CHAPTER IX. 5.—Pratyahar.
“PRATYAHAR is as it were the accomodation of the senses to the nature of the mind in the absence of concernment with each one’s own object. The fruit of this is the complete subjection of the senses.” Mind in ordinary men is the slave of the senses. If our sensations are pleasant, we feel pleasure; if they are painful, we are pained. Senses not only domineer but tyranize over the mind. Therefore, when the Yogi has passed through all the four stages enumerated above, i.e., Yama, niyama, asana and pranayama, he should try to accommodate his senses to the nature of his mind. When he does not wish to see, let not external things make any impressions on his retina, though he may have his eyes wide open. When he has no mind to hear, let no external sound make any impression on the nerves of the cochlea, and so on; not only he should be the negative master over his senses, i.e., restraining them from their functions whenever he wishes, but he should be so complete and perfect master over them that they should respond like obedient servants to every call of his mind. When his mind thinks of a pleasant picture, let the nerves of the eye catch up the thoughts and show it to him in objective reality. When he thinks of a sound, let the ears responding to the thought make him hear it as well. When he imagines of a smell, let his olfactory nerves feel the sensation. In fact, pratyahar is that state in which the subjective world overcomes the objective and imagination is exalted to such a pitch that all its pictures stand forth vividly on the canvass of objectivity. The practice of pranayama as invariably induces the pratyahar as the passes of a strong mesmeriser produces sleep. Yoga has been very happily termed by Colonel Olcott self-mesmerisation, in which the subject is the mystic’s own body. As in mesmerism, the operator can make his subject see any sight, hear any sound, smell any odour, taste any taste, or feel any sensation which the operator imagines, so the Yogi who has reached the fifth stage has a similar control over the organs of his body. He asserts the supremacy of mind over the body by the same will-force as the ordinary mesmeriser; and as the latter makes his patient unconscious to all external sensations, so that a gun may be fired without his hearing it; pungent odours like that of ammonia may be held near the nose without his smelling it; brilliant light may pass unnoticed when focussed on his eyes for the iris remains inert; bitter chillies may be placed on the tongue, and he will swallow them without showing any signs of pain; so does the Yogi get supremacy over his own body so as to defy sensation. Pratyahar is not a distinct method in itself, but is a result of pranyama. There are no rules laid down for the subjugation of the senses, as there are for the regulation of the breath; but it comes in the wake of the other four processess. When in practising pranayama, the avarana or obscuration of light is removed, and the Yogi sees the pellucid Chidakasha (the pure spiritual light), he enjoys such pleasant sensations that of itself his mind is transferred from taking cognition of the external things to internal ideas, and the senses become inactive. Thus have we treated of the five externalities of Yoga—the Bahiranga as they are called. The mind has not yet been reached, as up to this time we have been dealing only with the body. The last of these five stages culminates in the supersession of the senses and total subjugation of the body to mind. The remaining three stages treat of the methods of subjecting the mind to the soul, and these processes are
called antaranga (internal) in relation to the body; while considered in relation to the soul they are Bahiranga.
Table of Methods.
