What Is Chit?

What is chit? Please join American yoga asana teachers, Phoebe Schiff and Keric Morinaga for an informal discussion on the nature of consciousness and why it is such an important concept in yoga philosophy.

Transcript

Hi,

Keric.

Hi,

Phoebe.

Today we are talking about a pretty big idea.

Maybe the biggest.

The question for today is,

What is consciousness?

Keric,

What is consciousness?

So the Sanskrit word that we use most often is chit.

C-H-I-T.

Or chitta.

We can define it in a couple of different ways.

So I think of consciousness as being really everything.

So everything is consciousness.

Everything in the universe is consciousness.

Consciousness is the creator of all things in the universe,

And consciousness is simultaneously everything in the universe.

So it's both the creator and the material.

Consciousness is the stuff of the universe.

Okay,

That's a good start.

It's big.

It's the definition of everything.

So it's a really big definition.

It's sometimes hard to get my head wrapped around it.

I think one of the questions for me then is,

Why?

Why is the universe made of consciousness?

Or why is consciousness this big concept in yoga?

Why couldn't the universe be made of light?

Or why couldn't the universe be made of energy?

Why?

Who decided that the universe was made of consciousness?

Is kind of what goes through my mind.

It's kind of the question I've been asking myself for the longest time.

My big question,

And we've been talking about this for about a week now,

My big question is,

Is there a universe without consciousness?

And this kind of goes back to that old question,

If a tree falls down in the forest and nobody sees or hears it,

Does it really happen?

And so my question is,

If a universe exists,

But no one sees or experiences it,

Or is conscious of it,

Does it really exist?

And that's what begins to tie my head up into philosophical knots.

I understand.

And I agree.

I think that part of why we characterize everything as consciousness is that it makes it matter more.

There's a reason.

There's an intelligence.

There's an experience.

Without consciousness,

Like you said,

There is no experience of the tree falling.

There is no experience of the universe.

And then,

If there's no experience of the universe,

Then to me it's sort of meaningless.

So consciousness to me,

It implies purpose.

It implies intention.

It implies meaning.

Looking at one of the definitions I found online of consciousness,

It says that consciousness is the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings.

And this sort of addresses my question,

Which is that consciousness is the experience of perception and awareness,

So then if there is a universe that is never experienced,

Then it doesn't exist by this definition.

And then another definition I found was the fact of awarenessed by the mind of itself and the world.

And that to me is really just self-awareness.

So then consciousness implies this awareness of the awareness.

The conclusion that I've come to very recently is that everything is consciousness not because someone decided that,

Oh,

We're going to make everything in the universe be constructed of this material called consciousness.

Nobody decided.

It just is.

It just is that way.

Everything is consciousness because that is the nature of the universe.

So nobody decided.

We just have discovered that that's what the universe is made of.

It would be like saying,

Who decided that the sun is hot?

Nobody decided.

The sun just is hot.

Or the sun is made of these superheated gases.

No one decided that the sun was that.

We just have discovered and we've learned that this is the nature of the sun.

And so this is the nature of the universe.

This is the nature of consciousness.

Yeah,

This touches on this idea of consciousness manifesting as different objects in different densities in the universe.

So everything,

Absolutely everything in the universe is just a different form or manifestation of consciousness.

Everything from the sun to the microphones that we're speaking into to the air and things that we can't see.

So consciousness is everything and then it manifests in material form and then the way that we are able to.

.

.

So the form is consciousness and then the way that we perceive the form is also consciousness.

Both me being able to see the coffee in front of me and the coffee are both consciousness,

Which is where this starts to turn into sort of a philosophical spiral.

What is consciousness not?

In the philosophy that we study,

In the Tantric philosophy,

Consciousness is everything.

So there's not anything that's not consciousness.

In the Splendor of Recognition,

Which is a book that you and I often read and refer to,

The Splendor of Recognition is an exposition of the Pratibhinya Hridayam,

Which is a text on the science of the soul or the science of consciousness.

And the first sutra,

There's only 20,

The first sutra is consciousness in her freedom brings about the attainment of the universe.

So consciousness with a big C,

Meaning the one divine consciousness,

Creates everything in the universe.

