In all wisdom traditions, there is an understanding that the basic cause of all human suffering is no more then our thoughts. Our restless thoughts jumps all over the place… from worries, fears, to preferences, fantasies, desires, and planning, scheming… all over the place! No wonder the mind has been compared to a monkey! Meditation helps us to slow our thoughts down and also to have a better understanding of how our minds work. It is only with the awareness that we have painful and non-painful thought patterns and habits that we can learn to let them go.
What disturbs our mind?
The yoga sage, Patajali, categorized thoughts into 5 broad types, he calls VRITTIS. Often when I am meditating, and I get lost in thoughts, I will pay attention and categorize my thoughts as one of these vrittis. In doing so, it helps me recognize it’s just a thought, a fluctuation, and definitely not the Truth. Once I see it more clearly in meditation, I can then apply it to my day to day life. When I notice there is an emotional disturbance, I can look at my thoughts and see which vritti is at play.
Pramana, or Right Knowledge
What makes knowledge right? Patajanali, the wise sage, says we know something is right when: it reveals the thing as it is and it has a useful application.
And how do we acquire knowledge?
- through direct experience which requires the use of our 5 senses. So for example, we “know” that it’s snowing outside (ha, can you tell I live in Canada?) because we see the snow falling, we may hear snow being plowed, we can touch the snow, we can feel the snow, and perhaps we can even taste the snow. If we have experienced it once, then when it snows again, we KNOW emphatically that it’s snow
- through inference which is the use of our logic and reasoning to figure it out. So in the above example, we may not be directly experiencing snow but because it’s February and people are cancelling appointments due to weather, we can infer that it’s snowing outside
- through testimony which is trusting in the knowledge and account of someone else. Again in the above example, when a friend calls to tell me it’s snowing outside, I can trust the knowledge is correct.
Remember, though, that knowledge is only “right” if it also has a useful application. Someone may tell you doing yoga is good for you and that may be right knowledge for them, however, until you actually personally experience yoga in some way, yoga being good for you is not Knowledge you have because you have not brought it into your experience.
In my meditation studies with my yoga guru, this vritti is very confusing to me. How can Right Knowledge be a vritti, a fluctuation? Wouldn’t we want to have right thoughts? Wouldn’t that be the goal?
Going back to my example about yoga being good for me. I have had direct experience with doing yoga. And yes, after a yoga practice I feel physically relaxed, released, and centered. I can even say that after 20 years of yoga, I have gained benefits of calming my mind and really having some experience of getting to know my True Self. However, if I get stuck with that Knowledge and fail to see other points of views or fail to see there are other perspectives, then this becomes a vritti. I may identify myself as a yogi which then just becomes an egoic label as opposed to seeing yoga as one of many paths to get to know my Self.
A common experience I have is when I am meditating, I get lost with my to-do lists and my lists of things that I have “failed” to accomplish. Sound familiar? Now, these thoughts are definitely right knowledge. However, it is a disturbance to my mind because I am reactive towards them….. how did I forget to do that? How am I going to get it all done? How come I can’t be like so and so who gets all that and so much more done?
For sure this is a tricky one but with practice, I can begin to see that even what I classify as useful thoughts can become an hindrance to inner peace.
Viparyaya or Wrong Knowledge
This is a vritti that I am VERY familiar with. Basically, translated, it means misconception or misperception. When we look at things in the world, we often think we are looking at objects and situations with objectively. But more often then not, we have filters, interpretations, and perceptions which are all based on our past experiences.
Going back to the snow example… I may see snow and know its snow, but I also have all kinds of stories about snow and winter…. I am going to get depressed, I am going to get unmotivated, I have to be more careful driving, I am scared for my kids driving. My fears, my past experiences with snow and winter, stories I have heard, all make me think that snow and winter is dangerous. Misconception. And definitely a disturbance to my inner peace.
