Vrittis roughly translate as the fluctuations of our psyche-mind unit. We experience ‘vrittis’ consciously, we are aware of these fluctuations of our psyche-mind. We ‘know’ what we are thinking and conceiving. Or ideating, liking and rejecting, desiring and abhorring. This conscious psyche-mind unit is about as diverse as there are people on this planet. No two people can have the exact same contents of their minds. There are five types of fluctuations of the psyche and mind:
a) Right cognitions: The right ideas about life. Not moral no, in fact not close to what we assume right means. We’ll see.
b) Wrong cognitions: The wrong ideas about life. Again, nothing to do with morality and far removed from what we assume as wrong.
c) Conceptualisation: Non-verbal concepts.
d) Memory: Conscious, unconscious and depth-memory.
e) Sleep.
Right cognition
This is when we have picked up the ‘right’ ideas in life, either through outside influences (new samskaras), or through old impressions (previous samskaras). In popular opinion, ‘right cognition’ may be a set of ideas which compel us to achieve success and prosperity, live responsibly in the family and society. Display compassion, kindness, altruism and other lofty traits. We have been taught that these are worthy goals and ideals for our lives. Truth be told, society has conditioned us to think about ‘good values’ as those which favour its efficient functioning. Those which help its maintenance, those that do not upset the apple-cart. Society does not really care for your well being and happiness as much as it cares about maintaining and running itself smoothly, know that. Our cultural mores, our moral frameworks are determined by societal pressures much more than by any real, true impulse for ‘goodness’. Any society, any community even family prefers children who are not rabble -rousers and rule breakers. Who wants a problem child? Does a parent wish for one? All communities wish for citizens who protect and preserve tradition, not those who break rules.
Also, most of these ‘good’ ideas propel us towards lives of greater comfort and prosperity, in the end. You are taught to work hard so that you and your family might be increasingly comfortable and prosperous. What’s wrong with that, you could ask. We all want a life of happiness and well-being, devoid of pain and suffering, don’t we?
Yes, there is nothing wrong with that, if the end-goal of life is comfort and freedom from suffering only. Sadly, it is not. The purpose of life is not comfort and riches, for yourself or for others, by service. Either way.
Life has its own goal. You will see.
With this different goal in mind, ‘right ideas’ or right cognitions must be understood differently in the Yogic context. The end goal of life is not comfort in this model, at least not the kind we commonly understand. In the Yogic model of life, ‘right cognitions’ are those that align with the eventual, ultimate purpose of life. That of evolution towards an ultra-cognitive, ultra-sensory blissful state. A state beyond ideas, beyond the senses.
So Yogic ‘right cognitions’ could be the same as our wordly assumptions of right ideas in some cases, and in others it could be poles apart. For example, feeling one’s emotions intensely, again and again is important for the yogic progress. Society, on the other hand, represses our emotions and looks down on any overt displays of emotion as either weak or undesirable. Suck it up, society screams at us. Be brave! Get on with it! These are common responses to an unwanted overwhelm of negative emotions. However, handling our emotions in this way is actually counter-productive for the yogic evolution.
Wrong cognition
This is when we have picked up unfavourable ideas, concepts, either through external influences or old impressions. Yet again, the definition of ‘unfavourable’ is not as straightforward as it seems. Societal and emotional pressures determine the ‘unfavourable’ ideas for a good life in the external world, as we have observed. I reiterate that the whole paradigm of morality of our society carries a manipulative, sly agenda. Society cares more about maintaining societal equilibrium and peace and less for your true happiness. Maintaining status quo, preserving power structures. The entire society, in fact the entire world functions like that.
Strangely, ideas which society considers ‘wrong’ might not necessarily be unfavourable for Yogic evolution. Also, ideas which favour our Yogic growth might appear ‘wrong’ in the societal context. In fact, we are in a tragic situation where our worldly ideas of ‘wrongness’ and ‘rightness’ barely match up with the wrong and right ‘samskaras’ needed for our true human destiny. For the evolutionary imperative of our specie. For the ultimate goal of human life.
For example, the world tells us that success means a strong, distinct, powerful identity. “I want to make a name for myself!”, we often hear people say. We are often encouraged to do so. In the yogic context though, identity is a chimerical delusion, resting on the foundation of our samskaras, which should not be there in the first place. The true aim of life is to exhaust or kill all our samskaras. Identity in itself has no existence, it is an emergent property of our desires and fears, a projection of our samskaras. It is an illusion, we must realise, at the earliest.
