Sutras 4-11 What Yoga is not: The state of spiritual alienation (klesha, karma, and citta-vrtti)

Then Patanjali describes the wavering operations of these fractures of the mind field by listing them as to type and category. Here we will witness the controversy that has arose between the radical academic samkhya (reductionist) dualist school which follow Vyasa's (the first written commentary on the Yoga Sutras) interpretation as gospel in contradistinction to the words that Patanjali actually says. This shows up throughout the Sutras but especially in I.5, I.7 I. 19, and I.49. It is this translators understanding that Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is not a book on philosophy, but is intended solely as guidebook such as in the spirit of a lab manual to accompany and aid experiential practices. Thus for the beginner this is the most difficult section in the entire Yoga Sutras if one were to do a comparative study.

To demystify verses I. 5-11, Patanjali is addressing the citta-vrtti and how to free our minds from their hold/restriction. He does not limit the vrttis to five, but simply says that they can be so arranged or classified --placing them into five possible categories. Most vrtti exist as combinations or permutations of two or more of these basic categories and hence the classic treatises say that there are 840,000 vrtti.

This is a cogent point, because the vrttis (as conditioned thought patterns) can take on myriad forms. We all have experienced vrttis (most of the time, except in rare moments of clarity, vision, inspiration, beauty, satori, revelation, meditation, or samadhi). But the restrictive problem normally occurs because, when cit-vrtti is dominant, we are unaware of its operation, we are not normally conscious of its coloring effects; i.e., we are unable to step outside of it and notice or be aware of its influence. Thus one who meditates or is mindful starts to notice the arising and falling of the vrtta. It is not at all helpful to focus upon or follow the vrtti, rather rather recognize that one is operating and let it go (do not feed it). Eventually through increasingly open awareness, the vrtta are no longer capable of misleading or occluding the mindfield (citta). One become aclimated to resting in the true nature of one's own mind (which is the true nature of the all pervasive all-mind).

Thus, vrtti does not denote some abstract intellectual concept, but describe the mechanism of our thought patterns that occupy or possesses our mindfields of attention -- any limiting modality of patterning that colors, obscures, perverts, corrupts, limits, restrains, restricts, or prejudices our experience of our inherent true nature (swarupa), original mind or infinite mind, and highest evolutionary potential. The reason the recognition of vrtta are relevant, is because vrtti produce kleshas (mental and emotional afflictions). Both are first recognized in order to purge them, but they are not focused upon. Gradually they are attenuated and then completely released in functional yoga.

Likewise kleshas (just as vrtti) are also not to be viewed as some abstract or esoteric mystical concept, but rather they reflect everyday ordinary afflicted experiences, which unfortunately arise and surface at many times during the day or night (as well as in meditation) - anytime our buttons are pushed, our chain is yanked, fuses are blown, red flags are waved, selfish needs arise -- when we feel disconnected. desirous, or incomplete; when we "react", become perturbed, uncomfortable, needy, compulsive, defensive, angry, fearful, paranoid, grievous, anguished, jealous, hateful, judgmental, disparaging, or are otherwise modify the basic natural condition of Infinite Mind with the aberrations, confusions, or disturbances associated with negative conditioning, past programming, and habits -- when we act out of ignorance, rather than wisdom. These kleshas can be insidious hiding as rigidity, apathy, numbness, deadness, complacency, passivity, and dissociation. Thus, simply stated, it is the liberation (nirodha) from the imprisoned mind (the world of the citta-vrtta and kleshas), which the process of yoga facilitates, as we move into greater clarity, freedom, and self empowerment -- into our true and authentic awareness of a transpersonal and non-dual self (swarupa).

The traditional academically bent commentaries can often enter into dense nitpicking and often obtuse and abstract philosophical speculation detailing the specific mechanisms and dynamics of the vrttis (disturbances and fractuals of the ordinary dualistic mind), but it is precisely this intellectual academic reductionist circumlocution that Patanjali tells us is itself a vrtti. These are the pitfalls that must be dropped for they will bear no lasting fruit, but rather serve as distractions and obstacles.

One may consider that sutras 5-11 are not important sutras, because they simply describe what yoga is not about. Also they have elsewhere been made to appear overly complicated and obtuse through self indulgent over intellectualization on behalf of scholars, intellectuals, and religionists (versus practicing yogis) that many interested practitioners have been discouraged to continue . This tendency to bastardize the sutras and make them appear the complicated property of expert academicians and erudite scholars, this translation will pay less attention on what yoga is not, but rather attempt to spend more time on what yoga is, namely samadhi or ultimate union, which is the main focus undertaken in I. 23- 51.