One of my favourite parts of yoga philosophy is about the ‘vrittis’, and these appear right at the start of the Yoga Sutras (written by Patanjali around 2000 years ago). He describes yoga as “the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.” and those ‘fluctuations’ are known as the vrittis.
The word ‘vritti’ literally means a whirlpool, ripple or fluctuation. Imagine looking into a calm lake – when the surface is still, you can clearly see the bottom but if you throw in a handful of stones, the ripples distort your view. The bottom hasn’t changed, but your ability to see it clearly has. Patanjali suggests our minds work in much the same way – the vrittis are the ripples that shape how we experience the world.
He teaches that every thought we have tends to fall into one of five categories. None of them are good or bad, they’re simply what the mind does. The problem isn’t that these mental activities exist but that we automatically believe every thought that passes through our mind without stopping to ask, “Is this actually true?”
So I thought it would be helpful to share with you the 5 vrittis and how they might appear in our everyday lives.
1. Right Knowledge (Pramāṇa)
Sometimes our mind gets it right and when it does it generally tends to come from three sources:
- Direct experience – we know something because we’ve experienced it ourselves.
- Inference – we use logic to reach a conclusion.
- Reliable testimony – we trust information from a credible source.
For example, if you look out of the window and see it’s raining, you know it’s raining because you’ve seen it yourself. If you see everyone outside carrying umbrellas but can’t see the sky, you can reasonably infer that it’s raining. Or perhaps your best friend phones and says, “Take a coat, it’s pouring!” Because they’re someone you trust, you’re likely to believe them.
It’s worth remembering though that not every source is equally reliable. We often scroll through social media accepting opinions as facts, yet many posts are based on assumptions, personal beliefs or incomplete information.
What yoga teaches us: To ask, “How do I actually know this is true?”
2. Misinterpretation (Viparyaya)
Sometimes our mind gets it wrong. For example, I’m walking the dog and see someone who looks exactly like my friend Maureen. I wave enthusiastically across the road “Hi Maureen!” but as they turn around, I realise it’s not Maureen at all! My eyes saw someone who looked familiar, but my brain filled in the gaps and reached the wrong conclusion.
We do this all the time. Eg. Someone doesn’t reply to a text or a colleague walks past in the office without saying hello, and instantly our minds create explanations, but those explanations aren’t always accurate.
What yoga teaches us: To pause before believing the story our mind has created.
3. Imagination (Vikalpa)
Our minds are wonderfully creative, and this can be a magical thing. Without imagination we wouldn’t have art, music, books or inventions. But imagination can also add details that simply aren’t true.
Think about gossip – someone shares a story, the next person retells it, adding a little of their own interpretation and by the time it reaches a fifth or sixth person, it can sound completely different from what actually happened. We all do this to some degree – our own opinions, emotions and assumptions influence the way we tell stories.
What yoga teaches us: To be mindful not only of the information we receive, but also of the information we pass on. Before sharing something, it’s worth asking ourselves: Do I know this to be true, or have I added my own version of events?”
4. Memory (Smṛti)
Our memories help shape who we are – they allow us to learn from experience, remember loved ones and avoid repeating mistakes. But memories aren’t perfect recordings. Each time we remember something, we’re actually reconstructing it and over time, memories can become coloured by our emotions, later experiences or even conversations we’ve had with other people.
For example, two siblings can remember the same childhood event completely differently. Who’s right? Well they will both think they are right. I’m sure there are lots of events from my childhood that my sister Deb will recall as being different from how I remember them.
What yoga teaches us: That memories are valuable, but they aren’t always objective truth.
5. Sleep (Nidrā)
I’ll be honest, this is the vritti I find the hardest to get my head around as sleep is a bit different from the other four vrittis – the others are types of thoughts or mental processes, whereas sleep is a mental state. Patanjali says that the experience of sleep itself is a vritti.
So when you’re asleep, your mind is occupied by the experience of sleep. When you wake and say, “I slept deeply,” or “I was awake half the night,” you’re recalling that state.
Whether or not I fully understand the philosophy behind this one, it does remind me how important good sleep is. Anyone who’s had a poor night’s sleep knows how differently the mind works the following day. We become less patient, more reactive and often less able to think clearly.
What yoga teaches us: To value good sleep, recognising that a well-rested mind is often better able to observe thoughts clearly rather than becoming caught up in them.
Once you begin noticing the vrittis, you see them everywhere!
You catch yourself assuming what someone meant by a text message, you realise you’ve believed a social media post without questioning it, you notice yourself replaying an old memory or imagining a future conversation that hasn’t happened yet.
The vrittis themselves aren’t the problem – they’re simply what the mind does. We can’t stop thoughts from arising, but we can become aware of them. And that’s where yoga offers us something incredibly powerful.
Once we recognise a thought for what it is, we have a choice. We don’t have to follow every story our mind creates or let every thought become hours of mental chatter – we can simply notice it and decide whether it’s helpful or whether to let it go. Perhaps that’s one of the greatest gifts of yoga — not an empty mind, but the freedom to choose which thoughts deserve our attention.
See you soon in the cabin!
Michelle x
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