Yoga Sutra 1.33 hands you a practical toolkit for a steadier mind. Patanjali names four attitudes—friendliness, compassion, joy, and equanimity—and matches each to a type of person you meet daily. Learn what the sutra says, why it calms the mind, and exactly how to apply the “four locks and four keys” on and off the mat.
What Yoga Sutra 1.33 Actually Says
The verse reads: maitri karuna mudita upekshanam sukha duhkha punya apunya vishayanam bhavanatash chitta prasadanam. A working translation: “By cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the suffering, gladness toward the virtuous, and equanimity toward the non-virtuous, the mind becomes clear and serene.”
Read it slowly and the structure jumps out. Patanjali pairs four attitudes with four kinds of people, then promises a result: chitta prasadanam, a settled and luminous mind. This sutra appears early in the first chapter, right where Patanjali is troubleshooting the obstacles that scatter attention. It is one of the most immediately usable lines in the entire text, and it builds directly on his definition of yoga as the stilling of the mind’s fluctuations in Yoga Sutra 1.2.
Word by word
- Maitri – friendliness, loving-kindness
- Karuna – compassion
- Mudita – sympathetic joy, gladness
- Upeksha – equanimity, even-mindedness
- Sukha – the happy; duhkha – the suffering; punya – the virtuous; apunya – the non-virtuous
- Chitta prasadanam – clarity, purification, and peace of mind
The Four Locks and Four Keys Explained
Teachers often call this teaching the “four locks and four keys.” The four kinds of people are the locks—recurring situations that can jam your peace of mind. The four attitudes are the keys that open each one. Use the wrong key and the lock stays stuck: meeting a suffering person with envy, or a happy person with jealousy, only tightens the knot. Match the right key to the right lock and the mind opens.
Maitri: friendliness toward the happy
When you meet someone who is thriving—a colleague who got the promotion, a friend whose relationship is blooming—the reactive mind reaches for comparison or envy. Maitri is the deliberate choice of warmth instead. You practice being genuinely glad for them rather than measuring yourself against them. The key here is to notice the first flicker of comparison and answer it with a sincere internal “good for you.”
Karuna: compassion toward the suffering
Facing another’s pain, the untrained mind often flinches away, judges (“they brought it on themselves”), or drowns in pity that helps no one. Karuna is steady, warm presence—wishing for the suffering to ease and, where possible, acting to help. Importantly, compassion is not the same as absorbing the other person’s distress until you are depleted. It is care held with stability.
Mudita: joy toward the virtuous
Mudita is delight in goodness—celebrating people who act with integrity, generosity, or skill. This attitude is the direct antidote to cynicism and resentment. When you train yourself to feel uplifted by others’ virtue rather than threatened by it, admiration becomes fuel for your own practice instead of a source of self-criticism.
Upeksha: equanimity toward the non-virtuous
The hardest key. Faced with people behaving badly, the mind wants to fix, condemn, or stew in anger—all of which agitate you, not them. Upeksha is even-mindedness: you neither approve of harmful behavior nor let it hijack your inner state. You can still set boundaries and act wisely; equanimity simply keeps your mind from being colonized by someone else’s bad conduct. This is closely related to the five kleshas, the afflictions that distort how we perceive and react to others.
Why This Sutra Matters: Chitta Prasadanam
The payoff Patanjali promises is chitta prasadanam—a clear, undisturbed mind. Notice the logic: he is not telling you to fix other people. He is showing that your relationship to other people is one of the biggest leaks in your mental energy. Envy, pity, resentment, and outrage are exhausting. Replace them with the four keys and the mind that sits down to meditate is already calmer.
This is why 1.33 sits among the “obstacle-clearing” sutras. A scattered, reactive mind cannot concentrate. By steadying your social reactions, you remove a major class of distraction before you even reach the later limbs of practice described in the eight limbs of yoga.
How to Practice the Four Keys
This sutra is a practice, not a slogan. Here is a concrete sequence for training it:
- Name the lock. In any charged interaction, pause and identify which of the four you are facing: is this person happy, suffering, virtuous, or behaving badly?
- Catch the default reaction. Notice the automatic response—envy, avoidance, cynicism, or outrage—without acting on it.
- Choose the matching key. Consciously substitute the correct attitude: friendliness, compassion, joy, or equanimity. This deliberate replacement mirrors the technique of pratipaksha bhavana, cultivating the opposite thought.
- Express it in one small action. Send a congratulatory message, offer concrete help, voice sincere admiration, or simply take one slow breath and let the irritation pass.
