The 4 Keys to Practice
The Twin Foundations of Yoga Part 1: Abhyaas
Om Sri Gurubhyo Namah. Salutations to all the teachers.
P: I understand everything we’ve talked about so far - the Purusha, Prakriti and the Gunas, the structure of the mind and the senses, even the vrittis and kleshas. But my mind still feels restless - how do I calm it? My mind is scattered, how do I focus it? I keep following the same old patterns, how do I change them? What should I actually do?Jogi: Truly speaking, there is nothing to do - your mind is just nature, a phenomenon like a cloud or a leaf. Thoughts are just another phenomenon you experience, like the wind or the sound of the wind rustling dry leaves. But it does not feel that way yet - you feel controlled by the mind, identified deeply with your memories, feelings, and thought patterns.The mind is like a field of soil - there are channels where you have poured water before, and every time you pour water, it follows the same channels. If you want to feel differently than you do, you will have to shift those channels. This way, the next time you pour water, it will flow along these new channels, and the old ones will slowly disappear. This is the process of Yoga.P: Ok, but how do I create these new channels?Jogi: Pour water where you want new channels, and stop pouring water in the channels you don’t want.P: Alright, I get the analogy, but what does this mean for me? How do I apply the analogy to my own mind?Jogi: Abhyaas and Vairaagya - practice and dispassion. This is the twin foundation of Yoga.
Over the past several weeks we have discussed the fundamentals of Yoga metaphysics, philosophy, and psychology. At this point we will get started on the practical applications. While the prior articles may satisfy a mere intellectual curiosity, moving forward from here on assumes that you, like our friend P, want to know how to train your mind so that it is focused, calm, and generally more Sattvic.
As a reminder, the definition of Yoga is:
योगश्र्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः॥YogaschittavrittinirodhahYoga (is the) mastery of the vrittis in the chitta.
- Yoga Sutras 1.2
Now that we know what Yoga is, what the Chitta means, and the types of Vrittis in the mind, the question arises - what is the method?
Patanjali answers this with the following:
अभ्यासवैरग्याभ्याम् तन्निरोधः ॥AbhyaasVairaagyaabhyaam TanNirodhahThey (the vrittis) are mastered by practice and dispassion.
- Yoga Sutras 1.12
The Sutra above describes the twin foundation of Yoga - practice and dispassion. The two practices go together, and the key to Yoga is keeping them in balance. This twin foundation is also mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita:
चञ्चलं हि मन: कृष्ण प्रमाथि बलवद्दृढम् | तस्याहं निग्रहं मन्ये वायोरिव सुदुष्करम् ||श्रीभगवानुवाच |असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् | अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते ||Chanchalam hi manah Krishna pramaathi balavadridhamTasyaaham nigraham manye vaayoriva sudushkaramSri Bhagavaan uvaacha:Asanshayam Mahaabaaho mano durnigraham chalamAbhyaasena tu Kaunteya vairaagyena cha grihyateMy mind is restless, O Krishna, obstinate, strong, and difficult to control. It appears to be more difficult to control than the wind.
Krishna says, “Without a doubt, O Arjuna, the mind is difficult to control. However, it can be controlled with Abhyaas and Vairaagya.”
- Bhagavad Gita 6.35-36
This week, we will focus on Abhyaas, or practice, and next time, we will discuss Vairaagya, or dispassion.
Abhyaas: Practice
Patanjali defines practice as:
तत्र स्थितौ यत्नोऽभ्यासः॥Tatra sthitau yatnoAbhyaasahOf these (ie. practice and dispassion), practice is that effort which leads to stable tranquility (in the chitta).
- Yoga Sutras 1.13
Take a moment to think about those things in your life which take you towards a state of stable tranquility, and those things in your life which take you away from that state. It helps to list them, if you feel so inclined.
Practice, broadly speaking in this context, refers to consciously choosing (with the Buddhi) those actions that foster stability and calmness in your mind, as opposed to those choices which take you in the other direction. Specifically, this can mean either doing or not doing certain things.
For example, someone says something hurtful to you, and you respond with anger. Why did this happen? Our actions are simply the result of mental tendencies, and so this reaction tells us that you have a tendency in the mind (a channel in the soil) towards anger. Now ask, did following that tendency towards anger bring about stable tranquility, or not? Not at all - anger is like throwing a hot coal, you burn your hand whether or not the other person is hit.
In this context, abhyaas would be choosing (with the Buddhi) to not follow the tendency. Notice, abhyaas is not to escape from the situation in which the anger arose. Rather, it is the effort to change the tendencies in your mind so that regardless of the situation, anger would not arise.
