Pratyahara ("Withdrawal of the Senses")

Pratyahara

by SARAH EZRIN

Image by Persephone Cueva @servinggood

Before we begin, and because we’ve had a pause in our posts during the pandemic, here is a little summary of the journey we’ve taken thus far in our Blog …

The eight limbs of yoga were intended to serve as guidance for living a meaningful and purposeful life. Written +/- 1500 years ago by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras, they still hold value for us today and can offer support as we try to navigate and find our way in our increasingly challenging world. In our blog, we’ve been working our way through these eight limbs and discussing the background and intention behind each one. We began by looking at the Yamas and Niyamas, known as the abstinences and observances. If you choose to go back and explore these posts, you’ll find an explanation of each of the Yamas and Niyamas and some simple recommendations and tips for how to incorporate them into your life.

Next we moved on to look at Asanas, the postures and yoga that we are all familiar with today - and Pranayama, or breath control. You’ll find a range of information in our blog posts on yoga sequencing, including breaking down the classical sun salutation. And a range of breath practices, such as alternate nostril breath and ujjayi breath.

This month we are moving on to the fifth limb, Pratyahara, which means literally ‘withdrawal of the senses’. We invite you to read Sarah’s post about the benefits to be gained from practicing Pratyahara. We hope that you’ll join us in our on-going exploration of the eight limbs of yoga and our hope is that they can help as much today as they did when this was first written hundreds of years ago.

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I am about to jump back to chaturanga when my dog plops onto the tail end of my mat. Peering between my legs in uttanasana, I yell to him and try to shoo him off. Just then my toddler comes waddling into the room, snack cup in one hand and pen in the other. Where did he get that? All the drawers are locked. I have to come to my hands and knees at this point, physically wrestling the pen away from my 17-month-old with one hand and trying to slide my lump of a dog off my mat with the other.

Outside a landscaper turns on his leaf blower. Even with the window shut it is noisy and I can smell the gas. Suddenly deep ujjayi breaths just don’t seem as appealing. I call for my husband who comes to help, but even after he has shuttled everyone out the room and the door has been shut (and locked this time, thank you very much), I can still hear the pitter patter of my dog pacing in front of the door and my son pulling at the door handle, crying, “Mumma.”

I resume my vinyasa, restarting from the front of my mat, trying to focus on my breathing. When I arrive in downward facing dog, adho mukha svanasana, I start to feel more settled. More present. Things seemed to have calmed down outside of my room and inside of my body.

But then the dirty hamper catches my eye.

How often have you been trying to meditate or do yoga at home when someone or something distracts you?

We often cannot wait to get to the yoga studio to find a little peace, but disruptions even seem to find us there. The person next to us breathing a little too hard. The errant water bottle that always seems to get knocked over. The muffled voices from the business next door or scent of the taqueria down the street.

The world is a distracting place! No wonder there is a trend of meditating in sensory deprivation tanks. Some days it feels like we need absolute silence in order to find any mental clarity.

But Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, remind us that the goal of yoga is not to empty the mind. That we need not renounce society and live in a cave to have a successful practice. Instead, Patanjali defines yoga as the stilling of the movements of the mind - yogas chitta vritti nirodha.

He also explains that samadhi, the highest possible state of awareness, is not an act of disconnection, but actually one of deep absorption.

Here we thought the practice was meant to be free of distraction, when learning to maintain our steadiness amidst the distraction is the practice.

So, what can we do on those days where we seem to hear and feel everything? Pratyahara.

Patanjali’s 5th limb, is often explained as a ‘withdrawing the senses.’ Think of the idea of plugging your ears, closing your eyes, and singing ‘la la la’ when you want to avoid knowing something.

But pratyhara is actually much more complex than just shutting everything out.  The literal translation means to ‘draw toward the opposite.’ It is an act of redirection, as opposed to removal. A discipline, rather than a deprivation.

Our senses are the portal to our mind, but perception only happens when the mind is joined to the senses. For example, we don’t hear every single sound occurring in the restaurant when out to dinner with a friend. Or when we are working on our computer, we don’t see the details of everything in the room.

