Ego: seeds of ignorance that will cause us suffering if left to grow to thought ---> then thought leads to action ---> and onward to shape our destiny.

Thus, the second niyama, the yogic virtue of santosha, is based on a "perfect indifference" to all the personal enjoyments, comforts, distresses and other influences that sway humankind. It is the attainment of a sense of peace which rises beyond the realm of the transient, material world and rides the waves of its events with equanimity.

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