While sometimes it may be helpful to engineer your environment (e.g. avoid stressful situations, create boundaries with difficult people, etc.), remember that this is only a temporary fix. Ultimately, the goal is to change the tendencies in your mind so that regardless of the situation, you can remain calm, clear, and peaceful.
Another example - perhaps you find that reading certain kinds of books brings your mind to a place of calm. Abhyaas would mean an intentional cultivation of this tendency, and so in this context, it would mean a conscious decision to continue reading those kinds of books.
This is applicable not only for decisions that you take in your day to day life, as in the examples above, but also extends to meditation and other practices in Yoga. If you find that certain practices bring your mind to a place of stable tranquility, even if at first you find them difficult to do, abhyaas means to intentionally choose those practices.
Normally, the tendency of the mind is to go outward, towards the objects of the world. Traditional commentaries extend the field analogy at the beginning of this article to describe this outgoing tendency as an incline on the field of the mind - as water naturally flows downwards, attention naturally flows outwards. Abhyaas, therefore, is a sort of flowing uphill against this natural tendency.
We can feel this for ourselves - this is the reason why it can feel difficult to sit down and meditate, or to pay attention to anything at all.
But there is hope - as one continues to practice1, that inclination starts to shift. The mind can be moulded with sustained, conscious effort.
One might wonder - is there a way to quicken the progress? Is there a method that can help us to cultivate new channels in the mind more efficiently?
Patanjali provides a fourfold guideline to solidify Abhyaas - the four keys to practice. This is applicable for Yoga, but is also applicable to any other skill that you wish to learn, such as playing an instrument, learning a new language, or anything else where you want to consciously create new channels in the mind:
Deergh kaal: Long time
Nairantarya: Relentlessly/without a break
Satkaar: With devotion/sincerity
Aasevitah: With attention
Deergh Kaal: Long time
Yoga is not a quick fix solution - results do not happen immediately. Changing the channels in your mind requires an extended period of sustained effort.
Sometimes we start a meditation practice expecting immediate results, and when this doesn’t happen, we quit, only to fall back into old patterns. This is not only true for Yoga and meditation, but for any skill we want to learn (ie. any channel we want to cultivate). Consider the example of someone who wants to learn to play the guitar. They may purchase a guitar, and in the first few weeks practice intensely. After a while, if there is no concerted effort to stay the course, the outgoing tendency of the mind will get the better of them, and they will find themselves taking up a new hobby, leaving the guitar in the corner of their closet to gather dust.
On the other hand, if even after the initial excitement fades the person makes a concerted effort (yatna) to stay the course and keep practicing, eventually they will get better at the guitar.
With time, in addition to the skill improving, practice itself starts to feel easier. In the analogy of the water rolling downhill, the further it rolls, the faster it gets, gathering momentum along the way.
When starting on the journey of Yoga, keep in mind that it is not a short term thing. Rather, it is a lifestyle - something to be cultivated over an entire lifetime (or many). It takes time to create new channels in the mind, and it takes time to deepen them.
In this way, keeping in mind the expectation that it will take a long period of time is the first key to deepening practice.
Nairantarya: Without a break
Imagine the mind as a garden, and you as its gardener. To keep the flowers healthy and growing, you need to remove the weeds regularly. If you take a break, the weeds will grow right back. The longer you wait, the stronger the weeds will become, and the harder it will be to remove them.
Practice is like weeding a garden, where the flowers are Sattva, and the weeds are Rajasic and Tamasic tendencies. No matter how long you have been practicing, if you take a break, the outgoing tendency of the mind will take the opportunity to get stronger and overtake the Sattvic tendencies you have been cultivating.
In terms of the analogy of channels in the field of the mind, if you stop pouring water in your new channels, they will not deepen. Additionally, since the water is used to flowing in the old, comfortable channels, it will continue to flow there, making those unwanted tendencies deeper, and so making it harder to create new ones.
In order for practice to be effective, it has to not only be done for a long time, but also without a break.
Practically speaking, this can be difficult. We all have lives to attend to and responsibilities to fulfil. The way to solve for this is to start small - do whatever little you can do, but be consistent. If that means meditating for 5 minutes a day rather than an hour, start there, but be regular. Over time, as the momentum gathers, extend the period of practice but do not go too much further than what feels comfortable. In this way, the second key is consistency.
