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Managing the Mind
A Commonsense Guide to Patañjali's Yogasutra
By DEVADATTA KALI NICOLAS-HAYS, INC.
Copyright © 2015 David Nelson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-89254-626-8
CHAPTER 1
1.1 Now, instruction in yoga.
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atha yoganusasanam
atha: now (used to announce a subject and to mark an auspicious beginning for what is to follow)
yoga: the act of joining, union, application or concentration of thought leading to Self-knowledge or liberation
anusasana: (further) instruction, teaching, precept, direction
Patañjali's first sutra simply announces the topic, which is the teaching of yoga. At the same time, his choice of words makes clear that what he is about to share is not new or original. He has gathered together a wealth of knowledge on the long-standing practice of yoga from many different sources. He has thought deeply about all of it and is about to present his findings, step by step, in a clear and logical way.
The word anusasana means "further teaching" and implies an already existing body of knowledge. Through this single word Patañjali acknowledges his indebtedness to the traditions that preceded him.
Yoga was already practiced in the Indus Valley at least forty-five hundred years ago. Carved images found there depict a male figure, thought to be Siva, seated in a meditative or yogic posture. The earliest verbal record is a hymn from the Rgveda (10.136) describing a long-haired, naked devotee of Rudra (Siva) who bears a striking resemblance to yogins today. Later, the Ka hopani ad and the Svetasvataropani ad (ca. 500 BCE) offer somewhat developed accounts of yogic practice, although they appear rudimentary in light of Patañjali's later work. The Bhagavadgita presents a variety of yogic disciplines involving knowledge, action, devotion, and meditation, while the Tantric Pasupatasutra presents a highly structured yoga with eight limbs that bear the same names Patañjali would use later. Meditation and yoga were widely practiced in ancient India, and knowledge was commonly exchanged among the ancestors of today's Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains before sectarian boundaries became firmly drawn.
1.2 Yoga is the stilling of the mind's activity.
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yogas cittavrttinirodhah
yoga: discipline leading to Self-knowledge or liberation
citta: mind (with its functions of perceiving, thinking, imagining, intending, deciding, memory, and self-definition)
vrtti: activity, function, modification, fluctuation, "thought-wave"
nirodha: restraint, check, control, stilling
Now that the teacher has announced his topic, the next step is to explain what yoga is. Many different kinds of practice go by that name. A popular form of yoga has to do with postures that promote physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, but this is not what Patañjali is about to teach. His classic form of yoga is the science of managing the mind. Its aim is to instruct in meditation and to lead toward Self-knowledge, enlightenment, or liberation.
It is important to keep in mind that yoga is both the method and the goal. Yoga is both the way to quiet the activity of the mind and the state of enlightenment and freedom that shines forth once the mind becomes completely still.
What is the mind? As Patañjali understands it, the mind is a person's own field of awareness, through which he or she experiences life in this world. The mind receives, sorts, and processes the information that comes to it through the senses of hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell. It compares and reasons, and at the end of the process it reaches a conclusion. Along the way it also personalizes the experience. It is I who hear and see and think and decide and know. Whatever is present to the mind becomes mine: my experience, my idea, my opinion, my decision, my memory.
Getting to the state where all this mental activity stops means going beyond everyday states of mind. The commentator Vyasa noted that the mind has five degrees or levels of activity. It can be overly excited, unable to focus, jumping restlessly from one thing to another. Or it can fall into a heavy dullness of the "I can hardly think" variety. Between these extremes there is the normal state of awareness where the mind focuses on one thing for a while, then wanders off to something else until yet another thought arises or something else claims its attention. In other words, the usual state of the mind involves a certain amount of distraction.
Is that ordinary state good enough to bring lasting peace and satisfaction? Obviously not. So Vyasa describes a fourth level, where attention becomes one- pointed. Focusing on one thing and one thing only is the way to still the restlessness of the mind, and it is the guiding principle throughout all the phases of yoga. Patañjali will show how concentration can be deepened and prolonged all the way to the final goal, the fifth level of awareness, where all mental activity ceases.
The five states of awareness are not found in the Yogasutra itself but come from Vyasa's commentary on the first sutra. They are listed as ksipta ("scattered," "highly stimulated"), mudha ("stupefied," "lethargic"), viksipta ("alternately steady and distracted"), ekagra ("one-pointed," "focused"), and niruddha ("restrained," "held in check," "stilled"). The first four apply to states of ordinary awareness. The fifth describes the state of yoga.
