Citta-Prassdanam, When Practice Makes Your Presence Clear
There is a phrase from the Yoga Sūtra that I keep coming back to, citta-prassdanam.
It appears in Yoga Sutra 1.33, where Patañjali says that by cultivating maitrī (friendliness), karuna (compassion), mudita (joy in the good), and upeksa (equanimity or steady seeing), the mind becomes clear, cheerful, and serene. This is not presented as a grand mystical climax. It is given as practical training. A way of working with the mind so it becomes less disturbed and more transparent.nThat matters, because many of us first meet yoga through posture, breath, and perhaps the hope of feeling a little better in ourselves. But Patañjali is pointing somewhere subtler. The work is not only flexibility, not only concentration, not only relaxation. The work is to become inwardly less muddy.
That is what I hear in citta-prasādanam.
Not a mind that is empty in a cold or lifeless sense. Not a person who has become bland, detached, or above it all. And certainly not someone performing spirituality. More a settling. More like cloudy water becoming still enough to see through. For a yoga teacher, this goes much deeper than a nice philosophical line. Because students do not only experience your sequence. They experience your citta.
They feel the quality of your attention. They feel whether you are rushed, over-efforting, proving something, hiding something, or quietly at ease. They may not have the language for it, but they feel it. A teacher with a brilliant class plan and an agitated presence teaches agitation as much as alignment. A teacher with simpler language and a clearer mind can make a whole room soften. That is why I think this sutra is so powerful for teachers. It reframes what development actually is.nYou do not become a better teacher only by learning more cues. nYou become a better teacher by becoming someone whose presence is easier to receive.
What does citta mean here?
Citta is often translated as “mind,” but that can sound too narrow. It is not just thinking. It is closer to the field of your conscious experience, the whole inner atmosphere through which you perceive, interpret, and respond. When that field is disturbed, everything is coloured by disturbance. When it is clear, reality can be met more honestly.
This is where an Upanishadic thread helps. In the Katha Upanishad, the body is described as a chariot, the intellect as the charioteer, and the mind as the reins. The point is not self-repression. The point is that inner life needs guidance, steadiness, and relationship. If the reins are loose, the horses run wild. If the inner instrument is held well, the journey becomes possible.
A little later in the same text comes another line that sits beautifully beside citta-prasādanam: when the senses become still together with the mind, and the intellect no longer darts around, that is called the highest state. That does not mean teachers need to become motionless sages before they are fit to teach. It means clarity matters. Steadiness matters. The way you hold your own inner life matters.
Why Patanjali gives four attitudes, not one
What I love about Yoga Sūtra 1.33 is that Patanjali does not say, “Just calm down.” He gives relational practices.
This is important because the mind is often disturbed not in isolation, but in contact with other people.
Someone is happier than us, and envy appears.
Someone is struggling, and we freeze or turn away.
Someone is doing well, and our insecurity flares.
Someone is behaving badly, and we become reactive, superior, or harsh.
Patanjali’s answer is elegant. Train four responses.
Maitri, friendliness toward the happy.
Karuna, compassion toward the suffering.
Mudita, gladness toward the good and the virtuous.
Upeksa, equanimity toward the unhelpful, the harmful, or the non-virtuous.
For yoga teachers, this becomes incredibly practical. If a student is thriving, progressing, glowing, you do not need to contract. You practise maitre.
If a student arrives tired, grieving, anxious, overwhelmed, you do not rush to perform wisdom. You practise karuna. If another teacher is doing beautiful work, you do not need to diminish them to feel safe yourself. You practise mudita. If someone in class is difficult, disruptive, resistant, or carrying a lot of edge, you do not have to swallow their energy or react from your own wound. You practise upekṣā, not indifference, but a steadier, wiser way of seeing. One respected commentary explicitly warns against reducing upekṣā to simple indifference and leans more toward non-judging, uninvolved observation.
That is where this sutra becomes gold for teachers. It is not only a map for meditation. It is a map for being in a room with humans.
The teacher’s real work
Most yoga teachers spend a lot of time thinking about what they will teach. Fewer spend enough time thinking about who is doing the teaching. But in truth, the teacher is part of the method. The room learns from your pace, your breath, your self-trust, your ability to stay with silence, your response when something goes wrong, your tone when someone struggles, your face when a confident student walks in, your energy when a former teacher or advanced practitioner comes to class. This is why citta-prasadanam is not abstract. It asks us to refine the instrument through which teaching happens.
A clearer mind means less comparison.
Less comparison means less performance.
Less performance means more presence.
More presence means students feel safer.
And when students feel safer, they listen better, breathe better, and inhabit themselves more honestly. This is not the whole of teaching, but it is a very deep layer of it.
Why this matters for believing in yourself as a teacher
A lot of teachers quietly think confidence comes first, then good teaching follows. I think it is often the other way round. As your citta becomes clearer, your teaching becomes less tangled. You stop trying to sound like everybody else. You stop filling every silence. You stop needing approval from the strongest student in the room. You stop over-teaching to prove you know enough. You stop apologising for simplicity.
And from that, confidence grows.
Not ego-confidence. Not inflated certainty. Something better. A settled trust that what you offer has value because it has been lived. This is one of the most beautiful things about practice. It does not ask you to become more impressive. It asks you to become more transparent to what is true.
And when that happens, your voice lands differently.
Thanks for being here.
Restorative Yoga Training
Training dates:
July 4th and 5th
July 18th and 19th
Investment £299