Understanding Chitta
The Mind-Stuff
The second sutra of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras contains the entire teaching:
yogash chitta-vritti-nirodhah
“Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of chitta.”
Most translations render chitta simply as “mind.” But this translation obscures something important. Western psychology offers one concept of mind. Yoga offers something quite different. Understanding what chitta actually is changes how we relate to mental experience and what we’re doing in practice.
Chitta Is Not Consciousness
The first distinction: chitta is not consciousness itself.
In Samkhya philosophy, which provides the theoretical framework for classical yoga, consciousness belongs to Purusha - the eternal witness, the Seer. Purusha does not fluctuate. It does not think, feel, remember, or plan. It simply is - pure awareness without content.
Chitta belongs to Prakriti - nature, matter, everything that is not pure consciousness. Chitta is the instrument through which Purusha appears to engage with the world. It is the mirror that reflects consciousness, not the light itself.
This distinction matters for practice. We are not trying to stop consciousness. We are trying to still the instrument through which consciousness appears to move.
The Three Components of Chitta
Chitta is not a single faculty but a composite. Classical texts describe three components:
Buddhi is the intellect, the discriminative faculty. It decides, judges, distinguishes. When you recognize the difference between a snake and a rope, that is buddhi functioning. When you weigh options and choose, buddhi is at work. Buddhi can discriminate between Purusha and Prakriti - between the Seer and the seen. This discrimination is the path to liberation.
Ahamkara is the ego-maker, the sense of “I.” It is what appropriates experience as “mine.” When buddhi perceives something, ahamkara claims that perception: “I see this.” When manas processes sensation, ahamkara says: “I feel this.” Ahamkara creates the sense of a separate self that has experiences.
Manas is the sensory-processing mind, the coordinator of sense data and action. It receives input from the five senses and organizes it into coherent perception. It also coordinates the organs of action. Manas works rapidly, constantly processing the stream of sensory information. In Jyotish, manas is associated with the Moon, which rules the moment-to-moment fluctuations of mental activity.
Together, these three form the antahkarana - the “inner instrument” - what we call chitta.
The Nature of Fluctuation
Chitta fluctuates. This is its nature.
Like a lake that ripples with every breeze, chitta responds to every stimulus - external and internal. Sensory input disturbs it. Memory disturbs it. Imagination disturbs it. Even sleep produces modifications. The surface is rarely still.
The Yoga Sutras identify five types of fluctuations (vrittis):
Pramana - correct perception. Even accurate knowledge is a fluctuation. Seeing things as they are still produces movement in chitta.
Viparyaya - misperception, error. Taking the unreal for real, the impermanent for permanent. The kleshas operate through viparyaya.
Vikalpa - imagination, conceptualization. Thoughts that have no basis in direct perception or inference. Mental construction.
Nidra - sleep. Sleep is not absence of mental activity but a particular modification of chitta. Something remains active, even when waking consciousness is absent.
Smriti - memory. The arising of past impressions. What was experienced leaves traces; these traces emerge as memory.
Notice that Patanjali includes correct perception and memory as fluctuations. The goal is not merely to eliminate false thoughts or fantasies. All mental movement, even true and useful thought, is vritti. Yoga aims at stillness beyond all of it.
Why Does Chitta Fluctuate?
Chitta fluctuates because movement is its nature. It is made of the three gunas - sattva, rajas, and tamas - which are always in motion.
Rajas drives activity, restlessness, desire. A rajasic chitta jumps from object to object, never settling.
Tamas creates dullness, heaviness, obstruction. A tamasic chitta resists clarity and sinks into confusion.
Sattva brings clarity, illumination, stillness. Only when sattva predominates can chitta become transparent enough for Purusha to be reflected clearly.
The gunas are always present together, always shifting. A chitta that was sattvic this morning can become rajasic after coffee and tamasic by evening. This constant change is what makes the mind seem so difficult to master.
But the fluctuation also depends on samskaras - the impressions left by past experience. Every experience leaves a trace in chitta. These traces condition future experience. What we call personality, tendency, habit - these are patterns of samskara operating.
Past actions leave impressions. Those impressions shape perception. Shaped perception leads to action. Action creates new impressions. This is the wheel of karma operating through chitta.
How Chitta Differs from Western “Mind”
Western psychology tends to treat mind as a unified thing - something you have or are. The question becomes: what kind of mind do you have? How do you fix your mind? How do you improve it?