The key to recognizing thoughts are a vritti is by how we feel and how we react to what we feel. Through the practice of yoga and awareness, we can start to calm these thoughts so we can start to see things for what they truly are.
Vikalpa or Imagination, Fancy
The first two vrittis are based on perception of something outside of us and may even be considered objective. However, with vikalpa, these are thoughts not based on any actual past experience and it is a complete creation of the mind.
I am absolutely amazed how often this happens in my meditation. I have become lost in an event during my meditation that just NEVER happened. One example recently during a meditation, I found myself involved in the making of a robot and actually was having conversations with an engineer on trying to build this robot. Ok, that’s silly! I know nothing about building a robot, never have done it, no interest and yet, I spent a considerable part of my time in meditation lost in building this robot! And I was fully immersed. Eventually, I was able to separate myself out of the stream of thought to recognize that this was just my imagination and had nothing to do with reality. It was amusing, but nevertheless definitely disturbing my inner peace, albeit a fun disturbance!
In day to day life, do you catch yourself in a daydream when you should be paying attention to what’s happening? I often catch myself daydreaming when I am driving. Driving along and getting to my destination without even realizing how I got there. Often when I get lost in my imagination like that, I am imaging greater things in my life and as a result, I achieve a much happier state. However, there are times when I get lost in the what if’s and get caught up in the suffering of the world, and as a result of THAT, my peaceful state is disturbed. Either way, though, it’s not TRUTH. It’s all based in illusions.
So knowing that, it’s easy…. when I don’t feel particularly well or my peaceful state is altered, I can begin to look at my thoughts. Are they even based at all on any objectivity? Thus the start of making changes to changing my thoughts, and then changing my reality.
Nidra or Deep Sleep
This one I am still trying to understand. This classification is when the person is void of any thoughts and the mind is blank. But this is not a conscious decision to do that. There is a process called pratyaya which is a methodology to bring awareness into the body and disengage use of the five senses. This is not the case with this vritti.
Yes, we sleep and we need to sleep. However, even in sleep we dream and imagine things. I know with myself, if I remember my dreams, I often ruminate over them and even become reactive of them for a time afterwards.
As an example, the other day I had a recurring dream of “searching”. This type of dream happens quite a bit. Although the setting and the people involved are different. In this dream, I was searching for my classroom in high school. I was very much alone in the hallways. No one was paying attention to me. I remembered feeling quite invisible in this dream. Every classroom I went into was not the right one. And there was a growing panic in me that I was going to be late for something or miss out on something altogether.
There is a whole field of psychoanalysis where dreams get analyzed. And it isn’t rocket science to figure out this dream probably means I am a little “lost” right now and probably have some fears of not making the right decisions. However, it was a dream. And the fact that all day after I woke up from that dream, I had a niggling of unrest and unsettleness shows that sleep may create disturbances of the mind.
Smriti or Memory
It is absolutely amazing how often our thoughts are anchored in the past. When you start paying attention to your emotions, more often then not, when you clarify the thought you are having, you are having a reaction to a thought of something that happened in the past.
I can be sitting there having a very peaceful morning drinking coffee. Suddenly a smell or hearing a song would take me back to something that happened in the past. Depending on the memory, it can bring a smile to my face or bring a tear to my eyes. All from something that could have happened 20 years ago!
Then on top of that, this memory may also then dictate how I feel about the future. The memory may make me question my decisions, my future, my identity, and so forth. The fears can go on and on. And it may even subconsciously dictate how I interact with people and situations. All of which may be affect my inner peace.
Any spiritual journey is for us to learn the Truth of who we are. In order to do so, in is imperative to learn how our mind works. To be able to distinguish between ego and Self. The yogic path provides clear instructions on learning just this. We first learn to become aware when our inner peace is disturbed and then taking the moment to see what the thought was that created the disturbance. Once we see it was a thought that disturbed our inner peace, we can then make the conscious choice to let the thought go or at the very least, choose a different thought. Thereby restoring our peace.