Pratyahara

You know,

we, there's a term in Eastern tradition that is called Pratyahara and it means to withdraw your senses completely.

back onto the self to amplify and magnify what is actually true as we are externally oriented.

And when we're on social media all the time, or when we're constantly in the news and in the media and constantly listening and being in conversation about what we're seeing in those places, we are being pulled out into this this imperfection of a movie that we've all generated based in fear and survival.

And so Pratyahara draws us back into the deep core because it is at that deep core channel that the river runs deep and that deep core wisdom resides.

And it is unaltered.

It is there waiting to be potentiated, to emerge and to be drawn up from deep within.

But it's like, really?

But that and then also talking about Pratyahara and bringing that kind of like talking a lot about that in the restorative training, and just thinking about that as it relates to Shavasana and all the things so I think that it's been interesting.

I'm just seeing a little bit of my mark on you as well here.

That's all I've got to say about that.

And if you want to know more about that, check the description below.

But more importantly today, I wanted to discuss the misconception of Samadhi being the goal of yoga, right? So depending on the type of yoga or spirituality practice or meditation practice that you are in, a very common misconception is that Samadhi or enlightenment or awakening leading to full enlightenment is the goal of yoga, which I believe is perpetuated by possibly misunderstanding from the Yoga Sutras, from the Eightfold Path, where they say the Eightfold Path, the eight limbs of the Yoga, is Yama, Nyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi, right? It says Samadhi is the eighth part, right? And obviously, the second reason is that to attain Samadhi, it's like maybe one in a thousand person can attain Samadhi, right? So that in itself seemed to be such a difficult thing that it is presumed that that is the goal because No one knows what happens after Samadhi that you become enlightened and become some type of Swamiji and so forth.

Like, for example, some of the very famous so-called enlightened people is Swami, we'll start with Ramakrishna, right? And his student, Swami Vivekananda and Paramahamsa Yogananda.

And, you know, and they're like, and currently Sadhguru, right? Consider that this is the pinnacle.

And we've gotten to this, phase where we're examining the series of verses in like what you could call like the spine of yoga in the Ashtanga yoga system, the eight limbs of yoga.

Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, the Harana, Dhyana, Samadhi.

which is yama, the great vows of moral obligations of the yogis, the niyamas, the personal practices of the yogi, asana, the seat, the physical practice of yoga, the pranayama, the intentional direction of life force energy or breath control, pratyahara, which sometimes it's translated as sensory withdrawal, Um, my teacher, my teacher Rima gave a beautiful Dharma talk about pratyahara where she described it as the bridge from the external to the internal.

And I love that, right? The turning in as a, as a practice, right? That we, we, it's like when you, it's closing your eyes when you meditate, it's, it's, or when you listen closely or setting your gaze within, like, those are all practices of pratyahara.