Satkaar: Sincerity
We may be long-time practitioners, and we may even practice consistently without taking a break. However, if we are not completely and unflinchingly honest with ourselves, and sincere in our practice, progress will be slower. For example, we may be practicing just so we can seem spiritual to others, or so that we can fulfill an image that we have of ourselves - this sort of practice is still helpful, but ultimately less effective than if we were sincere about our purpose.
Another example may be that we think we have achieved some state or other, or that we know more than we do, when actually it is not the case. This internal dishonesty leads to reduced effort, since we think we’ve already made it, and a sense of arrogance that makes it harder to create new channels (like trying to create channels by pouring water on stone instead of soil).
In this way, the third key is sincerity - empty your cup!
Be unflinchingly honest with yourself about why you want to cultivate your practice, and where you are in terms of progress. It is safest to assume you are always a beginner - the innocent mind is a powerful mind.
Aasevitah: With attention
We may practice for a long time, without a break, and even be unflinchingly honest with ourselves, but if we practice in such a way that we are just going through the motions without paying attention, the channels will not deepen. In the analogy of the field, this is like expecting to create new channels in the soil, but only pouring a few drops of water at a time. No matter how consistent you are, it will take a very long time before there is any progress.
Instead, put your entire attention on the practice. Every moment is sacred and will never return - treat it as such. Be completely attentive, and you will find that the channels deepen much faster.
In this way, the fourth key is to cultivate the practice with complete attention.
Levels of Practice
For some, results (ie. Sattva - calmness, clarity of mind, happiness, peace, insight, etc.) arise faster than for others. The reason for this is not that they have some innate gift or that there is some spooky power that gives them a leg up. Rather, it is simply that different people have different levels of practice. The higher the level of practice, the more significant the progress.
This is not to say that there is any compulsion to practice at a higher level. Rather, it is just a statement of fact that some people will practice more than others, and for those people, results will happen faster.
One’s level of practice is not just about how much. Rather, as per the Yoga Sutras, it can be seen as two axes - conviction or enthusiasm, and intensity or raw amount of practice.
Enthusiasm and vigour are more important than the raw amount of practice one does.
In the four keys listed above, the first two (long span of time, and regularity) can be considered the x-axis, and the second two (sincerity, and attention) can be considered as the y-axis. The more attention and sincerity you devote to the practice, the quicker the results will be, even if the raw amount of practice is lower. On the other hand, if the raw amount of practice is extremely high (e.g. you meditate for three hours every day), but it is done without sincerity and attention, results will be slower.
However, if the raw amount is high, and sincerity and attention are high as well, results are quick to arise.
The importance of this framework is to set yourself up for success by knowing what level of practice you are comfortable with. Even a little bit of practice is better than none at all, and so there is no shame in practicing less, or in falling off the proverbial wagon. Additionally, there is no comparison between people - everyone’s mind is different, and everyone has a different level that suits their tendencies and their lifestyle. Eventually, we are all headed in the same direction, it’s just a matter of timing. And, there is no rush - you have infinite lifetimes to get there!
In conclusion, do what you can, but keep your eyes wide open - knowing the keys and levels of practice will help you to be intentional about what you can comfortably commit to, and to set your expectation in terms of seeing the results of your practice.
Until next time:
Step 1: Write down your current Bhumi, or if you prefer, the Guna you feel the most identified with. Be unflinchingly honest with yourself, and do it a few times a day to find the most frequent mental state. This will be the stake in the ground against which you measure your progress.
Step 2: Make a list of 5 mental tendencies or actions (write it down!) that lead you to a place of stable tranquility, and try to cultivate those tendencies in your day to day life using the four keys above.
Step 3: After a week, repeat step 1. Was there any progress?
Next time: Vairaagya: Letting Go, the second of the twin foundations of Yoga.
If you find it difficult to sit still and meditate, practicing meditation itself may not make it any easier. What we call “meditation” starts with the 6th limb of the 8-limbed Yoga - that is, it follows a series of preliminary and preparatory practices to still the mind, before jumping into the proverbial deep end. In this series, starting with this article, we will go over some of these preliminary practices to calm the mind so that it is easier to sit down and “meditate.”
Extremely helpful article, thank you for this! 🙏 What are your thoughts on using technology to supplement yogic practices of abhyaas and vairagya? There’s a lot of research being done on things like neurofeedback and brain entrainment systems to stimulate neuroplasticity and create new channels within the brain. Would using this type of technology for bio hacking, without going to the extreme of integrating it directly into the human body, be considered left-handed or inferior in any way, and if so how? Thank you!