Sutra 2 of Samadhi Pada

Now we will go the next Sutra 2.

Sutra 2: "Yaga chitta Vrutti Norodhah"

This is the famous sutra of Pathanjali. When the mind is silent, when there is no flow of thoughts, yoga happens. Thus yoga means controlling the movements of thoughts, then automatically mind is peaceful. All creatures in the world struggles to get peace and happiness.

They does not even know that they have mind, which is full of thoughts. That is the misery of their life.

So Pathanjali gives finest sutra for all beings is controlling the thought flow of mind. According to him, Chitta(mind) is made up of three components, manas, buddhi and ahamkara. These four constitute the Anthahkarana, which is the centre point of all living beings. Manas is the recording faculty, which receives impressions gathered by the senses from the outside world. Buddhi is the discriminative faculty, which classifies these impressions and reacts to them. Ahamkara is the ego-sense which claims these impressions for its own and stores them up as individual knowledge. For Ex: Manas reports: 'There is one object to see'. Buddhi decides: 'That is a beautiful flower. That is rose.' Ahamkara tells: 'I should take this flower. I look beautiful'.

The mind seems to be intelligent and conscious. Yoga philosophy teaches that it is not. It has only borrowed intelligence. The Atman is intelligence itself, is pure consciousness. The mind reflects that consciousness and so appears to be conscious.

Knowledge or perception is a thought wave (vritti) in the mind (chitta). All knowledge is therefore objective. Every perception arouses the ego-sense, which says: 'I know this'. But this is the ego speaking, not the Atman, the real Self. As the electric current is present in the light bulb, the Atman is in all things, everywhere.

When an event or object in the external world is recorded by the senses, a thought-wave is raised in the mind. The ego-sense identifies itself with this wave. If the thought wave is pleasant, the ego-sense feels, "I am happy", if the the wave is unpleasant, " I am unhappy". This false identification is the cause of all our misery. For even the sensation of happiness brings anxiety, a desire to cling to the object of pleasure, and this prepares future possibilities of becoming unhappy. The real Self, the Atman, remains forever outside the power of thought-waves. it is eternally pure, free, the only true, unchanging happiness.

In order to become enlightened we must bring thought waves under control, so that this false identification may cease. If the surface of lake is lashed into waves, the watter becomes muddy and the bottom cannot be seen. Here, the lake represents the mind and the bottom of the lake the Atman.

With this Pathanjali concludes that the controlling of the thought waves in the mind, itself is Yoga.