Yoga and the practice of pratyahara
During my first few months of taking yoga classes, we learned the classical version of the sun salutation and were encouraged to bend backwards deeply during the first step of this 12-part series. Not only were we encouraged to bend backwards deeply; we were taught to take our heads all the way back. Occasionally, someone would pass out in the middle of the movement but luckily no-one was ever hurt when falling to the floor. The fainting probably occurred because one or both of the vertebral arteries in the neck was momentarily occluded, reducing blood flow and oxygen to the brain. What was interesting about this phenomenon was that the fainting was considered by other students in the class as some form of spiritual event. For many years I have suspected that this sudden fainting and withdrawal from the world was not a spiritual event at all but a physiological one. I still reflect, however, on the confusion we all have about what it means to withdraw from the senses and the world.
In The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the second chapter is filled with teachings about the astanga, or eight-limbed, yoga system. The astanga system is presented as a series of practices that begins with external limbs such as ethical precepts and moves towards more internal limbs such as meditation. The fifth step, or limb, is called pratyahara and is defined as the conscious withdrawal of energy from the senses. Almost without exception, yoga students are puzzled by this limb. We seem to inherently understand the basic ethical teachings such as satya (the practice of truthfulness), pranayama (use of the breath to affect the mind) or asana (the practice of conscious posture). However, for most of us, the practice of pratyahara remains elusive.
One way to begin to understand pratyahara on a experiential level is to focus on a familiar yoga asana known as savasana, the corpse pose. This pose requires lying supine on the floor and is the practice of deep relaxation. The first stage of this asana is about physiological relaxation. In this stage, as you become comfortable lying on the floor, there is first an awareness of the muscles gradually relaxing, then the breathing slowing and, finally, the body generally letting go of tension. While delicious, this stage is only the beginning of the practice.
The next stage of savasana is different because it pertains to the mental sheath or level. In this stage there is a sense that you are withdrawing from the external world without losing contact with it. This is an experience of pratyahara. Most of us know this state. When you are in this state it feels like you are at the bottom of a well; for example, the sounds that occur both inside and outside the room in which you are lying are registered but they don’t create disturbance in the body or mind. It is this state of non-reaction that I am calling pratyahara. The actual registering of input by the nervous system still occurs but there is virtually no interaction with that input. There seems to be a space between stimulus and response. In common parlance, you are in the world but not of it.
For years I interpreted the teachings regarding pratyahara to mean that I must physically and literally withdraw from the world in order to be a true disciple of yoga. I would react with dismay to this teaching. I was an engaged person, busy studying physical therapy to improve my yoga teaching. I was also married and contemplating having several children. I sometimes worried that unless I learned to separate myself from the world, I was a lesser or inferior yoga student.
Today I feel differently. I have realised that life is about interaction and that many of those interactions are about conflict: conflict with those I love and conflict with those I don’t. In fact, I don’t even need another person in order to be in conflict. I can be — and occasionally am — in conflict within myself. How am I to withdraw when I am so completely enmeshed in relationships, in life and in the world as a whole?
I like to believe that Patanjali’s definition of pratyahara means something different than a simple withdrawal from life. Today, for me, the practice of pratyahara means that while I participate in the task at hand, I remain separate from my reactions. In other words, no matter how much meditation, postures and breathing I practise, I still continue to react to the people and situations around me. In itself, this reaction is not the problem; my attachment to the reaction is.
The practice of pratyahara manifests in the space between the stimulus that enters my nervous system via the sense organs and my reaction to that stimulus. It gives me a choice about my reaction: I can choose to dance with the stimulus or I can choose to step back and not consciously participate with the stimulus. In other words, the variable is me and how I choose to use my energy. If I physically retreat to a cave in the mountains, I can still agitate my nervous system; I can still generate thoughts and relive past reactions that are stimulating. To me, the practice of pratyahara is not about running away from stimulation, which is basically impossible anyway. Rather, practising pratyahara is about remaining in the middle of a stimulating environment and consciously not reacting to it.
I can also incorporate the practice of pratyahara into my asana practice. This occurs when I hold a pose. As I remain still, I can — and often do — have myriad thoughts about staying or coming up. I have thoughts of judgement about whether I am doing the pose well or not so well. At these times I can choose to withdraw my energy from my thoughts about the pose and focus instead on the pose itself. Sometimes I remember to do this and sometimes I don’t.
What is interesting about this process is my urge to escape from the reality at hand. This is not pratyahara but is simply an attempt to escape difficulty; in effect, to escape by withdrawing into thought. I find I use this tactic all day long: I escape with my thoughts during boring meetings, unwanted phone calls and repetitive but necessary tasks. This is not the withdrawal of pratyahara and, therefore, actually has the effect of taking me further from myself, the opposite of spiritual practice.
Another way I have begun to practise pratyahara is to pay attention to my need to seek out stimulation as an escape. I try to remain conscious and notice when I want to escape from my life by finding highly stimulating environments. For example, I sometimes want to go to a movie to escape; I sometimes want to go to the shopping centre. If I consider this clearly, it is not the activity of going to a movie or the shopping centre that is itself problematic. Rather, it is using these stimulating activities to escape that is problematic because it interferes with my intention of being present.
When I was a child I used to love to go on carnival rides; the stimulation of the roller-coaster would shut out all other awareness. Now that I am a student of yoga I am more aware of the urge to drown out my conflicts with over-stimulation. The process of noticing my attempts to withdraw through paradoxically escaping into more stimulation is a powerful way for me to incorporate pratyahara into my daily life. It is at these moments that I begin to understand the difference between withdrawing and escaping, between pratyahara and forgetting my practice. Learning to incorporate my yoga practice into my daily life in this way is a challenge but it is one that gives meaning and direction to my life.
