Book Three of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is quite difficult for me. Actually, it is excruciating. Most of it deals with accomplishments or powers that have to do with either understanding or controlling everything under the sun. Namely, a potent blend of concentration, meditation, and enlightenment can make you invisible, for example. It can make you levitate. It can also let you enter the body of others. It can even make you read the mind of others. Perhaps more important, it can give you the knowledge of the past and the future. Sutra after sutra, these accomplishments or powers are listed one after another. After a while, the enumeration becomes both tiresome and annoying. Enough! But then comes a sutra that is rather surprising. Out of the blue, it offers welcome relief. Depending on the translation I have at hand, this is Sutra 36, 37, or 38 of Book Three. It says that all these accomplishments or powers are ultimately obstacles to real or “seedless” enlightenment. “Good boy,” I feel like patting Patanjali on the shoulder, “screw accomplishments or powers!” After all, I am after real enlightenment only.