Witnessing Chaos
The philosophical focus this month is on mental fluctuations: vrttis. I have never learned anything about these, except Patanjali’s Sutra 1.2 ‘Yoga is stilling the fluctuations of the mind’. These fluctuations are called vrttis in Sanskrit. But what vrttis actually are? I assumed they were simply thoughts. Ha, was I wrong.
So I put on my reading glasses – which I don’t actually have, but it should be a saying like “I put on my thinking cap” – and I start reading the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali explaining the vrttis. I learn there are five types of vrttis: right knowledge, misconception, imagination, sleep and memory. All types can either be painful or painless.
So here I am, in my happy place; reading about something very interesting to me. It isn’t until I take a break from reading that it dawns on me: I am expected to write something about this subject. ‘I can’t write a good column about the vrttis,’ I think, ‘it’s too difficult and too much. I am only just learning about it’. My sidekicks panic and insecurity quickly join me.
Let me break it down for you (and me). First of all, understanding the sutras is a vrtti about right knowledge, because I’m reading holy scriptures. However, it quickly turned into a misconception, a painful one, defining what good writing looks like and using that to create a narrative about my abilities. My ego got involved. I am so attached to the outcome that it brought me the aforementioned panic and insecurity. Second of all, it’s imagination. No writing has happened yet. I am fantasizing about the column failing – a column that doesn’t even exist in this moment.
If I had thought, ‘I can’t comprehend this subject in one week’, that thought could actually be right knowledge through experience and inference. All teachers emphasize that these teachings are not meant to be completely understood in a week and I have experienced so myself: it takes time.
Thinking ‘I should write as an expert’ is also a vrtti; misconception. The reality is that I am a student, not a teacher and definitely not an expert.
So, I’ve gone from a simple reality, which is ‘I am new to this material’ to the vrtti ‘therefore I can’t write a good column’. And now I am investigating what kind of thought that is. This is exactly as Patanjali teaches to restrain the vrttis; practicing watching your thoughts. Because, as Swami Satchidananda writes in his commentary on the Sutras, the ultimate aim of Yoga is the stilling of the vrttis, but in the meantime, we try to develop positive thinking while removing negative ones, little by little. So actually, I did yoga!
It reminds me of something one of my yoga teachers taught me, when I was dealing with writer’s block. Actually, she told the person next to me, and it was about asana practice, but I translated it into my writing. She told her that thinking ‘I am the worst’ or ‘I can’t do anything’ is just as much ego and thought as thinking ‘I am the best’ and ‘I can do everything’. I always thought only the latter was ego, as in someone who has a “big ego”. And I’m not fond of people with big egos. However, this made me see that self-doubt is just as much ego as overestimating oneself. “So instead of listening to all these thoughts” she said, “you just show up and you do it. No one’s watching. There’s no performance, just practice. In here there is only witnessing what comes, there is no good or bad. You decide you do it, and you do.”
So, I started showing up every day. Not just for asana practice, but for writing practice as well. Eavesdropping comes in handy once in a while.
Remembering her advice is a helpful memory – a painless vrtti that cleared away the painful ones.
And now I am sitting here at my desk, in the dark. I showed up. I wrote this. It’s not good or bad. It is, however, late at night. You can’t control when inspiration hits. I need to go to bed – the last of the five vrttis: sleeping, thinking the thought of emptiness in the mind. Except for dreams, but we’ll talk about that later. I can’t comprehend it all at once.
Esther is a writer, creator, and yogi from Amsterdam. She is a student and Karma Yogi at Studio 108 and does her best to be kind, gentle, and to laugh whenever she stumbles.
