The Harmonisation of Mind and Breath : Last Part -

The Heart and Not Just the Logic : Last Part .

Through the stage of pratyahara, we come to the threshold of the mind. That is why the difficulty is greater here than with asana or pranayama. While in the earlier two stages of asana and pranayama we were a little removed from the mind and mental processes, we are now coming to the borderland of thinking itself, and we are touching the vital points of the mind when controlling the senses. We will realise to our surprise that pratyahara is a very interesting subject of study, and it involves many minor processes of analysis of mind in its emotional aspects. When we touch pratyahara, we have touched our own weak spots. That is why we would not like to touch it, either in ourselves or in others, if possible. We know what a weak spot is—a spot which we would not like to touch. Now we are about to touch it, and when this happens we are completely in dismay, and we do not know what to do with ourselves. But it has to be done one day or the other, and hence it is that in pratyahara, we may take a little more time to understand and tackle the situation.


But once a step is taken, it has to be taken firmly. There is no use hurrying forward in trying to control the senses. “Today I’ll control the eyes, and tomorrow I’ll control the ears.” We cannot do that and think that five days later the senses will all be controlled. This cannot be achieved, because all the five senses work together. There is no such thing as controlling only one sense. The five senses are like five holes in a vessel through which the contents will leak out. If we plug one hole, the force through which the expression will manifest itself elsewhere will be very vehement. We should not try to plug these holes one after the other. We have to deal simultaneously with them, and for this a very sound technique has to be employed—which should be our next subject of study.

Swami Krishnananda

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