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Citta Vṛtti Nirodhaḥ: Finding Space and Freedom Within Our Cycles

When we open Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras, we are immediately met with a foundational cornerstone: Yogah Citta Vṛtti Nirodhaḥ. This very first sutra holds the key to our entire journey. Contrary to popular belief, our yoga practice does not seek to fill our minds with more and more ideas, concepts, or dogmas. Rather, it seeks to give us more space within.

Yet, this internal space does not make us dull or passive. Quite the opposite—it fills us with the true vibrancy of life. By slowing down the mental turbulence, we do not disconnect from the world; we awaken to its real vitality.

Understanding the Nature of Cycles: The Vṛttis

To understand how this space is created, we must first observe what usually occupies our minds. This is where the concept of Vṛtti comes in. Vṛttis represent the cyclical movements and changes that we find everywhere within nature (Prakṛti).

If you look around you, everything moves in cycles: the sunrise and sunset, and everything in between; the dance of seasons shifting from summer to autumn, winter to spring. We find these exact same loops within our own biology: feeling hunger, eating, reaching satisfaction; experiencing a desire, fulfilling it, feeling satisfied; inhaling, and then exhaling. Even our entire existence follows this rhythm: coming into a physical body, and the eventual ending of that body.

These natural cycles translate identically into our psychological realm. We all house mental patterns, habits, and emotional structures that run in cycles. Sometimes these patterns are pain-creating (Kliṣṭa), and sometimes they are not painful or neutral (Akliṣṭa). But regardless of their impact, the fact remains: they run in cycles and repetitive loops.

The Practice as a Space Revealer

This is where the physical-mental practices (sādhana) become an extraordinary laboratory. When we practice with intention, we discover a spacious boundary within ourselves. This space does not make the cycles of the world or the mind disappear, but it becomes the container within which these movements occur. This container is what we call Citta.

Through this sacred distance (vairāgya), the objects and patterns passing through us suddenly become much clearer to us. We are no longer drowning in the current; we are sitting on the bank, observing the flow.

Svādhyāya: Self-Study to Break the Action-Reaction Loop

Living in a state of Svādhyāya means turning our gaze inward to look at oneself and learn. By placing conscious awareness on these patterns that come back repetitively, a major shift occurs: we regain our choice to change the course of action and reaction.

True freedom is freedom from these automatic vṛttis that normally decide for us what we will do next. By breaking the unconscious chain of automatic action-reaction, our choices cease to be reflexes conditioned by the past. Our actions can finally come from a much more vast, conscious, and spacious place. To practice yoga is ultimately that: learning to act from this place of pure freedom.

Guidelines to a Personal Practice of Asanas

(1) Asanas take time to be understood and mastered. Practice intermediate stages of poses to develop strength and endurance.

(2) Use sequences given by the teacher or from suggested books. Inventing sequences takes a lot of experience and is not a random endeavour. If menstruating, follow the menstrual sequence. However there are some basic principles that need to be known for a beginner:

  • Start with sitting in silence and observe your posture, the spine erect, eyes open and quiet, watching the breath with no control on it. Chant Om and Invocation. Create a quiet space within.
  • Follow with some shoulder work with the Baddhanguliyasana movements to free the shoulders. You are creating a vertical extension and opening with arms above the head positions.
  • Then, a beginner must absolutely practice standing poses everyday for the first 5 years of their practice. So choose a couple of standing poses to study.
  • Follow the standing poses with some twists (Chair bharadvajasana, seated twists).
  • Some Forward extension head down poses such as Uttanasana, Adho Mukha Svanasana and Prasarita Padottanasana. While these 3 poses are really quintessential poses for soothing the central nervous system, they are also a preparation for Inversions.
  • Follow with Sirsasana. Some backward extensions suitable for beginners can be added after Sirsasana.
  • End with any poses from the family of Sarvangasana (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana, Salamba Sarvangasana, Chair Sarvangasana, Viparita Karani, Halasana, Supported Halasana).
  • The last pose is Savasana. Place yourself carefully in Savasana and release your limbs and your will power. Be quiet and let the body breathe freely.