Conceptualization
This is the realm of the mind where we ideate without words. Without verbalisation. The realm of metaphors, of images. Of ideas which defy a straightforward, verbal description, because it is beyond any known experience. Since we have never seen, felt or described something before, we have no vocabulary for it. It is beyond the pre-loaded content of the mind, hence, it is a separate category. A different kind of psycho-mental fluctuation.
Memory
It is the storehouse of impressions of all our experiences. It lives in three distinct realms, in parts. The conscious, the subconscious and the deep subconscious. We can access memories which lie on the topmost, conscious layer easily. Even though subconscious memories are not readily accessed, they do come to the surface with some effort. However, we cannot ordinarily access our samskaras or impressions which are a part of our depth memory. Generally, we never really ‘know’ them in our lifetimes. We might be compelled by them, unawares, but we never really SEE them. They are the ghost conductors of the orchestras of our lives, always invisible, hiding behind curtains. We can never really relive those experiences which left behind these impressions, which play us like a puppet and mould us in strange shapes. They propel us on paths we might never have imagined for ourselves.
Sleep
Sleep is a fluctuation in the conscious part of our mind-psyche unit, common to us all, but again its states vary. Sleep is dreamless, or it brings dreams.
These vrittis, the fluctuations, the activities of the conscious part of our psycho-mental complex form its outermost layer. This outermost layer interacts with the world. It puts out its contents through our desires, our worldviews, our preferences and cognitions. Interaction with the world produces experiences, in which we TRY to fulfill, consummate our desires. ‘I want to be rich’ is a desire which we want to experience. It is supported by the cognition ‘Wealth brings happiness’, which is a samskara, an impression left behind by a previous experience.
Eventually, we all pursue happiness, don’t we? The path of greatest pleasure, one devoid of suffering. This basic truth of life is the main impetus of the yogic science too; its underlying motive. Only, the Yogic goal of happiness has a magnitude unfathomable in the ordinary sense. It is of an unprecedented, unimaginable degree, unmatched by any worldly experience. The Yogic process is not life-denying, self-denying, in the least, contrary to one kind of shallow public opinion. The yogic process urges towards the greatest pleasure humans can experience, and no worldly pleasure compares.
So the ‘I want to be rich’ desire comes before any you take any actions in the real world to consummate it, right? Let’s say I achieve fabulous success in my endeavour and make millions. I feel happy and content. The positive experience of success and happiness will leave behind an impression which tells me, ‘Yes. Wealth does brings happiness’. This positive impression will now become a new input for the loop of my psyche-mind unit. These samskaras will now feed another cycle of vasanas, vrittis and experience and the cycle will continue. This seems good, as positive impressions will breed more positive impressions and the cycle of pleasure will continue. If only it worked that way forever! Unfortunately though, it is the nature of the external world, where pleasure is hardly a permanent phenomenon.
Consider the same ‘I want to be rich’ desire meeting resistance in two forms. First, I might fail in my attempts and success might elude me. It will disappoint me, leaving behind impressions like, ‘I am not good enough for success’ or ‘The world is an unfair place’ or ‘Wealth is for immoral people, not me’. Even, ‘I am always unlucky’. These negative impressions act as fresh inputs for the program of my psyche-mind. These new negative samskaras will create an unhealthy cycle of pain, frustration and even more disappointment.
In a third scenario the same ‘I wish to be rich’ desire meets with success, but along with it comes loss and insecurity. The new samskaras now produced would be ‘Wealth makes me insecure and unsafe’, or ‘I might lose this wealth any time, I must be careful’ etc. It will either make me think of wealth as evil, or turn me into an insecure, troubled miser. Another painful cycle of fear, and loss.
Do you now see how the samskaras build our entire psyche-mind complex, bottom up? How only the topmost layer of vrittis- our mental fluctuations interacts with the outside world? This interaction creates experiences which exhaust older, mature samskaras, along with giving birth to new, fresh ones. Fresh inputs for the never ending cycle of life.
Samskaras-Vasanas-Vrittis-Experience-Samskaras.
Impressions-Tendencies-Desires-Experiences-Impressions.
On and on. A self sustaining feedback loop.