| Sumario: | The Yogasūtra of Patañjali subscribes to the incompatibility of action and liberation, understanding as liberating the inner movement of consciousness (nivṛtti) as opposed to its outer movement (pravṛtti) associated with saṃsāra. Drawing on contemporary thinkers such as Krishnachandra Bhattacharya, Daya Krishna or Daniel Raveh, as well as Western philosophical anthropology, I ask in this essay what either of these two movements would liberate us from if they were to become irreversible and absolute. Given our condition as “paradoxical animals”, how to explain an idea of “freedom” based on the isolation of all that makes us humans? Is it not because of pravṛtti that Patañjali was able to transmit through language aphorisms that invite us to the perfect stillness of the mind?
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