At a playdate pick up the other week, a mum commented how great it was my daughter had lots of space in her mouth that all her baby teeth were spaced so far apart. TRUTH. I know that startling independence of those little white teeth are the result 6 years of ferocious thumb sucking has pushed her bottom teeth in and spread her top teeth so far apart that we know we will be contributing heavily to the down payments on her dentist’s new Lamborghini.
It’s a simple example of one of the five types of mind patterns which author Patanjali introduces up front in that ancient guide to yoga, the Yoga Sutras. The five patterns to the mind are: Right perception, misperception, imagination, deep sleep, and remembering. A correct perception , or pramana, is seeing something correctly. This might be through your own eyes, through a credible source, or through inference (such as when you smell burning and infer that there is a fire). On the other side of this coin is Viparyaya, which means incorrect understanding or misperception. Viparaya occurs when you think something is accurate when in fact it isn’t. My kindy daughter won an award last week for her speech on the topic of superheros. The teacher raved to me what great ideas her talk had contained. While some of the talk was indeed her own, I then realised that a fair part of this terrific content came funnelled directly from a little watched locally You Tube series she is hooked on. Alas, an example of incorrect perception of my daughter’s imagination on the part of the teacher.
Interestingly neither correct or misperception, pramana or Viparyaya are considered good or bad. Correct perception can cause hurt (discovering someone’s dishonesty for example) or joy (your child arrives safely home). Likewise, incorrect perception can cause suffering. (You find yourself worrying about your partner late home, especially if you find yourself using that third mind state Patanjali mentions, Vikalpa – imagination – to create awful car crash scenarios in your mind) or happiness (say your bathroom scales have been weighing under for some time or not knowing you are carrying a disease.)
So why does Patanjali launch into describing our five states of mind so early in his book? Well, it’s important to understand how our mind is working so we can start to distinguish between upset caused by solid facts which are unavoidable and those upsets caused by ideas we have created, imagined, or remembered and which we are able to avoid. If we can figure this out, then we can much more easily avoid the unnecessary suffering can be more easily avoided. As the serenity prayer says,
Give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed,
The courage to change what can be changed,
and the wisdom to know the one from the other
So it’s about practicing knowing the difference.
This understanding of the working of the mind leads us to acknowledge those busy movements and limitations of the mind and therefore to better meet and feel into our true unwavering Self (pure, peaceful and blissful). And what’s not to love about that?!
So next time you are feeling agitated or reactive, stop to examine which of the five activities of the mind is actually in play. If you are like me, so often you will find that what you thought you were correctly perceiving, was in reality one or a combination of imagination, (say fears of what might happen in future but probably never will), a triggering of emotion and thoughts related to old memories (things we can’t change) or just plain old getting the facts wrong with an incorrect perception. This practice of being a silent witness is a good practice in stepping back, becoming less involved with our incessant inner dialogue.
Meditation is the fast route to sorting the wheat from the chaff and happily your meditation practices actually stack up. So even if you take a break of months or years, you can get that mediation muscle back working again relatively quickly. In our latest meditation series, we have put the mindset of smriti – memory to good use. After coming out our meditation for a mid-session check in, the class has been practicing using our memory to return to that relaxed state and re-starting our practice from that point – and guess what? It really works! Try it out next time you are stressed. Re-remember where your last great yoga relaxation took you to, close your eyes and tell yourself to drop into that state. Yum! Read more on our next meditation series on our news page and do share this with any friends who might like it.
Blessings on the path
-Christina