Understanding yoga’s everyday spiritual meanings
PRATYAHARA, THE FIFTH LIMB OF YOGA
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Yoga is so much more than just physical exercise. The so-called eight ‘limbs’ of yoga — of which the physical postures (asanas) are just one ‘limb’ — outline ways to live a more purposeful life. The earlier limbs, including the yamas and niyamas, focus primarily on basic ethical teachings, while the later limbs —including pratyahara, the fifth limb of yoga — focus on internal concepts like meditation.
Pratyahara simply means withdrawal of the senses and is probably the least understood limb of yoga. It involves disengaging your mind from external disturbances and controlling your reaction to them; it is exactly what happens when we become fully absorbed in something. It is also an example of mindfulness.
During pratyahara, your five sense organs still detect external stimulation, but you don’t allow them to disrupt your state of mind. It is a very different experience to blocking out something; it involves turning inwards and not allowing ourselves to become hijacked by sights, sounds, smells, tastes and other sensory desires.
It’s normal for the mind to wander during asana practice, especially if you are thinking about whether you're doing a pose correctly or if you should switch to a new pose. It is also normal to be noticing what others are doing, to react to sudden sounds or different smells in the environment. This, therefore, is an excellent opportunity to practice pratyahara by taking the energy that you are using to think about your mastery of the pose, or any other distractions, and turning that energy inwards, feeling, not thinking, and connecting deeply with your body. Savasana, the final resting pose that usually concludes a yoga session, is another great opportunity to practice pratyahara.
The conscious withdrawal of energy from the senses during pratyahara is an important preparatory measure before you dive into the more internal, meditation[1]based final three limbs of yoga. Together with awareness of the breath (pranayama), pratyahara aims to control our vital energies and enables us to gain some mastery over our monkey minds. With practice, these skills are likely to make us more resilient as we become less reactive and more able to respond appropriately to life’s ups and downs.
Sue Pugh is a yoga teacher and the founder of vitabonayoga.com and yogainspecialplaces.com
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