Durgadas talks about awakening the Agni or Fire of Pratyahara or withdrawing the senses, from his upcoming book, 'Agni Rahasya...'

 
 The Agni of Pratyahara: Mastering the Senses

Excerpt from the upcoming book,
'Agni Rahasya: The Secret of the Celestial Fire in Yoga and Ayurveda'
by Durgadas.


(c) Ved Kovid, Durgadas / Arogya Ayurvedic Health Ltd.
All Rights Reserved.

No part of this article may be copied or reproduced in any manner, in print or electronically, except by direct permission from the author and the Publisher.

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You are a mighty Pillar (Sthuna), lord of the home, armour of those who offer the Soma: The drop of Soma smashes down all the Cities, and the Lord of the Sense-Organs (Indra) is the friend of the Munis (silent sages).
 - Rig Veda.VII.17.14

Pratyahara is the most important after these, as the mind must be focused and withdrawn within, with the fire of vairagya or detachment of the senses (indriyas) being awakened and mastered.

The most famous Vedic forms of the gods or forms of Agni that relates to Pratyahara is the god Indra, whose name means “Master of the sense-organs (indriyas)”, as he himself destroys all obstacles (vritras) that come in the way of attaining the higher state and cultivating inner awareness and restraint.

Indra is called a sthuna or a pillar, which also relates to the term sthira or still of which we have already discussed, relative to Asana and we must develop stillness of the physical body through asana and of the mind, as through pranayama and purify it, before we can access the next highest stage, that of Pratyahara or withdrawal of the senses.

Indra is the friend of the Munis, meaning those who have kept the vow of mauna or awakened the fire of silence, of both the physical speech and also of the mind and hence check all wonderings of the mind towards sensual and material objects and desires, keeping it internalised and restrained. When the mind is internalised and not externalised, which sometimes requires cultivating the physical fires of silence through tapas or austerities and restraining the body – sometimes even from foods as in fasts, or from society, as in Yogis renouncing the world or meditating in remote places, this also provides us with a kind of Pratyahara also, a withdrawal from the usual surroundings and conditionings of the body and the mind, so that we can better silence it and keep it restrained and away from these.

Another example is visiting sacred places or Tirthas which themselves have powerful effects upon our minds and help awaken the fire of transformation. When visiting such places, we respect them and so withdraw ourselves from the typical day to day activities, such as avoiding certain foods (anna-pratyahara) and cultivating the fire of sattvas or purity, avoiding all things that are not Sattvic, not pure, whether foods, scriptures and other surroundings and we associate ourselves with devotees, religious people or fellow-Yogis and withdrawl ourselves from the mundane urban and materialistic aspects of the world.

Ahara itself means food or impressions that we take within ourselves and as such, refers to restrain of these. In Ayurveda, we go through a kind of Pratyahara or withdrawal of certain foods, as per our own biological Prakriti or natural constitution, as also when we are diseased, we cultivate the fire of Pratyahara also, avoiding certain activities that might harm and hinder our health.

For example if we are suffering from Prameha or diabetes, then we will adopt a Pratyahara or withdrawal from certain foods such as dairy, oily foods and pastries, sugars and sweet foods, heavy foods and such and instead take ligher, easier to digest and pungent foods and also avoid activities such as sleeping during the day, awaking late and having large heavy meals in the morning and at night, which can aggravate our disease condition by killing our Agni or fire of digestion that has been behind the disease in the first place.

Likewise, we also need to cultivate the fire of awareness about our karmas also and consider whether or not we are perfoming a Pratyahara or withdrawal from certain activities or actions (karmas) that are hindering our spiritual progress or thwarting our prarabdha, the current fruit-bearing karma of this life from coming out naturally and may have to cultivate the fire of withdrawal from certain activities we are doing, as they may not compliement this inner pull and the inner samskaras or karmic impressions we have imbibed from the past. By engaging in sensory activities of the mind – even professions, we could be further enmeshing ourselves within a kind of darker karma, incurring more and more samskaras or impressions in this life and not dealing with the past ones or burning them up!

Similarly, we have to consider awakening the fires of Pratyahara against negative activities that we do and withdrawing our mind away from negative impressions that influence our actions, such as those caused by mistake of the intellect (prajnaparadha) and cause us for example, to be lazy and not do our sadhana or spiritual practise or study the ancient texts and expand our spiritual knowledge.

These are asuric or negative samskaras or impressions that we also have to fight against by awakening this Pratyahara or withdrawal from, which again can be done by associating with more enlightened people or visiting spiritual and sacrted peoples such as ashramas or monasteries or performing a kind of spiritual journey to sacred places as mandiras or temples and withdrawl ourselves away from the external factors that cause our negative impressions to cause us harm.

Other examples are performing pujas or ritualistic offerings to the Deities and also immerising ourselves in the study of sacred devotional literature such as the Puranas of ancient India, which withdraw our senses away from this modern materialistic culture and take our minds into one of a spiritual and more enlightened age and also withdraw us from the body and into the devotion of the Deity itself, such as also mantras do when focuses upon and offered with the fire of devotion to the deity.

Performing the Agni Hotra, the ancient fire sacrifice itself is a good way to help us do Pratyahara, as it helps us connect not with the physical impressions and senses, but with nature through the sacred fire and offerings, through which we (mentally) offer up our senses and such also. By performing such, we detach ourselves from our senses and focus our energies upon more productive and spiritually conducive acts, whereby the senses themselves become transformed as a result of selfless service by not seeking rewards or gains for our activities or for sensual gratification, but simply fot devotional and therefore purposes of creating vairagya or detachment from the mind, senses and body and instead focused towards the Deity, which awakens the fire of attachment within us.

There are also scriptural Pratyaharas also, which require that we withdraw ourselves from wrongful and harmful translations of sacred or religious texts, which can reduce both our fires of faith and also intellect. We should instead awaken the fires of traditional translations and commentaries (bhashyas) and study them to have a complete and enlightened view of traditions and ancient sciences, not simply one of modern imaginations with no consideration or study of these.

Another example of a toxic involvement of the senses is the Television and News media and also Social-media, through which we must also develop an attitude of Pratyahara and sensory withdrawal from also, as such impressions can also create disturbances in our psyche and can create bad dreams, as Ayurveda itself states:

“Bad dreams occur due to the blockages in the manovahasrotas (mind carrying channels), due to aggravated wastes in the body.”
-Ashtanga Hridaya, Sharirasthana,VI.59-60

We hence need to restrain our toxic impressions with regards to both the mind (manasic aharas) and also the body (dehic aharas), which includes all such impressions and also foods, which can dampen both the fire of the intellect (bauddhic agni) and also the fire of digestion (pachakagni) in the body and cause us harm.

By withdrawing our minds and bodies away from such things, we can hence go far in Yoga by cultivating this fire of detachment and withdrawal and therefore help us in restraining the senses overall, by which we can become great Yogis:

“Restraining speech in the mind and restraining the mind in the intellect; this again restrains in the witness of the intellect and merging with the Supreme Self, attain to the highest peace.

The body, the breaths, organs, mind and intellect and others – with whatsoever of these supervening adjuncts of the mind is associated, the Yogi is transformed as it were, into that!”
-Adi Shankaracharya, Vivekachudamani, 369-370