Foundations · Reading
Chitta: buddhi, ahamkara, manas
The mind as the tradition maps it: intellect, the sense of I, and the thinking mind.
Awaiting subject reviewWritten from our source material and not yet checked by a teacher of this practice. Read it as reference, and learn the practice from someone who teaches it.
Philosophy
When Patanjali speaks of stilling the chitta, he means the whole field of mind, not one part of it. Later Yog and Vedanta describe that field through its functions.
Manas gathers the impressions of the senses and turns them over: it doubts, wants and imagines. Ahamkara, the I-maker, claims each experience as mine. Buddhi discerns and decides. Practice works on all three, and meditation in particular lets you watch them at work.
Terms
- Buddhi
- The discerning, deciding intellect.
- Ahamkara
- The I-maker, the sense of a separate self.
- Manas
- The thinking mind that works with the senses.
Ideas behind it
Sources and tradition
- YOG Union App Content Map, 2 November 2026, pp. 2–3, philosophy and foundations