Yoga sees chitta differently. It is not something you are. You - the Seer, Purusha - are the awareness that observes chitta. Chitta is something that happens, an instrument that functions, a process that unfolds. You are not your thoughts. You are not your memories. You are not your emotions. You are that which knows all of these.
This is not metaphor or spiritual bypass. It is a precise claim about the structure of experience. In any moment, there is awareness, and there is content of awareness. These are distinct. Chitta is content. Purusha is awareness.
Western approaches often try to fix the content - change the thoughts, modify the emotions, improve the patterns. Yoga says: recognize that you are not the content, and the content loses its grip. This is not indifference but freedom.
Another difference: Western psychology often pathologizes mental movement. Anxiety is a disorder. Depression is a disease. Racing thoughts are symptoms.
Yoga sees all fluctuation as natural. Chitta fluctuates. That is what it does. The question is not whether fluctuation occurs but whether we are bound by it. A master can experience arising thoughts without identification. The thoughts move; awareness remains unmoved.
Chitta Prasadana: Clarifying the Mind
Patanjali offers multiple methods for chitta prasadana - clarifying or calming the mind. These appear in Sutras I.33-39.
Maitri, karuna, mudita, upeksha (I.33): Cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the suffering, delight in the virtuous, and equanimity toward the non-virtuous. These attitudes reduce the disturbance that comes from reaction to others.
Pranayama (I.34): Control of breath settles chitta. Breath and mind are intimately connected; slowing and regulating one affects the other.
Object focus (I.35-36): Fixing attention on a sensory experience or on the luminous reality within produces stability.
Contemplation of realized beings (I.37): Meditation on the mind of one who has transcended attachment clarifies one’s own chitta.
Dream and sleep contemplation (I.38): Using the knowledge gained from dreams and deep sleep as objects of meditation.
Meditation on any suitable object (I.39): Whatever draws the mind and can be held steadily.
These methods work because they reduce fluctuation. Some work by substituting a chosen object for random mental movement. Others work by reducing the disturbances that come from relationship or environment. All create conditions for chitta to settle.
Practical Implications
Understanding chitta changes practice in concrete ways.
In meditation, you stop fighting thoughts. They are vrittis - fluctuations of the instrument. You are not trying to destroy them but to recognize them as movements of chitta, distinct from the awareness that observes. This recognition is itself liberating.
In life, you become less identified with mental states. When anxiety arises, there is anxiety in chitta. You are not anxious. When anger flares, there is anger in chitta. You are not angry. The emotion is real but the identification is optional.
This is not suppression. Suppression requires effort and creates strain. Recognition requires only seeing. What you see clearly has less power to bind you. The practice of svadhyaya - self-study - provides the method for this observational work, combining the study of sacred texts with direct observation of the mind’s movements.
Understanding samskaras explains why change is slow. Patterns are not just habits but grooves in chitta, worn by repetition over lifetimes. New patterns require new grooves. This takes time, repetition, consistency. Abhyasa - persistent practice - makes sense when you understand you are reshaping chitta.
Understanding the gunas explains why practice varies day to day. Monday’s meditation differs from Tuesday’s because the guna balance has shifted. Working with the gunas in practice means adjusting approach to current conditions rather than forcing the same method regardless.
Beyond Chitta
The goal of yoga is not a perfect chitta. It is recognition of what lies beyond chitta.
When vrittis cease - temporarily in meditation, permanently in liberation - what remains is the Seer resting in its own nature:
tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam (I.3)
“Then the Seer abides in its own form.”
Chitta becomes transparent. Like a still lake reflecting the sky, like a clean mirror showing what is before it, clear chitta reveals Purusha. But the reflection is not the thing reflected. The mirror is not the light.
This is why understanding chitta matters. Not to perfect the instrument but to recognize what the instrument is for. Not to improve the mind but to see through it.
Chitta will continue to function. Even after liberation, the body must eat, the senses must function, the mind must coordinate action in the world. But identification ceases. The fluctuations happen; the Seer remains unmoved.
This is yoga - not absence of mental activity but freedom from bondage to it.
Begin the Practice
Working with chitta requires sustained practice. The twin pillars of abhyasa and vairagya provide the method: persistent effort and non-attachment to results. Understanding your constitution can reveal your characteristic vritti patterns. Take the free Prakriti Quiz to discover your nature.