The Making of a Yoga Master: Calming mind modifications, pratyahara, vision of Isvara

Spirituality
#1

Namaste,

I’m actually reading our fellow Suhas Tambe’s excellent book, one of the most profound yoga books I’ve ever read, and would like to discuss some issues there exposed, and also to share my personal experience with you. This thread will be for the vrttis or mind modifications, the state of pratyahara, and the vision of Isvara.

[B]Sensory perception[/B]

Sense impulses should bypass the thalamus and the memory banks. This will make the number of future modifications decrease and will allow the mind to disengage from sensory perception.

My experience: For the past two years I’ve been cultivating a perception I accidentally came across. When looking at objects, places and people, it looks like it is the first time you watch them, everything looks “new”, brilliant, vibrant. One also has the joyful sensation of being in a “timeless”, magical world. It’s like dreaming awake. Vibrating prana can be clearly felt at the region of Ajna or Manas chakra (not sure yet which one). It is easier for me to experience this in the nature or under sunlight. It is impossible at night or in full darkness. The natural tendency of the mind is to return to the “normal” state, so one has to endeavor to maintain this perception.

The question: Is the above explained perception the proper path to vrtti control? Is it what buddhists call “the clear perception”?

[B]The gap between two thoughts[/B]

What does this mean? A moment of unmani (thoughtless) state? Or a totally new experience for a yoga student? How is it?

[B]Pratyahara[/B]

I’ve always believed pratyahara was the turning off or disconnection of the senses while fully conscious. As I understand, the book extends this concept to “disengaging mind from sensory activity”. This means that one can also perceive under pratyahara, the difference is that the mind does not “meddle” with the sensory input.

The question: If one achieves to “re-route” the sense impulses so they pass through the sides of the brain reducing vrttis to a minimum, has he/she achieved a state of pratyahara, at least a “minor” one?

[B]Vision of Isvara[/B]

As I understand, pratyahara culminates with a vision of the inner divinity and his tutelage thenceforth.

The question: But what kind of vision? An epiphany? A trance like spiritual vision? A lucid dream? Under what shape… according to one’s culture/religion, or an universal one? Or simply, is the experience so engrossing that one undoubtedly knows the contact occurred?

Thank you.

#2

These are my views:

  1. Your ‘new’ perception is interesting. But it may only be a stepping stone to the ‘clear perception’. Perception that needs senses or external agents like sunlight, will bring in vibrations and energy that will excite vritti. Direct perception is non-sensory and can occur only when memory banks are bypassed. This way there are no stored images tagged on, no thought generated and sensory vibrations simply enter and leave the body “as is”.

  2. Gap between two thoughts is a beginning of the process of direct perception. The gap occurs consciously. This allows simultaneous thought streams: one, the slowed down thinking; other, a new thought of desire to stop the first thought. Soon one can delicately balance the two thought streams and they even out, cancelling each other! That’s when chitta vritti are quiet, absence of thoughts, no mind modifications and non-sensory perception. (I need to find out if that’s called ‘unmanee’)

  3. ‘Pratyahara’ is less of a state, and more of an ‘ability to transition from out-bound attention to in-bound one’. Sensing is a relay race from external gross sense organs to their internal subtle counterparts. Ordinarily we are aware of senses receiving the input (example: “seeing with the eyes”) but have no clue or control over the vibrations and how they are transported subtly into the thinking process. Pratyahara is this awareness which enables continuity of perception without external senses; but with a significant difference. The images perceived are not about external objects but about the spiritual experiences. This progressively leads to dharana, dhyana and Samadhi.

  4. Vision of Ishvara: Things here onwards become difficult to put in words, because our vocabulary is meant for dealing with the external objects. Similarly, our standards and language of perception is constructed on the basis of fragmentation, classification, and identification. That doesn’t work anymore as the inner vision is holistic, non-verbal and non-specific. In this sense, your questions are fundamentally incorrect. For example, ‘vision’ of Ishvara is more akin to a sense of touch than image processing. “one just knows Ishvara”. A ‘trance’ implies a state not consciously controlled and ‘dream’ implies image processing without logic. Both the terms miles short of the real experience. It is not culture-specific, no shape, size, gender or any limiting concepts. The last line is the truth. and it is not one-of-a-kind event, the vision itself signifies that the advanced training begins now.

