Years ago I worked on a project with someone who showed up one day with a tee shirt that had Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodhah printed on it. He was clearly horrified that I had only a rough idea what the words meant, and it was fairly obvious that I plummeted in his estimation.
In retrospect I’m a little horrified as well, since I had been practicing and teaching for a number of years at that point. And yet somehow this essential definition of Yoga, “the restraint of the fluctuations of the mind” hadn’t fully registered with me. (more…)