The periphery gets blurred and extraneous sounds gets muffled, because we have chosen what to allow into our mind.

This is also why pratyahara is seen as the link between the more external first four limbs of yoga and the final, more internal three limbs. It is the transition between reaching out with the senses and pulling in with the mind.

As Patanjali reassures us, the real yoga is not doing a perfectly aligned vinyasa in a room without distraction.  The real yoga is being able to deeply focus on your loved one even when work responsibilities and the outside world beckons. It is becoming so fully enamored with the sound of your breath that everything else in the room fades into the distance.

It is being able to steady the incessant thoughts we mistake for reality, so that we can connect with that which is real: the truth that we are all connected to everything and everyone. The truth everything is love.

Try it- Pratyahara Sensory meditation:

*Have a lit candle nearby and a bowl of blueberries or small fruit nearby

Find a comfortable seat. Begin focusing on your breathing. Inhale and exhale slowly through the nose. Bring your focus to the nostrils and the temperature of the breath. Observe how the inhales tend to be cooler, where the exhales tend to be more heated. What else do you physically notice about your breath? Observe the ribs widening on the inhale and deflating on the exhale.

Next, start to tune into what you hear. Start by focusing on the sounds closest to you. The ticking of the clock. The hum of the refrigerator. As if casting a wider net, start to allow the sounds a little further away to come into your awareness. The dog’s paws down the hall. Your partner typing on their computer. Now expand your awareness outside your physical surroundings. Can you hear your neighbors conversing outside?  The mower down the road? The birds?

What do you smell? First, focus on the candle burning nearby. Observe the different layers of the scent. Next, what do you smell beyond that? Can you still notice the remnants of your family’s breakfast? Or what your neighbors are cooking next door? Can you smell the rain outside? Or the fresh air of spring? 

Let’s now play with taste. Take a piece of blueberry or bite of small fruit. Chew slowly and mindfully. Really savor the tastes as they explode along your tongue. Take your time playing with the fruit in your mouth. Do you notice that certain parts of the tongue have different tastes? Once you have swallowed the fruit, what are the after tastes that you notice?

Next, let’s explore sight. With your eyes open, begin to focus on the candle in front of you. As you watch the flicker of the flame, observe how the rest of the outside world fades into the background. Now, choose to pull back your awareness and take in what's happening right next to you and right in front of you. Over time, slowly pull back your perception until you are taking in the entire room. Observe the difference between reaching out to see something and allowing what you see to come to you.

If it feels safe, close your eyes or simply downcast your gaze. Bring your attention back to your breath. Let it be like a train bringing you from the external to the internal. Start to pay attention to your thoughts. Without judgement or story, simply observe the thoughts as they arise. Observe how every thought and every sense is like another train ready to take you back to the external. Choose to stay inward. Recommit with every wandering thought, every passing sense.

Now having explored focusing on one sense at a time, we will end with the practice of pulling all of them in: sanmukhi mudra, the seal of the six gates of our perception. This is like the yogi equivalent to plugging your ears and singing ‘la, la, la’.  

Please read the whole description before we do this, as we will add in a pranayama practice once fully sealed:

Place your index fingers just above your eyebrows. Your middle fingers at the corner of your eyes. Your ring fingers will sit right the bridge of your nose above your nostril and your pinky fingers along the corners of your mouth. Seal your ears with your thumb.

After you have placed your hands, we will practice 5 rounds of Bramhari Pranayama, the breath of the bee, which often accompanies this mudra. Take a full inhale and as you exhale, hum the entire exhale. Repeat four more rounds.

Slowly lower your hands back onto your thighs and choose one of the senses as train bring you back into the room and into the present moment. Take your time here. Simply breathe.

As you reenter the day, whenever the mind wanders away from you into the past or the future, I invite you to redirect it to a chosen sense. It could be the feeling of breath. Or a local sound. Or scent. Or taste. Or what you see.

Let every distraction simply be another opportunity to bring you back to yourself.

Sarah teaches Wednesdays and Fridays at 10.45am at our San Rafael studio.

For more information about Sarah, please go to http://sarahezrinyoga.com or follow her on Instagram @sarahezrinyoga

© 2021 Metta Yoga LLC