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by Barbara Cook:
योगश्चित्त वृत्ति निरोधः
Yogascitta vṛtti nirodhaḥ
Ch. 1, Su. 2. Yoga Sutras
The purpose of this series of articles is to introduce and give context to some of the ideas of the Yoga Sutras, in the hope that they will inspire a more causally oriented approach to everyday experiences and a more effective Ayurveda practice.
The Yoga Sutras is a Sanskrit text composed by the sage Patañjali sometime around 250 BCE. It is based on the Sankhya school of philosophy. It contains concise aphorisms, or sutras, which con- vey fundamental principles that give direction in a yogic practice. The sutras are quite scientific, in that Patañjali carefully defines the key terms he uses and presents the progressive steps of a yoga practice in a clearly organized structure. They are also based on subjective experience, because Patañjali is a yogi above all.
To make the most of the opportunity the Yoga Sutras offers, it is best to treat it as a practical guide with instructions meant to be applied in daily life, rather than only as a philosophy. As a person’s perception of life starts moving from outer objects into the subjective realm, Patañjali’s clear and sensible definitions, descriptions, and instructions can be a welcome guiding light.
When a person starts to look inside, either by medi- tating or by taking a more self-reflective approach to life, what they are likely to notice is that the mind is always moving and doing things, usually in repetitive patterns. In fact, it is difficult to find the mind not doing anything. The mind carries on with its activities even throughout our sleep. Whether conscious or unconscious, the sensations, feelings, thoughts, and emotions that arise in a person’s mind tend to shape a person’s moment-to-moment choices and give rise to behaviors and attitudes. A reflective person eventually starts to notice that these mental factors, though often unperceived, powerfully determine outcomes in life.
This can be seen in any lifestyle or diet-based health care practice: people start doing all the right things for their health and making good progress, only to find that much of their hard work dissolves as soon as something triggers them emotionally. The most lasting changes, however, happen when a person shifts his or her way of seeing things and approaching problems.
A successful Ayurvedic lifestyle practice often centers on refining a thinking process or helping to dismantle unhelpful thought patterns that have lodged in a person’s mind. Physi- cal therapies are, of course, an invaluable support in this, but they aren’t generally sustainable by themselves. An effective practitioner empowers people with the kind of education and inspiration that allows them to face the good, bad, and ugly times in a way that keeps the mind in the right place. This kind of Ayurvedic practice can bring radical transformation. To pull it off, a practitioner has to understand some of the subtler principles that govern the way we operate.
Patañjali offers help with this, and he begins with describing the mind’s activities from the perspective of yoga. He refers to the stream of thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations that constantly circulate in the mind as vrtti. Vrtti means movement or activity. A vrtti can be anything that moves or modifies the “mind-stuff” or mental energy (called chitta.) A vrtti may be the most turbulent emotion, the subtlest insight, or a fleeting flicker of feeling.
Yoga only occurs when vrttis cease. ‘Yogas chitta vrtti nirodha (Ch. 1, Su. 2) means that yoga is the cessation of the mind’s vrttis, or movements. Yoga happens when the movement of the chitta stops. There’s only one thing that doesn’t move, and that is pure consciousness. By defining Yoga as the cessation of movement, Patañjali aligns his yoga system with the unmoving aspect of reality that is consciousness, or purusha.
Sankhya philosophy, on which Patañjali’s yoga is based, says that purusha is distinct from matter. It is, in fact, the “opposite” of matter, the very reverse of everything that is composed of the three gunas-sattva, rajas, and tamas. While everything in the realm of the three gunas continues to go through infinite cycles of constant change, purusha is eternally the same; while the material world of the three gunas is ceaselessly engaged in creation and diversification, purusha creates nothing and is not the agent for anything.
Sankhya philosophy describes purusha as the neutral witness, never taking part in and never affected by any movements or changes within the material matrix. Furthermore, it states there are multiple purushas, one embedded within each human being. In this sense, purusha is not Brahman, or the universal Self, but rather the individual Self within each of us a little spark from the universal Brahman. Patañjali is referring to this Sankhya-based description of purusha in the next sutra, when he uses the word drashtuh, which means the witness or observer. Purusha is called the drashtuh because it (and only it) has the ability to witness all activities and events in unbroken succes- sion, without changing anything or leaving anything out.
Tadā draşțuḥ svarūpe avasthānam (Ch. 1, Su. 3) means that when the vrttis cease, the observer is established in its real form. In other words, by witnessing the movements of the mind, and not moving with them or in reaction to them, a person is established in the true form of the Self (svarupa).
I don’t know anyone who could count the number of times Dr. Lad has advocated the practical application of this idea, encouraging his students to witness every thought, feeling and emotion. When we watch the mind’s activities in a passive, witnessing mode, without judging, labeling, reacting, liking or disliking, as Dr. Lad says, we move towards the stillness and silence of purusha, and take a small step closer to embodying the definition of yoga.
