Yoga: Mental Modifications

[Explor­ing Life] Patan­jali defines Yoga as “the restraint of men­tal mod­i­fi­ca­tions.” (Yoga Sutras 1:2) Restraint means to con­trol and pre­vent the mind from engag­ing in processes that cause dis­tress in our thoughts and emo­tions. In other words, yoga pre­sumes that the mind is respon­si­ble for the cre­ation of our own psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­con­tent. Suf­fer­ing, for exam­ple, is a kind of “men­tal mod­i­fi­ca­tion” of the mind because it is a state that is con­sid­ered by Patan­jali to be abnor­mal. In other words, the nor­mal con­di­tion of the mind embraces the qual­i­ties of equa­nim­ity, resilience and pres­ence. The restraint of men­tal mod­i­fi­ca­tions means to return to a nat­ural state of mind through the dis­ci­plined con­trol and elim­i­na­tion of unhealthy thoughts, feel­ings, moods, per­cep­tions, and beliefs.

Then the seer stands in his own nature (Yoga Sutras 1:3)

To under­stand the action of a men­tal mod­i­fi­ca­tion requires the assump­tion of a nat­ural state of mind. This raises the ques­tion, “Is there a nat­ural or nor­mal state of mind?” The pre­sump­tion is that in its nor­mal state the mind embraces a num­ber of qualities:

• Being in a con­sis­tent state of pres­ence in the here and now;
• Main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent state of equa­nim­ity regard­less of the events that tran­spire around us;
• The com­plete accep­tance of the imper­ma­nence of all life includ­ing our own;
• The union of the indi­vid­ual self with the uni­ver­sal source;
• To fully inhabit our emo­tions whether com­fort­ing or painful;
• To exist is a state of non-attachment to the ego, other peo­ple, or mate­r­ial desire; and
• Embrace a deep sense of rev­er­ence and com­mu­nion with the divine and sacred in the world.

Whether or not we believe that a nat­ural state of mind exists, we can iden­tify qual­i­ties of mind that are at least desir­able and attain­able. We can also iden­tify qual­i­ties of the mind that are less than desir­able. In doing so we are able to avoid the prob­lem of believ­ing that a “nat­ural” and “nor­mal” state of mind is a nec­es­sary require­ment for the restraint of men­tal modifications.

Men­tal Modifications

A men­tal mod­i­fi­ca­tion is an unde­sir­able con­di­tion of the mind that leads to suf­fer­ing, pain, depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and fear. The expres­sion of these prob­lems gen­er­ate a nar­ra­tive of emo­tion, thought, use of lan­guage, opin­ions, per­spec­tives, reac­tions, choices, habits, behav­iors, addic­tions, and phys­i­cal well being. In the Yoga Sutras, Patan­jali iden­ti­fies five types of men­tal modifications.

The mod­i­fi­ca­tions are five-fold, painful and not painful. (Yoga Sutras 1:5)

1. Com­pre­hen­sion (Right Cog­ni­tion): The ways in which we per­ceive, talk and infer about our experiences;
2. Mis­ap­pre­hen­sion (Wrong Cog­ni­tion): The ways in which we appre­hend beyond our senses (intu­ition, pre­mo­ni­tion, etc.);
3. Imag­i­na­tion (Unreal Cog­ni­tion): our inte­rior thought world, men­tal self-talk;
4. Sleep (Absence of Cog­ni­tion): The ways which we con­nect to dreams and our sub­con­scious being;
5. Mem­ory (Past Cog­ni­tion): The ways in which past habits, con­di­tion­ing, and knowl­edge influ­ence our present experience.

Each type of mod­i­fi­ca­tion is a form of cog­ni­tion, or the psy­cho­log­i­cal result of learn­ing. A mod­i­fi­ca­tion is painful when it serves to cause the afflic­tion; it is not painful when it serves to cre­ate dis­crim­i­na­tion. Per­ceiv­ing the dif­fer­ence, or more specif­i­cally, know­ing that a par­tic­u­lar way of think­ing is the root cause of a psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lem, is the key task in restrain­ing men­tal modifications.

The Dis­ci­pline of Restraint

…prac­tice is the effort to secure steadi­ness. (Yoga Sutra 1:13)

In yoga, restraint is an impor­tant ele­ment in the devel­op­ment of dis­ci­pline. Restraint is an aggres­sive sound­ing word that con­jures up images of be held, con­fined, bound, or impris­oned. When applied to unde­sir­able states of mind, this is pre­cisely the action we are try­ing to cre­ate. The idea of restraint is to iden­tify and con­fine that which causes men­tal dis­tress. In order to be use­ful, a dis­ci­pline of restraint must have key ele­ments that we can under­stand and prac­tice with. I use the fol­low­ing technique:

1. Aware­ness: To know that par­tic­u­lar men­tal process is tak­ing place, which means becom­ing more sen­si­tive to thoughts and feel­ings as they arise;
2. Inter­rup­tion: To allow the men­tal prob­lem to exist, while con­sciously inter­rupt­ing it effects on body and mind. The men­tal energy of a prob­lem is con­tained with­out being lured into it;
3. Inte­gra­tion: To know the source of the prob­lem, to bring it out in the open, and label it as an unde­sir­able qual­ity. This helps train the mind to be, in a sense, more self-aware and self-correcting;
4. Visu­al­iza­tion: To use visu­al­iza­tion tech­nique to “see” the prob­lem fad­ing out of exis­tence, decay­ing and being absorbed by the Earth, or dis­in­te­grat­ing in white light, or any visu­al­iza­tion that is mean­ing­ful to sym­bol­ize the restraint or elim­i­na­tion of a men­tal modification;
5. Apply: To use visu­al­iza­tion as a tech­nique in every­day expe­ri­ence to mon­i­tor the mind. For­mal prac­tice over time helps to habit­u­ate and accel­er­ate pos­i­tive habits.

In for­mal prac­tice ses­sions it is impor­tant to calm the breath­ing pat­terns, assume a com­fort­able and healthy pos­ture, and relax the ner­vous sys­tem in order to facil­i­tate the inward look. Other than this, there are no spe­cific body posi­tions we need to assume. Whether this is called med­i­ta­tion or mind­ful­ness is less impor­tant. What we are doing is exer­cis­ing the mind, and the process itself is not mys­te­ri­ous or mys­ti­cal. How­ever, our adven­ture into the dis­ci­pline of restraint may reveal a mys­tery that we had been unaware of. One of the most inter­est­ing out­comes of this dis­ci­pline is the trans­fer­ence to every­day life. As with any­thing we prac­tice, both body and mind even­tu­ally inter­nal­ize the process and what once seemed to be a slow process becomes light and immediate.