Yoga and healing the mind

The mind is like mercury and slips like an eel; it’s very difficult to control the mind. Yet it is possible to bring the mind, stability and quietness. Cosmic intelligence in each individual develops individual consciousness known as chitta. This chitta has three parts, ahankara or ego, buddhi or intelligence and manas or the mind; they are all ingrained in the consciousness. The absolute consciousness has no shape. The soul has no shape; both are nirankara.

When ahankara is broken into two parts, it becomes aham akara,  (aham means I, akara means shape). The chitta is placed in such a way that on one side, is the pride of the individual and on the other side, is the divinity of the individual. The manas or mind and human body has got five bhootas or elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether.

The mind’s five qualities
They have five qualities: shabda or sound, rupa or form, sparsa or touch, rasa or taste and gandha or odour. These are five senses of perception. The mind is placed in such a way, that the five elements in each individual are divided into five koshas, known as annamaya kosha or skeletomuscular body, paranamaya kosha or energy body, manomaya kosha, the mental and emotional frame of the mind. Then, there is the vijnanamaya kosha or the intellectual body and chittaanandamaya kosha that many call anandamaya kosha.

Purusha is beyond these five koshas, and when the chittamaya kosha becomes completely silent, there is ananda. The mind is placed exactly in the middle or on the elemental side. On one side is earth and water, and on the other side is vigyanmaya, or intelligence.

Balance in yoga
The mind is exactly in between, and hence it plays a dual role; the dual functions of the mind end with the perfection in asanas. The right side of your body and the left side of the body have to be evenly balanced. Yoga helps attain that balance, for it is not just for physical fitness. Yoga has different parts such as yama, niyama, asanas, pranayama…you cannot leave anything out. The mind has got so many pieces, which cannot be counted. There are different kinds of mind; they include the organic mind and the pranic mind or energetic mind. There is also an emotional mind, and a wandering mind. Other types also include a tranquil mind, ahamkarik or egoistic mind, a samskarik mind, logical mind, impertinent mind and also an attentive mind. I have met a lot of intellectuals from around the world, and the power of attentive attention — total attention — can be intoxicating, just like alcohol intoxicates the sluggish. This intelligence can intoxicate the mind to become egoistic, and then intellectuals may think that none can come close to them. When a person reaches that level, it is ahankara; there is downfall. Intelligence is like a place where you can get caught or move ahead. Ahankarik chitta may break your consciousness into various forces; if you overcome that, you understand what is divine chitta or divine manas. Hence the mind is like an eel which cannot be gripped. But one has to do abhyas, and with practice and renunciation, one can overcome the mind and develop greater control. Munis and rishis must have thought that the only way to bring the dualistic mind to a single cosmic mind is through yoga marga. There are four margas. Jnana marga, bhakti marga, karma marga these are all dependent on yoga marga, which is a foundation for the other three margas. Therefore yoga plays a great role.

We bring these eight aspects of yoga from yama to samadhi in a capsule form, so that you develop shakti or power within your mind and body. When that shakti comes, use that shakti with yukti, swadhyaya. Study your own self, not only scripts, in order to understand your own qualities and behavioural patterns. For that the path is dharna and dhyana in order to understand your own self.

The end of consciousness is samadhi — that’s what we call manalya or habituating the mind with alertness. There is a state where you have to move from samadhi to kaivalya — it is the state of perfect freedom or the divine marriage of the self with nature. From ‘I’, you move to the soul.

(Transcribed from a lec-dem on Yoga and Healing the Mind)