(3) Work on observing your body and practicing with care. Be present and make good use of the time you have to practice. Time is best lived when you are completely aware and present.

Yoga with Lou Rajhas Iyengar – Our New YouTube Channel

My name is Lou Rajhas Iyengar, I live in Arles and teach in our school Studio Yoga Arles with my husband Rajhas Iyengar.
This YouTube channel is meant to share what I’m learning with students and practitioners.
In this path, I would not be where I am today without the guidance of my teachers:
I am grateful to Theresa Rowland & SY, my very first Iyengar Yoga teacher, with whom I discovered this practice and who will always be my first “Yoga Home”.
I am grateful to Lois Steinberg, my teacher and mentor, from whom I am continuously learning heaps.
I am grateful to Arunji, whose meditative life and practice is of great inspiration and aspiration to me.
I am grateful to Guruji, Geetaji, Sunitaji and Prashantji, whose life dedication to this subject and generosity has lit this path mighty brightly for a lot of us.
I am forever grateful to my husband, Rajhas Iyengar, with whom I share everything, including our love & devotion to this practice. I am also immensely grateful to our 6-year-old Abhimanyu, my mirror and teacher.
I am also grateful to the students, without their support I could not do what I love.

Discover our YouTube channel: Yoga with Lou Rajhas Iyengar

Pranayama and its relation to Asana

Pranayama is a compound word comprising two words, Prana and Ayama.
Prana is the vital energy, that which distinguishes animate things from inanimate things. Animate things absorb energy from their surroundings, metabolise, feel, act and grow, have a beginning and an end. For us this happens through the in-breath and out-breath. This kind of breathing is characteristic to the biological world. This movement of breath signifies the existence of Prana in the embodiment. The departure of Prana marks the end of respiration too, hence the death of the living being. The closest equivalent of the word Prana in Latin is anima, from which the word animals is derived, that which has Prana. The sanskrit word for animal is Praani. 
The yogic texts define Prana as Vishva Chaitanya Shakti: the illuminating (animating) power of the Universe. Prana is mystical and mysterious. It is so present that we ignore it. Fraught with obscurity, Prana is difficult to decipher in the beginning. To understand that which is so subtle, our intelligence, attention and observation needs to become extremely subtle.

It is important to note that for a layman, breath and prana are synonymous. However, breath is the vehicle of Prana. Prana is seated in breath, and is subtler than breath. Therefore breath becomes the vehicle for us to study Prana. And it is only with time spent observing the body-mind, body positions, sense organs, mental states, bio-energy within the body, physiological functions and their relationship to breath that we can get closer to directly perceiving and hence getting closer to understanding Prana and its all pervading force. It will hopefully become clear in the course of time. All understanding goes from gross to subtle.

We can say that Prana is central to all living, breathing, metabolising, acting and feeling beings from birth, and that which uninterruptedly keeps its presence until the last breath. Prana departs from the embodiment with the death of the individual being. The prefix ‘pra’ represents that which precedes the breath.

We not only live by Prana but all that we do with the body and in the body, mentally, sensorially, cognitively, psychically, emotionally, intellectually, whether voluntarily and involuntarily, is because of Prana. Respiration is invariably linked to Prana. This fact logically brings us to see that all our actions and activities have a direct concomitance with breath.

At a gross level of understanding, Prana, chaitanya shakti and respiration are all
considered indistinct. But as we dig deeper in our explorations, we discover that there are subtle distinctions. Owing to this lack of clear distinction and to the subtlety of their differences, the neophyte considers regulation of breath as Pranayama. With time and practice, this illusion will be unveiled to the inner eyes of a dedicated and sensitive practitioner. Regulation of breath is also a very superficial endeavour. The encounter with Prana is quite something else.

