We explore Sutras 1.4 & 1.5 from Patanjali in the context of daily life. Trying to bring this ancient wisdom to our normal lives to grow and feel more at peace within and without.

@Ashtanga Yoga Paris - Linda Munro & Gerald Disse

Sutra 1.4
[vritti-sārūpyam itaratra.]
At other times, [there is apparent] conformity [of the Seer] with the [mental] activities.

What happens when we are not in the state of ‘yogash citta-vritti-nirodhah’? Well, basically that’s where we are all the time. We identify with our thoughts; believe they are ‘our’ thoughts and that we are what we think. We identify with the myriad of emotions that pass through us on a daily basis: frustration, jealousy, dislike and even the positive ones, happiness, gratitude, compassion. We have to learn to embrace all of these emotions before we can start to transform the ‘negative’ ones into ‘positive’ ones and eventually, if we ever get to full enlightenment, we don’t identify with either – but that feels like a long way off.

Because the mind is the organ between the outer world, through the senses, and the Seer (True Self), we also identify with everything else in the material world. We believe we are this body. We believe we own our home and all our stuff. We believe that those are ‘our’ kids, husband, friends, yoga students. And as asana practitioners, we believe we are ‘how we can do asana’. If we have a so-called good practice; we are ‘advanced’. If we have a more basic practice, we are ‘not advanced’. Throw away those labels!
In short, Patanjali is describing our everyday identity. Which would be perfectly fine to keep it as it is, if it weren’t for all the suffering this causes us! Luckily, we have yoga to help us figure out this. We must use our practice to understand ourselves better, then bring balance, then transcend. Gaining insights and understandings about how we work in the world to create a certain level of inner peace, otherwise, we’ll continue to have struggles in our communication with others, with deceiving ourselves about our true state of mind, we’ll create issues with our negative behaviours, the normal ups and downs of life will make us swing from excitement to depression.

Sutra 1.5
[vrittayah pancatayyah klishtā-aklishtāh.]

The [mental] activities are fivefold; [they are either] afflicted or non-afflicted.
Patanjali groups all our mental activity into 5 types which can either cause suffering or not cause suffering. In other words, everything that whirls through our citta (ego/mind/intellect) has the potential to cause us suffering or not.

Sounds kind of straight forward – think something bad, suffer – think something good, don’t suffer. If only life were so easy. But of course, it is so much subtler than that!

Vyasa, the first known commentator of the Yoga Sutras wrote this (see bottom for book credit):

“The Klishtas are those mental processes which have their bases in Kleshas like Avidya and are the sources of all latencies. The Aklishtas, on the other hand, are those that concern final discriminative enlightenment (Khyati) and are opposed to the operation of the Gunas.”
Whoa, what does that mean? To understand, you need to know what the ‘latencies’ are. He is referring to the Samskāras; which are the subtle impressions that remain in our consciousness from mental and physical karmas – actions. Every action we perform (which includes thoughts) leaves a subtle impression. Think of when someone makes us very angry – even when we calm down, don’t we find it easy to revive those angry feelings when our buttons are pushed?

Avidyā is the ignorance of not knowing our True Self – instead identifying with our ego/mind/intellect. Therefore, Vyasa is saying that pretty much everything will contribute to our Samskāras except those mental processes that have nothing to do with neither the physical or subtle world and are concerned with enlightenment.

Nevertheless, we can still be informed by this sutra and use it for understanding our mind. Knowing that every action and thought leaves subtle impressions, we can cultivate thoughts and actions that promote peace, harmony, kindness, gentleness and all the other positive attributes we aspire to. All the while, being compassionate to ourselves when our vrittis are a little less noble; recognizing that we are humans with human flaws yet, are always LOVE at our core!

Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali by Swami Hariharananda Aranya, page 14 & 15

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