Because of mild, moderate, and intense degrees, there is a further distinction even among these.

Grading the Grades

Sūtra 1.22 refines the intensity introduced in 1.21 still further, noting that even among practitioners of tīvra-saṃvega there exist distinctions of mṛdu (mild), madhya (moderate), and adhimātra (intense) degree. The sūtra's brevity belies its structural importance: it signals that Patañjali's account of practice is not binary, sorting people simply into "urgent" and "not urgent," but recognizes a continuous spectrum of readiness and application that further modulates how quickly the results promised in 1.21 actually arrive for a given practitioner.

Vyāsa's Ninefold Scheme

Vyāsa develops this sūtra by combining it with 1.21 to produce a ninefold classification of practitioners, crossing mild, moderate, and intense saṃvega with mild, moderate, and intense degrees of practice itself, yielding categories from the weakest, mṛdu-mṛdu, to the strongest, adhimātra-adhimātra. This scheme became a standard reference point for later commentators discussing the varied pace of spiritual progress among different aspirants approaching the same fundamental path. Vācaspati Miśra treats this classification as descriptive rather than prescriptive, useful for a teacher assessing where a given student currently stands rather than as a rigid caste-like division fixing a person's capacity permanently.

Implications for Teaching and Progress

Vijñānabhikṣu reads the ninefold scheme as compatible with the idea that a practitioner's grade can shift over time through sustained effort, aligning with the broader Yoga view that saṃskāras, and therefore dispositions, are not fixed but responsive to continued practice and detachment. Hariharānanda Āraṇya notes that this sūtra, taken together with 1.20 and 1.21, completes Patañjali's brief but careful account of individual variation within a shared method, acknowledging that not all practitioners progress at the same rate while still affirming that the same fivefold means, cultivated with sufficient intensity, remains available to everyone regardless of their present grade. This nuanced picture prepares the ground for sūtra 1.23, which introduces Īśvara-praṇidhāna, devotion to Īśvara, as an alternative or complementary means that some commentators read as especially suited to certain temperaments among this very spectrum of practitioners just described.

Assessing One's Own Grade Honestly

Sūtra 1.22 invites a practitioner to locate themselves honestly along a spectrum, neither inflating their current intensity nor using a modest starting point as an excuse to abandon effort altogether.

Grade as a Starting Point, Not a Verdict

Vijñānabhikṣu's reading, that grade can shift through continued practice, matters for anyone who feels discouraged by comparison with more experienced practitioners; the ninefold scheme describes a present condition, not a permanent ceiling on future development.

Practical Reflections

1. Notice honestly whether current engagement with practice feels mild, moderate, or genuinely intense at this stage.
2. Avoid comparing one's own grade unfavorably against other practitioners' apparent progress or claims.
3. Recognize that consistent moderate effort, sustained over years, often outperforms sporadic intense bursts followed by lapses.
4. Allow intensity to deepen naturally as confidence and clarity increase through continued, patient practice.
5. Revisit this self-assessment periodically rather than fixing an identity around a single early impression of one's capacity.

Understood this way, 1.22 offers reassurance alongside its taxonomy: whatever grade currently describes a practitioner's effort, the same fundamental path outlined across 1.20 and 1.21 remains open and responsive to sustained cultivation.

A common misreading treats the mṛdu-madhya-adhimātra scale as a rigid, permanent ranking of practitioners into fixed categories of spiritual worth, rather than as Vyāsa's descriptive tool for assessing present readiness, which multiple commentators, including Vijñānabhikṣu, treat as capable of changing over time. A second misunderstanding assumes the ninefold classification implies that only the highest grade, adhimātra-adhimātra, can actually succeed in reaching samādhi, when Vācaspati Miśra reads the scheme as describing variable pace along a shared path rather than eligibility for the path itself. A third error separates this sūtra entirely from 1.20 and 1.21, treating it as an isolated technical curiosity about classification, when its real function is to complete Patañjali's account of how individual variation affects the timing, not the availability, of the results promised by the fivefold means. Some modern readers also import contemporary psychological typologies onto this ancient scheme, treating mild, moderate, and intense as personality types rather than as descriptions of current practice intensity that a person can deliberately develop. Reading 1.22 as a continuation of the preceding two sūtras, rather than as a standalone verdict on individual worth, keeps its function properly diagnostic: a tool for honest self-assessment and patient teaching, not a hierarchy for comparing practitioners against one another.