Foundation of Yoga Psychology
Man is what his mind is. Again, without the sensory data that we gather, there is no mind. The mind develops from gathering sensory' data from its contact with the external world. Such sensory information that is gathered colours the mind and generates, in turn, desires. Desires lead to action. Actions lead to impressions and impressions to fresh desires.
Feelings cannot be treated separately from the states of consciousness. Knowing and feeling are but two aspects of the modifications of the same entity — the chitta. Gunas or the ultimate constituents of the material life are themselves "feeling stuff". There is a lot of play of feelings involved in our mental life. Latent memories of such feelings become the prime movers in making up the evolution of the gunas. Gunas evolve and cause a variety of our experiences. Though it is the gunas that create all these experiences they themselves are neutral.
As in a classical example: "Devadatta was rich and possessed a house and cattle, etc. Devadatta then became poor since he lost his house and property."
In real fact, Devadatta remains the same person in both the above situations. It is not as if the person Devadatta has become maimed of limbs. The various images that are reproduced in our mind of the outside world keep changing though the gunas themselves that cause this, very much like the colour glass pieces in a kaleidoscope, remain neutral. Nothing really is happening except our own construction of thoughts and feelings on a neutral, ever changing external reality.
Our mind is a repository of many past impressions and feelings. These latent states in our mind have to actualize themselves into our consciousness to be experienced by the perceiving spirit. Whenever the senses are drawn out into the external world, the spirit (or consciousness) gets in contact with the material world. Such an actualization of the latent state is desirable from the ultimate point of the apavarga or freedom of the spirit.
Yoga remains more concerned with the 'physical' aspect of the mind than the purely physical bodily aspects. In fact, yoga unlike modernpsychology is not interested in the utilitarian aspect of exploiting the mind for material gains, but is rather interested in disciplining the mind to reach the very ultimate source of knowledge. For example, when viewing a film we remain identified with the projected images on the screen forgetting the source of illumination - the lamp of the projector.
It is the specialty of Yoga that it tries to understand all human endeavours, joys and sorrows from the point of view of the identification of awareness with the mental states. To be exact, the entire technology of yoga should be viewed from this point viz. that of creating a greater understanding of the source of awareness and thus avoiding identifications with the ever-changing mental states.
Sanskrit terminology used in this text:
Chitta – personality-complex or mind-stuff in Yoga psychology
Gunas – constituents of material nature (Prakriti) in Samkhya metaphysics
Apavarga – liberation or dissociation of consciousness from material nature
Feelings cannot be treated separately from the states of consciousness. Knowing and feeling are but two aspects of the modifications of the same entity — the chitta. Gunas or the ultimate constituents of the material life are themselves "feeling stuff". There is a lot of play of feelings involved in our mental life. Latent memories of such feelings become the prime movers in making up the evolution of the gunas. Gunas evolve and cause a variety of our experiences. Though it is the gunas that create all these experiences they themselves are neutral.
As in a classical example: "Devadatta was rich and possessed a house and cattle, etc. Devadatta then became poor since he lost his house and property."
In real fact, Devadatta remains the same person in both the above situations. It is not as if the person Devadatta has become maimed of limbs. The various images that are reproduced in our mind of the outside world keep changing though the gunas themselves that cause this, very much like the colour glass pieces in a kaleidoscope, remain neutral. Nothing really is happening except our own construction of thoughts and feelings on a neutral, ever changing external reality.
Our mind is a repository of many past impressions and feelings. These latent states in our mind have to actualize themselves into our consciousness to be experienced by the perceiving spirit. Whenever the senses are drawn out into the external world, the spirit (or consciousness) gets in contact with the material world. Such an actualization of the latent state is desirable from the ultimate point of the apavarga or freedom of the spirit.
Yoga remains more concerned with the 'physical' aspect of the mind than the purely physical bodily aspects. In fact, yoga unlike modernpsychology is not interested in the utilitarian aspect of exploiting the mind for material gains, but is rather interested in disciplining the mind to reach the very ultimate source of knowledge. For example, when viewing a film we remain identified with the projected images on the screen forgetting the source of illumination - the lamp of the projector.
It is the specialty of Yoga that it tries to understand all human endeavours, joys and sorrows from the point of view of the identification of awareness with the mental states. To be exact, the entire technology of yoga should be viewed from this point viz. that of creating a greater understanding of the source of awareness and thus avoiding identifications with the ever-changing mental states.
Sanskrit terminology used in this text:
Chitta – personality-complex or mind-stuff in Yoga psychology
Gunas – constituents of material nature (Prakriti) in Samkhya metaphysics
Apavarga – liberation or dissociation of consciousness from material nature
