If you can control the rising of the mind into ripples, you will experience yoga.
Patanjali
The Yoga Sutras of Pantajali teach that Yoga is all about the amazing experience we gain when we learn to control the " modifications of the mind " ( our attachment to and overidentification with thought and emotional energy). Yoga is not about trying to control the outside world so it suits our inner world...it is not about fixing, manipulating, changing Life so it keeps our mind peaceful. Its goal is our learning to experience our natural state of peace no matter what Life is showing us.
Say what crazy lady?
Michael Singer, in his Podcast, Ceasing to be Caught in the Waters of the Mind, explains this teaching beautifully in a way the modern mind can understand.
He uses the analogy of a bird floating on the surface of a body of water to explain how we, as Self/consciousness/awareness, rest on the mind. We, as awareness and Self (the bird that can naturally soar above the water), are not the mind...we are simply floating on the surface of it. It is important to understand that.
The Natural State of the Mind
The mind, like water, is naturally still, calm, peaceful and when it is still we expereince a smooth peaceful ride through Life. It can be very pleasant. As this awareness, we can see Self clearly reflected on its surface. We can see that we are not mind but something deeper. We can see that mind, which is neither good or bad, is a tool by which we can see ourselves and enjoy ourselves and experience ourselves...that is if we don't get lost in it. If we can experience clear mind...we can experience Self. This experience of Self is Yoga.
The natural state of the mind, then, like water is empty of disturbance until some force outside it, some energy causes it to ripple. (There are billions of forces in this world that can cause the water to ripple). These ripples or "mental modifications", changes in the still pattern( Sanskrit term is Vrtti) disturb that natural state. The water/mind becomes disturbed. When the water becomes choppy ...when the mind becomes too active...we will not be able to see Self...What was once a clear reflection becomes blurry and disturbed. We lose that sense of who we are and begin to see ourselves as beings stuck in this water/mind and at the mercy of the water/mind.
Let me go back a bit to the analogy.
This bird that can naturally fly high lands on the water and floats around for a bit. He begins to believe that being on the water is his natural state and that the water is a natural extension of him. He forgets that he can fly and settles into a life of a water floater. When the water is smooth and calm he finds the ride smooth and pleasant. Some nice easy ripples come along that create a tingly feeling in his belly and he really likes that. He decides he likes this type of ripple and he wants more of this. That is, until suddenly, the wind blows and the storm hits and the water becomes very, very rough...he loses his balance and gets sucked into the water. The storm picks up and the little ripples become swells that keep dragging him under again and again. He is swallowing water. He is drowning and having to do whatever he can not to be totally overwhemed by the waves. He decides he does not like this type of ripple. Even when the storm passes and the water becomes semi-smooth again....he swears he is going to do whatever he can to prevent that from happening again. He has made a judgement about what is good, right and should be and what is bad, wrong and shouldn't be. The nice tingly waves should be...the nasty harsh waves shouldn't be. so he is going to seek the nice ripples and avoid teh nasty.
Trying to Control that Which We Cannot Control
Not wanting to feel helpless and at the mercy of waves he cannot control, he convinces himself that the way to solve the problem and float through this water in a way he likes to...is to control the water. He convinces himself that he can. He becomes extra vigalent as to what makes the waves get rough and what makes them smooth or tingly. He noticed once that when he turned his head to the right...that the waves picked up and became nasty. He commits to avoid turning his head to the right from now on. He also noticed once that when he chirped a certain sound or flapped his wings a certain way the water became soft. He swears he will keep doing things in this way. He is totally committed to collecting memories, ideas, notions and beliefs about what makes the water smooth and what makes it rough and doing what needs to be done to control the water.
But guess what?
There are times when he has turned to the left that the water got choppy...and there were times when he chirped the perfect sound and flapped the perfect flap that the waves got rough. What did he do then? He convinced himself he didn't "do" it right or wasn't trying hard enough. So he decided he had to be even more observant of the water, more analytical and more digeilent in his doing, his fixing, his manipulating and controlling. He became one mixed up bird!
So our minds, in this analogy, are the waters we are floating on. These waters, though naturally calm and still at the core, are constantly reacting to the energy of circumstances, thoughts and feelings we experience; they are reacting to Life ....creating primary ripples on the surface. (What Patanjali referred to as mental modifications.)
And like the bird, we become convinced we are the mind . We notice that certain things in Life create a nice peaceful ride for us at times, certain things in life create waves in our mind that make us tingle with pleasure and certain things in Life create waves that make the mental ride unpleasant or worse make it down right nasty. If we do not stay hypervigalent and attempt to control the outside world that is causing our minds to ripple, we convince ourselves, we will get swallowed up by this water. So we seek, attempt to gain, claim and cling to people, circumstances, thoughts and emotions that feel good and we do whatever we can to avoid the waves from getting rough by struggling and resisting against what is...what is in the external world and what is in our minds. So it becomes one exhausting ride.
All because we forgot some important truths:
- We are not the water we are floating on. All we need to do is look into the water when it is clear and smooth without ripples ( the good kind or the bad) to see that we are the one observing it and our own reflection on its surface...not it! So the goal of yoga then is to see beyond the ripples to the natural clear empty state of the mind. To see our Self in that.
- We cannot control Life, just like the bird cannot control the water it floats on. Life is going to do what Life is going to do. It will offer us things that please our minds and make them ripple with pleasure and it will offer us things that displease the mind and create the experience of pain. That is Life...and avoiding that truth and assuming we can change these factors will only exhaust us in the long run. We need to accept and allow Life to be Life...just as we accept and allow our minds to do what they do...ripple.
- Controlling the mind may not be the best choice of words...recognizing how the mind ripples, allowing the ripples, looking deeply into the ripples is a better way to explain how we overcome them. When we allow pain, for example, into our lives, into our conscious experience......it will ripple and it will flow through. We do not need to do anything about it. All things in Life come in and flow through our awareness. This is the primary ripple, Singer refers to.
- Resisting the ripples in Life and the ripples in our minds (Secondary ripples) only makes the water choppier and more challenging to float through. We really need to stop resisting Life and what it offers...stop resisting thoughts and feelings...and just allow it all to just be. Suffering is resistance!
- We can actually fly! We are not stuck in this mind...at the mercy of its ever changing ripples. We can fly above it, transcend it and look down it from a higher place ( higher consciousness)
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