yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ I.1
As we saw last month, given that Patañjali defines yoga in terms of calming the mind’s activities (citta-vṛtti-nirodhah), the material nature of the mind necessitates constant and enduring practice in order to bring this about. This month we will continue to study Patañjali’s view of the human mind to better understand the challenges we face in achieving citta-vṛtti-nirodhah.
Methodologies
Today we have powerful tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that allow us to see how brains function in real time. Such technologies have played a key role in helping us understand how our minds arise from complex underlying processes within our embodied brains. We can, for example, peer into the brains of meditating Buddhist monks to see how their brains have been changed by a lifetime of contemplative practice. Ultimately this understanding could be key for enhancing therapeutic strategies towards building healthy minds.
Tools like fMRI are recent inventions, however, which have not been available for most of the history of the human species. Ancient yogis such as Patañjali were in the business of building healthy minds too, but they gained their knowledge of the human mind and built their therapies for mental health largely through self-observation and experimentation with contemplative techniques. The Dalai Lama labels this approach “first person empiricism.” It is an approach that applies the rigor of a scientific, objective methodology to the directly experienced subjectivity of the investigator. Patañjali may have lacked the instrumentation available to contemporary neuroscientists and psychologists, but we should not underestimate his capacity, nor that of other lifelong practitioners from the ancient world, for achieving a deep knowledge of the human mind based on their rigorous exploration of their own contemplative practices. Perhaps past generations had something that we have lost. With that in mind, we can turn to Patañjali’s exploration of the human psyche.
Citta
Patañjali’s definition of yoga employs the term “citta,” which is often translated as “mind.” If you look at different translations of this sūtra, however, you will see quite a range in how the translators choose to interpret this term—mind, mind stuff, thinking principle, thought, mental capacity, ordinary awareness, and consciousness have all been used (these translations are taken from The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, by David Gordon White, pp. 13-14). Many of the English terms themselves used to translate “citta” also mean different things to different people. The English word “mind,” for example, is itself a complicated term with a long history in European philosophical thinking, as is the term “consciousness”—neither term has an agreed-upon definition in western culture. So, it seems that right from the outset, comprehending Patañjali’s definition of yoga is not going to be a simple task. This is where it is helpful to turn to the commentators, since Patañjali himself does not give a detailed explanation of what he means by “citta.” The yoga philosophers unpack “citta” using the terminology of the closely related philosophical school known as the Sāṁkhya Darśana. There are three components to citta:
(i) manas (mind)
(ii) asmitā (ego)
(iii) buddhi (intellect)
Rather than thinking of these as three different things, it is best to think of them as three different functions of the citta. Note too that “manas” is often translated as ”mind,” adding yet another potential source of confusion. Manas and citta are not equivalent, so it is confusing that they are often translated with one word—“mind.”
Perhaps the best way to understand citta is to see how it works in action. Think of a simple act, like perceiving an apple. I can see, touch, smell and taste one and the same apple. Yoga philosophers would describe this in the following way: the information from the senses is carried to the manas. The eyes would bring two images of the apple (one from each eye), the hands would convey tactile information about the apple, and the nose would transmit olfactory information. Manas is the synthesizer of all of this information. We do not experience the apple as a disconnected bundle of visual, tactile and olfactory sensations. We experience one apple which looks, feels and smells a certain way. How does the brain unify the disparate pieces of sensory information reaching the brain? In contemporary neuroscience this is understood as “the binding problem.” For Patañjali, this is the function of manas. Furthermore, we experience all of this sensory information as being of an apple—the manas also performs this classificatory function. In conclusion, we can say that the manas synthesizes and classifies the information that our senses bring to us from the external world.
In addition, every time we have an experience of something in the world, we appropriate that experience as being an I-experience. The experience has both an objective and a subjective dimension. Seeing the apple isn‘t just a seeing of an apple, but is the experience that I see an apple. Asmitā appropriates each of our experiences and makes it feel like an I-experience ( I see, I touch, I taste etc.). It seems as though a sense of “I” is built into the very structure of each of our experiences.
The buddhi, the most refined aspect of the material world, operates at the highest level of cognition. It is the level of judgment and reflection. Thus, once I have experienced the apple, I can then decide where to go with this experience— for example, whether to eat it or maybe give it to a friend.
It is important to note that all this takes place within the non-conscious material world—citta is a material entity. We are conscious of the apple only because of the presence of puruṣa which is able to illuminate the whole process. Citta creates a material representation of the apple, somewhat akin to a camera taking a photograph, but it is the puruṣa that suffuses the representation with consciousness. Bryant in his commentary compares it to light shining through a stained-glass window. Although citta is material in nature, it represents prakṛti at its most subtle level (specifically buddhi) and is the point of intersection between puruṣa and prakṛti.
Conscious and unconscious mind
In this account of seeing an apple, we can see that a lot of cognitive processing takes place prior to having any particular conscious experience. Thus, Patañjali understood the mind to have subterranean depths that we are not conscious of. The idea of the unconscious mind is key for understanding Patañjali’s psychology.
