So the limb after pranayama,
Which is the controlling of the prana using your breath,
Is pratihara.
And this means the withdrawal of your senses.
So pratihara is the bridge between the external focus of her previous limbs,
It's a bridge between that and then our inward focus of the following limbs.
And you might have noticed that in the previous limbs like the yamas,
Which is the social ethics,
You're focused on not harming others,
Telling the truth,
And generosity,
Things that are related to the external world.
And then one step up you have an yama,
Which is the inner observances.
But even here,
You're focusing on cleanliness and contentment and things outside of yourself.
And then with the asanas,
Those are physical postures that you're doing.
And with pranayama,
You're consciously controlling the prana in your body.
So these are all external practices.
But now with pratihara,
You're now taking that energy and now bring it inwards.
And this is done to bring that,
Not to dissipate your energy outside,
But rather now bring that focus inwards.
And you might have experienced pratihara in shavasana if you've ever done yoga.
That's a corpse pose where you just lay down with your eyes closed.
And in that state,
You're practicing pratihara because now your senses are going inwards and there's nothing to control.
And gradually by doing the previous steps,
You're now in a place to practice pratihara because before your attention was just dissipated at external stimulus,
Your senses and things around you.
But because you've learned how to control your body through asanas,
You've learned how to control your breath through the pranayama,
You're not as easily swayed by external things around you.
And now you can really devote your attention inwards.
And I feel that if you just kind of try to skip ahead and start to practice pratihara without the other steps,
You'll find that very hard and your mind starts to wander.
So that's why the limbs,
The eight limbs of yoga were designed in this manner.
So you can first take the steps before and kind of work your way to more subtle and subtle realms.
And yeah,
Just not dispersing your energy outside is pretty important because you want to have that energy to look inwards.
And of course,
Pratanjali didn't have social media back in the day,
But getting rid of social media is one way to practice pratihara because how often are we distracted by our phone chiming or you get an email notification?
Those distract our focus from looking inwards.
And that's just one external way to practice it.
But also having your meditation space clear of clutter,
Which is also related to saucha,
Which is one niyama we learned earlier.
So just having your external environment can help you get into that state of pratihara,
Looking inwards is also helpful as well.
And with our meditations,
We can keep our eyes closed and that can allow us to look inwards.
That's one way of pratihara,
The withdrawal of our senses inwards.
But you can also keep your eyes open as you do in the Zen tradition.
But what you find is that when they practice with their eyes open,
They also dim the lights around them.
So your eyes are not actually actively focusing on anything,
But rather just they're just open and kind of blank.
And the reason why they do it is because the same meditative effects that you feel with your eyes open,
It will translate over from your meditation to your daily life and have a spillover effect.
And that's why I personally like to practice meditation with my eyes open.
But just keep in mind,
I'm not using my eyes to look at anything externally,
But rather just bring my attention inwards and I keep the lights very dim.
So that helps me.
And there's also a mudra,
Which is a finger posture you can take on.
The yoni mudra closes off your senses.
And typically the way you do it is you have your thumbs kind of closing off your ears and then you would close your eyes and then use your fingers to also close your mouth as well.
So in this way,
You're closing your eyes,
Your ears and closing off all the senses and this will allow you to bring your attention inwards.
So that's kind of the starting point of now practicing the inner meditations,
Because now when you have your attention inwards,
You can then practice the next step,
Which is dharana,
And that's concentration.
But you can't focus on concentration if you don't have this first,
Right?
So first you have to bring your attention inwards,
Make sure it's not distracted by things around you,
By working the previous steps.
And then now you're in the place of looking inwards,
You can then start to refine your practice and focus on the next step,
Which is concentration or dharana.
