Wheel of Vritti & Samskara

The wheel of Vritti and Samskara is the foundation of all yogic practices. Conceptually, this is a very simple concept to follow since it is correlated with our life experiences and reality.
The word Vritti comes from Sanskrit and means activity in our awareness. By extension, it includes all conscious experience naturally that comes from us anywhere for our body, breath, and mind. This means all thoughts, feelings, emotions, senses perceptions, memory, imagination – anything that we can experience consciously is, according to the Yoga Sutra of the sage Patanjali, called Vritti.

Its counterpart Samskara, is anything that we don’t experience. Anything that is subconscious or unconscious is roughly termed Samskara. Sasmskara just like the word Sanskrit comes from the same root word “Samskrta” which means having gone samskara or is refined by samskara. So by definition, Samskrama means to process or refine by repetition. 

Every conscious experience we have leaves behind, modifies, and changes the subconscious.

Every time we see something, there is an impression of seeing what is left behind. For example, as I look at my monitor, I see it and it leaves a visual impression in my mind that I may or may not remember sometime in the future. This sight also has an emotional impressing to it, depending on the context, a positive one (I get to speak with my family abroad online) or a negative one (I need to finish my thesis). It is important to note though that we are not starting from a blank slate. All of us already have patterns that we are constantly refining. This is the notion of Samskara – every conscious experience (Vritti) we have, writes, rewrites, refines, and changes our subconscious (Samkara). Technically the subconscious is a collection of patterns, which determines our life experience. 

For me, this is the most important framework of Yoga – we have the agency to change these patterns. All our conscious experiences which include concrete sensory experiences are not just abstract thoughts in words, not just cognition but are latent impressions just like a scar, they all have patterns.

Come to think of it, if we look clearly, we can see that there are some triggers (Alambana) that evoke experiences (Vritti) that bring about action (Karma). These actions (Karma) can either be pleasant (Sukkha) or unpleasant (Dukkha) which all leave an impression (Samskara) which again affects our experience, creating a cycle (Chakra). This operates from birth till death.

This cycle is something that we can change. Once we become conscious of it we have the ability to change that cycle. Of course, there are limits to what we can change, nonetheless, this is what the Yoga Sutra and Vyasa mean by waking up from the dream state. 

And how do we interrupt this change? Patanjali suggests the practice of Kriya which consist of Tapas, Svadyaya, and Ishvara Pranidhana.