Our soul is like a seer, and the nature of seer is pure joy, ecstasy, bliss and happiness.
Our mind is generally content but It is the desiring mind, the manas that gets attracted to the outside worldly things through 5 senses and disturbs the peace of the mind.
There are 5 vrittis or modulations or activities or thought forms our chitta or mind gets stuck in and disturbs our inner peace. When we are lost and stuck in the loop of the modulations, it only brings us pain, misery and suffering.
- Pramana - the mind is continuously engaged in arguments of wanting proof or trying to analyze and verify the right knowledge
1. Pratyaksha - direct perception, when you understand by seeing or experiencing something yourself.
when you are experiencing something yourself and you do not have a doubt.
2. Anumana- inference or assuming - you see smoke and assume there is a fire, its not obvious but you guess from your past understanding, knowledge and experiences.
3. Aagamana - We believe in something because a reliable authority or scriptures tell it or state it.
Our mind is continuously looking for proof. Truth can not be understood through proof. What can be proved can also be disproved.
- Viparyaya - mind gets stuck in misconception or incorrect knowledge or false understanding and thinking that is the truth. When our mind is stuck in Viparyaya all logic fails and only wrong knowledge prevails.
- Vikalpa - baseless fears, joyful or pleasurable fantasies, paranoia, imagination or hallucination or a verbal delusion - you form an opinion about someone or something from what you have heard but there is no truth or reality in that, you are creating impressions in mind that are not true based on someones perception or ideas.
- Nidra - sleep or impression left in mind upon waking up of an experience of deep sleep or nothingness in sleep
- Smriti - memory, experiences create impressions on our mind that surface when we want them in form of day dreams or when we do not want them as dreams.
If only we can learn to gain a control over our senses and mind there is nothing in the world that can bind us.
Through the practice of yoga and self study we can learn to become aware and befriend our mind and understand the thought forms its stuck in.
How do we control our mind when our mind seems to be controlling us all the time?
When we realize that we want more control and understanding of self that is when the anushasan or the self discipline of yoga begins.
The extraordinary experience we gain by controlling the thought forms or modulations of mind is Yoga and it teaches us -
- Vairagya, dispassion which helps us bring our mind skillfully back to self, honoring all the object of senses and not blaming them.
- Abhyasa, the continuous practice of becoming aware when our mind is getting stuck in modulations and bringing it back to the present moment again and again.
Yoga Chitta Vriti Nirodah~
Gently observe the fluctuations and plays of mind, don't become them! One has reached the goal of Yoga if this restraint is achieved!
