Stilling the senses: “prathyahara”

All human beings crave for peace. We define peace as calmness a feeling of relaxation, stillness, and steadfastness, unconcerned with the external things or the things that are take place internally or continuous experience of joy for a certain period of time. The extent of joy of peace or calmness depends on the length of time the state is experienced or the liking we have developed to that joy. In other words it is the tranquility or stillness of state, or changelessness of all the parameters that can change, also the attachment we developed towards it, this is the thing we are always looking for, as far we understand when speaking about peace.

This is being in the same state unchanged for a period of time is similar to meditation; the method to sustain the state depends on the purification, perfection and maturity we have developed in body mind and spirit. we need to be free from the attachment to the gross senses that deal with physical things, subtle senses that deal with likes and dislikes, and feelings that deal with spiritual things, as these are the source of awareness that bring in information to the mind field. This is because we all where born from that state of tranquility, the consciousness, the soul and then this human body, the memory of this bliss make us crave for it. All our effort through out life is in this particular direction; little do we know that all the action we humans do in living this life will not take us there but will only entangle us here in this manifested world (Karma bhumi), as it is only through disassociation from everything that we have defined that can take us to there.

The state of mind changes depending on the information brought to it by the senses, this causes the changes internally and externally as we focus our concentration on them, they being five powers, there is continuous fluctuation of the consciousness, as it is being focused on each of them depending on the likes and dislikes we have developed. Consciousness detects change by comparing the present with the past, or with that which we desire; desire is again dependent on our likes and dislikes this is again related to past memory.

As energy flows to that place where consciousness is focused, the consciousness is diverted due to these sense organs.  This involves “prathyahara”, withdrawing the power of consciousness to the senses, or energy flow to and from the senses. This is necessary to guide the consciousness towards the inner journey. Food of the thoughts and feelings is vital energy, reducing this vital energy is the only means through which we can achieve the power to withdraw the consciousness from the sense organs consciously. This is achieved unconsciously when we are in the state of deep sleep. Senses organs are connected with all the three states of consciousness body, mind, and spirit these are gross, subtle, and super subtle, we become aware of these only after we advance to these levels of consciousness. Detachment is necessary in all the states thus we can see that it is not a single stroke of attainment of bliss.

In the gross physical level. Sense organ of feelings is connected to the whole body via skin, they are the main source that direct our consciousness to that place where there is some disturbance or change thus any movement will attract our consciousness to that area. The next sense organ to be stilled is hearing; this automatically moves our head towards the direction of sound in the direction it comes from. This can be mastered faster by selecting the quite place for meditation. Actually there is no place on earth that is completely free of sound or other disturbances. Thus getting used to it is better than searching for such a place. The next sense organs to still are taste and smell. There is very little we can really do with respect to these two thus the only way to detach is to ignore them, selecting an object to keep the consciousness occupied that is more interesting than these is one of the way that we feel is the best just ensure that the kitchen is not very close to the place we have selected for doing our practice. The next sense organ the eyes are not very difficult to still, selecting an object at a convenient distance can do this during the initial stages when we are doing open eyes practice. A flame of a candle or a point on the floor or wall will be sufficient. Do not strain or exert ourselves.  Thus the source available for consciousness in the physical level will be five gross senses related with the external and five subtle senses related with the mental and one super subtle sense related with spiritual level thus the level of peace is reduced five plus five plus one totaling to 11 fold.

In the mental level it is the essence of the gross senses that we are required to deal with, and it is similar to the gross senses but the environment is different, that means it deals with memory directly unlike the gross senses that deal with external things. Thus the source for mental level the five gross senses related with the external is absent and five subtle senses related with the mental and one super subtle sense related with spiritual level thus the level of peace is reduced five plus one totaling to 6 fold.

In the level of spirit it is mainly channeling the flow of energy through the central channel from the base chakra to the sahasra chakra at the top of the head and not from the physical or mental realms thus all the energy is not differentiated, thus they are perceived only as signals with out correlating them with the starting point. We directly imagine or concentrate on the central channel a up ward flow of all the energy in the body the main source is from the navel in the beginning, and as we progress we can enable this to include all the sources that include the gross senses, the feeling is just like a great gigantic laminar stream of energy flowing from every atom of our body in the upward direction. Gradually the staring point is shifted from the limits of the body to the entire universe experiencing oneness with the entirety. Thus the source for spiritual level the five gross senses related with the external is absent and five subtle senses related with the internal mental is absent and only one super subtle sense related with spiritual level and feelings undifferentiated thus the level of peace is reduced to one fold. You can just imagine the sense of peace we can really achieve.

