"Only the new day dawns to which we are awake." - Thoreau
It is possible to practice yoga for years without realizing that the practice was developed over 2000 years ago as a way to prepare oneself for the long periods of sitting and concentrating that are required for meditation. Unlike today’s yoga practices that focus heavily on the postures, early practitioners were primarily interested in achieving a state of samadhi, a form of meditative absorption in which one’s sense of self is united with universal consciousness or the Divine. At that time, the primary goal of a yoga practice was to end one’s suffering by settling the endless churning of the mind. In Samadhi, one experiences complete stillness while maintaining mental alertness and acuity. Resting in this awareness, we enter a state of joyful calm. Yoga was developed as a means to achieve this blissful state.
In Indian philosophy, Samadhi is considered the highest state of mental concentration one can achieve while bound to the earth in a physical body. The Yoga Sutras, written by Maharishi Patanjali, is considered the earliest complete record that systematically outlines the steps one takes to enter this state. Patanjali recognized the struggle we as humans have in settling the endless fluctuations of the mind, so he offers a guide to achieve one-pointed concentration in what is referred to as the Eight Limbed Path. Each of Patanjali’s eight steps describes the behaviors, physical postures, breath work, and focus one needs to calm the natural tendencies of the mind so that stillness and steady awareness—the essential elements of meditation—are more accessible, providing each of us the opportunity to find union with the Divine.
It is doubtful most of us are contemplating such depth when we are trying to get our hips aligned in Warrior I or figure out how to flip over into Wild Thing. Much of the focus in our current yoga culture is centered almost exclusively on the postures and breath, the third and fourth limbs of Patanjali’s Sutras. Most classes (mine included) typically only touch, at best, on the other five limbs of the practice, focusing primarily on alignment and moving with the breath. It is only in select studios that you are likely to experience a more “classical” practice, one that includes a specific reference to the last three limbs of the Eight Limbed Path. These limbs describe steps to help us get closer to Samadhi through the practices of pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentration), and dhyana (meditation).
While a modern yoga practice may have strayed from its original structure, our highly physical practice can still help us develop the focus necessary for one pointed concentration. Yoga is a practice that helps us cultivate attention. When we are new to yoga, we attend to what is most tangible, focusing on our body and how the poses look. With regular practice our body becomes aligned and we are less distracted by the external trappings of yoga. We feel more open and relaxed, allowing our focus to shift to the more subtle aspects of our movements. As our attention turns inward, we notice the ebbs and flows of sensations in the body as we move through the practice. We feel the breath, sense our alignment, notice the thoughts that bubble up as we bend, twist, fold, and turn. We are less focused on being flexible or stronger and more aware of how the practice integrates our mind and body. Even though our modern-day yoga may be hyper focused on physical postures, it can still teach us how to direct our attention inward, reduce distractions, and settle the mind.
Our senses keep us tied to our external world. The mind uses a default setting in which we remain alert and vigilant to the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations of our external environment. These sensations are the seeds of our thoughts, and as long as our senses are engaged with the external world, our thoughts will flow endlessly. We are a thinking species with a brain that generates more than 50,000 thoughts per day. Some of these thoughts are fleeting, appearing suddenly and then floating out of awareness. Others are sticky, creating non stop internal conversations that can weigh us down and entangle us in memories, feelings, or deeper narratives. The relationship between our senses and our thoughts is the cause of our distraction, resulting in the endless fluctuations that, as Patanjali reminds us, are the very root of our suffering.
The calm and deep rest we experience in meditation will remain elusive until we learn how to turn off our natural default setting that keeps our senses on high alert. As long as our senses are active, they pull our attention into the busy and loud external world, distracting us, creating thoughts, and disrupting our concentration. Switching this default setting off is not easy—it requires deliberate practice to purposefully turn our attention inward and tune out the external world. Patanjali’s fifth limb of yoga, Pratyahara, can guide us in ways to skillfully turn our attention inward.
Many of us assume that relaxation is an innate ability, something we can drop off into whenever we are ready. Anyone who has fallen asleep, fidgeted, or generally struggled through a meditation practice knows this is to be a fallacy. Deep relaxation can be attained when our senses are at rest, but we can't just decide to flip a switch and turn our senses off. Those new to meditation quickly realize that once the body becomes still, the mind ramps up, and we quickly find ourselves pulled into a stream of endless internal conversations. Pratyahara reminds us to gradually turn our focus inward to notice the subtle sensations of our inner world. We focus on the breath, alignment, energy level. We guide our attention to the slower, hidden, and quiet corners of our experience. Because these sensations are subtle, they demand less attention and vigilance, and our senses gradually downshift. We are less distracted and less inclined to chase our thoughts. With each posture, as we reduce tension in the body, Pratyahara helps us to shift our attention, feel more relaxed, and intentionally turn inward to allow the senses to rest.
This month, we’ll explore the fifth and sixth limbs of yoga: Pratyahara and Dharana. This week, we’ll focus on pratyahara, practicing how we direct our attention inward to withdraw the senses and calm the stream of thoughts. We’ll notice what happens when we practice without distractions—the endless chatter of our inner conversations that are sparked by those sticky thoughts. With regular practice, Pratyahara helps us pave the way to Dharana, concentration, which we will explore next week. As we become more familiar with Patanjali’s fifth and sixth steps, we will find greater ease in practicing meditation, Dhyana, the seventh limb of the Eight Limbed Path.
The practice of turning inward is supported by forward folds, which are deeply relaxing poses that require a gentle focus to be fully appreciated. Relaxing tension in the lower back, hamstrings, and shoulders requires a coordinated effort of matching the breath with movement while moving slowly and deliberately into a pose. The benefits of forward folds are lost when we are distracted, so we’ll practice Pratyahara to turn inward and focus on the more subtle aspects of our inner experience. We’ll start our practice by generating heat and rhythm with energetic salutations, gradually transitioning into deeper forward folds and longer holds that allow for the deep release that comes as we surrender ourselves to the safety and stability of the earth.
To weave Pratyahara throughout your practice, I invite you to shift your focus within. What would your practice be like if you shifted your attention from how the poses looked and instead tuned into how they felt? What if you turn your gaze inward while holding a pose, noticing your breath, your energy level, the space in your mind? What happens when you notice your thought stream but decide not to jump in? Does it change how you experience a pose?
Although it is doubtful any of us will reach a profound state of Samadhi in our practice right away, we can certainly cultivate the deep sense of release that comes when our senses are allowed to withdraw and their innate need for vigilance is turned off. I invite you to allow yourself to turn inward, step out of your thought stream, and land softly on your mat. Let’s take a long, luxurious exhale and enjoy the calm that comes when we relax deeply in the subtle sensations of the present moment.
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