What is Yoga?

The word Yoga can have different meanings for everyone depending on what stage of life they are in. In North America the word Yoga generally refers to the physical practice, the Asana practice. Yoga does include the Asana practice in Patanjali’s 8 fold path however Yoga is the practice of restraining the mind. The second sutra in book One, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is “the restraints of the modifications of the mind-stuff is yoga”. The science of yoga is based on this one sutra. If you can restrain your mind from becoming disturbed, then you have achieved the goal of yoga.

Let’s break down this sutra:

1.2 Citta vrtii nirodhah

Citta is the total sum of the mind

vrtii means modifications

nirodhah means restraints

Citta has 3 different levels:

basic mind is called ahamkara

intellect is called Buddha

desiring part of the mind is called Manas

Let's says you smell apple pie, the Manas (desire) is sparked, the Buddha (intellect) starts chatting saying “I love apple pie, reminds me of being at my Grandma’s home at Christmas time”. The basic mind (ahamkara) then says “it would be nice to have a piece of pie now, let’s go get one”. Because the 3 levels happen so quickly it’s hard to distinguish between them.

If you are not allowed to have a piece or can’t find one you might be disturbed until you get a piece. You might not be able to think about anything until you get the piece of pie, this is the disturbance. Yoga is about managing the mind, so the mind is not disturbed by the pie or anything else.

Yoga is the ability not to get distracted by or disturbed by our 5 senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. If our peace is disturbed, then we need to modify our attitude towards the senses.

The goal of Yoga is to be at peace, feel joy, gratitude, and love.

There are so many ways to practice yoga, I’ll share more in the following posts.

With love & light, Angie