However, breath and Prana being so close to each other, we deal with the breath and breath conjoined action. And this is so essential to understanding Yoga.
Prana being so subtle, requires immense sensitivity, and this sensitivity cannot be forced. It is hence the reason why we are so prudent with Pranayama. All ancient texts warn the practitioner to not take up Pranayama until the effort in the asana becomes effortless. In other words, one has to find stability and benevloence of spirit, before coming to Pranayama. Breathing has to be first studied in the asanas. For this we need to find ease in the asanas. For this we need to overcome the struggle in the asanas. Therefore we strongly advise, as the ancient scriptures and Yogis of the past do, to have a careful, patient and prudent approach to Pranayama. 

The myriad range of physical postures in yoga have different breathing patterns and impact on the body-mind. Standing, sitting, prone, supine, inverted poses, backward extensions, forward extensions, lateral extensions, rotating asanas and so on, create expansion, extension, churning, opening, lengthening, strengthening, rejuvenating, revitalising, quietening and sensitivising of the body, mind and intelligence. All these positions provide a fabulous canvas to carry out the study of breath and breathing. Let this first be attempted before we jump hastily into Pranayama or meditation. Yoga is a slow process and needs to be approached prudently with competent teachers.

Healing the heart through yoga

Through the practice of Yoga, one experiences a series of progressive transformations in the quality of the mind. We are not made up of different minds. The same mind goes through a change. This happens in the course of one practice session but also within the course of many years.

Hṛdaya literally means the heart. But here it is not meant to be the physical heart. We could say, it is the mind when the parasympathetic nervous system is dominant. It is the mind that has put down its guard. Then a deeper intelligence begins to function. This is where true listening happens. Hrdaya is where benevolence, kindness, understanding, choiceless-love, compassion and peace are experienced. Only the Hṛdaya-mind is capable of being in total connection. This is why we are so absorbed in what we do when we “love” doing it. We are able to connect.

Hṛdaya  is where dharana happens, that is the mind is freed from drifting and wandering. In Dharana, vrtti nirodhah has happened. The quality of minds that follow are Yogic Minds. Once we come back to our heart-mind, almost any transformation is possible.

The line between the External mind (the mind of survival and instinct) and the internal mind (the mind of reflection and intuition) is Fear. Survival in its essence needs both fear and desire. Without fear and desire there can be no survival.

By whatever means or whatever path one chooses, healing the heart becomes possible only through allowing oneself to be open and vulnerable. Which means, the Buddhi (rational mind), Ahaṁkāra (I-ness) and Manas (sensual mind) have transformed into Sattva Guna (unclenched state), revealing first the Hṛdaya (the heart), which organically transforms into more sensitive and fluid states of mind.

Yoga begins in the heart. Only when our heart is reached and touched, the inward process begins. This is why from the first day we begin to bow our head down to the heart, the chest. So Yoga reveals itself to one who is willing to be vulnerable in stability, so that that line, that fear, that keeps the mind external, is crossed. The fear is a river. On one side of the river is survival. On the other is the freedom to think clearly and to be free in one’s heart, to go beyond survival, to experience love.

Sorrow is tamasic (heavy) in nature and keeps us from crossing that river. Benevolence, joy and contentment have a Sattvic effect on the mind that brings lightness. This line between the external mind and the internal mind which we call fear becomes thicker and thicker with sorrow. Walls are built. The inner minds close up. Sorrow weighs us down, in our abdominal region. Literally, the organs become heavy. 

This is why Patanjali says the practice of asana is to find sthiram (stability) and sukham (pleasantness, lightness). When one is light, one will be interested in looking deeper into one’s own heart. Though happiness is not really the goal, it is a stepping stone to freedom. A mind that is traumatized, hurt, saddened and tired needs to first be lightened. The burden needs to be dropped. This is why Patanjali introduces Kriya Yoga to find stability and true happiness. This stability and happiness manifest as lightness in mind and body. This lightness begins the process of healing the heart.