In Hindu metaphysics, yoga is the practice of untying mental knots. Bhoga is the experience of life that creates these mental knots. When we consume life, we experience hunger, fear, delight, jealousy, attachment, rage, greed, frustration, hatred, joy, and these various emotions and stimulations cause our mind to be knotted. These mental knots can be removed through introspection and intellectual analysis (gyan yoga), devotion and emotional surrender (bhakti yoga) and ritual activity and social responsibility (karma yoga).
This idea takes ritual shape in many Hindu ceremonies, where knotting draws attention to social responsibilities, desires and demands, while unknotting is an indicator of renunciation. In tantra, the untied hair is a mark of freedom. The tied knotted hair is a mark of domestication. In Vedic rituals, the sacred grass is tied with a knot around the finger, and the sacred thread is tied with a knot over the left shoulder, to transform the body into an ‘auspicious’ body, abode of divinity.
During Hindu pujas, the priest often ties a knot on the wrist of the yajaman, or ritual initiator. This is the sankalpa knot by which the yajaman expresses what desire he or she wants fulfilled through the ritual. We perform rituals because we desire something from the deity. And so, our intention is given shape through the sankalpa knot on the wrist. It reminds us of what we want in life, why we seek the gods.
Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist, author and communicator whose works focus largely on the areas of myth, religion, mythology, and management.
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