Vyuntthana nirodha samskarayor abhibhava pradurbhavau nirodha ksana cittanvayp nirodha parinamah
Patanjali, Sutra III-9
What the Fork?
That beautiful expression is in sanskrit , missing a few accents. According to Satchidananda, Patanjali is saying :
The impressions which normally arise are made to disappear by the appearance of suppressive efforts, which in turn creates new mental modifications. The moment of conjunction of mind and new modifications is nirodha parinamah.
Wow! Zero readers today and yesterday. I cannot even get into Google Analytics to verify that. I have been cut off from the rest of the world. And it is all good. Not suppressing this impression, not adding to the truckload of mental modifications already within me. I want nirodha parinamah .
What is this nirodha parinamah, crazy lady?
Well, also according to Satchidananda , it means the moment of conjunction of a thought and one's effort to retrain it.
Huh?
Basically, what I think it boils down to is: As soon as we become aware ( conjunction of the mind) with a potential samskara (new modification) we are offered an amazing opportunity to make a choice. We can either go back to the old tendencies of suppressing and repressing...stuffing it all down...or we can gain the freedom that comes with this awareness. Once aware, we can simply let the experience come and go. That's nirodha parinamah. So that moment when we catch ourselves running off after a thought or experience in the old habitual ways...when we can observe ourselves doing what we automatically did without awareness...that is the crucial moment in our awakening!
According to yogapedia, Nirodha parinamah , is an advanced stage in a yogi's journey where they have freed the mind from citta vritti [its attachment to thought waves or mind stuff]; where they are free from samskaras.
Evey thing that comes in through our senses gives us an opportunity to practice letting go of this tendency toward attachment/clinging/ suppressing...including this non existent readership I am presently seeing. It gives us an opportunity to practice letting go of the habitual pattern of creating new mental modifications when we judge what is happening around us...when we suppress it because it is to painful to deal with. Practice helps us to learn to smooth the waves that such tendencies have created so we can experience all of Life as it is. I practice it also with my health and health seeking ( which I stopped putting any concern or worry into. I look at professionals now telling me things that are not true for "me" and there is absolutely no need arising in me to explain myself or to challenge what they are saying...it is amazing. I cling to none of it!), with my parenting ( much more challenging there) and with all the little things that come into my awareness during the day. I am really trying to observe and understand the cause of all my mind stuff so I can be free of it, so I can reach a state of nirodha parinamah which would , I assume, simply mean falling back into what I am and always was...that calm, still lake of consciousness.
All is well.
Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Integral Yoga Publications -page 169
Yoga pedia https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/6164/nirodha-parinama
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