And then in the second verse,

By the power of her own will,

She unfolds the universe upon a part of herself.

And what this says to me is that she,

Consciousness,

Unfolds the universe upon a part of herself,

So she is the universe and everything in the universe is her.

So when we ask,

Like,

What is consciousness not?

Well,

Nothing,

Because she is everything.

Consciousness is everything.

You mentioned consciousness in different densities,

So we account for everything in the universe being consciousness and the way that we account for diversity is consciousness can contract and divide and subdivide and fold and unfold and take on different forms,

Including you and me.

So I don't think we've said this yet,

But you and I are consciousness too.

And we can think of ourselves as being consciousness on different levels.

Our bodies,

For example,

Would be probably the most dense form of consciousness,

Very solid material,

And our minds are a little less dense,

More fluid.

Our thoughts can change and shift very rapidly.

And then even beyond the body and the mind,

We have something that we would call spirit or true self or awareness,

Something inside,

Our little sea consciousness inside.

And then those are just different densities.

I think of it like water can be ice,

Which would be like our bodies,

And then water is like the fluidity of the mind,

And then water can turn into steam or vapor,

And that's more the least tangible,

The least dense,

Which is like our hearts,

Our spirits.

Right,

Yes.

So this is interesting.

This is referring to all of the different densities of consciousness.

And so when we think about our thoughts or our dreams,

Those are much lighter than our actual form,

And that's why we're able to think rapidly or have dreams of something really crazy happening and maybe something really negative happening,

But then when we wake up,

We're able to still go about our day because whatever happened in our dream is less dense.

So it's a much more light,

Fluid form of consciousness.

And then what's interesting to me is to think about the forms of consciousness that we can't see or perceive through our five senses.

And this gets into a conversation about energy or what others may call the metaphysical.

And it's kind of like I've seen it,

I read recently that the metaphysical is kind of like before people discovered bacteria.

It was something that people couldn't see,

But that was clearly having impact on people as people were eating things and getting sick.

And then once they figured out that bacteria existed,

Then it became more,

Well,

It didn't become more dense,

But it became more dense in our understanding of it.

More almost like it crystallized as something real.

Yes,

Exactly.

And so I think that's kind of the way I think about energy.

So maybe in yoga classes or in other forms of the healing arts,

We can look at consciousness also manifesting in forms that we can't perceive through our five senses,

But it may be referred to sometimes as vibes,

You know,

When you walk into a room and you get an uneasy feeling or you're talking to a friend and even though they say nothing is wrong,

You can tell by the tone of their voice or by some sort of fear that something is off with them.

And so these are the much lighter manifestations of consciousness.

So there is a spectrum of consciousness as being dense like our human form and then going all the way up into things that we can't perceive,

But can begin to perceive by first believing that they exist.

Just going back to your comment about experience and how consciousness and awareness is key to the existence of the universe,

That there's an experience and we characterize consciousness as this spirit or force,

This divine energy that really does seek to experience everything.

So the one spirit,

The one consciousness divides and subdivides and creates and destroys and creates again and becomes you and me and everything in the whole universe as a way of experiencing herself.

And so the nature of consciousness is to experience.

And we as the individuals in the universe,

I'm going to read one more of the sutras,

Sutra 4 is,

Even the individual whose nature is consciousness in a contracted state embodies the universe in a contracted form.

And I love this sutra because it's saying that we are consciousness,

We're just a condensed contracted form of the one spirit.

So we are no less in quality,

We're just smaller in quantity.

And then if the one consciousness,

If her desire is to experience herself as much as possible through the universe,

Then our essential nature is experience as well.

So what are we doing here on earth?

Well,

We're here to experience ourselves and the world so that consciousness experiences herself through our experience.

And so this is a huge philosophical concept that ties into our yoga.

So when we are practicing on the mat and we're working hard and doing these crazy poses,

Yes,

We're doing it for health and well-being and all those things,

But we're also doing it just to experience life and to expand our awareness,

Expand our consciousness.

Right,

I love the way that this dovetails into why yoga and why yoga is beneficial to us.

Some people understand yoga as something you do to stretch out or work out.

