The Anatomy of the Mind: The 5 Types of Thoughts (Sutra 1.6)

Shahid Khan - Yogveda Yoga
4 minutes ago
3 min read

Every thought you have ever had belongs to one of five ripples. Do you know which one you are riding?"

प्रमाणविपर्ययविकल्पनिद्रास्मृतयः ॥ १.६ ॥

Transliteration: pramāṇa-viparyaya-vikalpa-nidrā-smṛtayaḥ

Translation: "The five types of fluctuations are: right knowledge, misconception, imagination, sleep, and memory."

The Ultimate Filing System

Most people feel overwhelmed by their minds because it feels like infinite chaos. We have roughly 60,000 thoughts a day, pulling us in a thousand different directions.

In Sutra 1.6, Patanjali steps in as the ultimate psychologist. He tells us: It is not chaos. There is a strict structure. Look at the image above. Master Khan sits in meditation by the water, and on the surface, there are exactly five distinct, colored ripples. Patanjali states that every single mental movement you have ever experienced—from your deepest childhood trauma to your grocery list, from your wildest dreams to your sharpest focus—is just one of these five ripples:

Pramana: Right Knowledge (Seeing reality exactly as it is)
Viparyaya: Misconception (Seeing things falsely)
Vikalpa: Imagination (Thoughts based on words with no physical reality)
Nidra: Dreamless Sleep (The thought of "nothingness")
Smriti: Memory (Reliving the past)

We will dive deeply into each of these ripples in the coming weeks. But for today, the relief is simply knowing the structure itself. Once you know the categories, the mind stops being an untamable monster and becomes a mechanism you can understand.

The Question: Who is Holding the Tool?

In Sutra 1.5, we learned that thoughts are either painful (Klishta) or peaceful (Aklishta). We often blame our memory for our sadness, or our imagination for our anxiety. But the five categories themselves are neutral. They are just tools.

Ask yourself this question today:

"When a thought causes me pain today, do I blame the thought itself, or do I look at how I am using it?"

The Dialogue: The Space Between the Breaths

Student: "Master, I understand how a memory or an illusion can cause pain. But what about Nidra? Dreamless sleep has no images and no dreams. Isn't it just... nothing? How can 'nothing' be a thought, and how can it be painful?"

Master Khan: "It is not nothing. It is the experience of nothingness. Think of your breath. You inhale, and you exhale. Those are your active thoughts—your memories, your imaginations. But what happens at the very bottom of the exhale, just before the next inhale begins?"

Student: "There is a pause. A space where the breath stops."

Master Khan: "Exactly. You are not breathing, but you are still aware of the pause. Nidra is the pause between the active thoughts of the day. The mind is experiencing its own stillness."

Student: "But how can that space of nothingness be painful or peaceful?"

Master Khan: "If you hold your breath out of panic or fear, that pause is suffocating, heavy, and exhausting (Klishta). That is the sleep of depression, laziness, and avoidance. You wake up feeling dull. But if your breath naturally pauses during deep focus or relaxation, that space is restorative, clear, and profoundly peaceful (Aklishta). The space itself is neutral. How you enter it makes it a poison or a medicine."

Your Practice: The Sorter

Throughout your day, whether you are doing your physical practice or sitting in stressful traffic, do not fight the thought. Just label it. Is it a Memory? Is it Imagination? Dropping the thought into its correct category is the first step to taking your power back.