Chitta Vritti is basically the Sanskrit term for mind chatter, leading to the birth of the “monkey mind.”

It’s that constant flow of thoughts running in and out and all over our heads like fighter jets in the middle of a war. They come speeding through our mind’s surface. Some head straight for another and crash. Some fly away without a second glance back. Some circle around as if they want to threaten our lives. Some drop explosive bombs that linger for quite some time in our mind’s landscapes.

To me, part of yoga’s main focuses is to release our thirsty, unsatisfied minds from the burden of this Chitta Vritti. Once a person has really begun to reap the benefits of the practice, he or she will start to see they can be a master. A master of the mind.

We are what we think, and we have the power to re-write our negative toxic thoughts and reverse them to something positive.

As people dive deeper and deeper into their practice, they start to realize how much we humans live in our heads. They see how we are kept from being joyful because of the nonstop mental dialogue—full of judgments, doubts, and endless story lines- some which are completely false and far from life’s truth, and far from the Real Self.

The heart of yoga, in my opinion, is being in the present moment. It’s about knowing we are enough and whole at any given moment, not before this, that ,and the other happens, but now. It’s about allowing our thoughts and emotions to be with us (they are not going anywhere), but not letting them conquer us and eat us alive. It’s about being able to distinguish between true thoughts and false thoughts—the beneficial necessary thoughts and the ones we can let go of because they simply do not serve us in any way.

All they do is take us away from this moment, which is the one place where our innate joy can truly come to life.

Namaste!

Read more: Breath of Joy.

Caroline Young is currently a freelance journalist and Kripalu-certified yoga instructor currently living in Atlanta. Here is my blog.

 

 

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Editor: Tanya L. Markul

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