And then there's also this notion of yoga as a way of experiencing yourself.

And when you think about it,

The only equipment,

Quote unquote,

On your mat is yourself,

Right?

You might have a couple of blocks or a blanket,

But let's pretend those are to the side.

So the only equipment that you need for yoga is yourself.

And the reason for that is that you are both facilitating the experience and experiencing the effects of the experience.

And in this way,

We are this contracted version of the universe,

This form of the universe that's doing the exact same thing.

And that's why yoga feels good is because we are aligning with our true nature as a microcosm of the macrocosm of the universe.

So the universe's desire is to experience itself just like our desire is to experience ourselves.

And when people begin to move away from experiencing themselves,

That's when they start to move out of alignment,

When they get really caught up in what other people are thinking or doing,

When they get disconnected through various types of addiction.

And that can be through toxic substances,

Or it can be really through anything that takes them away from the experience of themselves.

And so that's why addiction or habits that don't support introspection or self-study begin to harm us.

It's just a really simple answer.

We're just not acting enough like the universe.

And so we talked about this last time.

Yoga is just a practice of acting more like the universe,

Which I think is a really cool way to conceive of yoga.

Very much of what we're teaching on the mat in yoga is to experience the self,

To have this inner experience.

And it's facilitated by yoga,

By something very external,

By something very physical.

But the idea is to find consciousness,

Awareness,

Even joy,

Happiness from inside,

Not from some external thing.

So in some ways,

Even the yoga can be the addiction.

If you're just going to yoga to feel some kind of physical yoga high that comes from doing some crazy backbend or being upside down or something,

Then that's focused on more of an external.

Really,

Yoga is like the trigger to experience that inner joy or that inner self more clearly.

Yeah,

So this touches on one of the qualities of the universe,

Which is a Sanskrit word,

Parnatha.

And I've been teaching this all week,

So I have had the luxury of being able to understand it as I speak it.

And parnatha means fullness,

Perfection,

Wholeness.

And this is one of the qualities of the universe and one of the qualities of ourselves.

And it's been really fun for me to teach and think about,

Because if we are a microcosm of the universe,

Then we are full.

We already have everything that we need.

And then when you think about the way that we've been raised,

The way that certain societal and cultural structures teach us,

We've kind of been taught that we're incomplete.

We're taught that we need a certain type of education,

A certain type of relationship,

A certain type of job,

Certain interests and habits.

And all of those things are neutral.

I'm not saying that we do or don't need any of them,

But we've sort of been taught in various ways that we need something to become whole.

You even think of the old adage about relationships,

That it's two halves making a whole.

And I think this is sort of incorrect.

In relationships,

You're two wholes making a supernova or something like that.

Or that's at least how I think it should be.

So this idea of pranatva,

Of fullness or perfection,

Begins to kind of run counter to a lot of things that we believe.

And why I believe as humans we've become disconnected and separated,

Because we think that the universal principles don't apply to us.

Even though we very clearly came of the universe,

We are little bits of the universe contracted into these forms.

So I personally get a lot of reassurance out of realizing that we are a universe,

Because all of the principles apply.

The universe contains the polarities of darkness and light and east and west and everything,

All opposites,

Just like we do.

Which is why in our human experience,

It feels better to experience the whole spectrum of experience and emotions,

Versus staying sort of in this middle baseline place.

And that for me is a huge intention for why I teach yoga.

I'm less worried about the people who are really sad or really happy.

I'm more concerned about the people who are kind of at this kind of scary median in their lives,

And they don't go too high or too low.

Does this tie into your intentions for teaching yoga at all?

Absolutely.

So when I teach,

It's not yoga where I allow students to just sort of half-ass the pose,

You know,

To just sort of try.

My intention is for every student to experience every pose as fully as possible.

Now that doesn't mean that they're sweating bullets or working so hard that they're shaking on the mat.

Experiencing a pose fully could be resting fully in Child's Pose or in Shavasana.

But the intention is really to experience each pose.

Another translation for pranatva is perfection.

And so having a perfect moment is by definition full.

So fullness and perfection are,

It's the same word,

Pranatva,

And I love that.

