Don't Let Your Thoughts Limit You: Hanuman and the Yoga Sutras

Have you ever had one annoying thought ruin an entire day? Someone's comment, a worry or a harsh word to yourself in the mirror, and it follows you into every room until bedtime. In this episode of her Yoga and Real Life series, Rohini takes a teaching from the Yoga Sutras off the mat and into ordinary life, through one of the best-loved stories in Indian tradition.

The teaching: you are not your thoughts

Patañjali's Yoga Sutras open by defining yoga as chitta vritti nirodhah: the settling of the fluctuations of the mind (1.2). When the mind settles, the sutra continues, the seer rests in its own true nature (1.3). At all other times, says sutra 1.4, the seer takes on the form of those fluctuations. In plain words, we become whatever we are thinking. A thought arises ("I'm angry", "I'm so unfit", "I'll never manage this") and instead of seeing it as something passing through us, we take it to be us. For a fuller explanation, see Chitta Vritti Nirodha: What Yoga Really Means.

Patañjali returns to this in the second chapter. Asmita, one of the five kleshas or causes of suffering, is described as confusing the one who sees with the instrument of seeing (2.6), mistaking the mind's contents for the self. And sutra 2.17 names the root of avoidable suffering as this very entanglement of the seer with what is seen. As Rohini puts it simply: suffering begins when we start to identify deeply with our thoughts. And it's not just you. Everyone does it.

Hanuman forgets who he is

Rohini illustrates this with the story of Hanuman. As a small child, Hanuman leapt into the sky to catch the rising sun, thinking it was a fruit he could eat. Indra struck him down, and the child tumbled to earth. His father Vayu, the god of the wind, was so upset that he withdrew the air from the world, and living beings began to suffer. Vayu agreed to let the air flow again on one condition: that all the gods come and bless his son. So one by one they did, filling Hanuman with extraordinary powers.

Then came a twist. In Rohini's telling, a sage bestowed a curse that was secretly a blessing: Hanuman would forget all those powers, so that such strength would not make him arrogant. In Valmiki's Ramayana, the forgetting comes from sages whose peace the playful young Hanuman had disturbed, and it lasts until someone reminds him of who he is. Either way, life went on. Hanuman grew up in the forest kingdom of Sugriva, met Rama and Lakshmana, and joined the search for Sita, who had been carried away across the sea.

At the southern tip of India, facing the ocean, his companions told him: you can do this, you carry the blessings of so many gods, you can leap across. And Hanuman answered something like this: "Who, me? I'm just a small monkey. You must be thinking of someone else. I love Rama, but that's all I am." He had completely identified with the thought that he was ordinary. He couldn't even imagine being anything more.

It took a wise elder to remind him. In the classical text this is Jambavan, the old king of the bears. In Rohini's version, the teacher tells him to call on Surya, the sun, and on Rama, his chosen deity. Hanuman sat in sadhana, sincere and undistracted, and remembered who he was. Then he leapt over the ocean, and over his own limitation.

The same story, in your life

Rohini's point is that the story of identifying with an old version of ourselves is as old as Hanuman, and just as common now. "I am fat." "I am thin." "I can't do this." Says who? At one time you couldn't walk, and then you did. You didn't know a language, and then you learned it. The human mind has the capacity to grow into far more than its current opinion of itself.

The practice: "It's just a thought"

The technique Rohini offers is deliberately simple. When an unhelpful thought pops up, tell yourself: it's just a thought. It is not the whole truth about me. I am different from my thoughts. Then let it drop. You're not arguing with the thought or forcing a positive one in its place. You are stepping back from it, which is exactly the shift from identification to witnessing that the Sutras describe. Patañjali also offers a complementary tool, pratipaksha bhavana: when disturbing thoughts arise, cultivate their opposite (2.33).

Rohini ends with a reflection you can try this evening. Sit quietly for a few minutes and look back over the day:

• What did you start thinking about yourself, even while brushing your teeth this morning?
• What limits do you hold about the money you can earn, the relationships you can have or how far you can travel this year?
• For each one, ask: is this real, or is it just a thought I've held on to tightly?

You don't need to solve anything. The awareness is the practice. A few minutes of breath-awareness meditation beforehand can make the noticing easier, and over time this kind of steady, patient practice is what the Sutras call abhyasa.

Why it matters beyond the mat

As Rohini says, the Sutras only come alive when they are actually lived. Loosening your grip on limiting thoughts doesn't just make one day lighter. It changes the quality of your life, and how you show up for the people around you. Hanuman didn't become strong at the ocean's edge. He remembered a strength he already had.