Yoga is the stilling of the mind
I will confess that a fair number of my students are not super excited when I tell them that the highest intention of yoga is to still the mind. In fact, many of them look at me quizzically, as if to say, “Wouldn’t that be boring?” It’s a fair question.
Yoga citta vritti nirodha.
Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind. – Patanjali, Yoga Sutra 1.2
yoga = the practice or system being taught
citta = the mind
vritti = the fluctuations
nirodha = to still something or stillness
Isn’t thinking what our mind is designed to do?
It is said that each of us think 60,000 thoughts every single day. That is one thought per second for 16.67 hours every day, which is more time than we’re meant to be awake if you follow the rule of thumb that 8 hours is the recommended daily allotment of sleep. From that fact alone, it could be easy to assume that the mind’s natural state is quite the opposite of stillness.
This thought experiment might have you wondering why, 2,500 years ago when we imagine that the world was much calmer and we know that people were pestered a lot less by buzzing information devices in their pockets, Patanjali created a system designed to help people like you and me still their minds. It has me wondering, too. Bringing me to 60,001 thoughts for today.
So what is yoga trying to get us to stop doing?
As I wonder, it occurs to me that the vritti that Patanjali’s practice is meant to still may not be specifically thoughts. After all, yoga is all about acceptance of reality – and the reality is that we have been blessed (not cursed!) with the miraculous thinking organs between our ears.
If not our thoughts, then what could Patanjali’s system be designed to still? I think the answer is the emotional charge and energetic response that accompanies each of our 60,000 thoughts.[1] Here are some examples that spring to my (once again thinking) mind:
- Your ticket is drawn in a raffle, and you do an impromptu little happy dance.
- In the wake of the loss of someone you feel physically exhausted.
- The burst of a giggle when something strikes your funny bone.
- The tingle of love you feel when you realize the person you love loves you too.
- The chill of fear after you experience a near miss on the highway.
- The impatience you feel when you are thiiiiiiissssss close to getting your way.
All these can be vritti. In other words, all of these can be mental activities that we would like to still because they are stealing us away from the present moment. On the other hand, all of these can also be the movements of a mind that is fully engaged in its present moment. In other words, these can be the experiences that make up a life – so we don’t want to miss out on a single one.
How do we tell the difference between thoughts and distractions when they can be so similar?
How do we tell the difference between the feeling of being wholly engaged in the moment and being wholly carried away by a vritti? Over the weekend I listened to a sermon (by Rick Morley at St. David’s Episcopal Church on 3/9/2025 – you can watch it here) that offered a very clear answer to this question. When we are in the throes of a vritti, it takes us over. It reduces our bandwidth so that we are entirely at the mercy of our feelings.
In the sermon, the preacher offered a vivid example of impatience. After a full day of work and a long wander through The Philadelphia Flower Show, he and his family popped over to the Reading Terminal Market for a meal. It was packed, which is always the case during the flower show, and not only was he starving, but his feet and back were aching.
We, his listeners, laughed as he described himself “stalking like a lion” through the rows of filled tables where people continued to enjoy themselves after eating their meals. This kind man could not feel any connection with these happily sated diners. He could not smile at their pleasure. His heart was not warmed at the sight of other happy families sharing an outing together. In his hungry, pained, and exhausted state, these people were all simply obstacles to what he wanted and needed – a seat.
Vritti steal us away from our lives
We laughed because every single one of us has been in a state like this ourselves. Probably every single day. It is fluctuations like these – bursts of feelings that not only steal us away from the moment but from our ability to be our best selves – that yoga is designed to help us to still.
When we are free from these distracting and, at times, all-consuming vritti, we are better able to soak in each of our moments. These moments may include a happy dance, sorrowful exhaustion, a giggle, love, fear, and even impatience. Yoga is not trying to numb us to or to steal from us any of these feelings. Rather, it is creating the inner spaciousness and stillness that allows us to experience them and to let them go so that we are free to feel the next feelings that arise from the moment-by-moment journey of our precious human life.
I don’t know about you, but stillness that allows the space for all that living does not sound boring to me at all.
[1] In Yoga Sutra 1.5, Patanjali teaches that the fluctuations we are trying to still are motivated by pain and pleasure.