On choosing peace in each moment of your life
Being a slave to the mind is both challenging and exhausting, but as we begin to understand its antics so arises the opportunity for us to break free and come back home.
Over the last week, I have been exploring the idea that in each moment of our life we can choose peace over violence if we so wish to do so. And yes, it is a conscious choice requiring conscious action. It also means having to graciously bow out of the drama of the mind, again and again, and again.
Our ability to choose peace in each moment applies to not only to our yoga asana (postures) made on the mat but also to the mind’s workings.
After all, yoga is a mind science above anything else.
Breaking free from the mind
When exploring how we might breakfree from the mind, I think it is important to first understand the mind from a yogic perspective.
The great yogic sage Patanjali, who is said to be responsible for penning the raja-yoga (eight-limbed) method to attaining enlightenment (also known as Yoga), describes in his Yoga Sutras the goal of the practice as being: “Yoga chitta vritti nirodhah”. This translates to “the restaint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga.”
In understanding this further, you might like to imagine ripples on a lake. Your mind or consciousness (chitta) is the lake, the ripples on the lake are the vrittis “mind stuff”. The vrittis are what turn our mind and keep us in the mode of what Thich Nhat Hanh calls, “radio non-stop-thinking”.
These are the ripples, or in some cases waves, we must ride on our way back home to our Higher or Divine Self. Thus, the process of coming home is a remembering of that calm, peaceful lake within.
Lake image with thanks to Casey Thiebeau
According to Patanjali there are five main types of vrittis, “mind-stuff” or mind modififcations. They are: Correct knowledge (pramana), Incorrect knowledge (viparyaya), Imagination or fantasy (vikalpa), Sleep (nidra) and Memory (smrti).
And while these vrittis can be used for good and also to faciliate our journey as humans living in the world, actually they mostly cause us great suffering.
Consider just our human tendency to judge a person or situation without first having all of the information, or how a memory can invoke a negative emotion in the body and then initiate a related negative thought, or how we’re constantly making up ideas around what will happen in the future.
I’ve found that by being aware that these vrittis are usually most always turning over in the mind, both during your practice and in your life, you can actually increase your ability to quell them. In fact, Michael Singer says: “There is nothing more important to true growth than realising that you are not the voice of the mind - you are the one who hears it.”
Understanding the chain of consciouness
Even more profound than knowing there’s a voice inside of your head is understanding what Yoga teacher and author Stephen Cope, calls the “chain of chitta”, or the chain of consciousness. This chain is depicted in the diagram below:
As you may be able to glean from this image, basically any lived experience initiates a chain reaction comprising first appraisal, second impulse and third action. The example used in the above image is the smelling of freshly baked (vegan) bread. Stay with me.
As we go about our day, the mind receives a constant stream of information through our five senses and also from our thoughts, feelings, memories and desires. Being super clever (too clever one might say), the mind will then appraise any information received, deeming it pleasant (good), unpleasant (bad) or neutral. We will then act in response to our related impulse.
While this may not sound like a big deal, think about how much information you take in during the day and that we’re said to have a bout 60,000 individual thoughts a day!
How we see people, objects or experiences, has a lot to do with the presence of what the yogis call samskara, or deep-seated patterning that live in the subconscious mind and also karmas which are said to be stored deep within the subtle energy and physical body. It is said that karma is accumulated through the actions and decisions of our life while - it is my understanding that - samskaras are born of lived experiences. In any case, both karma and samskara are terms for what Cope refers to as our “Lens of Conditioning” (see diagram). This is essentially the lens through which we see the world.
And because this patterning is for the most part both subtle and subconscious, we don’t even know its clouding our perception. These samskaras create other modes of conditioning called “vasanas” which are like alien-personalities overiding our natural inclination for peace.
One of my identified self-patterns is: “Ms I Am not Good Enough and Soon Someone Will Work Out I Am a Fraud”, which I believe was created through a number of experiences occuring both in my childhood and my young adult life.
So every time I practice, I am working to move through these patterns and past and present karmas, in order to remember my true essence.
PRACTICE WITH ME
Breaking the chain of consciousness
Thus, being aware of and breaking of the chain of consciousness is a practice that can change the way we see ourselves, the world and everything in it - and ultimately alleviate our own suffering.
Cope writes there are two points at which we can break the chain of chitta: prior to the appraisal or a little further down the chain before we take action. An accomplished yogi is practiced at intercepting earlier in the chain, however for most of us, breaking the chain so to avoid action or reaction is the most accessible.
In the example above, you absorb the smell of hot baked bread. Person A may despise the smell of bread because their father, a baker, was abusive to them as a child. Unpleasant. Person B may love the smell of bread because it reminds them of a time in their life when they were happy. Pleasant. Person C may smell bread and are reminded that bread equals carbs and thus feeding a repetitive subconscious belief that that they’re “too fat”. Unpleasant.
You will note that even though for Person B the smell of fresh baked bread invoked a joyful memory, each of these people in the above example experienced a “vritti” having smelt it. And this is happening in every moment of our life. Exhausting!
So, then we act or react in response to this mental experience. Person A deems the small of freshly baked bread bad and will likely react in a visceral way, Person B might scoot down to the shops and buy a crusty loaf, while Person C might self-deprecate through thought or other actions.
Invoking peace in other ways
The other ways in which we can opt for peace include the words we speak to ourselves and others and that which we consume through the five senses.
What understanding the chain of chitta also helps us to do, is realise that we can influence the type of information received by the mind by opting for peace in doing so. Consider the food that you eat, the clothes that you buy, the television shows or movies that you watch – every choice is an opportunity to invoke peace, rather than harm.
Yogis call this approach “ahimsa” which the first philosophical teaching of Patanjali’s eight-limbed path. This “Yama” is a guideline by which a conscious Yogi lives their life. Ahimsa means “non harming” or “non-violence”. That is, it is the quest of the Yogi to live their life in mutual benefit to the living aspects of nature. Whether that be, oneself, other humans, animals or flora – yoga teaches us the peaceful path is the enlightened path.
Peace and karma
Consider also that every decision we make in peace is a decision that doesn’t add to karma we’re already storing in the body. Take for example Sharon Gannon, who is the co-founder of the Jivamukti Yoga method… when asked why she doesn’t consume animal meat says: “I can’t afford the karma.” That’s exactly it, we have enough all ready we’re trying to purify so that we can eventually escape the cycle of rebirth, why add more?
In the end…
So first we notice we have a mind that sits in constant appraisal and then we practice remembering that divinely peaceful and joyful aspect of ourselves – so in those moments we fall out of step with that aspect we catch ourself and come back home to it.
Patanjali himself writes “vitarka badhane pratipaksha bhavanam” (Sutra 33.2), which Sri Swami Satchidananda translates to: “When disturbed by negative thoughts, opposite [positive] ones should be thought of.”
Perhaps take the time to think about some of your own thought patterning and how it plays out in your life. Equally topics, people or tasks that get you all up in your head.
The moment we become aware of it, the moment we can begin to catch ourself and break the chain keeping us in slavery to the mind.
om shanti x
Mantras to invoke peace in your life:
Chanting “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” wishes happiness and freedom to all living beings that call Earth their home and that your thoughts, words and actions (in some way) contribute to that happiness and freedom for all. You can get chanting straight away with me here.
Repeating the simple mantra “om shanti”to yourself quietly or silently, will also invite the essence of peace into your vibratory field. “Om” encompassing creation and all that is Divine and Shanti meaning “Peace”.
Hero image thanks to Priscilla du Preez