The Pratyahara Bridge — From External to Internal Yoga
Pratyahara is the critical bridge in the Yoga Sutras between the outer limbs (Yama through Pranayama) and the inner limbs (Dharana through Samadhi) — the practice of sense withdrawal that makes the transition from active preparation to deep meditation possible.
Sutra 2.54 defines Pratyahara as 'sva vishaya asamprayoge chittasya svarupa anukara iva indriyanam pratyaharah' — the withdrawal (Pratyahara) of the senses from their own objects is as if the senses take on the form of the mind itself. The phrase 'as if' (iva) is important: the senses do not literally become the mind, but they follow it inward as the mind turns its attention away from sensory objects. This is the key transition from outer to inner yoga: in the outer limbs, the practitioner works to purify and prepare the instrument of the body-mind-breath. In Pratyahara, the practitioner turns the instrument around — from outward-facing to inward-facing — enabling the direct investigation of consciousness that Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi perform. Without Pratyahara, the mind may achieve relative stillness in a quiet environment but will be immediately re-stimulated by sensory input; with established Pratyahara, the mind can achieve and maintain deep stillness regardless of external conditions.
The withdrawal of the senses from their objects, as if taking on the nature of the mind, is Pratyahara.
Neuroscientist Stephen Porges' research on vagal tone documents that the parasympathetic state activated by slow, regulated breathing (pranayama) is the same state that reduces sensory reactivity and enables the inward turn of attention — providing a neurological mechanism for the pranayama-pratyahara transition that Patanjali describes.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Written about in
- What the Yoga Sutras say about breath and pranayama
What regulated breath opens on to is the turning inward of the senses. This is the hinge of the whole system, and the reason breath practice is never the destination in it.