Pratyahara Tradition

We continue our venture down the path of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga with Pratyahara. If this seems like a word that you may not be able to pronounce may I offer the suggestion of going to dictionary.com and clicking on the link that pronounces the word for you. I have found this to be an essential tool in working with Sanskrit wordage.

Now that you theoretically know how to say the word we can move onto the definition and real life application of Pratyahara.

Pratya means “withdrawal” and ahara means that which we “take in”, or the senses. So in the terms of the 8 Limbs of Yoga it means a withdrawal of the senses.

Have you ever been in a yoga class and heard the teacher ask you to tune into your inner being, or turn your focus inward, or to let the outer world fade away? This is what that teacher was talking about.

It is not an actual turning off of your senses, or loss of sense ability. It is the journey into self. A cognitive dismal of the information coming towards your so that you are better able to listen to your own inner wisdom or witness your own inner thoughts. A melting away of the senses, if you will.

Pratyahara is a preparatory act for meditation. Through the dimming of the senses we are better able to focus on the thing or lack of things that we are meditating on. However, one can transcend Pratyahara beyond meditation into the very act of living. What would it be to not be distracted by the senses and to be vigilantly focused to each task we turn our attention to? One might assume that you would then be much more successful in your ventures.

While the first four Limbs of Yoga that we covered were very broad in nature, the last four limbs become smaller and smaller circles.

It makes me think of those coin drops were you slide the coin into the top slot, and it starts going down a spiraling track. Rolling upright the coin rolls is circles moving towards the middle, the circles getting smaller and smaller until it is finally going round and round the open hole in the middle and then seemingly out of nowhere it disappears.

The first four limbs are the foundational work, that allow us to then circle in on the divine task at hand. To be at one with the universal truths.