Sensual Energy Withdrawal
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Sep 11, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
A thorough and efficient pranayama practice, should result in pratyahar effects where the mind loses interest in pursuing the external physical and astral world through the five ordinary senses of either the physical or subtle bodies.
Instead of spending years in a losing battle with the mind in terms of its spontaneous creation of thoughts and its projection planning for the future, one should adopt an effective means of causing the mind to shift into a mode where the thoughts about the material world and the scheming for success here, does not occur.
The ashtanga yoga system explained by Patanjali and also by Krishna, list pranayama as the 4th stage of yoga and pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal as the 5th stage. This is an indication that the completion of pranayama breath infusion should develop into pratyahar absorption.
Ultimately, the yogi needs to have a subtle body, a psychology, which spontaneously practices the higher aspects of yoga which Patanjali listed as samyama, or the sequential progressive practice from dharana deliberate self focus to dhyana spontaneous self focus and then finally to samadhi continuous spontaneous self focus.
What are the means of altering the subtle body so that it has the spontaneous ability to reach samadhi practice on a daily basis, not an imaginative samadhi, not a feel-good induced state of mind but an actual samadhi in application as given by Patanjali where he discussed numerous applications of samyama?
Have I found a system of pranayama which when I complete it, I get the result of pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal.
Do I have some other method like chanting of mantras?
What works for me?
How can I put myself in a state where I lose the sensual interest I have for the subtle and gross material worlds?
AspiringSiddha 3 years ago
So chanting can never completely purify the subtle body.
Only thru proper breath infusion, is this correct?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
I do not contest any given method.
The main point is that one should find a method which works.
I tried the chanting method from various lineages and it did not work for me.
I compared the results I got from chanting as compared to breath infusion, and I got more results and reached higher planes with the breath infusion.
Someone else may have got the results from chanting, who knows? So we cannot denounce that as being fruitless.
If one's confidence is in Ashtanga Yoga as it is defined by Patanjali and even by Krishna, then chanting (except Om) is not listed as an essential part of the process.
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The real issue is the motive for spiritual. It may be that chanting gives a different result than the one a particular yogi is aspiring for. Since chanting was not designed for that, it would be unfair to criticize it.
My aim was to develop supernatural perception in the psyche, and it does not say anywhere that chanting is supposed to yield that. So to be fair one has to be specific about what one desires to achieve.
