Just pay attention...
I’ve recently been teaching from Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. The Sutra I’ve been using as our anchor goes, ‘Yogas Chitta Vritta Nirodha’ which I’ve seen translated in many ways, however, the sentiment remains the same. When we practice Yoga, we create space to quieten the activity of the mind.
Yogas = Unity/ to yoke/ harness
Chitta = Mind stuff / Subconscious/ Conscious / Unconscious
Vritti = Whirlpool/ Activity/ Movement/ Dynamism
Nirodha = Cessation/ Quietening
It’s been joyful and refreshing to bring it back to the books, partially because philosophy is an element of Yoga I find somewhat intuitive. It’s difficult to say that without sounding contrary, but I guess my schooling and the adults who raised me played a big part in it. I’ve always been taught to question things whilst being gifted a hefty dose of “Hippy” rhetoric from both parents, maternal grandparents and other influential adults along the way. Needless to say, I’m enjoying the structure of sitting with a text. I like the simplicity and repetition of returning to the same Sutra day after day rather than moving on after reading the meaning once. I love this slow-digestion process, each morsel a tiny key to unlock some new neural pathway - a new understanding galvanised.
I suppose with time and living of life I’ve started to understand these teachings on a more profound level. Now I can more acutely relate them to my own life and experiences. As a result, the knowledge feels multi-faceted. The best way I can describe it is that I have begun to know some of this wisdom in a less generalised way. There’s more subtlety, more shading and yet more inherent confidence in the knowing. It’s like a deeper, more believed truth but that truth feels soft, quite far from being definite. Paradoxically I know now that these ‘truths’ will transform and my understanding of them will shift, become deeper or more shallow, perhaps more or less relevant over time as I move closer or further from their meaning and as the context of my lived life changes. Mind fuck eh?
I’ve been thinking long and hard about the above Sutra. Yoga is the quietening of the activity of our minds. Yoga (unity and harnessing) is the quietening (or the cessation) of the dynamic activity of the full mind (conscious, subconscious and unconscious).
This ‘dynamic activity’ refers to not only the small thoughts that crop up but the web-like way in which our internal dialogue builds. The translation of Vritti as Whirlpool feels quite apt here. Imagine a swirling pool of water, drawing in all that dares come close. Just the like mind creating a narrative, which adds in all that passes close by and supports one's personal beliefs.
The application has been me simply asking the communities I show up for to “Just pay attention”. To start with attention is loosely on the breath and slowly moves from the physical body, through the energetic, emotional and then the mental body. Of course…this is all through the lens of the mental body (our mind!) but more on that another time.
Just pay attention.
A simple statement, but for me, it feels rich and weighty.
Just pay attention. My mind is a pretty wild place (aren’t they all?!), even with ten or so years of Yoga (Asana, Meditation, Pranayama etc) practice, the harnessing of this mind, the witnessing of it, is a daily practice. So to just pay attention feels revolutionary. Like, what? Do you mean I don’t have to get involved? I’m allowed to just watch as a runaway train hurtles towards the end of the line, off a cliff and into the treacherous waters below. No way Jose!? I ain’t letting go of my perceived control.
Here’s the thing, in my experience the more we pay attention and watch those pesky thoughts, the better we become at knowing ourselves. It’s useful to remember that our thoughts are just an organ’s function! Thoughts are the brain's version of the lungs filling and emptying with breath or the heart pumping. It's just what it does. Read that again. Your thoughts are just the function of the organ of the brain. As Mo Gawdat once said, “We don’t say: I piss therefore I am!” we do not identify with the functions of our bladder, yet we identify with our thoughts. We create a hierarchy of what is part of “who we are” and what is not. Which Organs’ functions are part of our intrinsic identity and which ones are just stuff that the body does. Of course, without thought, we would not be able to make sense of the world, we’d be plant matter or jellyfish. Without ego, we would be totally void of identity, and personality and the world would be an unrecognisable place. The challenge I think is not to vilify the ego or rid ourselves of it altogether. It is to befriend it, notice when it may be in the driver's seat and kindly invite it to sit the fuck down on the passenger side.
It’s worth remembering that the Chitta Vritti (mental activity) is, in an oversimplified sense, created by the context we grew up in and the beliefs we uphold. Therefore the better we can understand ourselves, the more compassionate we can become to that brain of ours, which ultimately is just an organ doing the best it can with the tools it’s given.
Chitta Vritti creates our personal reality and one of the goals of Yoga is to reach a state of enlightenment, of Self-Realization. In this state, we are no longer restricted by the limitations of our own warped reality and can see the world as it truly is, whatever that means. Therefore observing the machinations of our minds is the first of many steps in breaking free from the patterns and cycles that hold our minds and lives hostage.
So, are you ready? Take a seat, close your eyes, breathe in; breathe out.
Just pay attention.
