The Whole Point of Yoga

Yoga is the inhibition of the modifications of the mind.
(or) Yoga is the control of the modifications of the mind.

This is the core definition of yoga from the Yoga Sutras. A number of questions arise from this.
1. Why is it important to inhibit or control the mind?
2. What is meant by modifications?
3. What is the inner experience of a person who has succeeded in controlling the mind?
4. How is this control accomplished?

The mind is a wondrous thing. It can create images, words, feelings, churn up memories, plunge into anxiety about the future, and imagine things that may or may not exist. It can plunge into sleep and dream, and engage in endless self talk, explanations, and musings. According to the sages if we can stop this incessant mental activity we can experience our real nature.

While the mind is a marvel to behold we usually find ourselves lost in it’s meandering thought process. We lose our objective ability to observe the mind and plunge into the carnival of thoughts. The mind constantly agitates for our attention and wastes vast quantities of our time worrying about some future event or regretting a past event spending very little, if any time in the present. The mind is the origin of our suffering. Those who have ventured beyond the thinking process have reported a place of bliss and joy, a peace that passes all understanding and a much altered perspective where worry and regret fall away and beauty of the present moment is revealed.

According to the classical text of yoga, the Yoga Sutras, this state beyond thought is obtained through practice and dispassion. According to the Sutras practice is the endeavor towards stillness and stability. Dispassion occurs when the cravings for experience or enjoyment is lost.
As long as we identify ourselves with our body and mind we are lost in an illusionary world where our thoughts and fantasies become our reality. Lost in the fun house of the mind we forget our essential nature. In our normal, everyday mind we no longer see or experience the world as it really is but through a distorted lens.

It is no coincidence that the term for coming out of this state is called an awakening. Because that is exactly how it feels. In that awakened state the world is not different. It is the same that it always was and always will be. What is different is that the lens falls away. When the world is experienced without the frantic cravings of the ego, when the mind is still and quiet, the world is experienced just as it is…..a place of bliss and beauty.

The sages, out of compassion for our suffering, pass on their message that this suffering is unnecessary, that there is a way out. We can slumber or awaken.