(Learn more in 4 Methods to Mastering Your 'Monkey Mind'.) Apply Abhyasa and Vairagya AbhyasaĪs we work to practice this art of quieting the mind, we need to remember a couple of things. This is what we’re becoming when we stop identifying with the transient fluctuations of the human mind. The more we do it, the more we become like the wise sages and seers of the ancient yoga tradition.Ĭonsider for a moment the word, seer. So life goes, up and down, and up and down, like a crazy roller coaster, and it all becomes very confusing.Ĭultivating this witnessing presence is what we do in meditation. Most people will never gain the awareness to experience life from a state of presence, because most people stay stuck in their minds - experiencing life though these fluctuations. This is the beauty of yoga because it’s so enlightening! Most people will never even be exposed to these universal truths. (Learn more in You Are Not Your Thoughts.) When we do yoga, and practice meditation, we become the witness to these fluctuations, rather than identify ourselves with them.īy cultivating this witnessing presence, we’re less likely to believe our thoughts and more likely to see them as what they are: ever-changing, fleeting and transient in nature. When we identify so deeply with our mind states, we can end up acting out these thoughts through our behaviors.

Knowing the Meaning More Deeply Cultivate a Witnessing Presenceīy identifying with the fluctuations of the mind, life can feel like a roller coaster ride of madness. The heart of what Patanjali is addressing here is our consciousness as human beings. This phrase, “yogas chitta vritti nirodha,” is stated in Yoga Sutra 1.2.

These fluctuations that Patanjali refers to have to do with desires, aversions, attachments, ignorance and the ego's sense of “I” and “me” and “mine.' (Learn more in Who is Patanjali: An Introduction to the Father of Yoga.) However, what the author of the Yoga Sutras (Patanjali) is teaching us here has to do with a method of quieting the mind, which is a system of practices that leads us to mental peace.

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