The word yoga is related to the English work yoke, which means to join together. The different schools of Hindu thought understand the term in different ways. According to the nondualist philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, yoga means the union or merging of the individual conscious self (atman) with the infinite Self, the transcendental Brahman. In contrast, the dualistic Sa khya philosophy recognizes two eternally separate realities—consciousness (purusa) and materiality (prakrti). According to Samkhya, yoga may be the union of the individual's awareness with its own true nature as consciousness, but reaching that state involves the disunion or disengagement of the essential conscious being (purusa) from the defining and binding characteristics of material nature (prakrti) with which it has seemingly become entangled and consequently formed a mistaken sense of identity.
Following Vyasa, the prevailing opinion is that Patañjali subscribed to the Sa khya philosophy. In truth, Patañjali's own philosophical views are not known and are almost irrelevant. What matters is that his masterly synthesis of yogic practice works.
1.3 To experience this is to abide in one's own essential nature.
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tada drastuh svarupe 'vasthanam
tada: then
drastr: one who sees, one who experiences
svarupa: one's own nature
avasthana: an abiding, a taking of one's place, a condition
When all the distracting and overshadowing activity of the mind ceases, then only consciousness itself remains. The light of consciousness—the real Self—shines forth, unchanging. This state of illumination, enlightenment, Self-knowledge, or liberation is the boundless joy of one's own true being. It can be experienced but never described. We call it a state, but that word means "condition," and the Self is free of any condition and beyond anything that can affect it or define it in any way. It is what it is—pure awareness, aware of itself alone, and that is beyond the power of thought or speech to express.
1.4 Otherwise one identifies with the mind's activities.
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vrttisarupyam itaratra
vrtti: activity, fluctuation, or modification of the mind
sarupya: sameness, similarity of form, conformity with itaratra: otherwise
A person who is not enlightened will remain in the ordinary state of awareness, living in the world as an individual and unique personality. The human mind, caught up in the ever-changing panorama before it, interacts with what it experiences, identifying with some of it, resisting other parts of it, and knowing little rest.
This is not to say that the light of the true Self has ceased to shine. This human personality is illumined by it; otherwise, how could we even be aware that we exist? What Patañjali tells us is that there are two ways to experience consciousness: either as the unchanging, self-luminous Self or as the finite individual caught up in a dynamic world of "I and other."
1.5 The activities are five-fold; they are troubling or not.
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vrttayah pañcatayyah klistaklistah
vetti: activity, fluctuation, or modification of the mind
pañcatayya: fivefold
klista: afflicted, connected to pain or suffering, causing pain
aklista: untroubled, undistressed, not painful, not causing pain
The mind is never totally at rest but always engaged in some sort of activity. Patañjali recognizes five kinds of mental activity, which he will name in the next sutra. For now he notes that any of them can be either troubling or untroubling, either positive or negative, either detrimental or beneficial.
Patañjali uses the terms klista and aklista. The first can mean painful," "troubling," "distressing," "harmful," or "detrimental." The second indicates the opposite but is rarely translated in positive terms. Instead we find aklista rendered as "not painful" or "nonafflicted" more often than as "pleasant" or "benign." This choice may reflect the outlook of the Samkhya philosophy, which emphasizes the suffering (duhkha) inherent in life and presents its knowledge-based teaching as a way to permanent release from the pain-laden human condition. It should be noted, however, that overall Patañjali appears to be more matter-of-fact than pessimistic. To reiterate his essential point, any of the five kinds of mental activity he is about to name can be pain-bearing or not.
1.6 They are right knowledge, misapprehension, ideation, sleep, and memory.
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pramanaviparyayavikalpanidrasmrtayah
pramana: right knowledge, valid cognition
viparyaya: misapprehension, misperception, error, mistake
vikalpa: ideation, conceptualization, imagination
nidra: sleep
smrti: memory, recollection
We are introduced here to a pattern that will be characteristic of Patañjali's teaching. In one sutra he will give a list of terms, and then he will explain them, one at a time, in the sutras that immediately follow.
Everything that we experience in life, we experience through the mind. Whatever happens around us, whatever thoughts and feelings arise within, whatever we dream for the future or recollect from the past—all that is a result of the mind's activity, which falls into five basic categories.
