(Mar 9,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Psychology of Yoga by Swami Krishnananda

The Psychology of Yoga

Divine Life Society Publication: - True Spiritual Living by Swami Krishnananda

What is the connection between thought and reality? 

As far as we are concerned, reality is the whole universe, the world outside. There is a feeling in the mind of man that the secrets of nature are outside, and to discover these secrets we require externalized instruments such as microscope, telescope, etc. There is not the least idea in anyone that these secrets are hidden in our own selves. Yoga being a discipline of the mental processes, there must be some secret relevance of this internal process called yoga to the vast reality of the external cosmos. This is a discovery of yoga psychology. 

We were under the notion that all the troubles come from people outside, from the world external to us. There are no such things as problems. The ultimate cause discovered by yoga is a peculiar maladjustment of the subject with the object – the drashta with the drisya, – the seer with the seen. “I, as the seer, the observer, the subject, find it difficult to adjust myself suitably with what I see outside – the drisya, the object world, including everything, every person. 

In our apparent external life of the waking consciousness we appear to be in harmony with others, but there is a conflict, if we go deep into the matter. What is maladjusted with the world outside is not merely our conscious mind, but our total personality and this has to be set right, which is the purpose of yoga. 

No one can know one’s own self, because we mistake knowing for merely a conscious activity of the mind. The knowledge process is identified with what we call a conscious activity of the mind. When I am aware of an object, I am under the impression, wrongly, that my entire personality is tuned to that object in this act of knowing, but what is tuned is merely a part of the mind – the conscious mind, working through the sense organs. Consciously we repress many of our feelings and motives. 

What is my present purpose?

The mind, when it is conscious of an object or deals with a particular object, takes out from its resources only those aspects and features of its structure which are necessary for the fulfillment of a chosen purpose at that given moment of time.  So, while we are deep-seatedly disharmonious with everything, we openly and overtly appear to be harmonious with all things. Therefore, there seems to be a sort of satisfaction and a success in outward life, while there is an inward dissatisfaction and disharmony inside. This latency for disharmony that is within us pursues us even after death. This is the cause of rebirth. We are reborn into embodiment in successive lives because we carry with us, in spite of shedding the physical body, the potentiality of which we are made – the psychological stuff which we really are. And rebirth, the transmigratory process, cannot be put an end to as long as the deep-rooted, the deep-seated potentialities are not brought to the conscious level and made a part of our conscious nature.

Then, what is the solution? 

Like psychoanalysis, yoga prescribes various methods of sublimating these deeper impulses, not by repressing or suppressing them, or even substituting something else for them, but by sublimating them by a very slow growing process. 

Like the nucleus of an atom, the affirmation of the ego, this centralizing principle within us, draws sustenance from the constituents of nature outside, pulls particles of matter from the five elements towards itself, arranges them in a particular pattern into what is called this body; and this process will continue endlessly as long as this centralizing principle, the ego, continues to exist. So, the purpose of yoga is to break this fortress of ego.

The very sensation or feeling 'I am' is called the asmita or ego, in yoga psychology. Asmi in Sanskrit means 'I am', and asmita means 'I am'-ness. This is the cause, ultimately, of isolating us from all creation outside, making it falsely appear that we are disconnected from things outside and that all the problems and difficulties are in the outside world and not in us. You cannot understand the connection with others because the connection is internal rather than external, and the internal connection cannot be known because the asmita, the ego, works only through the senses, which can act only externally. But relations are really internal, and the external relationship is only a temporary shape or form taken by this internal set of relations. To solve the problems of life, therefore, we have to deal with the internal relations, and not merely the outer aspects of these.

Know Thyself

The need for control of the mind, or chittavrtti nirodhah, arises because of our entire personality being involved with everything in the world, and because of this ego principle within us being the seed form of all the future projected activities, including all thought processes, etc. Therefore, when we know ourselves, we have known everything, because the entire past, present and future is hidden inside us. Even the unimaginable past and the remotest future possibilities are all potentially present in ourselves. So, to know one's own self is, in other words, to become omniscient, to know the whole creation; and to know one's own real difficulties is to know everyone's difficulties.

Thus comes about the need for controlling the mind. As we have already observed, this psychological process of controlling ourselves, harmonizing ourselves through the yoga techniques, is not merely a so-called internal activity of ours because, though for the purpose of expressing ourselves, we may talk of yoga as an internal process, it is really a cosmic process. It is so because this so-called internality of ours, this apparent individuality of ours, is really connected with all things everywhere. 

The world 'outside' and we 'within' are only ways of expression. There is neither a 'within' nor a 'without'. And so, while we speak of the subject in relation to an object 'outside', we are speaking in the language of the ego; otherwise, there is no subject and there is no object. To think a thought is to think an object simultaneously, and to think an object is to at once imply all the relations of this object with everything anywhere. Therefore, while rightly directed thoughts can bring about immediate miraculous success, wrongly directly thoughts can bring about a reverse consequence. They can create a hell or a heaven at once, with the power of our thinking. This capacity, this potentiality, this power, this latency hidden within an individual, is discovered by the psychology of yoga; and this has to be unfolded, brought to the surface of consciousness, and made a reality of day-to-day experience.

