Advanced Pratyahar Sensual Interest Withdrawal

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before May 10, 2016

MiBeloved 3 years ago

On the astral side this morning Srila Yogeshwarananda gave details about what he terms as the completion of pratyahar which is the 5th step in the 8 tiered process of ashtanga yoga.

Of specific interest is that each of these stages are ploughed into the other as one advances but the lower stages are revisited again and again, as the yogi discovers the need to upgrade the success over those lower stages, which he had before.

The two lowest stages are taken seriously in most of the fundamentalist religions, but these are defined differently according to the culture in which those religions developed.

In the yoga process the moralities and unwanted behaviors are stressed at first as a person approaches the process of yoga, and then after these are adhered to for the most part, the yogi moves on to asana postures and breath infusion process before tackling pratyahar which is a reversal of the whole scheme of creature existence which is to be extroverted.

Because there are higher applications of the Yama restrains in regards to unwanted but compulsive behaviors, the yogi finds that he must go back to these again and again as he climbs higher in the practice of the ashtanga system.

Pratyahar is tackled by the direct psychological actions, which involve restraining the self from its compulsive drives. Pranayama, the stage before pratyahar, causes pratyahar to be easy through an indirect process of infusing energy into the subtle body. This infusement moves the psyche to a higher energetic plane in which internalization is the natural state.

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Srila Yogesh said that internalization cannot be completed in the early stages of yoga. It is completed in the samadhi practice stage, when at last, all of the interest-energy of the self voluntarily retracts into the core-self after having lost interest in the sensual pursuits which point down into the subtle and gross material world.

He pointed to a butterfly which was in an astral forest, and then to a moth which was nearby on the bark of an astral tree.

About the moth he said this:

It is hidden because of its grey coloring which is the same hue as the tree. What is it thinking? It moves about at night when its predators are mostly sleeping. Within its mind there is only interest in finding its favorite foods.

Pointing to the butterfly he said this:

It sleeps during the night but while sleeping it has an interest in the sweet liquid within flowers. Hence in the day time when it feels that its predators are asleep, it flies about. When it lands on a flower, it unfolds its proboscis and sucks. Then it recoils the apparatus and flies to another place.

Don’t’ be like these insects. Retract the interest energy once and for all, so that there is no longer any interest in the mundane universe. The butterfly does recoil its sucking apparatus but it never retracts its interest. Focus on retracting the psychological need so thoroughly that it never reestablishes itself again.