When we practice this kind of witnessing, we increase the probability that we will take the right attitude towards any problem, that we will do the thing that will buy us the most freedom possible in a given moment. The person who has the most awareness in any situation or any interaction is always the one who has the most freedom, because that person notices subtle signs and causes that give insight into the best solution. A person with witnessing awareness is able to track a situation’s progress and development, and therefore time an insightful response in the best way. A person who isn’t witnessing is more likely to react without having real insight into the best course of action.
For example, a person who notices certain qualities of a dosha building up in the environment, such as coldness, has the freedom to decide to act. The person could, for instance, put on some warm clothes and go have a bowl of hot soup to counterbalance the cold quality. Someone who is unaware of the buildup of dosha qualities that precedes a disease process misses the opportunity to prevent doshic disturbance. By the time physical damage or disease becomes obvious in a person, lots of complicated processes have already taken place under the radar of their consciousness, and that person’s freedom is limited as he or she is forced by nature to invest energy and time into undoing the damage that the imbalance caused.
The Ayurvedic author Charaka says that just as an incompetent king neglects his enemy, an unwise person fails to be aware of the initial stages of disease. He explains that the point at which a disease seems insignificant to an ignorant person is the stage at which a wise person applies aware- ness and keeps the imbalance from manifesting into full-fledged damage. In the same way, simple vrttis can be witnessed so that thoughts, feelings, and emotions don’t become more complicated than they need to be, causing reactions that damage one’s relationships and destroy one’s equilibrium. Curing disease is complex and requires a large energy in- put, whereas preventing disease is simple and more sustainable. Therefore, an Ayurvedic practitioner should encourage people to cultivate awareness of what is happening at every moment.
The trouble is that, for most of us, when we look inside and try to observe the origins of thoughts and emotions, we don’t automatically access pure witnessing awareness. In fact, the act of trying to do this can become a complicated vrtti in itself. Think- ing about thoughts is not the same as observing the thoughts, and vrttis can be subtle indeed. Patañjali says: vṛtti sārūpyam itaratra (Ch. 1, Su. 4)¹, which means that in any other state [than cessation of mental movement], the drashtuh, or “witness,” is mistaken for something else, or takes on a false form. That is, as long as vrttis are the reality for a person, Patañjali says he or she is not practicing yoga and will mistake the ‘self’ for the ‘not-self’.
In the highest reality, as described by schools such as Advaita Vedanta and tantra, pure consciousness and the pure energy of creation are not distinct from each other. However, in the world that we ordinarily perceive, spirit and material nature appear to be at odds. Without quite a bit of practice and continual inspiration, it is easy to forget spiritual aspirations during our daily tasks and activities. Many times, it can seem as though spiritual contemplation and worldly activities take something away from each other.
The Sufi tradition describes the tension in the relationship between the materialistic and the spiritual parts of ourselves as a camel tied to a fish. If the fish gets what he wants, which is to swim in the water, the camel drowns. If the camel gets what he wants, to walk in the desert, then the fish suffocates. This may not express the very highest reality possible for human beings, but it is something that most people have experienced. Simply, that while one part of us wants to be free from the cycles of pain and pleasure, another part is constantly seeking comfort in the diversions that the relative, material world is offering.
Advaita Vedanta and tantra build a few extra stories on top of the framework that Sankhya provides, saying that there are higher states of being than residing in the silence and stillness of one’s Self, and a great and beautiful unity behind the seeming duality of purusha and prakruti. These philosophies tie up some loose ends and answer questions that Sankhya philosophy inspires. Nevertheless, whether or not one prefers that model of reality to the Samkhya-Yoga paradigm, the principles of the Yoga Sutras remain a helpful guide. The very fact that Samkhya and classical Yoga make this distinction between matter and spirit is part of the reason that Patañjali is able to express with such clarity the varying spiritual value of different states of consciousness that one can experience.
Whenever we experience tension between the spiritually oriented and materialistic parts of ourselves, in whatever way that manifests, it can be helpful to take refuge in discernment, through which we can identify those things that can help us to witness, and those things that are detrimental to it. The next article will look more deeply into the differences between purusha and prakruti, and look at how we can apply an understanding of their differences to develop discernment in everyday experiences.
Republished with permission of Ayurveda Today Newsletter and the Ayurvedic Institute. Originally printed in the Summer of 2007 Issue, Vol XX No. 1
Barbara Cook’s Sanskrit studies led her to Ayurveda in the mid-1990’s. After graduating from the Ayurvedic Studies Program in 1997, she continued studying Ayurveda with Dr. Lad and spent her summers getting more Sanskrit training with Dr. Ram Karan Sharma. Barbara taught Sanskrit in the first and second year programs at the Ayurvedic Institute for three years before moving to New Zealand. In New Zealand, she ran AyurLab, a company that facilitates consultation and education services, including distance learning, in Ayurveda, Sanskrit, and Jyotisha.