So my intention for students is to have this perfect moment in each pose where they experience the pose as much as they can in that moment.

In addition to pranatva,

We give the divine one consciousness several other attributes.

And again,

For the longest time,

I would think like,

Well,

Who decided that these are attributes of the one consciousness?

And what I've really realized is that it's not that anybody decided or put these attributes on consciousness.

These are just the attributes of consciousness.

So if we study consciousness,

We discover that,

Oh,

This is what consciousness is.

So this is not a completely comprehensive list,

But these are some of the attributes of supreme consciousness that we use in anusara.

So consciousness is satya,

Which is truth or reality.

So consciousness is real,

Which is great because it would be terrible if everything that we taught our students was an illusion or was a lie.

So consciousness is truth,

Reality.

Consciousness is aware,

And we've talked about that quite a bit.

Consciousness is ananda,

Which means it means bliss or like inner joy or true joy or ultimate happiness.

Consciousness is Sri,

Which means auspiciousness or divine beauty is a way I like to describe it.

Consciousness is freedom,

Swatantriya.

Consciousness is pranatva,

Fullness or perfection.

And then,

Which really to me implies like lacking nothing,

And you touched on that quite a bit too.

So we're not missing anything.

We don't need to be whole from doing something or we don't need to be fixed.

We have what we need inside.

That's pranatva.

And then the last one is spanda.

So consciousness pulses.

Spanda means pulsation.

We recognize that we're not always going to be happy.

It's not always going to be a bright sunny day outside.

Consciousness has a pulsation.

There's a darkness that balances the light.

We're not always going to be in our most expanded state.

There's going to be moments where we contract.

So then if you think about all of these attributes of the divine,

Of the one consciousness,

The proof to me is that we all experience these attributes because we are consciousness.

And we all want to experience these attributes more.

So everyone wants to experience reality and not be lied to.

Everybody wants to be more and more aware.

We want to learn and grow as human beings.

Everyone wants to be happy,

To be blissful in life.

We all want to be awesome.

So Sri,

We all want to experience divine beauty in our lives.

Swatantri is freedom.

We all want to feel free.

Nobody wants to feel trapped or bound.

We desire freedom.

We desire this pulsation,

This back and forth.

We can't always be on the high.

We can't always be in a low state.

We need and desire the pulsation of life.

And we all want to feel full.

So I think that those attributes of supreme consciousness are,

To me,

The proof is that this is what we want.

And it's in our nature to want these things and to desire these things because our nature is just a smaller version of the one consciousness.

Yeah,

The thing I want to highlight from that is this idea of sponda or pulsation.

And to bring this conversation kind of back down onto earth,

I love the idea of sponda because everything is a pulsation.

It's a pulsation between darkness and light,

Between day and night,

Between wakefulness and sleep.

And sometimes we can get really hard on ourselves when we're acting in the ways of pulsation.

So we're not always going to be happy.

We're not always going to succeed.

We're not always going to get the yoga pose.

And so remembering that we need the failure of a yoga pose to then experience the success of it is one of the things that reminds me of how lucky we are to have the pulsation,

To have the polarities.

If there was no darkness,

Then we wouldn't appreciate the light.

If there was no pain,

Then we wouldn't know the feeling of relief.

And then to take this a little bit deeper,

I think one of the hardest elements of the human experience is to really come to terms with suffering.

So our own suffering,

Suffering of our loved ones,

Suffering in the world.

But we also have to remember that suffering is just one end of the spectrum that then makes us appreciate joy,

Ananda,

Lack of suffering.

And so as hard as it is to take in the suffering,

The universal suffering,

We also have to remember that that is there in the same way that darkness is there,

In the same way that winter is there so that we can appreciate the opposite.

We have to remember that the one consciousness desires to experience herself in all ways.

So if the one consciousness only experienced,

Let's just use the dichotomy of light and dark,

Only experienced light and never experienced dark,

Then she would only experience like half of the spectrum.

And so as we experience our lives,

If we only experience life,

Or now you can maybe even take it to good and bad,

Or happiness and suffering,

If you only ever experience happiness and you never experienced sadness,

Then you would only experience half of everything.

And granted,

Sadness and happiness are on a spectrum.

