Imagine if you will, walking down the street in the pouring rain. Feel the chill on your skin as the rain pelts you, absorbing through your clothes. Feel the drips from your eyelashes and hair. Feel the wetness of your feet in your shoes and the heaviness of your clothes as they soak up the water. See the dark clouds through the sheets of rain. See the drops as they fall in puddles on the ground. Taste the rain coming into your mouth as you attempt to speak. Smell the heaviness in the air; the smell of the earth being churned by the water hitting the ground. Hear the cars driving by as water splashes from their tires. Hear the sound of their windshield wipers trying to keep up with this downpour. Can you feel it? Did you feel an urge to hug your body in an attempt to feel warmth? Maybe you closed your eyes and went inward to really experience it. Notice how our minds are capable of creating a sensory experience at will.
Pratyahara is withdrawal of senses. When we take savasana, corpse pose, at the end of a yoga class, we often withdraw from the world by closing the eyes, closing off our hearing and sense of smell as much as possible and letting go of sensation in our bodies. This is only one method of going inward though. Pantanjali had in mind something a little bit different when writing this sutra. Senses, or indriyas in Sanskrit, are cognitive; they are the thought processes that are attached to the sensory experience. We become attached to the pleasurable experiences we have and we develop aversions to those experiences that we deem unpleasant. Think about it: did you deem being in the pouring rain unpleasant? It wasn’t really happening, but did you assign a judgment to the experience? When we practice pratyahara in our everyday lives, we stop allowing the senses to lead us down the road of judgment and experience the sensory object with a level of detachment. We no longer judge what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch as being good or bad and simply experience it. When we are able to get away from labeling our experiences we tend to not get caught up in them. They no longer have the power to take over our minds, to keep us from moving on. We are then able to truly let go and surrender to what is.
How do we develop this skill of withdrawing our minds from sensory objects in this way? Meditation is an excellent place to start. Sometimes when we meditate we engage our senses to take us on a journey of sorts. In our minds eye we see a place, we hear and feel what is happening in a scene created in our minds. The funny thing is that when we create such a vision, the areas of the brain that are responsible for sight, hearing and the other senses are lighting up. We experience this in our minds as being real. While this type of meditation is extremely useful for creating and manifesting our lives, for developing skills and for relaxing, it is not a practice in pratyahara. To develop the skill of detachment we must shut off our senses. As you sit in meditation, allow the body to become relaxed. Perhaps you go through the body and mentally relax each part. Once relaxed, allow your mind to withdraw from the world. Try to shut off your mental images. Each time a thought enters your mind label it “thought” and then let it go. Imagine yourself in a bubble of sorts, protected from the sensory overload we typically experience. You may only be able to do this for a few seconds at first, but with practice you will become more skilled at letting go of the sensory world. The more skilled you become, the easier it will be to let go of the attachment to sensory experience when your eyes are wide open! You will be able to look at the people, places and objects surrounding you with an appreciation rather than attachment. You will be able to let them go easily; knowing that whether they come again or not, your mind is unaffected.
NAMASTE,
Reena Davis
Pratyahara is withdrawal of senses. When we take savasana, corpse pose, at the end of a yoga class, we often withdraw from the world by closing the eyes, closing off our hearing and sense of smell as much as possible and letting go of sensation in our bodies. This is only one method of going inward though. Pantanjali had in mind something a little bit different when writing this sutra. Senses, or indriyas in Sanskrit, are cognitive; they are the thought processes that are attached to the sensory experience. We become attached to the pleasurable experiences we have and we develop aversions to those experiences that we deem unpleasant. Think about it: did you deem being in the pouring rain unpleasant? It wasn’t really happening, but did you assign a judgment to the experience? When we practice pratyahara in our everyday lives, we stop allowing the senses to lead us down the road of judgment and experience the sensory object with a level of detachment. We no longer judge what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch as being good or bad and simply experience it. When we are able to get away from labeling our experiences we tend to not get caught up in them. They no longer have the power to take over our minds, to keep us from moving on. We are then able to truly let go and surrender to what is.
How do we develop this skill of withdrawing our minds from sensory objects in this way? Meditation is an excellent place to start. Sometimes when we meditate we engage our senses to take us on a journey of sorts. In our minds eye we see a place, we hear and feel what is happening in a scene created in our minds. The funny thing is that when we create such a vision, the areas of the brain that are responsible for sight, hearing and the other senses are lighting up. We experience this in our minds as being real. While this type of meditation is extremely useful for creating and manifesting our lives, for developing skills and for relaxing, it is not a practice in pratyahara. To develop the skill of detachment we must shut off our senses. As you sit in meditation, allow the body to become relaxed. Perhaps you go through the body and mentally relax each part. Once relaxed, allow your mind to withdraw from the world. Try to shut off your mental images. Each time a thought enters your mind label it “thought” and then let it go. Imagine yourself in a bubble of sorts, protected from the sensory overload we typically experience. You may only be able to do this for a few seconds at first, but with practice you will become more skilled at letting go of the sensory world. The more skilled you become, the easier it will be to let go of the attachment to sensory experience when your eyes are wide open! You will be able to look at the people, places and objects surrounding you with an appreciation rather than attachment. You will be able to let them go easily; knowing that whether they come again or not, your mind is unaffected.
NAMASTE,
Reena Davis