While a position in an asana can help in the concentration of the mind, there are occasions when interest is sufficiently intense that this concentration can take place in other poses also. Sometimes when we go for a walk, we will be deeply thinking something and we will not know that we have reached our destination. This must have happened to many of us. We just reach our destination—that is all we know. We do not know that we have been walking at all, because the concentration is so strongly focused on the theme that is occupying the mind. The concentration of the mind is not necessarily connected with a particular posture of the body, though we may choose a particular posture for practical convenience in the earlier stages.

As a matter of fact, in concentration of mind we forget the existence of the body itself, so that we do not know what posture it is occupying. It all depends upon the interest. Most important of all things is interest, which takes various forms such as love, affection, concentration, etc. Interest is paramount in yoga, just as interest is paramount in every field of activity in life. Where there is no interest in anything, there is no success. Interest depends, at least to some extent, on understanding. When we do not understand a thing, we cannot also have an interest in it. Through this laborious process of the analysis of the techniques of yoga, we have tried to bring our minds up to the point of grasping this important conclusion, namely, that the limbs of yoga, as well as the organs of the body and the mind—all of these in their totality—approach the total which is Reality.

It is not a part moving towards the whole. We do not know what is moving towards what. The whole rouses itself into the consciousness of the whole, which is symbolically stated in a famous mantra that is daily repeated: Purnamadah, purnamidam, purnat purnamudachyate—The whole is moving towards the whole, the whole has come out of the whole, and when the whole has been removed from the whole, the whole only remains. Such is this movement of the whole towards the whole in yoga, where the motion also is a whole, that which moves is a whole, that to which the whole moves also is a whole—everything is whole. No partial question arises here.

The practice of pranayama is also an organic process; therefore, it is not merely a mechanical act of the breath. The organic relationship of pranayama to pratyahara, which is the next step, is very interesting. Just as pranayama means the harmonisation of the vital energy by manipulation of the process of inhalation and exhalation, and which tends toward cessation, pratyahara means the very same act of the harmonisation of the sensory activities. It is not simply a withdrawal, as we have perhaps been told. It is an equilibration of the forces of the senses. All yoga is harmony—there is no withdrawal or expulsion. It is not projecting something or withdrawing something as much as it is a harmonising, which may appear to be a kind of withdrawal. Withdrawal of externality is harmony. In the so-called withdrawal in pratyahara or the abstraction of the sense powers, what happens really is the channelisation of mental energy through the senses is harmonized, and there is no further channelisation. The streams of the water reservoir are prevented from moving in different directions, and the waters fill the reservoir to its brim, filled to overflowing.

Our mind is like a reservoir of energy, and it has streams—five streams at least. The sense organs are streams of force. The prana is the propelling inclination of force which sends this energy to the channels of sense. The mind, the senses and the prana are thus connected. If the mind is the reservoir, and if the senses are the channels through which the water of the reservoir flows, the prana is the inclination that is needed for the water to flow through the channels. The prana therefore is the propelling energy. If there is no inclination, the water will not flow. The inclination towards an object of sense is the work of the prana, the channelisation is the senses and the force is the mind. The mind supplies the motive behind the activity—both of the prana and the senses.

It is difficult to find an equivalent in the English language for what is meant by the ‘psychological organ’. It is something which has in it the seed of the forces of activity—not only of the mind but also of the senses and the prana. This psychological organ is something which is unitary in us that works as mind, senses and prana. On the one side it is the activity of the force of vitality; on another side it is the senses trying to cognise and perceive things, and on another side it is the thinking process. Very few students of yoga would find it easy to practise this pratyahara of the whole psychological organ. They may hold their breath through force of will and by holding the nose, but they cannot hold the senses so easily. The senses are turbulent and impetuous in their movement. They find their way out, whatever be our effort in controlling them.

More difficult than asana is pranayama, and more difficult than pranayama is pratyahara. We will find that the higher rungs are more difficult to attain than the lower ones, so that we may be perfect in asana but not in pranayama. We may be a little adept in pranayama, but not in pratyahara and dharana, because the higher things that we have to reach in yoga are more and more invisible and out of physical control. They become ethereal and more pervasive in their activity. That which is more pervasive is also more difficult to subjugate. The senses are difficult to understand. We do not know what a sense organ means, so how can we control a sense organ? Why should we control the sense organs—and even if we try, what are the means that we are to employ? Doubts of this kind may also occur to the minds of students of yoga. “What on earth am I going to achieve by this withdrawal, and into what am I going to withdraw?”

