Vrtti's: The Ways We BE Believing

Verse 1.2 of the Yoga Sutras reads: Yoga citta vrtti nirodah. If we equate yoga to presence and the practice of presence, citta vrtti nirodah then, is our instruction manual on how to do so. We have the ability to know ourselves and our inclinations, and the ways in which we be. We can jumpstart this ability today by owning our unknowing. We must recognize the disguise that sometimes we be being and believing we are something or someone that is not who we actually are. The ways that we be, or our vrtti’s can come in all different forms, some can be like a jump in the lake on a hot summers’ day, some can be like having an entire hornets nest simultaneously sting your face, and some can go from hot to cold and back again in seconds.

These ways we be, yoga says, can be categorized into five categories, correct perception, incorrect perception, imagination, sleep, and memory. So pretty much our entire experience is experienced through one of these five lenses. And lenses as we know, can either help us see things more clearly, or they can give us a really funked up view. And this funked up view is what funks up our lives, our relationships, and our happy.

So our mission is to observe our own self, diligently and with so much good love, you know, the kind of love that drops truth bombs not to destroy, but to fulfill your true destiny. And in this diligent observation we get all the clues we need to mold and modify our own actions and attitudes, into the kind of awareness that is so alive, it has no interest in thinking about how it got to be alive, or worrying how long it will get to be alive, or stressing if alive will get divorced or get married, or numbed out because alive is being over taken by the the modern day villain of which I have deemed the name: The Screen Savage. Now, obviously as the hero of our own mission, receiving all of our own feedback from every moment of every day, we must have the will to swipe the power OFF whatever device is distracting us. We must be so bold and so committed to our happy that we willingly witness our own hurts and heartaches. Then we determine what lenses we are we are wearing when we are trudging through our misery and on the flip side, what lenses we are wearing when we are floating along with our own magic.

Decoding our vrtti’s unlocks the mystery between misery and magic, in fact, it gives us the key to our own mastery. And mastery is most definitely not born from perfection. Our mastery is earned by navigating all of life’s imperfections, day by day, vrtti by vrtti as we choose with our willingness to befriend ourselves and hold our own hand through the darkness. If we are unwilling to let go of our own hand in the misery of the dark then we will get to high five ourself in the magic of our own light. This same light is the light that lights up our alive and reminds us that our alive simply cannot thrive without the awareness we breathe into it. Breathe into your alive. Because the quality of this breath will be the the quality of your life.

Muchas Gracias mi amigos.

Thank you for entertaining my interpretation of what are vrtti’s. As always this interpretation is subject to change with my own growth and understanding of all that is yoga. I appreciate your time and consideration. May your vrtti’s become known to you and may you use them to aid in your happy.

Blessings,

Andrea Dawn