It's not one or the other.

But in the tantric philosophy,

We also recognize that there are times where it is appropriate,

And it's air quotes around good,

But there are times when it's good to experience anger or sadness.

There are very appropriate times when certain things in the world should make us angry.

We need to feel anger.

We need to be angered at injustice and things that are not right.

We need to feel sadness when something is lost in our lives,

Be it a person or a job.

And so we need the spanda,

We need the pulsation,

We need to experience both ends of the spectrum.

We might not always like it,

But it's part of the human experience,

And our human experience is really just a reflection of the bigger experience of the universe.

So remember the next time that you have messed up a yoga pose or messed up anything in your life,

That all that is showing you is one end of a spectrum of experience.

And I think the more depth of one side of experience that you feel,

The more depth that you're able to experience on the other side of the spectrum.

So in other words,

If you really fall out of a pose and really dramatically flip out of handstand or something,

Then all that's doing is making the depth of that experience such that when you do make it up to handstand,

You feel joy,

You feel bliss in a way that maybe you wouldn't if it came more easily to you.

So may we continue to embrace ourselves as universal beings and remember that we are not exempt from the rules of the universe.

This is who we are,

This is our ultimate identity,

And that we're here to experience.

Just jumping on what your last statement that we are here to experience.

And the question in yoga is who is experiencing?

And we can talk about consciousness,

The big C consciousness.

Consciousness is the one universal consciousness.

And we can talk about little c consciousness like my consciousness,

Your consciousness,

Your awareness,

My awareness,

And there's this observer who is the awareness.

So many times what we're doing in the yoga practice is experiencing or observing,

Connecting with this awareness inside that goes beyond just sensing things with our bodies or even running things through in our minds.

So it goes beyond physical or mental,

We have this spiritual state or spiritual part of us.

And granted it's all consciousness.

We just earlier said that consciousness is everything,

Even our bodies and our minds,

Just in different densities.

But we're all used to experiencing the world very physically because our bodies are what we use to experience the world.

And then we all have this running monologue or.

.

.

Narrator.

Narrator in our heads,

Thank you.

This narration in our heads that tells our story.

And the part of us that's probably the most challenging to experience is that observer,

Our consciousness.

And in yoga we call it everything from the true self or the inner self,

Awareness,

Consciousness.

And so we're often trying to experience the world from that highest vantage point.

And you and I have talked about it as like almost imagining that we could take a step back outside of our bodies and it would be like a drone camera,

Just a little bit up and back behind us observing.

And so you have this higher view of life.

And if we can take a step back sometimes and get that higher view,

It'll take us out of our stress and pains of our physical bodies and our mental stress.

We take that highest point of view just like the universe is observing and experiencing everything from the highest place.

Yeah,

We.

.

.

I remember talking about this and this to me made things,

Practices like meditation,

Practices like journaling,

Practices like being in nature make a lot of sense to me because those things feel good and are good for you because they're kind of allowing that camera or drone over your shoulder to come forth versus being distracted.

And so we talked a little bit about this,

But journaling to me when you really think about it is a little bit trippy because who's writing and who's reading?

And that's kind of the idea,

But what it's doing is it's sort of panning out,

So to speak.

Such that we can write down our experience and then look at it.

So if anyone who listens journals,

That's kind of what you're doing.

In the same way when you're meditating,

You're observing yourself.

In the same way when you're in nature and you're not distracted by sort of man-made things,

All of those things are consciousness as well,

I guess.

And that's why it's such a pleasurable experience.

So all of these different things that people use.

And it can be those things or really it can be any sort of ritual that just kind of brings you into the moment,

Brings you into experience.

And this seems to be kind of the root of a lot of different religions and cultural practices.

No matter how weird the actual practice is,

It's simply an experience of coming into the moment and experiencing yourself in that experience.

So,

Chit.

Oh,

Chit.

There is so much more to talk about when it comes to Chit or consciousness.

But for now,

Just consider the ways that you can act a little bit more like the universe on your mat and in your life and see if that lands for you.

We'll see you next time.

Thanks for listening.

Reviews

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Very interesting, thank you 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Very interesting! Thank you!