’Withdrawal’ means withdrawal of something, by something, into something. What is this ‘thing’ into which we are going to withdraw? Where does it finally land us after all? This difficulty which is of the nature of a doubt will also create a lack of interest. We know what will happen to us if we have no interest—nothing will be achieved. Therefore, in the stages of yoga from pratyahara onwards, the understanding should exercise itself in a more predominant manner than in the earlier stages. While some sort of success can be achieved up to the stage of pranayama, there are very few who can achieve success later on. We can maybe hold our breath, but we cannot control the senses, because the reason is diversely directed.

We are brought up in such a way in human society, right from our childhood, that we have been taught to think in terms only of the senses. To now revise the way of thinking and sensory activity is a Herculean task. It requires a new education altogether, which we are trying to have nowadays when we seem to be too old to learn anything new. The old impressions of our early upbringing, from childhood onwards, have an impact on our present way of thinking, and again and again the old mind starts saying: “What are you doing to me?” The new child is unable to answer these questions of the old mind within. “Just keep quiet; don’t pursue this,” says the old mind. Many times we listen to this old whisper, because it is rare that we can completely hush this inner voice of the habituated mind which has been our way of thinking since childhood.

After all, what would be the effort that we will have to put forth in the practice of yoga, and for how many years? We may practise for a few months or maybe even two or three years, but it is nothing compared to the number of years that we have lived in this world. We have been living in this world for so many years—right from childhood—and we have been thinking wrongly during all that time. We have been believing that this way of thinking is the right thing, and now after one or two years or maybe just a few months, we have been trying to think rightly. But the whole habit will not go away so easily, because the emotions are especially turbulent. They will not listen to us at all, and it is the emotions that regulate the workings of the senses.

This is very important to remember. Our logical arguments are not going to help us in any manner, because the senses are not going to listen to them. Logic may appear to have some effect on the senses, but logic is ultimately of no help if it is not connected with the inner feeling. There is a story related to this. One of the young Muslim rulers who lived in India had a very good spiritual teacher, and the teacher taught him wonderful things of the heavens, the philosophy of creation, and many mysterious things of the world. As he had learned everything, the young ruler was declared to be a master of philosophy—very learned in the sacred lore of Islam and the general philosophy of those times. The young lad listened to everything and studied the whole of philosophy, but yet he had not fully understood things with his whole heart. The master returned to his own home, and the student wrote a plaintive letter to him. “My revered Master, I am grateful for all that you have taught me. You have taught me many things, but you have not taught me one single useful thing! For instance, I do not know how to attack an enemy’s fort, how to occupy my throne for the longest period possible, how to outwit my opponents, how to regain what I have lost in this material world, or how politically to manoeuvre armies. You haven’t taught me any of these things.” This reliance on logic rather than wisdom was the way of thinking with which the lad was brought up, and the mysteries of the cosmos did not seem to help him at all. He had heard all these great truths, but his previous erroneous way of thinking kept him from fully understanding them, because he was stuck in his old way of thinking.

This is exactly the way in which the mind will receive teachings when they are presented in a logical form. There is a beautiful saying of Pascal: “The heart has a reason which reason does not know.” The heart has a logic of its own, and the inductive and deductive processes of the schools of logic are alien to the logic of the heart. Whenever we listen to any logic, we say, “Yes, yes, but...” This “but” will not leave us at any time. The “yes, yes” response is the logic of the head, while the “but” is our heart speaking. There will always be a “but” for every thinking that we do in this world. It is this “but” that prevents us from successfully practising pratyahara. Just observe—we have an objection for everything. We never listen to anything wholly, nor can we agree with it completely. When I say “we” here, I mean by that our emotions. The heart speaks a language of its own, and the language of the heart is the most powerful of expressions. The intellect will be a failure in this attempt, if the logic has not touched the heart. The logic has not done its work if conviction has not become feeling. Intellectual conviction will not help us in yoga. It is this difference between the activities of the heart and the head that has been the cause of the failure of many students in their practice. We feel something and start thinking another thing altogether. That which we feel is our life, and that which we think is only an outward expression of our personality.

The pratyahara process therefore is not only an external expression of our personality, and it is not only an intellectual or a physical function. It is a function of emotion which is the driving force in our personalities. That which drives us to do anything in this world is emotion. Where emotion is absent, then everything cools down. Emotion supplies us with the necessary warmth of life. Where emotion is absent, either this way or that way, life is cold, insipid and without any significance. When we speak from our emotions, we speak with force. When we run, we run with force. This we do whether we like a thing or dislike a thing. We express our vehemence with force, and we also express our wonderment with force. “How wonderful!” or “How stupid!” Both we will say with force. This force comes from the emotions. Where emotion is absent, we have no force, and we become a cold, dead object.

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.  

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.