Yoga Pratyahar Completion
Pratyahar sensual energy withdraw is the fifth (5th.) stage of yoga. Most meditators do it and take credit for it as meditation. Patanjali however, tagged it as the stage prior to meditation, which he termed as samyama.
Samyama is the collective of the three highest stages of yoga which are dharana, dhyana and samadhi. These are upticks and downticks. These occur like three steps where the yogi may transit from one to another in sequence or may digress from one to another. This happens where when doing dharana meditative focus, the yogi may involuntarily or deliberately shift to dhyana spontaneous focus and then descended or even ascent further to samadhi prolonged spontaneous focus.
Pratyahar according to Patanjali is different, as it is the effort to internalize the attention or focus of the self. The natural way is the let one’s interest protrude into the external environment, and to dwell upon whatever concerns that which is already in the mind. When this exteriorization ceases, that is the practice of pratyahar or the indrawn of sensual concerns pertaining to what is external to the physical body. It may be a physical object. Or it may be an impression about a physical concern.
A yogi will know when he is in a pratyahar state during meditation, because he will find that his attention is relaxed into the coreSelf, where it seems to lose interest in physical things and memories which relate to those objects and concerns. In meditation, this is experienced as a state of quietude where the mind makes no effort to procure physically related objects and subjects.
When this happens frequently as soon as one sits to meditate, then one knows that one is in the pratyahar stage of yoga. A yogi will still be externally concerned because he has to engage with people, and with the environment, but for the most part, when he sits to meditate, his psyche will abandon the concerns. He will be like a tortoise which retracts its head and limbs. This example is flawed however, because a tortoise which withdraws may remain physically introverted with intense external interest.
If a dog chases a tortoise, the aquatic may retract its head and limbs but while doing so, it will be externally focused. Hence its intention for introspection is extrospection. That is not pratyahar. A yogi should sincerely internalized. While doing so, he/she should have no external concerns.
The yogi ceases his procurement tendency. It is switched off. It will resume when his meditation is concluded. He needs to have it to maneuver in the physical world. But during meditation it should be switched off. When he masters this, he could recognize himself as being ready to do samyama, meditation.
Meditation begins with the stability of focus. The coreSelf has interest but it is not stable. A yogi is required to stabilize, and bring under control, the focus. When this is achieved, meditation (samyama) begins.
