Enrichment Pratyahara

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before Nov 25, 2016

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Pratyahara sensual energy withdrawal practice has a more advanced stage which was shown to me by Lahiri Mahasaya. This happened on an astral level. It is amazing in a way how one can do yoga practice and meditation for many years, and not even realize certain processes which are right under one’s nose. The necessity of being shown some of these techniques by a yoga guru keeps coming back again and again, because one cannot discover every method by oneself.

In some instances, one has to go back and brush up on a lower stage, where one sees after being shown by a superior, that one did not properly complete that stage or that one overlooked some detail which is needed at a more advanced level.

Sensual energy withdrawal or pratyahar may be translated roughly as introspection or the retention of psychological power, where the energy which usually courses outwards, stops its external quest and turns around into the self, on the self, folding over on itself.

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This might be considered in terms of a large city which has a central terminal for transportation. Practically speaking all big cities like Tokyo, New York and Bombay have large bus and train terminals which transit people in and out at certain times of the day. In the morning thousands of people travel into the city by these means, while in the afternoon, people transit out of the city to their homes.

For pratyahar, I want to make a little change which is that the concern is to transit out of the city to acquire commodities which are then trucked into the city for consumption. These are city people not people from the outlying districts (suburbia) who have to go into the city for employment. These people whom we are concerned about live in the city but they have to go out of it to procure needed commodities, which they transport into the city and utilize.

A few student yogis who live in the city were instructed to abandon the effort of going out to procure commodities. It was explained to them that this procurement effort was a loss of energy, a deficit of their emotional and mental savings.

At first these students were stunned to hear this because all along they considered that the objective was to make a profit for themselves. The idea was to get commodities from the farming areas around the city which they could sell at a profit inside the city. The opinion that they exhausted themselves by going out of the city, was a blow to their self-esteem.

Even though they had doubts about this instruction, they followed the advice and refrained from going out of the city to buy commodities for enjoyment and resale. At first this caused some of them to become depressed. The feeling of excitement one gets when one knows that one will get a commodity which can be enjoyed and which can be sold at a profit, no longer surfaced in their hearts and minds, instead a depressed non-excitement energy manifested. They became sad and despondent. One student said right out that he would comply with the yoga teacher’s advice. He denounced yoga and returned to the procurement method. He became happy as his mind immediately conjured scenes of enjoyment and profit based on what he did before.

The other students were stunned because there was no immediate happiness in staying the city and doing nothing, not having anything to sell, not having anything to enjoy which was from outside the city.

One student, who was an innovative person, decided that without going outside the city he could enjoy and sell commodities just the same. He found a vacant plot of land in the city. He planted seeds. These grew into plants which he could sell at a profit. He got busy doing this. When at last, he told the yoga teacher about this, the teacher criticized him in the presence of the other students:

“What are you doing? I told you to cease the commodity life. Now you have brought it into the city itself. You do not have the aptitude of a yogi. You should not come back for yoga classes. For you the prohibition about not venturing out of the city is lifted. Return to what you did before. Be a successful businessman.”

Seeing how this student was treated, that he was rejected by the teacher in a very tactful way, the other students got scared that they too would be expelled. They spoke to each other and decided to stick with the advice of the teacher.

One said this, “Let us give it a try. Our teacher survives even though he never goes out of the city. How does he do this? There must be a way. Let us stick with his process for a time and see what will happen. What have we to lose? If anything we can always catch a tram and get out of the city later if this process proves to be worthless?”

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In one advanced application of pratyahara sensual energy withdrawal, the student is in a state of consciousness where he or she can hear the naad sound. The core-self is in the naad sound with a little bit of its interest energy outside of the naad sound. It identifies the vision energy which usually courses outwards like those trains which leave the city on the outward bound routes.

In this case however the train has not left the city. It is parked in the terminal building. Even its engine was removed. It is disabled for the time being. The student then realized that the inward bound energy which was conserved in the pratyahara practice, keeps coming towards the core-self on and on and on. It never ceases to move into the core self. The self accepts this inward moving energy. It feels like when a river discharges its water into a lake.

The student feels a fullness and an ever increasing fullness as the energy moves into the core-self in one continuous pour or contribution.

This causes a happiness, a spiritual feeling of joy which is devoid of the passionate energy. The student focuses on this. Fulfillment is gained here, to such a degree that the student loses the inclination to seek excitements after the meditation session is concluded.

This practice is one of being aware of the inward bound vision energy which courses continually into the core-self, as the self is absorbed in naad sound. This awareness causes an enrichment in the conserved energy. It causes a perception of a glow energy in which the core-self discovers itself with shut-down senses (citta vritti nirodhah)