“Do you know that he is an alcoholic and beats up his wife regularly” – this sort of input immediately creates a strong reaction within you and your interactions with that person will in future be guided and influenced by this reaction. Do not react compulsively. Do not fall a prey to viparyaya, or wrong knowledge based on improper cognition.
Introduce a gap between sensory input and your reaction. This is the gap of 'awareness'.
This gap is to be filled by abhyasa, which is to be uninterrupted. You have to become established in the process of non-reaction."
it is possible to go into a biased mode of thinking and conceptualization, without any external input. This is the region of objectless cognition, when our mind keeps working without any objective support from outside. When you are sitting idle for a moment, the mind starts working in the vritti mode internally. The day's events come up, thoughts come at random and it is always based on our earlier impressions and tendencies. This again reinforces the grooves in our mind. This is why the Gita says that since it is not possible to remain inactive even for one moment, why not be involved with selfless action which will not bind us down to our limited world – the little world of personal desires, ego and ambitions. And one of the best means for stopping the gross internal vrittis is repetition of mantras in the form of japa.
Our impressions form our programming and our personality and permeate every aspect of our being, even our body postures, alignment and gestures. In yogic terms this programming is known as klesha. It is based on our likes, dislikes and our acceptance of the transient world as the only reality. Based on this programming, we react to the external and the internal environment. The vrittis are the reactive mode and the kleshas are the programming.
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2002/fnov02/patnyoga.shtml