#3

Pratyahara is a difficult concept for most to comprehend, with most thinking it is “turning off the senses.”

One of my students framed her experience nicely regarding Pratyahara. She shared with me that one day in Trikonasana, she caught sight of a tree blowing in the wind and for a moment her breath slowed and was in sync with the sway of the leaves. It was that moment she felt the connection I mention so much in class. She, for a moment, experienced that oneness with a power greater, still fully aware of what surrounded her.

And yes, Panoramix, it is an excellent book.

#4

So, Pratyahara and perceiving without senses are synonymous… but when perceiving subtle inner stuff… right? Does this anything to do with the Tanmatras?

Gap between two thoughts: I understand now, I was figuring out a gap in time: though1 … thought2… So what you meant Suhas is two simultaneous thoughts occurring. Ok!

Vision of Ishvara: Sorry to be stubborn but… in the book you wrote about images and visual features at initial stages (Chapter Four: Skill of Meditation). Any clarification?

@lotusgirl: nice to read you again :slight_smile:

#5

@ Panoramix…and you as well!

So glad you are reading Suhas’s book! You’ll re-read it many times and still have questions. Believe me…

#6

It is about tanmatras! A shake-hand between the externally sensed data and the decoding done by tanmatras is very important. That is called Pradhana, which balances the gross vibrations and their subtle translation that gets carried into the thinking process. One who understands Pradhana, can consciously delink the gross and keep us in pratyahara.

Now about images. If you see meditation is sitting between concentration and contemplation; but all these skills are externally oriented. When pratyahara makes that difficult 180 degrees turn around, concentration becomes a skill applied in the inner domain and produces a state of dharana. (It is better used as in Sanskrt, than crudely interchange with concentration) Dharana is a state, concentration a skill that drives a process. Same thing is about dhyana and samadhi.

So mediation is not dhyana, it causes it. We DO meditation, we ARE IN dhyana. Being a process it matures; it is a phased progression. Mind energy needs a target to meditate upon. In its externally oriented form, from a channel-surfing mode, concentration tames it to become focused; but old habits die hard and efforts are required to retain the focus every now and then. When efforts are no more needed one starts meditating on the target and know it from its gross to subtle states. Once turned inwards, there is only image to process and awareness is of subtle states. Very soon being aware of this ‘awareness’ becomes a burden, as it is still subjective, colored and ego-driven. Finally, one learns to need no images, knows Ishvara as the real perceiver and suspends the proxy perception. Thus remains in the state without being aware of it. That is Samadhi.

Hope I have answered right.

#7

Thank you Suhas.

Yet another absolute question surely receiving a relative answer: Music. Is listening to it vrtti exciting? Or it depends on the style <-> personality combination?

Another thing: I want to become Ishwara’s disciple. I would like to receive mantra from him in dreams, and bear my mala on me all the time. Is it possible to ask him for mantra in immature stages?

#8

Listening is complete only when we cognize what we hear. That is essentially brain’s activity. Music comes to us as vibrations. So, brain translates and interprets the vibrations by drawing in patterns from the memory. In short, in such listening, substantial attention gets locked up in the act of listening, and vrittis do get excited.

Desire to be a disciple of Ishvara is an excellent beginning but the path leading to it is long and winding. On our part, we can so desire and keep practicing pratyahara. But the rest is pure grace. The purity of the physical body, equipoise of the emotional body and intelligence devoid of ego form a fertile ground, but the training by Ishvara begins only when it admits us and that is beyond our conditioned thinking. Secondly, though a blissful experience, it is earth-shattering and this world is never the same again. So, one needs to be ready for that total divorce from the material life. But seeking Ishvara is a compelling force and if you sense it, give your best efforts to it.

#9

Great Suhas.

I’ll open a new thread regarding other questions from your book shortly.

Namaste!