Saturday, November 01, 2014
Yoga Lesson- Vrittis
All thoughts fall into two major categories pleasure and pain.
The main goal of yoga is learning to control the mind. We use the poses to help us get there. Thoughts are called vrittis. There are five main vrittis or fluctuations that affect our consciousness. They are:
1. Correct knowledge
2. Incorrect knowledge or misconception
3. Imagination(verbal delusion)
We are all subject to these thought processes. They are not necessarily bad. They can be both good and bad. For example correct, knowledge can help us to do the right thing, however right knowledge can also be used in a harmful way. A surgeon is very skilled and knows how to perform surgery, but does surgery when it is not needed for financial gains.
We study the vrittis because we are interested in how they affect our state of mind. When the mirror of the mind is clear and polished we don’t see any distortions. Here we glimpse the truth. However, most of the time we are all looking into a bent and cloudy mirror and what is reflecting back is not the truth.
The truth is – we are our thoughts. As we think so we become.
Each week for the next five weeks we will work on each of the vrittis. Our goal is to understand how to control the thoughts that arise in our minds.
Nothing is achieved without practice.