The mind

The mind.

What is this thing euphemistically referred to as ‘the mind’? We also often hear the word ‘ego’ to denote some strange apparatus that must be sorted out, or even destroyed so we can become enlightened or something, what is an ego, what is enlightenment?

“Citta” is the mind in yogic terms, and the mind according to the yogic way of thinking is made up from three distinct parts.
Manas. Buddhi. Ahamkara.

Manas is generally referred to as the lower mind and desire. For example, we smell some cooking, and that part of the mind starts to interpret the smell into thoughts of hunger etc, especially if the smell is something that is pleasant to us. Manas is almost like a sense organ.

Buddhi Is said to be the higher mind or intellect. This is the closest to the higher realms of consciousness we may access through our ongoing and continuing practise of Asana, Pranayama, and Pratyahara etc. It becomes more apparent with ongoing practise how we seem to shift from a negative to a more positive mental stance after we do some pranayama and/or asana etc.

Ahamkara is the ‘I’, or ‘ego’. This is the part of the mind that identifies itself with labels. I am hot or cold etc.

Personally I know I can have a tendency for what some people may call negative thinking and I can also be positive on the rare occasion. Either way they are opposites of the same condition, or egotistical dualistic thinking.

In our modern western culture we place the emphasis on being positive, think positively we are told. But if we care to take the time to see, we may realise that we can see the same thing in two different ways. One minute a situation looks bad and the next it looks not so bad and the next it may even look good.

As we get older we may learn to use our nervous system in habitual and mechanical ways so that ‘we’ always get what ‘we’ have trained ourselves to want. We have preferences and habits and we identify ourselves with these things as an ego and/or personality. The more we identify with the ‘I’ the more attached to these things we become until, as in the case of addictions such as smoking we cannot live without them.

We are led to believe, by the advocates of yoga that we can change ourselves and become enlightened if we do the practise correctly. We are then shown how to do this in a more or less step-by-step fashion a la the eight limbs of Raja Yoga.

The one theme throughout the whole of the yoga system and many various translations of it is the idea that the mind and the breath are intimately connected with one another.

Chitta, (Mind), Vritti, (Various forms), Nirodah. (Restraint) is the second Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. It is said that if one understands the concept of this one ‘sutra’ one need not do any of the others.
How many of us convinced ourselves that we knew what he meant in order not to have to do the others, and indeed what does it mean?


It means; Yoga- is the restraint of mental modifications.


And there you have it!

So you now have a brief description of what the mind is and a brief description of what yoga is. Now all you must do is do it!

“Old Hari Krishna, got nothin on you. Just keeps you crazy with nothing to do. I, I found out. From a John Lennon song called ‘I found out’. Hmmmmmm.