Sleep Vritti Removal
Of the five mento-emotional operations which were mentioned negatively by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, the sleep vritti is the most elusive and hard-to-pin-down. The most obvious ones are correct analysis and incorrect analysis because in these two one feels that one is an agent doing something or a spectator being shown a conclusion in the mind.
The imagination operation may or may not be obvious according to how the observing self is or is not enthralled by it. The memory operation may or may not be obvious as well.
Do you have a method, or methods, of dealing with each of these five vrittis?
Let me list them for your convenience:
- Correct analysis
- Incorrect analysis
- Imagination
- Sleep
- Memory
Here is the verse about this from Patanjali with the original Sanskrit (my English translation):
प्रमाणविपर्ययविकल्पनिद्रास्मृतयः॥६॥
pramāṇa viparyaya vikalpa nidrā smṛtayaḥ
pramāṇa – correct perception; viparyaya – incorrect perception; vikalpa – imagination; nidrā – sleep; smṛtayaḥ – memory.
They are correct perception, incorrect perception, imagination, sleep and memory. (Yoga Sutra Chapter 1 Verse 6)
~~~~~~~
Do you have a method which deals with these five vrittis in one swipe, so that you do not have to deal with them in detail, separately?
I found that each of the vrittis require special study for the process of elimination and for understanding the relationship of dependence of the core-self towards each vritti. Correct and incorrect analysis may be lumped together for the most part but even these two which are so similar, which may be compared to two sides of one coin, require special study in certain areas of their application.
Correct Analysis may appear to be helpful and harmless but that is not a useful conclusion when doing inSelf Yoga™. For that one needs to dig into the addiction faculty which hungers to use this useful operation and which becomes so habituated to it, as to lose the ability to disengage it when it should be.
Only in meditation can one study these, in the laboratory of the mind, and determine what one can or cannot do to control these conventional functions of the mento-emotional operations.
~~~~~~~
Above, I write about each of the five operations which Patanjali negatively mentioned but this article is about the sleep vritti in particular.
How is it removed?
Can it be removed permanently?
What is meditation like when it is not removed prior to the session?
Does it matter if one checks to be sure that it was removed?
For that matter, how does one recognize it?
~~~~~~~
To be clear, let us look at how Patanjali defined what it is:
अभावप्रत्ययालम्बना वृत्तिर्निद्रा॥१०॥
abhāva pratyayaḥ ālambanā vṛttiḥ nidrā
abhāva – absence of awareness; pratyayaḥ – conviction or belief as mental content; ālambanā – support, prop, means of conversion; vṛttiḥ – vibrational mode; nidrā – sleep.
Sleep is the vibrational mode which is supported by the absence of objective awareness. (Yoga Sutra Chapter 1 Verse 10)
What a definition?
Where does that leave us?
Is that clear?
Is that informative in full?
Is it a partial glimpse of what the sleep vritti is?
What is it made of?
Where is it located?
How does it accumulate power?
How does it overpower the observing self?
Why does it release the self from stupor or unconsciousness into objective awareness?
Does it matter?
Is meditation really dependent on the removal of it?
Is Patanjali correct in demanding its cessation?
