How to Be Calm

Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash

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Silence is a true friend that never betrays. 
​- Confucius

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This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series.  
​Want to start at the beginning?
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Yoga Sutra 2.55
ततः परमा वश्यतेन्द्रियाणाम्
tataḥ paramā vaśyatendriyāṇām
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Then one achieves perfect mastery over the senses.

​One of the main reasons people start practicing yoga is to learn how to become calmer.  With all that is going on outside ourselves, it can be really difficult to learn how to be calm.

​That is why yoga’s process is one of involution, or one of leading the practitioner within and un-layering the conditioning that leads a person to feel stress, overwhelm and fear.

We can easily see why the first four limbs of Raja Yoga  can help one feel calmer.  The first, Yama helps us have better relationships with the outside world and leads to more harmony between ourselves and others.  The second, Niyama develops a better relationship with ourselves, leading to greater inner peace and contentment.  The third, Asana creates more ease and stability within our body, which both relaxes us and makes us more resilient both physically and mentally.  And the fourth, Pranayama teaches us to regulate our nervous system through the breath, finding that elusive experience of inner peace.

The final four limbs of Raja Yoga are much more subtle and to the novice, it may seem that laying or sitting still could hardly make their mind calmer.  In fact, some people that have tried meditation casually or have been unprepared, may find that meditating causes their mind to race.  
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As Ram Bhakt puts it in the Seekers Guide to the Yoga Sutras,

​At first, you still hear the sounds in the room or feel your clothes against your body.  You may also have various thoughts about the surroundings, like the temperature of the room or light on your eyelids.  Eventually, you stop noticing these things. (121)

Patanjali goes into much greater depth about meditation in the final two chapters (padas) of the Yoga Sutras.  But to end this pada, he explains the integral intermediary step of withdrawal of the senses (pratyahara).  

We started discussing pratyahara last month in Sutras 2.52 & 2.53.  Patanjali tells us in these Sutras that through the practice of pranayama, we learn to draw our senses inward, preparing us for true pratyahara, which is the experience of the radiance of our inner Self.

In these last two Sutras of pada two, Patanjali explains how pratyahara occurs and what it results in.  In Yoga Sutra 2.53, he tells us that when the senses turn inward, they stop reflecting the outer world we are normally in contact with and instead, reflect the nature of the mind itself, which is the essence of calmness.

The Shoshoni Yoga Retreat translation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali explains this as “pratyahara is the practice of following the senses inward, back to their source in the Self.” (30)  So again, a process of involution.  

The senses, which sprang from the Self to reflect and engage with nature, now move back into their source to reflect and engage with the Self.  Or as Mukunda Stiles puts it, “the senses imitate…the essential nature of pure consciousness.” (30)
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Swami Satchidananda has a helpful metaphor to explain this.

The senses are like a mirror.  Turned outward, they reflect the outside; turned inward, they reflect the pure light.  By themselves the senses are innocent, but when allowed to turn outside they attract everything and transfer those messages to the mind, making it restless.  Turned inward, they find peace by taking the form of the mind itself (208).

Pratyahara displaces the senses’ natural tendency to reflect outside objects with the object of our own mind.  Without external stimuli, our mind is calm.  Therefore, when the mind is really fit for concentration through practice of the four limbs preceding pratyahara, our senses turn toward it and reflect its essence, which is a state of calm.

BKS Iyengar also has a helpful metaphor to describe the relationship between the mind and the senses, which he compares to “that of bees following the queen bee.  If the queen bee moves, the others follow.  When she rests, the others rest.” (169)  So when the mind turns toward the Self, the senses do as well.  Then the senses reflect the essential calm of the Self through the mind.

Now, Patanjali tells us that this process of sensory withdrawal creates perfect mastery over the senses in Yoga Sutra 2.55.  When we achieve mastery over our senses, they “no longer contribute to our suffering.” (Shoshoni, 30)

As Swami Satchidananda reminds us, “if you are free from your own mind and senses, nothing can bind you; then you are really free.” (210)  And it’s true!  How often we use things that draw our senses outward (food, alcohol, drugs, sex) to create contentment - or really, satiety.  

Iyengar says our consciousness becomes “hypnotized… toward pleasure.” (168)  Yet peace created from external objects never lasts because “owing to the force of past impressions, one continues to hanker after renewed sensation.  But one can never be satisfied.” (169)

Conversely, there are many examples of people in the most abject of circumstances, whose senses turned inward to find true and lasting peace.  Here, pratyahara becomes “the friend who releases you from the snare of the external world and leads you towards happiness in the delight of the soul.” (Iyengar, 169)  And with every experience of pratyahara, “the independence of the spirit from the mind and body is reestablished.” (Bhakt, 123)

Patanjali is not telling us to run from enjoying sensory experiences.  Only to remember that they are temporary pleasures that cannot lead us to real understanding of our True Self by themselves.  To experience everlasting peace, the only source is that which is reflected within us and for that, we must eventually turn the senses inward.

When we turn the senses inward, we learn to concentrate on our essential nature, which is peace.  The process of meditation begins there, which is the topic of Pada Three of the Yoga Sutras.

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PADA THREE OF THE YOGA SUTRAS COMING IN 2025

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Does following your senses toward external pleasures ultimately leave you feeling peaceful or agitated?  Following the external sensory experience, what happens when you bring your attention within - is it easy or hard to concentrate on a sense of calm? 

​When you lessen your attachment to external objects, does it become easier to concentrate on your essential calmness?  Why or why not?  ​