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Yoga Sutra 1.2
योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः ॥२॥
yogaś-citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ ॥2॥
- yogah: yoga
- citta: thoughts, consciousness
- vṛtti: thought wave or mental modifications
- nirodhaḥ: to control, blocking
- To block the mental modifications is yoga.
What is yoga?: According to Swami Vivekananda "Yoga is restraining the mind – stuff (Chitta) from taking various forms (Vrittis)."
Chitta means individual consciousness, which includes three states of mind; the conscious state, the subconscious state and the unconscious state of mind.
Chitta or consciousness has three stages:
- the sense or objective consciousness,
- the subjective or astral consciousness, and
- the unconsciousness or mental state of dormant potentiality
And here the 'blocking' means blocking the pattern of awareness, not the awareness itself. This blocking should not be confused with "Suppression".
References
- Four Chapters on Freedom by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, published in 1976.
- sutra 1.2
