Foundations · Reading
Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah
Patanjali's definition: Yog is the stilling of the movements of the 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
The second sutra of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras defines Yog in four words. Chitta is the mind-field. Vritti are its movements: the waves of perception, thought, memory and imagination that pass across it. Nirodhah is their stilling, or restraint.
The sutra does not say Yog is a posture, a breath or a belief. It describes a state of mind, and the rest of the text is a method for reaching it. When the movements settle, the next sutra says, the seer rests in its own nature.
Terms
- Chitta
- The mind-field, the whole of the mind.
- Vritti
- Movements, fluctuations, waves of the mind.
- Nirodhah
- Stilling, restraint, cessation.
Further reading
- Yoga Sutras 1.2
Ideas behind it
Sources and tradition
- YOG Union App Content Map, 2 November 2026, pp. 2–3
- Patanjali, Yoga Sutras, 1.2