A splendid work by the youthful scholar - Rated 
This is one of Feuerstein's earliest works, written in the late seventies when he was around thirty years old. It is a young scholar's book, marked by impatience with the scholarly establishment's misconceptions and errors, and filled enthusiasm for setting the old guys aright. It is vigorously pedantic and refreshingly candid.
Inspired by the great Romanian scholar Mircea Eliade, who, in his monumental Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (1958) (see my review at Amazon), set the standard for all scholarly works on yoga, Feuerstein translates the most important Sanskrit word in Patanjali's scheme, "samadhi" as "enstasy," eschewing the usual and inadequate "ecstasy." Enstasy was Eliade's coinage. Both he and Feuerstein were understandably dissatisfied with "ecstasy" since it does not adequately convey the complex meaning of samadhi. Unfortunately neither does enstasy, and worse yet, the word is practically unknown in English. Webster's Unabridged Second International Dictionary, which was the standard at the time, doesn't even list it.
The solution of course is to avoid any attempt at a direct word-for-word translation of "samadhi" and instead allow the context to define it. That is the usual practice today. I make this point because I think it illustrates the kind of mistake that Feuerstein, who has gone on to become perhaps the world's leading academic authority on yoga, would not make today. Indeed in his The Shambhala Encyclopedia of Yoga (1997), relying upon a number of different yogic traditions, Feuerstein defines "samadhi" using various modifications and qualifications of "ecstasy" and does not employ the word "enstasy" at all.
Also of interest is Feuerstein's use of the esoteric word "nescience" for the Sanskrit "avidya" when the simple "ignorance" would seem to do as well. I hasten to add however that Feuerstein even then was an accomplished scholar, and perhaps his usage is necessary, although I believe "nescience" would be better employed as a translation of "ajnana" and not "avidya" in most cases.
Samadhi in its various forms is the goal and raison d'être of yoga with the understanding that in samadhi is liberation ("moksha") and freedom from samsara and what the Buddha termed the "unsatisfactoriness" of life. Samadhi is also understood as meditation itself or (from Ernest Wood) "contemplation." The full truth is that samadhi cannot really be defined. It can only be experienced. And that will come only with time, effort and practice--which is what Patanjali's yoga is all about.
Feuerstein knows yoga the way a mother knows her child--that is, thoroughly with love and devotion. So it is noteworthy that he calls Patanjali's yoga "Classical Yoga" and identifies it as one of several yogic approaches to God-realization. See his Yoga, The Technology of Ecstasy (1989) for a thorough exploration, and see especially page 40 where he presents "the wheel of Yoga" with eight yogas such as karma yoga, bhakti yoga, etc., leading to transcendence.
Significantly Feuerstein makes a distinction between what he calls "kriya yoga" and the eight limbs of yoga usually associated with Patanjali. This is curious because it is this asta-anga yoga that is celebrated today as being the essence of Patanjali's yoga and is the basis for the practice of hatha and raja yoga. The famous eight limbs are yama (abstentions); niyama (observances)--these first two are the moral commandments of yoga--asana (posture); pranayama (breath control); pratyahara (sense withdrawal); dharana (concentration); dhyana (meditation); and samadhi (contemplation). The first five are usually thought of as part of the hatha yoga practice leading to the final three as the essence of raja yoga. Feuerstein believes that the second chapter of the sutra (Sadhana-Pada) "is a composite of two independent traditions, viz. the Kriya-Yoga of Patanjali and the asta-anga-yoga of whose systematic model Patanjali availed himself." (p. 59) Contrary to what some other commentators and translators believe, Feuerstein asserts that one of the central ideas of the sutra, that of devotion to God (Isvara), which he sees as part of Kriya-Yoga, is part of Patanjali's expression and not an interpolation. This is an important point since without such an expression, Patanjali's yoga can be seen as purely secular without the need of God for deliverance.
Since there are many translations and commentaries on Patanjali's famous aphorisms, the question arises, what is the value of Feuerstein's book in relation to the others? I have read and studied several, and have to say that I would not recommend Feuerstein's work for the beginner nor would I recommend it as the exclusive source. The great value of this youthful work is in its thoroughness of approach. Feuerstein not only defines each word in the text, he explains each aphorism, some in considerable depth, while sometimes haggling over which expression best conveys Patanjali's meaning. Additionally, the book contains a "continuous translation" sans commentary, a Sanskrit word index (unfortunately for me, at least, in Sanskrit alphabetical order!), an overview of topics discussed by Patanjali, a regular index, and a couple of introductory essays.
But the problem for the student is exactly this plethora of information. Consequently I would recommend that the reader begin with a simpler and more straightforward text such as that by Ernest Wood, or Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, or Shree Purohit Swami (with help from the poet W.B. Yeats), or some others, and after a first reading then use Feuerstein's book as an aid to study.
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