The Harmonisation of Mind and Breath :

The Heart and Not Just the Logic :-2.


Hence, emotion is not a bad thing, because it supplies the power. However, we also know what power means—it can be used for a proper and good purpose or for a destructive purpose. As emotion is an amoral something which is necessary in us, and it can be diverted either to this side or that side—like a double-edged sword or like fire. Can we say fire is wholly good or bad? No one can answer this question. We cannot say fire is good or bad. It is good if it is used for cooking our meals or warming ourselves in winter, but it is bad if it is used to set fire to somebody’s house or to devastate cities.

Force is neither good nor bad. It is an amoral energy of the universe. Emotion is the manifestation of force in our personality, and this force usually works as sensory activity through the function of the prana, as we have seen. This is both the difficulty as well as the necessity in the regulation of the activities of sense. For this purpose we have to analyse the structure of our interests and our emotional relationships, rather than try to philosophically analyse the structure of creation or the concepts of logic in philosophy. In pratyahara, the subject of analysis and understanding is our emotional relationship with things and the hidden impulses towards satisfaction of any kind. The necessity for pratyahara arises on account of our feelings for satisfaction in things other than in the objectives of yoga. As our satisfaction is diverted to things other than the objectives that we seek in yoga, the need for pratyahara arises.

We know very well that we can wean ourselves from anything—but not from an object of satisfaction. There is nothing in this world which can attract us so much as that which satisfies us. There is nothing which we want except that which satisfies us, and if the objects of sense can satisfy us, nothing can be more difficult for us than to wean the mind from this satisfaction. Hence it is that in pratyahara we are always at a dead end, and we cannot move further. Most students of yoga are stuck here, and they cannot go further. When people have unintelligently tried to control the senses through pratyahara, the attempts have not ended in success. They ended in tensions and complexes of various kinds and also in difficulties which later began to harass them in many ways—all because emotion was regarded as an unimportant factor in human life. The mechanical process of the subjugation of the senses was employed as they tried to sit with force in a particular asana or tried to hold the breath with force. We may employ some force in things, but we cannot employ force in the control of the senses, and it is un-wisdom to try it. 

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued