Chitta

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The subconscious mind is termed " Chitta " in Vedanta. Much of your

subconsciousness consists of submerged experiences, memories-thrown

into the background but recoverable.

 

When you show symptoms of losing your memory, as you grow old, the

first symptom is that you find it difficult to remember the names of

persons. The reason is not far to seek. All the names are arbitrary.

They are like labels. There are no associations along with the names.

The mind generally remembers through associations, as the impressions

become deep thereby. You can remember in old age some passages that

you have read in schools and colleges. But you find it difficult to

remember in the evening a passage you have read in the morning. The

reason is that the mind has lost its Dharana-Sakti (power of grasping

ideas). The cells have been degenerated. Those who overwork mentally,

who do not observe the rules of Brahmacharya and who are afflicted

with much cares, worries and anxieties, lose their power of memory

soon. Even in old age you can remember old events as there are

associations with events.

 

The mental processes are limited to the field of consciousness alone.

The field of subconscious mentation is of a much greater extent than

that of conscious mentation. Messages when ready, come out like a

flash from the subconscious mind or Chitta of the Vedantins. Only ten

per cent of mental activities come into the field of the

consciousness. At least ninety per cent or our mental life is

subconscious. We sit and try to solve a problem, and fail. We look

around, try again and again but fail. Suddenly an idea dawns and

leads to the solution of the problem. The subconscious processes were

at work.

 

Sometimes you go to sleep at night with the thought " I must get up

very early in the morning to catch a train " . This message is taken up

by the subconscious mind and it is this subconscious mind that wakes

you up unfailingly at the exact hour. Subconscious mind is your

constant companion and sincere friend. You repeatedly fail at night

to get a solution for a problem in Arithmetic or Geometry. In the

morning when you wake up you get a clear answer. This answer comes

like a flash from the subconscious mind. Even in sleep it works

incessantly without any rest. It arranges, classifies, compares,

sorts all facts and works out a proper satisfactory solution. This is

all due to subconscious mind.

 

With the help of the subconscious mind you can change your vicious

nature by cultivating healthy, virtuous qualities that are opposed to

the undesirable ones. If you want to overcome fear mentally deny that

you have fear and concentrate your attention upon the opposite

quality, the ideal of courage. When this is developed fear vanishes

by itself. The positive always overpowers the negative. This is an

infallible law of nature. This is Pratipaksha Bhavana of the Raja

Yogins. You can acquire a liking for distasteful tasks and duties by

cultivating a desire and taste for them. You can establish new

habits, new ideals, new ideas and new tastes and new character in the

subconscious mind by changing the old ones.

 

The functions of Chitta are Smriti or Smarana, Dharana (retention)

and Anusandhana (inquiry or investigation). When you repeat a Mantra

it is the Chitta that does the Smarana. It does a lot of work. It

turns out better work than the mind or Buddhi.

 

All actions, enjoyments and experiences leave their impressions in

the subconscious mind in the form of subtle impressions or residual

potencies. The Samskaras are the root of causing again Jati, life and

experiences of pleasure and pain. Revival of Samskaras induces

memory. The Yogi dives deep inside and comes in direct contact with

these Samskaras. He directly perceives them through the inner Yogic

Vision. By Samyama (concentration, meditation and Samadhi) on these

Samskaras, he acquires knowledge of previous lives. By doing Samyama

on the Samskaras of others, the Yogi gets the knowledge of their past

lives also.

 

When you desire to remember a thing you will have to make a psychic

exertion. You will have to go up and down the depths of the different

levels of the subconscious mind and then pick up the right thing from

a curious mixture of multifarious irrelevant matter. Just as the mail

sorter in the Railway Mail Service takes up the right letter by

moving the hand up and down along the different pigeon-holes, so also

the sorter in the subconscious mind goes up and down along the pigeon-

holes in the subconscious mind and brings the right thing to the

level of normal consciousness. The subconscious mind can pick the

right thing out from a heap of various matters.

 

A Samskara of an experience is formed or developed in the Chitta the

very moment the mind is experiencing something. There is no gap

between the present experience and the formation of a Samskara in the

subconscious mind.

 

Smriti of memory is the function of Chitta (subconscious mind). It is

a separate faculty or category in Vedanta. Sometimes it is

Antarangata (comes under the mind). In Sankhya philosophy it is

included in Buddhi or Mahat Tattva. The Chitta of Patanjali Rishi's

philosophy of Raja Yoga (Yogas Chittavritti-Nirodhah) corresponds to

the Antahkarana of Vedanta.

 

(Source: Essence of Yoga by Sri Swami Sivananda)