10/12/2025
✨ Sutra 1.6 - The Five Rivers of the Mind ✨
१.६। प्रमाणविपर्ययविकल्पनिद्रास्मृतयः।
Your mind isn’t chaos. It’s architecture. 🌌
Patañjali reveals that every thought flows from just five rivers: Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, imagination, sleep, and memory.
When you see this? You stop drowning in your thoughts.
You begin watching them like celestial currents drifting across inner space.
The Five Vṛttis (Mental Movements)
Pramāṇa (right knowledge): What you directly perceive and know to be true.
Viparyaya (wrong knowledge): False beliefs that feel true but aren’t.
Vikalpa (imagination): Stories your mind spins with no basis.
Nidrā (sleep): That gap between waking and dreaming.
Smṛti (memory): The past replaying as present. 💫
Why This Matters
You’re not broken because you have these thoughts.
You’re overwhelmed because you can’t see which river you’re in.
You’re drowning in imagination thinking it’s truth. You’re believing false knowledge like gospel. You’re living in memory instead of now.
But when you see the five rivers clearly?
Clarity becomes possible. Stillness becomes natural. You stop being in the current. You become the sky watching it flow. 🕉️
The Practice This Week
Notice which river shows up most for you:
* Are you lost in stories (vikalpa)?
* Believing old lies (viparyaya)?
* Stuck in what happened (smṛti)?
* Confused about what’s real (pramāṇa)?
Just notice. The awareness itself is the shift. 💚
Your awareness is the sky. These thoughts are just weather.
Comment which vṛtti you notice most today. ✨