Success in the above mentioned act depends on the degree of concentration we have towards that act or state. Degree of concentration depends on our likes and dislikes towards that act or state. All this is done as per our individual taste of those things we like and dislikes, thus this is the first thing we need to develop or purify, that means develop a liking towards this practice. Generation of our likes and dislikes depends on the benefits and loss we assume or experienced using the memory from past lives or depending on the life we observe around us thus these needs to be redefined this is purification in one sense related with right knowledge. We like something’s and we do not like them to change but we cannot or we do not know how to control many parameters that are connected to this and thus the state changes, we do not like change of those things we like, actually we are the only ones that are causing this change as we only are desiring them, this means we need to guide our desire. Not knowing this most of us put up with this uncontrollable parameter and shape our lives accordingly, in short we make adjustments, sacrificing things, and then feeling bad that we could not enjoy those things that others tell us was very pleasant, this is the root cause of all our sufferings.

Every state of living can be said to be a meditative state, it is really so due to our desire but the difference is that we feel that they occur automatically, in reality our deep unconscious feeling are the creators of these. One reason we don’t feel so is due to the fact that this desire was not manifested at the same time, due to many reasons just waiting for the correct environment and conditions to prevail may be some, the other reason is our developed state of awareness, this being in different degrees of perfection manifestation things will take place sooner or later.

Perfection and maturity of Concentration and Meditation by becoming detached from the attachment of senses organs is the way elders, well versed in understanding of life attained peace and calmness, this also enabled them to focus all the energy in a particular direction to manifest things quicker. Paying attention to the external signals that are brought by the senses to the mind is called the awake state or “jagarth avstha”, a meditative state only if we are engaged with concentration on only one subject, object or thought or feeling. Being unaware of these or concentrating on the visions mainly from memory is the dream state “savpna avstha”, a meditative state if we are engaged with concentration on only one subject, object or thought or feeling from memory. Being unaware of the above two states and concentrating on nothing is the sleep state “Nidra avstha”, a unconscious meditative state as we are engaged with no subject, object or thought or feeling, this is actually the state we are always craving for until we progress further. 

When we can achieve conscious sleep state it is called “Yoga nidra” this state is similar to experiencing being alive without any description of the information brought to the mind by the external senses or internal subtle senses or memory, that means we are experiencing sleep or consciously thinking of sleep with out dreams. Thinking of sleep is possible only if we know what happens in the five sheaths of this body (in the gross body or food sheath, in the energy body, in our senses and the mind sheath, in the intellectual sheath, and in the experience sheath during sleep). It becomes necessary to understand each sheath during each state of our awake state, dream state, or sleep state of living. The food sheath is stressed, stiff, with dull aches due to the likes and dislikes related with day to day living developments, the emotions and feelings that are generated during our awake state, dream state, or sleep state. The energy sheath similarly will experience restricted flow of energy during our awake state, dream state, or sleep state. The mind sheath is active as along as intellectual sheath is active. And understanding subject, object or thought or feeling is one of the ways to terminate the activity of the intellect. It is only during deep sleep state that everything relaxes fully to allow vital energy to flow freely to every part of the body bringing a feeling of joy and bliss. This is due to termination of all intellectual activity and thoughts formation from either external or internal sources. This tells us that the deep sleep cannot be achieved if mind is active and during the deep sleep state it flows freely unrestricted.

When we have no awareness of anything except of being alive, that is experiencing an awareness without any description, we are at the state of “turyia” an extension of yoga nidra or the real state of meditation that allows us to expand beyond the limits of the ego, this is why we were always saying that we cannot do meditation as it dawns on us.  This is done by concentration on the breath reducing the breathing and restricting the flow of energy to these organs of senses by using it to develop single point thinking.

To be continued next “pranayama” controlled GUIDED breathing to guide our energy!