**1) Describe how the second chapter of the Yoga Sutra fits into the flow of the four chapters or cornerstones of the sutra.** Each chapter of the Yoga Sutra takes us in a different way through the steps we need to take to fulfill our destiny in this life.  The first chapter, the “Chapter on Meditation,” describes the five paths or spiritual levels through which all people pass during their journey to perfection.  The second chapter, the “Chapter on the Way,” explains the four higher truths behind this journey, describing the actual chain of events by which pain begins and is stopped.  It then begins the ashta-anga, or eight limbs of yoga practice, and covers the five limbs which are more externally oriented.  This leads into the third chapter, the “Chapter on Practice,” which covers the three inner limbs, their practical applications, and the final results of the yoga journey: the four bodies.  The fourth chapter, the “Chapter on Total Purity,” discusses questions that come up about what actually happens within the mind as we pass through important milestones on the journey, such as the first perceptions of deceptive and ultimate reality, and the destruction of the karmic storehouse. **2) Give the Sanskrit name of the second chapter, give its root and some related English words, and explain its two meanings.** The Sanskrit name of the second chapter, the “Chapter on the Way,” is Sadhana Pada saxn pad.  “Sadhana” means a method, in particular a method to reach some goal.  “Pada” means a chapter, or one of four feet or cornerstones.  The Sanskrit word sadhana comes from the Sanskrit root √sidh, meaning “to succeed” or “to reach an intended goal.”  We find this root also in the personal name of the historical Buddha, Prince Siddhartha.  Here siddha means “attained” and artha means “the goal.”  In our western languages, this same root is found as sodo, meaning “to go or journey” to a place.  The initial s often drops out; we see the root in words like episode, method, exodus, and odometer.  In one sense, sadhana means that we will reach or make contact with people who have practiced yoga in the past, and attained its goal of becoming a divine being who can serve all other living creatures.  But it also means that we will reach them in the sense of becoming them, if we continue our own yoga practice well. **3) Give the Sanskrit root and some related English words for the Sanskrit word kriya; then explain what “kriya yoga” means specifically here in the Yoga Sutra.** The root for the word kriya in kriya yoga iKyya yaeg is √k«, “to do or make or grow.”  We find this root in the words karma, create, cereal (something grown), and crescent (a moon growing after the new moon).  (This is by the way why the c in several of these words is pronounced like a k.)  The second chapter of the Yoga Sutra is devoted to the first five of the eight limbs of yoga.  These are the limbs which are more outer or externally-oriented: more activities of body and speech than thoughts in the mind.  For Master Patanjali, and over thousands of years in the yoga and tantra traditions, kriya yoga has referred to those yogic practices which are more externally-oriented.  They are therefore an easier place for most people to start from in their practice. **4) What does Master Patanjali describe as the purpose of meditation?  How does this relate to the concept of “nirvana”?**  Master Patanjali states that the purpose of meditation is to “make our negative thoughts dwindle away.”  Now “nirvana” is actually defined not as some mindless or disembodied state, but actually the permanent end of all negative thoughts.  Stopping all our negative thoughts, such as anger, forever can only be done by grasping the real nature of our world.  That is, if we really understand for example that angry people we meet are coming from our own minds—from seeds that we planted when we were angry ourselves in the past—then we can gradually overcome anger forever.  Understanding this perfectly can only be done by seeing, in deep meditation, the truth of “emptiness”: the fact that nothing is coming from anyplace else but ourselves.  Therefore the immediate purpose of meditation is to stop our negative thoughts, forever. **5) Name the four higher truths; also explain why they are called “higher,” and give the Sanskrit word for this term.** The four higher truths are the truth of where pain comes from; the truth of pain; the truth of how to end pain; and the truth of the end of pain.  The word “higher” here in Sanskrit is arya AayR, which can mean to be in a physically or socially higher place.  It thus referred for example to a ruling tribe of people who invaded and conquered India some 4,000 years ago; the Vedas were their sacred books.  The word has of course also been used in a very unfortunate political sense in recent times.  In Indian philosophy, arya refers to someone who has directly perceived ultimate reality during deep meditation—again, something which is absolutely necessary to achieve our goals.  Just after seeing this reality, the arya perceives four high truths about life and our ultimate perfection.  They are thus called the four “arya” or “higher” truths.  This word in the term “four noble truths” has been translated mistakenly in the past as “noble.” **6) Master Patanjali says that ignorance is like a fertile field that allows all other negative thoughts to grow.  Describe why this is so.**  We can take for example why ignorance helps anger to grow.  Someone says something unkind to us.  Ignorance infects our mind very automatically and naturally, and so we look at the person, and believe that they are not something which is coming from us.  This then allows us to be angry with them, rather than addressing and correcting the problem of how we have created them. **7) Give the Sanskrit word for “ignorance,” explain its two parts, and give some related English words for each part. **  The Sanskrit word for “ignorance” is avidya Aiv*a.  The a at the beginning of the word indicates “not.”  This usage of a is found in English words such as atheist or apolitical.  The Sanskrit root √vid means “to know.”  We find it in the words Veda (a book of knowledge), video (knowing in the sense of seeing), and wisdom. **8) Name and briefly describe the four mental mistakes that we make, due to our ignorance.** We believe that things that cannot last—such as our life or our relationships—will last.  We believe that things which are unclean—such as a fashion model’s body, full of blood, guts, urine, and feces—are clean.  We believe that things which are unpleasant and which must bring us pain—such as a vacation—are pleasure.  And we believe that things which are not themselves—such as an angry person that we meet, who is actually being produced by our own minds—are themselves, in the sense of coming from their own side.  Ultimately all the other mistakes come from the last one. **9) Explain the role which ignorance plays at this point in the second chapter of the Yoga Sutra.**  Ignorance at this point refers to the first of five steps in the process of how pain begins.  It is the inborn form of ignorance which we carry with us into this life, within our own minds, as a seed.  This seed is possessed in the mind of every living being who takes birth into a world of pain such as our own.