Pratyahara - Speech

This speech was compiled for and presented at the 2000 International Yoga Festival, a yearly festival organised by the Government of Pondicherry

When I was first told that I was to be giving a speech on the role of Pratyahara in Yoga, my immediate reaction was to shudder at the thought for Pratyahara, as I understood, was the withdrawl of the senses and my own senses had a habit of running wild. The thought of withdrawing my senses consciously seemed virtually impossible, for mine are very acute, enabling me to hear, feel, smell and see the tiniest of things as well as those that are further afield. How was I to be able to withdraw my senses when I can feel each individual arm hair when it moves?

Withdrawing from sight may not be so hard as you can shut your eyes. The only difficulty then is keeping them shut and refraining from the intrigue of what might be going on infront of them. However by shutting the eyes, the sense of hearing immediately becomes more exagerated. This causes a problem as in my case I can pick up on the various different sounds that go on around me, this I can do individually yet I can also hear them all individually and simultaneously. The prospect from withdrawing from all of this is a daunting prospect.

I thought back over my life as I was sure that there were instances where I had risen above the stimulation of my senses. It was then that I realised that I have actually done this on many occasions, the only difference being it was not a conscious decision to do so. Being an artist, I find it very easy to lose hours whilst I work. I have literally been so at one with my creation that everything that was going on around me may as well not have existed. I wouldn't hear people talking to me nor would I hear the general noises that would surround me. My concentration was so fixed on what I was doing, that I would be completely in my own little world.

In yoga we call this a 'one-pointed mind' and it is a quality that we aim to bring consciously into all aspects of our lives. I'm sure that all of you have experienced this to some extent, although it would not have been a conscious act. This may have been experienced perhaps whilst you were playing sport, making music, creating kholums, reading, walking, watching television, cooking or in many other various daily activities.

These are natural occurances that arise when you get a subtle but immense pleasure out of a certain type of concentration, infact so much so that the experience completely absorbs you and you become one with the activity. Modern Western psychologist, Mihaly Czichsentmihaly calls this 'the psychology of happiness'. He says that it is where everything flows into a oneness and even time ceases to exist. There is total absorption where contentment resides and nothing else matters.

We have all experienced this whether we realised it or not, infact we could call it the 'laymans pratyahara'. We have all had a taste of the blissful calm quality that quietens the mind that accompanies this state. But to achieve Pratyahara, we must first cultivate a certain refined awareness as well as a form of concentration, or Dharana, this is because we are to shut everything out at will. This is so of all of our senses, both internal and external in nature.

However, although this is similar to Pratyahara, it is not the same. This laymans Pratyahara is more of a striving for the 'flow of life'; it is the want of the experience where everything amounts to just you and the present moment. This is one of the reasons why so many people get involved with the material world. They want that unitive feeling and so look outside of themselves to attain it and in the process of attempting to numb their senses, they end up feeding them. Some people get fanatical about things and the acts then become a form of escapism. That is escaping from the real world and into one of contentment.

This escapism is done in many ways, whether its sports, the arts, computers and so on. There are even people who practise yoga asanas purely for this feeling. This form of Yoga is called 'Atti Yoga'. Such advocates assert themselves, putting themselves through rigorous practise when all they are doing is getting high on the chemicals that the brain releases into the body. Adrenaline is released which gives you the excitement and drive to push yourself. Due to various conditions other chemicals get stimulated and released, these include seratonin which is the happy feeling good chemical; dopamine, the more calming sedative; acetyl choline which also has a calming effect and is the opposite to adrenaline.

Everyone is searching for the feeling that nothing exists outside of you, but whilst they are all searching outside themselves to satisfy this desire for flow and timelessness, they completely miss the real domain of what they are searching for. People get involved with things that create this feeling for them, like drugs and alcohol. Certain drugs induce these subtle sought after qualities by telling the brain to release the chemicals, but by doing this they not only violate their own spirit, they are creating the foundation for a habit.

Once these feelings have been experienced, they will be desired again and again and so the same procedure will be gone through to acquire that same high. This is the also similar for sports people. Then the problem of having been so high is met with its opposite, that of extreme lows. This is when the addiction can occur, they want to rid themselves of the lows and to replace them with the experiences of the highs again. The sad thing is that these experiences can be attained without the assistance of anything from the physical world, although they are not the goal here.

Such states are innate within us all; they just require time, effort, discipline and patience, however the average modern man cannot be bothered with this. They want these experiences with as little effort as possible, where discipline is not required and in the case of drug taking the only time they are prepared to sacrifice is the period where they wait for the drugs to work. It is thus apparent that there is a process present that attempts to numb the senses in order to achieve the desired goal, but in order to do this, modern day man appears to be force feeding his senses.

If we actually look at the word Pratyahara, it literaly means to withdraw from the food body. 'Prati' means the opposite of or to go against, and 'ahara' means the food body or the physical body. Hence the withdrawl from the food body. So in this case the idea is not to stimulate our senses but to abstain from that which stimulates them.

The actual function of the senses is to preserve the food body; they are there to protect us from the outside world. However, they are very much linked to our animal nature due to the reptilian and mammalian evolutionary history that is located deep within the recesses of our being. It is these aspects of our lower animal selves that we are trying to bring under control through Yoga.

In order to be able to withdraw our senses we first have to consciously perfect them so that we may then become the source of our senses rather than the senser. We have to acquire a heightened awareness and only when we have cultivated our senses to their full extent can we begin to withdraw them or rather control them at will Once we have achieved this conscious control, we may rise above to higher states. This means to rise above all animal and physical existences and experiences. Even the chemical reactions in the brain are to be risen above and only then can we really experience the timeless state of unity that everyone so desires.

Swami Gitananda says that Pratyahara or sensory control begins with a heightened sensory awareness. He maintains that we are not to diminish or to destroy our senses, but to cultivate them in order to gain control over them. Infact it has been proposed that there are two types of Pratyahara. The first, is a negative Pratyahara, and is complete denial and restraint of the senses like that found within the framework of Buddhism. Whereas the other is positive in its nature and as suggested by Swami Gitananda, we are first to make offerings to God before we give unto ourselves. In this case we may use and enjoy our senses, but we are not to misuse or abuse them.

Furthermore, Swami Gitananda states that Pratyahara is the preliminary stage of Antaranga Yoga, the higher phases of Yoga or the inner phases. This is due to the nervous system that links the mind and the body. So if we can achieve this sensory control, then according to Swami Gitananda, the first stage of higher yoga is seen. However, without this control of the senses, the higher life will be meaningless, for there will always be external factors that will interfere with and disturb you, luring you back into the sensory world of illusion.