A Daily Four-Keys Meditation
Set aside ten minutes. Sit comfortably and take several slow breaths to settle—if your mind is busy, a few rounds of calming breathwork such as those in this pranayama for anxiety guide will help you arrive.
- Minutes 1–2 (Maitri): Bring to mind someone who is doing well. Silently offer, “I am glad for your happiness.” Feel any comparison soften.
- Minutes 3–4 (Karuna): Picture someone who is struggling. Offer, “May your suffering ease.” Hold them with warmth, not pity.
- Minutes 5–6 (Mudita): Recall someone whose goodness you admire. Offer, “I delight in your virtue.” Let admiration fill you.
- Minutes 7–8 (Upeksha): Bring to mind a difficult person. Offer, “I wish you well, and I release my disturbance.” Aim for steadiness, not approval.
- Minutes 9–10: Drop the images. Rest in the quieter, more spacious mind the practice has produced.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Confusing equanimity with indifference. Upeksha is not apathy or letting harm slide. You still act and set boundaries—you simply do it without inner turmoil.
- Forcing the feeling. You cannot bully yourself into joy. Start with the intention and the small action; the felt sense follows with repetition.
- Using compassion to abandon yourself. If caring for others leaves you depleted, you have slipped from karuna into self-erasure. Steady care includes you.
- Applying the wrong key. Meeting a happy person with pity, or a difficult person with forced friendliness, jams the lock. Diagnose first, then choose.
Bringing the Four Keys Onto the Mat
The same four keys reshape your asana practice. When the person on the next mat moves deeper into a pose, meet it with mudita rather than competition. When your own body is struggling that day, offer yourself karuna instead of harsh judgment. When you feel strong and capable, let maitri keep you warm rather than smug. And when frustration rises—a pose that will not come—upeksha lets you stay even, breathe, and continue. Practiced this way, the mat becomes a laboratory for the mind Patanjali is pointing toward.
The Takeaway
Yoga Sutra 1.33 is a compact map for emotional life: four predictable situations, four reliable responses, one clear mind. You do not have to wait for difficult people to change or for life to cooperate. You simply keep the right key on hand and use it. Practice the four attitudes consistently and you steadily drain away the reactive turbulence that makes concentration so hard—exactly the serene, transparent mind, chitta prasadanam, that Patanjali promises.
How 1.33 Fits the Wider Yoga Sutras
It helps to see where this verse sits. In the opening chapter, the Samadhi Pada, Patanjali first defines yoga, then catalogs the obstacles that disturb the mind—illness, doubt, laziness, distraction, and the restless emotional states that accompany them. Sutras 1.33 through 1.39 are his list of remedies: practical methods for restoring steadiness. The four keys are the very first remedy he offers, which tells you how foundational he considered our social-emotional reactions to be.
Crucially, 1.33 is relational where much of yoga can feel solitary. You do not cultivate these attitudes alone on a cushion in the abstract; you build them in the friction of actual relationships—family, coworkers, strangers in traffic. The sutra reframes everyday interaction as legitimate spiritual practice. Every person you meet becomes a chance to choose a key. Over weeks and months, this rewires habitual reactions, so that friendliness, compassion, gladness, and equanimity start to arise on their own rather than requiring constant effort.
Modern psychology echoes the structure. Deliberately generating warm, prosocial attitudes is the core of loving-kindness and compassion training, which research links to reduced rumination and greater emotional resilience. Patanjali arrived at the same insight roughly two thousand years earlier: how you hold other people determines, in large part, the quality of your own mind.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to use all four keys every day?
No. In daily life you simply reach for whichever key matches the situation in front of you. The four-part meditation above is useful for training all of them, but the real practice is responsive: diagnose the lock, apply the key. Some days you will mostly need equanimity; other days, joy.
What if I genuinely cannot feel compassion for someone?
Start with intention rather than emotion. Silently wishing “may your suffering ease,” even when you feel nothing, plants the seed. The felt warmth tends to follow with repetition. If resistance is strong, that person may belong under equanimity for now—wish them well and release your own disturbance without forcing a feeling you do not have.
Is equanimity the same as letting people walk over me?
No. Upeksha governs your inner state, not your outer choices. You can refuse mistreatment, enforce boundaries, and take firm action while keeping your mind unprovoked. In fact, you tend to respond more wisely when you are not flooded with anger.
How long until I notice a difference?
Many practitioners feel calmer after a single ten-minute session, but lasting change comes from consistency. Practicing the four keys daily for a few weeks is usually enough to notice that envy, resentment, and outrage arise less often and pass more quickly.
