Pratyahara(Med 77)

Pratyahara(Med 77)

Swami Chidananda

Beloved immortal Atman! Blessed children of the Divine!

Pratyahara or the controlling of the mind and the senses, and trying to make the mind go inward is not an easy joke; it is a stupendous task. How difficult it is and how much effort is necessary that it has been compared to reversing the Ganga and making it flow towards its source, Gangotri. So, pratyahara, making the outgoing mind inward is a real task. But a yogi is not perturbed because he says, “I can do it. I know I have to succeed in doing it. I shall succeed in doing it. And one day everything will be under my control.” This constant state of determination inside is tapasya.

Tapasya is constant determination when being confronted with the opposite negative, asuric side. The essence of tapasya is the determination: “I will never allow negative to overcome me. I will never give up, I will never accept defeat.” If this is present, he is a yogi, a tapasvi, a sannyasin. He is a person of great inner and outer cleanliness and purity. He has no defeatist mentality. He is positive, all determination and dogged perseverance. Why? Because his strength comes from two sources:

Svadhyaya: He daily draws inspiration, courage and fresh energy from svadhyaya of thrilling inspiring ideas. They are positive ideas full of spiritual force. With these spiritual instruction and spiritual strength every day, he is freshened, he is invigorated.

Ishvara-pranidhana: The second source is Ishvara-pranidhana: “I am always abiding in God, so I lack nothing. I have the infinite resources, the inexhaustible strength of God at my back. So how can I ever lack energy of force to succeed in my quest? Never. I have the infinite resources of god always with me, always at my back, because I always live with Him, I abide in Him. He is my support, my strength.”

And thus, Ishvara-pranidhana is placing you in the Divine always, living in the Divine, and always being aware that the Divine is within you and you are in the Divine. These are all transformers of the interior of the yogi even at the very beginning of the great yoga pilgrimage, yoga quest.

God bless you! Gurudev’s teachings grant you this positive state of atma-vishvas (confidence), and may you constantly with diligence, cultivate this success mentality. “Uddhared-atmanat-atmanam – Let a man rise himself by his own self” [Gita 6.5]. It will pay you infinite dividends. May God’s grace and Gurudev’s guru-kripa and your atma-vishvas, right state of mind, grant you the supreme Goal of Liberation and Divine perfection in this very birth!