Patanjali and Soham
Yes — and this is a fascinating case where the spiritual interpretation is much stronger than the historical claim.
The passage you quoted is from Abbot George Burke/Swami Nirmalananda Giri’s Yoga: Science of the Absolute, and he is quite explicit about what he is doing. His statement that “Patanjali was a Nath Yogi whose sadhana was centered on Soham” is a Nath-tradition claim, not something established by historical research.
1. What Patanjali actually says
The crucial sequence is:
1.26 — Īśvara is the teacher of the ancient teachers.
1.27 — tasya vācakaḥ praṇavaḥ
1.28 — taj-japas tad-artha-bhāvanam
1.29 — tataḥ pratyak-cetanādhigamo ’py antarāyābhāvaś ca
That is essentially:
“His designation/expression is praṇava. Its repetition and contemplation of its meaning [should be practiced]. From that comes inward consciousness and disappearance of obstacles.”
And here is the important point: virtually the entire classical commentarial tradition understands praṇava in 1.27 as OṂ.
Vyāsa’s commentary explicitly identifies praṇava with A-U-M, and Vācaspati Miśra’s later commentary does the same. Modern commentators likewise overwhelmingly translate it as Om.
So Burke is making a deliberate interpretive move when he says:
praṇava = the breath-word = Soham
rather than:
praṇava = Oṃ.
That is not the standard historical interpretation.
2. But Burke’s argument isn’t simply arbitrary
This is where I think your observation becomes genuinely interesting.
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.1 really does contain the remarkable statement about the primordial Self:
“I am this” / “I am Brahman” / “so ’ham asmi”
and this is extremely close to the conceptual world of Soham — “I am That.”
Burke builds an entire theology around that passage: the primordial Self recognizes itself, and Soham becomes the primordial expression of Self-consciousness. His Soham Yoga explicitly makes this connection.
There is therefore a legitimate philosophical chain:
Ātman → self-recognition → “I am That” → Soham → breath → mantra → meditation on its meaning → realization of the Self.
That chain is very Upanishadic.
But it does not establish that Patanjali personally practiced Soham.
3. The biggest historical problem is the Nāth claim
This is where I would be cautious.
The Nāth tradition, in the form historians can actually document, is substantially later than Patanjali. Gorakhnath is generally placed around the medieval period, often approximately the 11th–12th century, and the surviving Nāth textual tradition is later still. One recent academic discussion explicitly refers to Gorakhnath as a 12th-century yogi.
Meanwhile the dating of the Yoga Sūtras is debated, but scholarly estimates generally place them many centuries before the mature Nāth tradition. A major scholarly overview dates the Pātañjalayogaśāstra around the fourth century CE, while other scholars have proposed earlier dates.
So the historical sequence looks roughly like:
Early Upanishadic yoga
↓
Patañjali / classical Yoga
↓ several centuries
Tantric and Śaiva developments
↓
Matsyendranāth / Gorakhnāth / Nāth tradition
↓
medieval Haṭha/Siddha traditions
Therefore, saying:
“Patanjali was a Nāth yogi”
is historically problematic because the organized Nāth sampradāya is later than Patanjali.
What is possible is that later Nāths claimed Patanjali as one of their ancient masters. That is precisely what Burke’s sources say: the Nāth tradition regards Patanjali as belonging to its lineage.
That’s an important distinction:
“The Nāths regard Patanjali as one of their predecessors”
is historically defensible as a statement about Nāth tradition.
“Patanjali historically belonged to the Nāth order”
is not supported by the evidence we currently have.
4. There is an even more interesting problem: Oṃ and Soham aren’t actually enemies
I think this is the most fruitful way to read Burke.
He is trying to reinterpret praṇava through the idea of the breath-principle.
Soham naturally fits breath meditation:
in-breath → So
out-breath → Ham
and the practitioner discovers that the mantra is occurring naturally with respiration. Burke describes this as the “natural vibration of the Self” and makes it the center of Soham Yoga.
But Patanjali’s immediate context is also remarkably compatible with mantra meditation:
Īśvara
→ praṇava
→ japa
→ artha-bhāvana (meditation on its meaning)
→ pratyak-cetanā (inward consciousness).
So the structure of Burke’s interpretation is quite plausible as a yogic practice, even though his identification of the actual mantra with Soham isn’t the conventional interpretation.
In other words:
Patanjali undeniably teaches mantra-japa of the designation of Īśvara.
What is disputed is:
Which mantra does he mean?
The classical answer is Oṃ.
Burke’s answer is Soham.
5. And notice something very important about 1.28
The Sanskrit is:
taj-japas tad-artha-bhāvanam
Literally something like:
“Its repetition; contemplation of its meaning.”
That is stronger than merely chanting a sound.
Patanjali says that the practitioner should both:
repeat the sacred designation, and
contemplate what it means.
That makes your quotation especially relevant to the Soham tradition.
If one practices:
So… Ham…
while contemplating:
“I am That.”
then the mantra itself becomes a bridge between sound and Self-knowledge.
And that is almost exactly what Burke means by Soham Bhāva: not merely repeating two syllables but entering the consciousness represented by them.
6. But there is a chronological problem with calling this “Patanjali’s Soham”
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka is much older than Patanjali. So Patanjali certainly lived in an intellectual environment in which ideas of Ātman, Brahman, sacred sound, breath and self-identity were already circulating.
But we don’t have an ancient text saying:
“Patanjali practiced Soham.”
Nor do the early commentaries say:
“Praṇava means Soham.”
Quite the opposite: Vyāsa explicitly explains it as Oṃ.
That is probably the single most important piece of evidence against Burke’s historical reconstruction.
7. So how should we evaluate
Yoga: Science of the Absolute
?
I’d divide its claims into three levels:
Claim
Evidence
Patanjali teaches repetition and meditation on the sacred designation of Īśvara
Very strong
Patanjali’s praṇava is Oṃ
Very strong; classical commentators agree
Soham is an ancient and legitimate form of Self-mantra
Strong, especially in later yogic traditions
Soham can be interpreted as primordial Self-consciousness in light of Bṛhadāraṇyaka 1.4.1
Philosophically very interesting
Patanjali personally practiced Soham
No historical evidence
Patanjali was historically a Nāth Yogi
Not supported; probably a later lineage claim
Nāth tradition claims Patanjali as one of its great masters
Yes
And this distinction matters because Burke himself actually tells us that his commentary “is not meant to be a scholarly commentary, but a practical one.”
That sentence is almost a warning to us about how to read him.
My conclusion
I would not discard Burke’s interpretation. I would simply label it correctly:
Burke is giving a Nāth/Soham reinterpretation of Patanjali, rather than reporting the historically established teaching of Patanjali.
And there is a beautiful possibility here: Soham may be understood as a later yogic development that brings something already present in the Upanishads into an extremely practical breath-meditation form.
That actually makes your Bṛhadāraṇyaka connection more interesting, not less.
The question I’d pursue next is whether there is an actual pre-medieval textual chain connecting Bṛhadāraṇyaka’s “so ’ham asmi” → Haṃsa/Soham → breath mantra → Nāth Yoga, because that could tell us whether Burke has uncovered a genuine ancient current that later became Nāth Yoga, or whether he is retrospectively connecting traditions that were originally separate. That is a much more interesting historical question than simply asking whether Patanjali was a Nāth.
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