At any particular moment of time, our mind is but a mixture of pure consciousness identified with the colours of thoughts, feelings, experience, etc. We remain involved in these states of our mind and do not bother to go behind them. So that at any moment, if we were to ask such questions as “Who am I?”, “What am I?” the answer would be “I am all that my mind is - all that occupies my mind at that particular moment”. We are a part of all that we survey, we are the sensations of colour and sound etc., we are the feelings of pleasure and pain, we are the subjectified emotions of love and hate, etc.
In Yoga, such admixture of consciousness with the varying states of mind is to be avoided. In fact, we must learn to recognize the variety of modifications of the mind itself. These modifications, when not analysed and controlled, lead to much suffering. It is only when we know our enemy that we can conquer him. The mind that remains distracted and is a veritable jungle of disjointed ideas, feelings, sensations, tensions, etc. is not yet a Yogic mind. It is only when the Yogi begins to take stock of his mental contents, that he begins a serious study of himself. ‘Know thyself’ – would mean, in this context – know and control the five Klista Vrttis and the one Aklista Vrtti of the mind. The various states of the mind are divided under the head ‘Vrttis’.
In Yoga, such ways of functioning of the mind remains vitiated and contaminated by inherent structural defects, which lead to painful as well as non-painful conditions. Against the five Klista Vrttis – correct and incorrect knowledge, imagination, sleep and memory – there is a sixth way of functioning of the mind, which is – the way of self-improvement. This is a non-painful way of working of the mind. It is in this state, that one can gain true understanding of oneself, as opposed to the other five defective states that lead to untold sufferings.
Of the five defective states, the first is called the state of right knowledge. Such right knowledge is available through direct sense perception as well as through inference and authoritatively communicated knowledge. This is one way in which it is believed that we arrive at the right understanding.
What is called as wrong knowledge is another type of the Vrtti of the mind and is very extensive in its ramifications. In fact, this is the habit of our mind to impute something to an object, which is totally different from what we impute. It is very much like doubt, but is different because at the moment of our wrong knowing we are absolutely certain about our wrong interpretation. This way of our functioning betrays lack of our awareness of the highest reality. We are unable to distinguish between the real consciousness and the unreal material world. In fact, this wrong association beginning from ego identification goes to the level of identification of consciousness with mental modifications and identification with our body. It extends even further when we are drawn by desire of possessions, of power, and of authority or are directed by sensory objects and believe ourselves to be one with them. In fact, such ignorance leads to suffering through identification with unreal things. Ignorance is thus a source of suffering. It even becomes responsible for the memory grooves that causes birth and death.
We are existing at the level of ideas and imaginations. We might appear as normal persons and we might accept this functioning of our mind as a legitimate one. To the Yogis, however, imagination is also unreal and is a source of pain. A verbal construction has no real base and can encourage us to move about in the realm of fantasy. Of course, various persons can detect the flaw in this way of functioning of our mind. The very purpose of meditation known as Savitarka has much to do with this particular way of functioning of Citta. This type of meditation does not allow us to get at the reality.
We also spend a lot of our time in drowsy sleepy states which are also unyogic. We need not feel happy at this state. For example, when in deep sleep condition, we are in a state which is not really a higher state of consciousness; but it is in fact a state of inertia. We remain what we are or possibly a little worse off after such a drowsy condition. What is basically wrong with this is that we dwell on the affective states of non-existence.
An inert state of functioning of our mind is memory. The theory is that activities of our mind are stored and preserved as impressions both in the conscious and subconscious mind so that at suitable provocation, these impressions will also create fresh activities in the mind. At a later state of Sadhana, one has to overcome association of memory, by concentrating on the essentials of any object devoid of any memory. Memory has a disturbing effect on the steadiness of the mind.
In such a division of the states of the mind, it may happen that we do not find included certain of our special ways of thinking and feeling. A careful study of the five-fold division, however, would show how this arrangement is more suitable for Yogic analysis of the mind. Many of our unrepresented conditions like feelings, emotions etc. are really to be integrated into one or all the above states.