Connecting Yoga & Patanjali: Are the Posture Enough?

What did Patanjali have to say about the physical postures of yoga? Here is a  section of Pada II Sutra 29 as commented on by MSI:

Those who consider these to be the steps to Union observe that Ascendant Consciousness is at the end of the list and therefore conclude that the previous steps must be mastered first in order to reach the last. But to master any of these could easily require a lifetime of effort. To perfect postures, for example, means that one can hold any position or yogic asanas for at least three hours. All day could be spent in practicing physical yoga with very little achievement by the end. And when the program of evolution is believed to begin with the five observances, each of which must be flawlessly mastered before one graduates to the five actions, the whole life will be lost before one even begins the approach to the Ascendant.
On the other hand, if these eight are in fact developing simultaneously, then the more one experiences the Ascendant, the less stress is there in the body; therefore, the more effortlessly the postures are mastered. And similarly for each of the limbs. These are the qualities that mature simultaneously with Ascendant Consciousness. Or, if there must be a starting point, then the starting point must be Ascendant Consciousness.
This is why Patanjali puts this list here, half way through the Second Chapter on Perpetual Consciousness, not at the beginning of the First Chapter on Ascendant Consciousness. Ascendant Consciousness develops first! As one has risen to the clarity of this experience, all the other qualities of the enlightened mind naturally and inevitably develop. This is not a complicated path of strain and effort! This is an ever-increasing movement of pure joy.
- MSI

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