#4 Five Modifications Of Mind | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

The modifications that do not allow the seer to see the Truth are five:
1. Evident Knowledge
2. False Knowledge
3. Uncontrolled Imagination
4. Sleep
5. Memory
Witness all 5 of them give up control over our mind and allowing to put these modifications to rest during meditation.

Transcript

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily morning live meditation session with me the answer my salutations to Patanjali the knowledge of yoga and this opportunity for us to explore this knowledge together so that we can make our lives a little better to have more clarity of ourselves and bring this also to our daily life.

Yoga and meditation they all have one goal it's important to always remember this goal because as we go along the journey there are parts which are not easy and to go through those phases you have to remember the goal the goal is to know oneself the goal is liberation all different words one and the same thing in the end they all converge to one thing to knowing oneself in this journey of knowing oneself there is a lot of clarity needed about why we are unable to see ourselves why we are unable to know ourselves why we are unable to live ourselves for that clarity we have to look under the hood meaning we have to look into our own mind as much messed up our minds are whatever the situation is there in our life in our minds how difficult how unwilling you are to look into your own mind it is important to understand your mind to face your own mind to put things in its right place especially if we look at what is happening in the world right now what we are going through together in this world right now it is even more important that we take control of our mind back otherwise this mind through what it has seen in the last months will take various forms will have diseases will have illnesses will have ill health which we would not even know where they are coming from how to address them so is it is better at this stage already to take charge of our mind to move towards healthy states of mind and in this movement Patanjali's yoga sutras are very helpful because they paint a picture of the mind they create a framework of the mind in which we can understand easily what is this mind and how do we tackle it where are the handles how do I approach and take this mind into a better place put it in its right place and put our being our heart in its right place let us go through today's sutras which are also based on the discussion that we are having since last couple of sessions we established in the last couple of sessions that there is this lake of chitta or in other words the mind screen called chitta which means when you close your eyes what you see what goes through in front of your mind screen the thoughts the ideas the plans all this what goes through is the chitta or on the screen of chitta and what is going through are the forms the vritti different forms of energies what we are calling them as thoughts or ideas or plans and so on so in this backdrop in this understanding of that there is a screen there are forms on the screen and then there is a seer the witness who is constantly watching these modifications that are on the screen here the goal that we have established is that the chitta the screen is completely free of any forms when the screen is completely free of any forms any modifications the seer can see through the surface can see into the depths of chitta and into the depths of chitta is our true nature is our true being is the truth hidden from us and the goal is the seer sees and meets this truth seer meets this true nature how do we understand these modifications today's sutras are all about where Patanjali puts these modifications into five different types five different classes it sounds slightly theoretical but I believe that it helps us along the journey while we are meditating every day and we are coming across these forms coming across these modifications we know what these modifications are we know what the classification of these modifications are and then what to do with them Patanjali says Vrithya Panchatya Klishta A Klishta so Vrithi the modifications are five in classes painful and not painful some of them you can feel already that they are bringing you misery but some of them do not bring you misery so they stay very deep in your consciousness they very they stay very deep on your chitta so you may not even attempt to work on them and that is why it is important to know these five classifications as well.

Pramana Viparyaya Vikalpa Nidra Switya.

Pramana the evident knowledge the right knowledge the knowledge Viparyaya the wrong knowledge the inverted knowledge the perverted knowledge Vikalpa the uncontrolled imagination Nidra sleep Smriti memory let us go through these five the right knowledge the wrong knowledge the uncontrolled imagination the sleep and the memory one by one very briefly and then we will sit in meditation in silence and validate observe this in our own experience.

Pramana the right knowledge or the evident knowledge what is this evident knowledge it's something that is very obvious you never question that knowledge it is not painful to when you see yourself in the mirror you see your body you are a direct perceiver of your body so you'll never question that and it is not painful and that becomes your evident knowledge what you see around the physical objects you never question that a table is a table a chair is a chair you see you perceive and that is your evident knowledge and certain things you infer you say 2 plus 2 is equal to 4 you infer there is a there is a inference there is a calculation in the background and you infer that direct knowledge that evident knowledge or someone tells you someone tells you and you believe that person and if you look at the entire foundation of our modern knowledge it is based on referencing on credibility of other people who have known and have been passing on that knowledge forming this cascade this entire structure of knowledge these are the sources of direct knowledge evident knowledge where there is an evidence for the knowledge.

