Yoga and Mind Control

Often, when we go to Yoga classes the teachers talk about yoga philosophy, some will mention Patanjali (The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali), some won’t (and you may leave the class wondering what on earth they were talking about or may be curious and study further; like me.
So what is yoga? And how do we control our minds?

The direct translation of the second sutra – Yoga citta Vrtti Nirodhah is, according to TKV Desikachar: "Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively toward an object and sustain that direction without any distractions".

So, by controlling the mind, one manages to achieve peace and quiet. Or, perhaps the complete opposite – by not being able to control the mind we become more disturbed! Which one is it? Only you will know! By controlling one's mind and achieving the peace with oneself, it is possible to control the world and our surrounding – or at least have the perception of controlling it.

I recently received an angry email from a fitness studio reacting to my enquiry about venues –in their angry outburst (as people often do in the office without thinking about the consequences or how the recipient may react) they inadvertently sent an email to me instead of to their manager. Obviously, I’m only human and could have reacted in exactly same way – which probably would not have achieved either of us any good.  But I took one deep breath and controlled my thoughts and switched off the phone. An hour later, there was an apology and a completely different email from the same studio praising my idea. What I want to say is that we can all choose not be moved by the external surroundings. We can all access our breath and choose not to react but access positive thoughts or no thoughts at all. One should not be moved by the outside world.

It is all about the perception – I can decide to be affected by the outside world; by my children's tantrums or I can decide to understand their tantrums and become them in order to help my children and myself. And all the way, I can be peaceful and not be affected by all the screaming around me! The chatter of the mind can be controlled and by accessing all the yogic tools such as pranayama, meditation, asana we can achieve and maintain the control of our mind and our peaceful self.

Yoga is the unity of the mind and the body. Yoga is based on citta vrtti nirodhah – by controlling my mind and its disturbances through asana, meditation and other yogic tools, I can achieve peace with myself and with the world around. I am able to understand my children and deal with their problems (whether it is the tantrum or a three-year old who wasn’t really understanding what I was saying to her or the tantrum of a 6 year old wanting to achieve another 5 minutes on her iPad or the sadness of my eight-year old for not being understood by her classmates). By controlling my mind through asana, pranayama and meditation, I have found my peace and can cope and understand the world around me.