#170 RIP to the Beings Army: When Patanjali Meets Divine Manifestation
Rewriting my understanding of Yoga Sutras Chapter 4 (and how every person on our path might just be a karmic creation)
There’s a very strange chunk of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras in Chapter 4.
I’ve spent the last five years immersed in studying and teaching this text - and every time I think I’ve “got it,” it shifts again.
The Journey Through the Chapters
Chapter One is about the mind — how it works, how to calm it, and the journey toward Kaivalya, liberation from the birth–death cycle.
Chapter Two is practical. It’s about how to resolve suffering — through understanding its causes, practicing the first five limbs of yoga, and learning about “Earth School,” where our souls are reborn to evolve toward freedom. It then teaches the first five limbs of the eight limbs of yoga.
Chapter Three dives deep into meditation — the triad of Samyama (concentration, meditation, samadhi), the transformations (parinamas) of the mind, and the siddhis (superpowers) that arise with mastery.
Then comes Chapter Four.
For years, I resisted it. Mostly because of one weird section at the start — the one I used to call “The Beings Army.”
My Old Explanation (and Why It Confused Everyone)
Every time I got to this part in class, I’d say:
“Okay, bear with me — it’s about to get weird. You’re basically God, creating a beings army to use up your karma.”
Cue blank stares and lots of laughs.
This idea came from a series of sutras:
4.2 Jaty-antara-parinamah prakrty-apurat
As material nature changes, we take birth by pouring into new forms.4.3 Nimittam-aprayojakam prakrtinam-varana-bhedastu tatah ksetrikavat
The cause of creation is not the individual; they’re like a farmer who merely pierces the soil.4.4 Nirmana-cittany-asmita-matrat
Minds are created only from ego.4.5 Pravrtti-bhede prayojakam cittam-ekam-anekesam
One mind among many directs their different activities.
I’d explain that we “create beings” from our karma — then quickly move on.
The Shift: From “Beings Army” to Divine Manifestation
After teaching this section twenty times, a student asked a question that completely changed my perspective.
She connected it to something we all intuitively know — that people come into our lives for a reason.
It reminded me of that song from Wicked:
“People come into our lives for a reason,
Bringing something we must learn…”
What if that’s what Patanjali meant?
What if these “beings” aren’t literal entities, but manifestations of consciousness — people our higher selves invite onto our timelines to help fulfill our karmic lessons?
Reinterpreting the Sutras
4.2 — As we resolve karma, new beings manifest to help us complete it.
4.3 — It’s not our ego creating them, but our higher self orchestrating it.
4.4 — Some beings may not have their own enduring soul-purpose; they exist just long enough to deliver a lesson for our soul to learn.
4.5 — One higher consciousness directs the whole show.
Our higher selves are the divine directors behind the curtain.
When Life Aligns with Karma
A perfect example: I turned down my postgraduate yoga degree in India starting this September at Kaivalyadham because I couldn’t bring my cat — and I had a 300-Hour YTT scheduled in Bali to teach.
A month later, the founder of Sky Yoga wandered into the retreat center where I was staying, read an article I wrote about Patanjali, and offered me a job. He was a graduate of Kaivalyadham - that same program I’d applied to. All of a sudden I was working with someone who had the depth of the knowledge I wanted to learn - and was teaching it. I’ve begun to learn much of what I wanted to learn there through osmosis.
And not only that, but this summer he brought over a professor from that exact school to teach philosophy - and I got to attend many of her classes.
Same teachings. Same street. No flight required.
Was that coincidence? Or my higher self manifesting a way to complete the same karma without leaving home?
The Bigger Picture: Lessons in Disguise
Even the hardest experiences start to look different through this lens.
My breakdown in 2017 forced me to leave Kuwait. Maybe my ex-husband’s role was to catalyze that shift - to push me out once my karma there was complete.
Or take the couple I met on a flight from Goa to Delhi. I was distraught after a retreat disaster; they connected me to a new travel company that ran a fantastic India retreat for me last year, and is leading my retreat in India again next year.
I never saw them again.
Were they real people, or brief manifestations sent to reroute me?
The Painful Teachers
Not every “being” brings bliss.
February’s assault changed my life’s direction - it pushed me to leave Uluwatu for good. It catalyzed a pivot back to Ubud - that my soul might have already been planning.
My ex in 2019 isolated me so much that when he fired me, I had no choice but to start my own business.
My most recent partner taught me meditation — and boundaries — by forcing me to practice both.
Each one was a karmic mirror, showing me what I needed to see.
Realizing It’s All a Play
Now, when my mind starts to loop on the past, I remind myself:
“That being appeared on my timeline to teach me that exact lesson.”
This year has been all about boundaries, self-care, and remembering that ultimately — it’s all a play.
We are purusha — the witness — watching prakriti perform her ever-changing roles.
It’s like Broadway: each of us sitting in our own theatre, watching the evolution of consciousness unfold on stage.
One day the curtain on our show lifts and we realize,
“Wow… it’s all just a show.”
And though we want to run into every theatre shouting,
“Wake up! It’s not real!”
We can’t.
Everyone wakes up in their own time.
RIP to the Beings Army
So yesterday, as I rode my motorbike through Bali after this class, I laughed out loud:
“RIP to the Beings Army.”
All those years teaching that old interpretation — gone.
Because once again, my students became my teachers.
I’m endlessly grateful to walk this path beside them.
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