Sensual Energy Withdrawal Phases (Pratyahar)
Sensual energy withdrawal is the 5th stage of the 8-fold path enumerated by Patanjali Mahayogin. The concept that each stage is like a step wherein the strider can stand on one and shift his weight to a higher one and not have to deal with the lower rounds again, is false.
The situation is that the yogi advances from one step to another in part only, such that he/she must descend again and again to perform stepping as was done before. This is due to the fact that the progress is partial only with much left for a later completion.
What any stage means initially is different to what it will mean at an advanced level. For instance, for pratyahar initially, the yogi must make the effort to withdraw his/her sensual interests but then there arises the question of how to do so and what is the sensual interest.
There is the realization that it is a complex mix of energies. There is the problem of figuring what is to be withdrawn and from what object(s). There is the enigma of what is the self or person as to if that is something or a composite in reality.
After all, if something is not a reality how can anything be withdrawn in reference to that illusory factor?
Which of the senses should be withdrawn? Should they be withdrawn collectively? What should they be withdrawn into? A rope which is extracted from a winch could be retracted by reverse motion of gears but is it that simple when dealing with the mental and emotional energies.
Perhaps the most frequent effort at pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal is applied to the visual sense but it may be another sense for another yogi. It depends on what sense the person selects for retraction.
Assuming it is the visual one, for example, the yogi in the blankness of the subtle head, as the iSelf there, should retract the visual energies. These psychic powers emanate from the psyche of the self but that self is hard pressed to figure the accounting of the expression and collection of the energies. The sensual expressions and collections are for the most part involuntary. Their account by the iSelf is a discipline which that self can institute with much mental effort and emotional measurement.
At first with great exertion as if there were mental muscles in the mind, the visual energy is withdrawn from external pursuits. The yogi exerts to pull back the visual energies which course outward with a compulsion to pursuit color in the external world. After pulling and pulling these lines of power back into the psyche, mostly through the frontal lobe, a yogi finds that he/she can relax that mental muscular exertion because after some months or years of practicing, the forceful outward-going expressions of energy, relax.
At least during the meditation sessions, the power remains still and does not run out of the psyche seeking colors. Here, colors mean objects but these are object which have colors which can be detected and apprehended by the pursuing sight-sense.
Eventually with a blank mind, the yogi gets relief where the mind space remains static and does not have the demanding attitude. In that state of mind, meditation can occur. The vision sense must be shut down, as if it does not exist, as it is an electric appliance to which current was not applied.
The yogi should feel that the visual sense which courses mostly through the frontal lobe, is no longer there. He/she should not look forward and should not have the urge to do so but should feel that there is existence in the subtle head with no urging to see outside of the psyche. That is pratyahar of the visual sense. Each sense has its expression and contraction to be performed by the yogi and there is a collective withdrawal as well but if that is done in a clumsy way, it will not serve the purpose.