The flow of thought that we experience at a conscious level is produced not just by our encounter with the world outside of our minds, but also by the mind (citta) that each one of us brings to that encounter. Patañjali, in concert with other Indian philosophers, did not see the mind to be a passive receptacle for the information conveyed to it by the sense organs. The stock example used by Indian philosophers to illustrate this idea is that of seeing a coiled piece of rope in the corner of a room as a snake. Suppose I had grown up in a village in ancient India where death by snakebite would not have been uncommon, and I enter a room where there is a coiled rope in the corner. Seeing the rope as a snake obviously happens because of the encounter between my eyes and the rope, but because my mind is stocked with memories of past encounters with dangerous snakes, I might actually see the rope as a snake. The mind seems to inject the idea of a snake into the experience. Furthermore, in seeing the rope as a snake, my experience will be tinged with a visceral fear. The mind has a subterranean level beyond our immediate awareness but that subterranean level impacts how we experience the world.
Patañjali believed that everything we experience leaves a trace in the material substance of the mind, even if we lose our ability to consciously recall it. Such an imprint is known as a saṁskāra. Thus, we literally carry our past experience along with us as we move forward through time, and as happens in the rope/snake example, the contents of our minds can literally impact how we experience the world.
Practice and the mind
Because each experience leaves a trace in the mind/brain, experiences arising from repetitive actions carve out deeper imprints in the mind. This is similar to the process of how paths are inscribed into the landscape through their repeated use. Paths that are not used slowly disappear from the landscape, those that are frequently used are etched more deeply. We can think of our mind/brains as landscapes crisscrossed with paths created by our actions/practices. Contemporary philosophers of mind use the analogy of paths in the natural landscape to understand how the mind works:
“The mutual interdependence of organism and environment is exemplified in the existence of the path or trail. Trails are made by the very act of walking: our movements pat down the earth and sweep aside rocks and vegetation. Once the trail has come to be, it is difficult to avoid using it. We travel along grooves that our own repeated action has made for us; the paths we take are well-worn because we take them every day, and we take them in part because, being so well-worn, they are the paths of least resistance and also because venturing off the beaten path demands more work, and even risk. Just as the trickle of water creates a groove that, once existent, will attract ever greater quantities of water to it, so our own locomotion changes the ground itself and constrains our subsequent actions.” (Alva Noë, Out Of Our Heads, p. 22)
We are well aware that what we do changes the environment in which we live. We have seen the devastating impact of life styles fueled by incessant desire on the visible natural world. What has been less visible is the environmental degradation that can occur within the psycho-physical environment of the human being through the creation of bad habits.
Conversely, through practices such as yoga that involve repeated actions, we can create new and healthy pathways in the landscape of the mind/brain. Recent work done by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin has revealed the changes in the brains of Tibetan monks who have devoted many hours to the practice of compassion meditation. His work has shown how contemplative practices, carried out persistently over time, create new “pathways” in the brain. His work has shown that the human brain retains a neuroplasticity throughout our lives, demonstrating the ability for us to grow and change throughout our adult years if we engage in the appropriate practices.
We can summarize the material covered in the last two months as follows:
Citta is part of the natural world (prakṛti) and hence can never actually be still, though it can be calmed.
Citta is part of the causal framework of the natural world, and so change takes place within the framework of the natural laws governing the natural world.
Each of our interactions with the world leaves an enduring trace/impression (saṁskāra), stored in the citta.
The human mind is therefore more than the conscious mind—it is full of traces/impressions formed by past actions.
Conscious memory is the recovery of past experience in the present consciousness, when the saṁskāra made by the original experience surfaces, often because of an environmental trigger.
Saṁskāras can influence behavior even when not present to the conscious mind.
Repeated behaviors/actions (habits/practices) create a deeper pathway/trace/imprint in the citta.
Repeated behaviors/actions may therefore exert a stronger influence on our perceptions of the world and our actions in the world (consciously and unconsciously).
Harmful saṁskāras can be slowly changed over time by being replaced with beneficial ones, like cultivating a neglected garden.
Change occurs as a result of laying down layers of new, beneficial saṁskāras through cultivating new behaviors/actions as a result of practice.
Yoga is this transformation of the human mind from its afflicted state to a non-afflicted state.
This requires commitment and determination on our part.
Concluding thoughts
Bessel Van Der Kolk’s book, The Body Keeps The Score, has been at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for 156 weeks. Rich with neuroscientific documentation, he explains the way in which past trauma haunts us and compromises our ability to live well in the present.
“The body keeps the score. If the memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera, in heartbreaking and gut wrenching emotions, in autoimmune disorders and skeletal/muscular problems, and if the mind/brain/visceral communication is the royal road to emotion regulation, this demands a radical shift in our therapeutic assumptions.” (Van Der Kolk p.88)
Although Van Der Kolk’s access to the technologies of contemporary neuroscience allow him to present a richly detailed account of how the human mind works, his overall understanding resonates well with that of Patañjali. It is not surprising therefore to see that yoga is given a key role in his therapeutic recommendations.
Joy Laine taught philosophy at Macalester College for over thirty years and teaches Iyengar Yoga around the Twin Cities.
Sources and Further Study
Edwin Bryant, Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali. North Point Press, 2009.
Alva Noë, Out Of Our Heads. Hill and Wang, 2010.
Jill Suttie “Does Meditation Work?” Shambala Sun, March 2012.
Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score. Penguin, 2014.
David Gordon White, The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali: A Biography. Princeton, 2019.
