The Workings of the Mind

A brief look into Yoga’s take on the mind and why we really practice!

Fundamentally, yoga identifies the mind as being made up of two parts.

The innate content of the mind, and the acquired content of the mind. 

The innate content of the  mind is pure awareness. It is what we first come into this world with, and it is what we are trying to return to when we practice. It is beyond thought constructs, stories and labels. 

The acquired content of the mind is the stuff we learn about as we come to live  and function in the world. It's the thoughts we think, the stories we come to believe about us and the world and how we fit into the world. It’s our social conditioning, culture, expectations etc… it’s really all the colour that fills our life to make it, well, our life!

This acquired content of the mind is however, always changing and in flux. Think about all the different jobs, relationships and responsibilities you’ve had up until this point in your life. As you've experienced more of life, so your identity has shifted with it and adapted to it all.

So, Yoga asks us to contemplate that since there is this part of us that is always changing, how can it ever be a true measure of who we are? Well, no surprise here, it can’t.  

So then, through the practice of Yoga, we’re offered the opportunity to identify less with the parts of us that are always changing and more with the part of us that is unchanging, the one constant that lies behind the change. This is the innate part of the mind, and it is always stable, quiet and simply observing.

We practice so that we can become more familiar with this place that is undisturbed by our changing external circumstances. A steady witnessing awareness that forms the backdrop against which we experience the unfoldment of life, in all its colours.