Yoga Chitta Vritta Nirodha

Mindfulness and yoga are often spoken about in the same breath.

But one is a practice where you sit and move as little as possible and the other one is more or less that opposite. So what do they have to do with each other? 🤔

To explain, let's travel back in time by about 2200 years.

Back in those days there was a sage called Patanjali. 🧘‍♀️

Patanjali wrote down a collection of knowledge that related to the practice of yoga. Yoga back then wasn't like yoga now. In fact, there was little or no mention of poses. Yoga was a philosophy.

Each of the little bits Patanjali wrote down is called a sutra. And the collection of these sutras is therefore commonly referred to as "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali"

One of the first sutras in this compilation is:

YOGA CHITTA VRITTI NIRODHA

loosely translated from Sanskrit this means something like:

Yoga is the stilling of the turnings of the mind

"Hmmm ok, so doing yoga is meant to quieten my mind?" 🤯

Sort of.

When Patanjali wrote down all these cool bits of knowledge, he created something called "The 8-Limbed Path" which was meant to be used as a guide to spiritual liberation.

The 8 components of the Path are as follows:

1. Yamas

2. Niyamas

3. Asana

4. Pranayama

5. Pratyahara

6. Dharana

7. Dhyana

8. Samadhi

Some of those may sound familiar, others probably won't. Each one is cultivated by the previous one.

1 and 2 are your basic "don't do that" " do this" instructions. ❌ ✅

3 is preparing the body physically for meditation. This is what "modern" yoga focuses on 🤸🏿‍♂️

4 is breathwork 😮‍💨

5 is turning attention inward 🙂‍↕️

6 is concentration and 7 is meditation. Mindfulness sort of spans both of these 🧘‍♂️

8 is then of course the state of Enlightenment 🌟

Although sitting meditation and yoga can feel like very different things, they've been closely related for millennia!

They're part of the same philosophy, the same framework, the same practice 💙

Reference: Literally every yoga teacher training course....