Any mental activity can be positive or negative. Let's take the case of right knowledge. In general right knowledge seems to be a good thing. There's satisfaction in "getting it right." But what if that right knowledge brings bad news? Then it is painful. What about wrong knowledge? Maybe someone will tell a lie to shield you from a painful truth. Is that positive or negative? Or let's say you've made a mistake in your finances and think you have more money than you actually do. As long as that misapprehension lasts, you're happy. And what about ideation, the ability to form concepts or to imagine? The mind conjures up pleasant daydreams, but just as easily it creates anxieties. In sleep also you might have a pleasant dream or a nightmare. And then there are the memories of the past that surface now and then, bringing joy, wistfulness, regret, resentment, or a host of other emotions.
1.7 The means of right knowledge are direct perception, inference, and reliable authority.
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pratyaksanumanagamah pramanani
pratyaksa: direct perception
anumana: inference
agama: reliable authority, a body of traditionally accepted doctrine or sacred teaching
pramana: correct knowledge
The first of the mind's five activities is right knowledge. Patañjali says that it rests on three means of knowing. The primary means is direct experience. The five channels of perception—hearing, touch, sight, smell, and taste—stream information into the mind, which receives it and tries to make sense of it. At the end of the process, I know what I see—the apple tree in the garden. I know what I hear—the rustling of its leaves. I know what I feel—the smooth, round firmness of its fruit. I know what I smell—the apple's delightful fragrance. I know what I taste—its distinctive flavor. I do not doubt my own experience.
The second means of right knowledge is inference. Something allows me to know something about something I do not perceive directly. Where there is smoke, there is fire. I do not actually see the fire but can reason from the sight or smell of the smoke that there is a fire. The smoke is the clue. The internal workings of the mind take over from there and allow me to draw a correct conclusion.
The third means of right knowledge rests apart from the other two. What if there is no opportunity to perceive directly or to figure something out on the basis of evidence? I have to rely on someone to tell me. Let's say an event happens halfway around the world. I am not there, I do not witness it, and I have no hint that it even took place. Yet I learn about it from a trustworthy source and accept it as true. In terms of spiritual teaching, the sacred texts of a religion are held to be a trustworthy source or reliable authority, and what they convey is knowledge about the highest truth of our being.
For now it is important to recognize that Patañjali is talking about the five activities of the mind in the here and now. We must not mistake right knowledge for absolute truth.
1.8 Misapprehension is false knowledge, based on an appearance at odds with reality.
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viparyayo mithyajñanam atadrupapratistham
viparyaya: misapprehension, misperception, error, mistake
mithya: false, deceptive, untrue
jñana: knowledge
atad: not that, other than what it appears to be
rupa: form, appearance
pratistha: basis, foundation
Living in this world, we sometimes get things right, and sometimes we get them wrong. The unavoidable companion of right knowledge is misapprehension or error. Take our perceptions, for example. Occasionally the mind misinterprets the information it receives through the senses. A classic example is seeing a gnarled tree trunk in the semidarkness and mistaking it for a human figure. Or take the reasoning process. We can and do make mistakes in our thinking. Often a mistake is honest, but we are not immune to kidding ourselves either, because of what we want to believe. We engage in self-deception or denial and then even kid ourselves that we're not doing it! In all these instances there is a disconnect between what actually is and how we understand it to be. Such thinking is at odds with reality.
What is reality? Some schools of Indian thought believe that this world is an illusion, but that is not a universal opinion. Patañjali recognizes the higher reality of the Self along with the reality of this world. Sutras 1.3 and 1.4 tell us that we experience one or the other—either the self-aware Self in its own pristine clarity or this ever-moving world of the here and now, where we are subject to right knowledge as well as to error.
1.9 Ideation rests on verbal knowledge apart from a perceived object.
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sabdajñananupati vastusunyo vikalpah
sabda: sound, word, speech, language, verbal communication
jñana: knowledge
anupatin: following as a consequence or result
vastu: object, thing
sunya: empty, void
vikalpa: ideation, imagination, thinking, conceptualization
Through the process of inference the mind can reason and draw conclusions. Only a sign hinting at something else, such as the presence of smoke, is needed. Now we learn that even when an object or an event is not physically present, we can still think about it. If the stimulus is no longer an external object or event, it can be something internal and purely mental—an idea of something remembered from our own experience or an idea of something created purely by our own mind.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Managing the Mind by DEVADATTA KALI. Copyright © 2015 David Nelson. Excerpted by permission of NICOLAS-HAYS, INC..
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