Vathanjali is very strict when it comes to putting people always on track of yoga he even says that this evident knowledge has to be put aside when you are in yoga when you are in meditation your goal is a chitta free from Vritti and even the evident knowledge comes in the way you can observe in your own meditations that this evident knowledge facts also start arising in your mind and you don't know what to do with them so what he's saying is that even facts you put them away for these moments of meditation for these moments of silence you put all the facts away as well because they are not going to help you in going through this journey and meeting your own true self so for the moments of meditation not just now in every practice in every session all even those facts that arise in your consciousness put them aside let your canvas be completely empty the screen be completely empty of any modifications of any Vritti the second wrong knowledge or the perverted knowledge the inverted knowledge the reverse knowledge what that means is that when you don't want to accept the truth when you don't want to see the facts slowly wrong knowledge starts forming on top of your chitta and you almost cannot identify that you are stuck in the wrong knowledge and that is why he's emphasizing that when you do not see the facts when you do not see the evident knowledge you start to get trapped into something that is inverted knowledge a boy he was sent by his mother to the temple the mother gave him two coins she said take these two coins one coin is for the gods in the temple give it to the gods over there and one coin is for you to carry out this process go enjoy your sweets from the market he took the two coins he was playing with the coins along the way and the coins fell one of those coins fell into a hole where he could not get the coin back so he picked up the other coin thought about what to do and he looked up in the sky and said God since you are everywhere I cannot reach that hole you take out your coin and let me be with my coin and go to the market now small boy can't blame him but similarly we start explaining ourselves we don't look at the facts the way they are we are caught in false knowledge the third delusions here what he's saying is even the imagination is where one can get caught up and one can keep on going on and on and on uncontrolled in fantasy in imagination put a check to that when you are in meditation when you have your eyes closed you see that your mind is getting drifted away in imagination in delusion bring it back last two sleep and memory sleep is when you are tired there is a layer of unconsciousness on top of your chitta and when you are sitting in meditation you fall asleep here the message is that make sure that you're not falling asleep make sure that you're rested enough otherwise there is no meeting of the witness there is no witness there is no awareness if you are falling asleep lost memory we're carrying so much past in us all the time the burden of the past and if we continue to carry that burden of the past in our chitta in our mind it will always come in the way just like my hand is coming in the way it will always come in the way of the witness and the true being the truth the true self let us observe validate these five modifications in our own silence in our own chitta as we close our eyes so please close your eyes posture upright comfortable awareness inwards on your mind screen observing your mind screen with every breath allow your body to settle allow your awareness to turn inwards towards your mind screen you you you you If facts arise on your mind screen.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let your mind screen be free of all modifications.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Don't let your self drift away in perverted knowledge,

Imagination,

Sleep,

Memory.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Stay alert,

Observing your mind screen.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Don't force anything.

If it happens,

Good.

If it doesn't happen,

Let it be.

Stay alert,

Stay aware,

Observing your mind screen,

Silently witnessing your mind.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Notice a sense of centeredness,

Silence as you are aware of your mind screen.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let them go,

Put them aside.

Let go of all effort.

And if you wish to stay longer in this silent awareness,

Keep your eyes closed,

Awareness inwards,

And stay deep in silence for the next minutes.

Or very gently and slowly you may open your eyes,

Maintaining this awareness,

Silence,

Centeredness,

In this observation of your own mind,

Not just with the eyes closed,

But also with the eyes open.

And as you go through your day,

Maintain this observation of your mind.

I will see you tomorrow at 7 am Central European Time.

Namaste.

Reviews

🙏

Clear explanation and great meditation. Thank you 🙏

Wonderfully clear teaching. Namaste.