Hopefully you have seen that Patanjali is systematic in his approach to conveying information. He is grounded in definitions and explanations.

These first 11 sutras have given us;

a definition of yoga,

a description of what yoga is,

and what yoga is not,

 

 

– further to what yoga is not there have been some detailed descriptions of the five citta vṛtti.

Patanjali is striving for us to come from an attitude of negation: if we can clearly define and understand what constitutes citta vṛtti then what is left will be yoga.

In some respects this could be related to the practice of  “Neti, neti” where we strive to understand Brahman through understanding what Brahman is not “not this, not that”. For example sitting in contemplation and focusing on our body our thoughts, realising that if we can focus on them whatever the thing that is doing the focusing can not be the same a the thoughts or body, therefore we are not our thoughts or body, so what are we?

Patanjali is offering us an opportunity to look deeply into the way the mind works. Remember that these five different patterns that the mind follows can be both detrimental and helpful in our evolution towards the cessation of  all fluctuations of the mind, as we move towards steadiness.

The five patterns are: Knowledge, error, metaphor, sleep and memory.

When the mind is no longer stuck in these patterns then we can see that we are not the mind but something else, we see our true form.

 

 

But how do we unstick the mind?