Ishvara

Īśvara derives from the root īś, 'to own, rule, or be master of.' It literally means 'lord' or 'ruler.' In yoga philosophy the word points to a supreme principle — the divine understood not chiefly as a maker of worlds, but as a perfect, unbound consciousness worthy of contemplation and surrender.

As the shortDefinition notes, īśvara is the divine principle to whom surrender (īśvara-praṇidhāna) is offered as a niyama. In Patañjali's system it is a distinctive kind of being: a special puruṣa, forever untouched by the afflictions, actions and their residues that entangle ordinary consciousness — flawless, and thus a fitting focus for devotion.

The Yoga Sūtras define īśvara (1.24) as a special puruṣa unstained by kleśas and karma, name it the teacher of even the earliest teachers (1.26), and give OM (praṇava) as its designator. Surrender to īśvara appears as a path in itself (1.23) and among the practices of kriyā-yoga (2.45).

In practice, īśvara-praṇidhāna means offering the fruits of your effort, and ultimately the sense of 'I' that grasps them, to something larger than the ego. For the devotional it is heartfelt love of the divine; for others, a loosening of self-will. Either way it steadies the mind and eases striving.

Īśvara in the Yoga Sūtras is easily misread as a Western-style creator God who fashions and judges the world. Patañjali's īśvara neither creates nor punishes; it is an ever-free, exemplary consciousness — an ideal to contemplate. Surrender here is a yogic method, and the schools of Indian thought vary widely on the divine.