Key idea of the Yoga Sūtras
citta · the mind-field
The whole mind: a fine part of nature that knows by taking forms.
Citta is Patañjali's word for the whole of mental life: perceiving, thinking, imagining, sleeping, remembering. Yoga is defined as the stilling of its movements (1.2). In this system the mind is not the self. It belongs to the seen, to nature, and so it does not light itself up: it is known by something else (4.19). Like a clear jewel, it takes the colour of whatever it rests on (1.41). It is coloured both by objects and by the seer, which is why it seems to be aware (4.17, 4.23). The same object looks different to different minds (4.15), and every mind, however patterned by latent tendencies, exists for another's sake (4.24). This matters for practice. If the mind were the self, stilling it would be a kind of self-loss. Because it is an instrument, stilling it lets the instrument become clear, and lets the seer rest in its own nature (1.3).
Vyāsa
“For the central-organ is affected by the object-for-meditation, and is itself on account of its objectivity connected by one of its own fluctuations with the subject, with the Self also.”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya in J. H. Woods' translation (1914), p. 334.
How it has been read
Sāṃkhya counts intellect, I-maker and mind as three organs; Patañjali speaks of one citta, and Vyāsa moves freely between citta, buddhi and manas. On 4.10 Vyāsa reports a view that the mind is the size of the body, then the teacher's answer: the mind pervades everything, and only its activity contracts and expands.
A common misreading
Citta is often equated with consciousness. In the Yoga Sūtras the mind is not aware by its own light; it is something seen, known by an unchanging seer (4.18–4.19).
Where the text defines it
- 1.2 Yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind.
- 1.41 When its movements have faded, the mind is like a clear jewel, taking on the colour of whatever it rests on: knower, knowing or known. This is coalescence.
- 4.15 The object is the same but minds differ, so object and mind follow separate paths.
- 4.19 The mind is not self-illuminating, because it is something seen.
- 4.23 Coloured by both seer and seen, the mind can take in everything.
- 4.24 Though patterned by countless latent tendencies, the mind exists for another, because it works by combination.