Pratyahara: Mastering the senses.

Pratyahara is the fifth of the eight limbs and is translated as the conscious withdrawal of energy from the senses. Following pranayama (breath practices), practicing pratyahara calls us to draw even deeper inwards & is the opening gateway to true meditation.

To draw our attention away from the senses, we begin to let go of our attachment to external experiences, instead choosing to turn our attention inwards into our own inner landscape.

Our senses generally hold a large sway over our minds. A simple smell of food we like or a person we remember, a disturbing sound from outside or the sight of clothes we like the look of & our minds can bring up an array of thoughts & associations that can swing us from one place to the next, impacting our moods, mental state & energy levels. 

A simple stimulus to one of our senses and we can be brought into an unconscious state, rather than being able to direct our own energy, our senses often direct it for us.

During a yoga class, this is practiced through drishti (gazing point). 

By maintaining a soft gaze in one place, resting our eyes on one point without trying to take in the information of the object we are gazing at, our attention begins to turn away from the room around us & into ourselves. 

Practicing on an even deeper level, we might turn to practices such as yoga nidra, a form of meditation usually practiced lying down, designed to bring us into a state of complete mental & physical relaxation, fast tracking our journey into deeper brain wave states so that we may draw our attention completely inwards, allowing the body to release & the mind to quieten so we can peer the consciousness that lies beneath.

Through practicing pratyahara we begin to make contact with an inner sense of stability & harmony. This shift then seeps into our daily lives, we find ourselves better able to detach from external noise, instead grounding ourselves within our own centre, moving from an unshakable sense of presence & self-knowledge, consciously directing our own energy & focus.