Excerpts from:

The Psychology of Yoga - True Spiritual Living by Swami Krishnananda 

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(Sep 9,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – Three-Fold Defect of the Human Mind

Three-Fold Defect of the Human Mind - Mala, Vikshepa, Avarana

Divine Life Society Publication: Introduction to the Upanishads by Swami Krishnananda

Sometimes the mind operates like a prism which deflects rays of light in various forms and in various hues. It is up to each person to consider for one's own self, what the thoughts are, that generally arise in the mind from the morning to the evening. The thoughts which take you wholly in the direction of what you are not, and engaging your psychic attention on things which are not the Self – these things should be considered as a serious infection in the mind itself.

The mind of the human being is usually characterized by three defects called Mala, Vikshepa and Avarana.

Mala means dirt, something like a thick coating over a clean mirror, preventing reflection of light in it. There is some such thing covering the mind of the human being also, on account of which correct knowledge is not reflected in the mind, as a mirror that is covered over with dust will not reflect sunlight. So some step has to be taken in order to see that this dirt of the mind is scrubbed off.

The other defect of the mind is known as Vikshepa, that is fickleness, inability to concentrate on anything for a long time; instability is the basic nature of the mind. It will think twenty things in one minute and will not be able to fix its attention on one thing even for a few seconds. These are the superficial aspects of the defects of the mind.

But there is a deeper defect known as Avarana. It is like a thick veil over the mind, a black curtain, as it were, which prohibits the entry of the rays of light into itself totally. The Atman being pure subjectivity, the impulsion of the mind to move outward in the direction of sense objects, is an anti-Atman activity taking place in the mind, a movement towards the not-Self.

The tendency to move in the direction of what the Atman is not, the impulsion towards externality of objects, is the dirt or Mala as it is called. The impossibility of fixing the mind on anything continuously is the distraction or the Vikshepa. The reason why such an impulse has arisen at all is the Avarana or the veil. These three defects have to be removed gradually by protracted self-discipline coupled with proper instruction.

Usually, you must have heard, there are techniques of yoga practice known as Karma, Bhakti and Jnana; or Karma, Upasana and Jnana.

Dross – physical impurity, is removed by Karma Yoga or performance of unselfish action. The fickleness of the mind is subdued by Upasana or devout worship. And Avanara or the veil is removed by Jnana or wisdom of life. The Bhagavadgita is a standard gospel on the art of Karma Yoga, unselfish spiritual activity. The Epics and the Puranas highlight the path of devotion, Bhakti or Upasana, love of God. Upanishads deal with Jnana or wisdom of the ultimate reality.

By protracted practice of Upasana, by worship, by Japa Sadhana, by Svadhya, by Jnana, and your own notion of God whatever that notion may be, the fickleness of the mind comes down. It will be attentive afterwards. By practising these disciplines, the distraction of the mind is subdued and also the impulse towards sense objects is curbed, you can become a good student of the Upanishadic philosophy.

In the Upanishads, three disciplines are mentioned which are equivalent to what I mentioned to you as Karma, Bhakti and Jnana, namely sacrifice, austerity, and Gurupasakti, approaching a master for teaching.

Sacrifice in ancient Vedic terminology meant, of course, the offering of holy oblations in sacred fire, but sacrifice may also mean offering mentally anything that you would like to dedicate to God. There can be externally performed sacrifice or Yajna, or a mentally conceived Yajna or sacrifice. You can be charitable by a gesture outside, or you can be charitable in your own feeling. A charitable feeling is more important than a charitable gesture.

The first things you can do in your life towards performance of Austerity or Tapas is avoidance of luxury and keep with you only those things which are necessary for you. Also limit your eating, sleeping and comforts of any kind. Austerity is physical, verbal and mental. You have to be restrained not only in your physical appurtenances but also in the words that you speak and the acts that you do.

Any kind of suffering is to be avoided. Over-indulgence also is to be avoided.  Some angels were playing a stringed instrument and they were saying, "Tune not the sitar too high nor too low. If the string of the sitar is tuned too high, it will not give music, it may even snap. If it is too low, it will make a dull humming sound, it will not give music." Neither this extreme nor that extreme is the path of the spirit. Therefore, austerity is also a cautious exercise of one's demeanor in respect of one's own self as well as in respect of others.

So the Upanishad prescribes sacrifice, Yajna, as one method or means of self-discipline, and the other method being austerity, self-control. Self-control is actually taking all necessary steps available for oneself to enable the mind to fix its attention on the root of its own existence, the Self that is behind the mind, the real you that is so valuable to you.

Sacrifice and austerity is followed by the third one, study under a teacher, a competent master who has trodden the path, who knows the pitfalls, who knows the difficulties, who acts like a physician with you. With these methods the dirt of the mind is scrubbed off, the fickleness is brought down, and the veil covering the Atman is lifted gradually, and the light of the sun of the Pure Spirit will shed its radiance automatically from within one's own self; knowledge will arise from within you. This is why it is said when you know yourself, you know everything. Know thyself and be free: Atmanam vidhi.

Excerpts from:

Introduction to the Upanishads by Swami Krishnananda

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If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at:

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