The 5 Stages of the Mind | Yoga Philosophy | Buddhism

Transcript

[Music] namaste and thank you for joining me today today I'll be explaining the five stages of the mind this is a concept that is not exactly in the Yoga Sutras but the philosophy of the yoga sutras and Patanjali borrows heavily from this concept of the five stages of the mind I find it an extremely interesting concept because primarily because it really explains in depth from a philosophical perspective how the mind functions and how we go through different stages and how the mind causes us to suffer in different different ways so the first stage of the mind is cipta cipta is a disturbed stage of the mind so in this stage the mind is not at all connected to the soul in that sense to that aspects of ourselves that is aware and conscious so the mind is constantly in this cause-and-effect kind of you can say game so there's something coming in from our external circumstances from our environment some situation that arises that causes the mind to immediately react so if that external circumstance in this sense is one of complete complete despair one of complete a lot of difficulty the the mind will react in the same way so there's somebody shouting at us we immediately get angry there's somebody irritating us we can go and in this sense the mind has no absolutely no control over the reactions so if somebody angles us we may go and hit them without with a bat or even kill commit murder so this is the disturbed stage of the mind this is the stage of the mind most people who are committing crime who are doing a lot of atrocious acts are in this stage of the mind where they are compulsively reacting to their external circumstance and they are not able to see cause and effect even though they may at a subconscious level know that if I if I murder this person I'm going to get into a lot of trouble later on they are in that moment their mind is completely out of their control that they're just reacting and they do not even think of care about consequence so this is the first stage the shift up in this stage also you can have somebody who commits suicide takes their own life willingly commits harm upon their own self the second stage of the mind muda muda means stupefied or dull or you can say it's a mixture between idiotic and dull so this stage of the mind finds somebody who is passionless who is lacking passion somebody who is lacking purpose doesn't want to live huh doesn't see the reason to live doesn't see the opportunity in their life doesn't see the blessing that is life itself so somebody who is in this sort of you can say depressed chronic depression so in this stage of the mind you can say what differentiates it from the previous stage is that here somebody still has the person still has a bit of awareness so they're not they are not completely only reacting to their circumstance they know that if they harm somebody there will be consequence so they're not going to go out committing crime or atrocities upon other people they are mainly just suffering it's one step beyond that where they realize that oh this I'm just compulsively reacting to external circumstances and they can see this external circumstances around them as being full of pain and full of suffering but at this stage still the mind is unable to see its own role or its own ability in changing this external circumstance so they see still see themselves as a victim to external circumstances and so they suffer greatly as a result of that in this state of the mind we also find that there is somehow the the mind is still completely alienated from the soul there is no connection to the soul so the mind cannot see how awareness itself and how the mind itself is creating the reality that that is around it the third stage of the mind which cipta with cipta means restless so this is where the mind constantly one thought after the other is entering the mind most of us are at this stage of it cipta where we are we absolutely completely lack the control of our mind so we do not know what what is gonna arise in our mind next we might be just sitting down to meditate and ten thoughts hit us we might be sitting to give an important speech and some random thought enters our mind so we have no control over what thought is going to arise in our mind next so this is the Restless stage of the mind here however there is some connection to the soul some connection to awareness because even though the mind is completely Restless the mind still wants to improve the individual still wants to improve still wants better for itself can still see consequences clearly knows that if they do this they will get that consequence if they do that they will get that consequence are still trying to improve and better their life in many way as many ways as is possible so somebody in the week shift our common a common process of somebody in the mid shift are they'll create goals and and they will write down okay I want to do this this this I want to achieve this this this I want okay they say they have a health goal I'm going to start this new exercise routine and they start it with full full force full of motivation but literally for five days later they get distracted something else comes up in their life and they cannot keep the focus on their goal so Vic Shiva has somebody who knows who's trying to better themselves but still cannot have the focus so the mind is scattered into multiple directions at once the next stage of the mind a car grata a car grata means one pointedness so here the mind starts to become very very a very powerful formidable force because it can focus on one thing and it can manifest so the mind at this stage is actively able to change reality because it focuses on a goal okay it has a health goal I will I will accomplish this health goal and it goes it goes forward to accomplish it and it doesn't get distracted on the way come what may it goes right till the end till it finishes that task also at this stage the mind the thought process itself starts to change so we are no longer thinking in a scattered wave random thoughts arising we can see for instance I'm making a one-year plan I'm planning out say what I want to I'm just sitting down creating a vision of what I want to see accomplished see myself in one year and now I sit down and I start to think of certain things say I'm thinking of in terms of the category of relationships or health and while I'm thinking about health I don't get distracted by some random thought about what I'm going to do tomorrow's dinner where am I going to eat so you know my mind can follow one thought to the next to the next to the next without any distraction similar to somebody who is an elite level athlete or a sportsman say somebody on a football field who while they're playing football they are not thinking about anything else but the game that they're in or even a top-level scientist when he's focused on his work is only thinking about that these individuals have achieved this level of a Cal grata a lot of entrepreneurial self-help entrepreneurial development books all speak about this state of the mind they are trying to bring us into this stage of the mind the last the fifth stage of the mind Neruda Neruda means well controlled so here the mind is completely well controlled completely under our control so what thoughts arise what thoughts are going to enter into the mind is completely under our control so we know exactly no random thoughts will arise sometimes inspiration might arise but it will not lead to a stream of thoughts so one arising thought might not lead to a stream of thoughts here for instance somebody may be sitting on a beach and looking at the Sun at a beautiful sunset and can be completely lost or completely present with that sunset for maybe one or two hours without a single thought entering their mind they can still think they still have the ability to think if they need to create a plan or need to write an article they can they will write that article with exactly the number of thoughts that are required to accomplish the task and there will be no extra thoughts while they are writing so in this stage and whenever they finish thinking something the mind immediately comes back into silence so this is a this a very advanced stage of practice which we are trying to cultivate this kind of mind through our yoga practice through us pranayama meditation so these are the five stages of the mind according to a lot of text the practice of yoga truly only begins in the third stage in the restless stage because that is when we have some form of connection to the soul some form of connection to a passion or purpose and we can we want to see ourselves doing better in the world and we want to see a a better version of ourselves so I hope I hope you like this video if you have any comments or questions please leave them below thank you so much namaste