The Sutra of Pure Awareness

Yogash chitta vritti nirodhah means yoga is the cessation of the modification of consciousness. Vritti is not just a modification. It is something which is not vibrating in an intelligent manner, something that is altering consciousness in an unintelligent way. But once that stops there is yoga, union. So all we need to do is stop altering consciousness, the truth of who we are.

Our essential nature, the nature of who we are, is pure consciousness and consciousness is all there is. All things are consciousness arising from one unified whole, the self-aware unified field. However, there are some disturbances in the way of our experience of this.

Everything that you see is a fluctuation of consciousness. When you begin to see the unity expressing as plurality, that is the beginning of yoga. Then the Self begins to see itself and you begin to progressively realize yourself.

The first disturbance of consciousness is the sense of I am-ness which is fundamentally anchored in the body, that I am just this body and I begin and end here and my sense of self only extends to what I own and to what has happened to me. I am English. I am a woman. I am happy. I am sad. I am this. I am that. People’s whole universe is within the confines of this ‘me’, this ‘I’, which is in isolation, the ego, the sense of I as separate from the whole, separate from consciousness.

But the truth is that what exists is totality, the whole, so the individualized expression of that only exists in the context of that and not in isolation from consciousness. When this illusion of the self as an isolated entity ceases, that is yoga, the state where the individual realizes that ultimately it does not exist. When this ‘I’ wakes up to that realization, this I am-ness is not a disturbance anymore.

Our essential nature is pure consciousness. So if we can just let go of this obsession with ‘I’ then that is the beginning of yoga ‒ the state of yoga, the practice of yoga and the experience of yoga.

The state of yoga is Chitta, pure consciousness. The practice of yoga is this realization, this act of observing. You can observe that you are not merely the wave arising from the ocean. You are the wave and you are the ocean. This awareness then starts to dominate your consciousness. Now you are the ocean and not just obsessing about the wave. As you begin to observe the ocean, the value of the ocean begins to dominate your awareness and your consciousness begins to expand. Vritti nirodhah, the value of infinite consciousness starts to dominate the value of the self.

Other modifications of consciousness include right knowledge, imagination, incorrect knowledge, memory and sleep. Sleep is also a modification of consciousness. What makes us get identified with the idea of sleep? Sleepiness can be there without you following it but if your consciousness is limited you become sleep. All the modifications can be restrained by practice and non-attachment.

The other meaning is the cessation of thought that begins to happen as the individual practices meditation, pranayama, dharana, dhyana and asana. The individual then starts to gain perception, insight beyond thought. As you start to achieve this level of pure consciousness, the mind starts to return to source. Instead of being constantly directed outward, it starts to turn inward, within itself. Now the thoughts are not moving in from an outward direction. They have ceased but the attention is there and it starts to move away from thought. The awareness starts to move within itself. The object drops and is replaced by the subject and the subject starts to become the object. That is self-realization and that is yoga.

This sutra when recited deletes all attachments and thoughts. It is the sutra of pure awareness.