Nirodhaḥ Yoga Blog
Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash The highest revelation is that God is in every man. - Ralph Waldo Emerson This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series. Want to start at the beginning? Yoga Sutra 2.52 ततः क्षीयते प्रकाशावरणम् tataḥ kṣīyate prakāśāvaraṇam As a result, the veil covering the light of the Supreme Self is dissolved. The final four Sutras within Book Two both summarize and hint at what Patanjali will spend the next two books covering. This process starts with the fifth limb of Raja Yoga, pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses). I find this limb so important that I will spend this month and next discussing the four Sutras which explain pratyahara. Patanjali tells us that pratyahara is the natural result of pranayama. BKS Iyengar tells us that “there is no discipline higher than pranayama. It is called an exalted knowledge (mahavidya), a royal road to well-being, freedom and bliss.” (167) He further explains that pranayama is like a breeze which disperses the clouds covering the sun. Through regulation of our energy, we can disperse the mental clouds that cover the radiant inner light that gives us existence. Swami Satchidananda tells us that “the mind is a veil woven of thoughts…If we pull the thoughts out one after the other, when they have all been removed, there is no mind left.” (205) This makes sense to me from a neural perspective. We know that our mind is an amalgamation of neural pathways, created through experiences and conditioning. These neural pathways can create a veil by which we experience ourselves as separate entities. If we dissolve the pathways that lead us to experience our small self as what is “real,” we are left with the impression common to all things: “I exist.” Ultimately, existence is the Supreme Self. It’s not that when we’ve dissolved the threads which cover the inner light (prakasa) we become mindless. But the mind’s “density is reduced” (Satchidananda, 205) and it is therefore not obscuring our inner light as much. That is pratyahara. When our mind is very calm, like during a wonderful deep relaxation or meditation, we can experience our own pure being without a mental filter. Pranayama and the resultant pratyahara ready the mind for concentration as explained by Patanjali in Yoga Sutra 2.53. The Shoshoni Yoga Retreat handbook on The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali translates this Sutra simply as “[pranayama] also gives the mind a greater capacity for concentration.” (30) It is a kind of “fitness” (Stiles, 30) we create through the practice of pranayama to contemplate the Supreme Self. Ram Bhakt tells us that “how you manage your life energies determines your emotions and how well you can control your thoughts.” (A Seeker’s Guide to the Yoga Sutras, 119) When our mind and emotions are well-regulated, it becomes easier to see past them. Our perspective is broadened and we develop insight. I think this is also easy to understand by practicing pranayama a little. The breath is quite subtle. Normally, our mind is engaged with grosser objects of concentration - our route to work or home, conversations with other people about things we experience through the senses, how our body feels today, etc. When we practice pranayama, our attention is diverted deep within to movement of energy, which is something we can not touch, taste, smell, see or hear. It is something we can feel. It is something we can know. Pranayama bridges the gap between our human mind, which is so often caught up in the physical world, and the Universal mind, which is beyond even our individual thoughts. It just exists. Iyengar calls this “the gateway to concentration, dharana” which leads us “towards the realization of the soul.” (167) The commentaries I'm using are all quite succinct. From this point onward, what Patanjali describes happening to the yoga practitioner (sadhaka) through Raja Yoga becomes more and more difficult to explain in words. Because the experience is beyond the mind, the mind has trouble grasping it without actually having experienced it. If you haven’t experienced the later limbs of Raja Yoga yet, I encourage you not to give up here. It is helpful to read the Yoga Sutras so that your mind has some idea of the process and its effects. However, remember that this path is experiential. You must practice to understand. Keep on practicing. Keep on studying. Kriya yoga, or the yoga of action is composed of self-discipline (niyama #3), self-study (niyama #4) and surrender (niyama #5). We need all three to succeed. << PREVIOUS BLOG POST IN YOGA SUTRA SERIES NEXT POST IN YOGA SUTRAS SERIES COMING DECEMBER Have you ever been in a state of thoughtless experience? What did it feel like to just exist? Did you stop existing when your mind stopped moving? Did anything feel heightened during that time?
If you've not had that experience before, try a few minutes of pranayama for several days and see if you can obtain it for yourself.
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