2.54 · Bees Returning

Withdrawal is when the senses, no longer engaged with their objects, seem to follow the mind's own nature.

Word by word

sva-viṣaya

their own objects

asaṃprayoge

when not in contact

citta-svarūpa

the mind's own form

anukāraḥ

imitation, following

iva

as if

indriyāṇām

of the senses

pratyāhāraḥ

withdrawal of the senses

Where it fits

Vyāsa asks, "Now what is withdrawal?" (Woods p. 197). The fifth limb is the last of the outer ones. The senses, disengaged from their objects, follow the mind as it turns inward, as bees follow their king in Vyāsa's image. Its fruit closes the pāda (2.55).

Reading

Pratyāhāra is the fifth limb and the last of the outer ones, and the small word iva, 'as if', is exact: the senses do not become mind, they share its turning away. Vyāsa's image is the bees and their king: when the king bee flies up, the swarm flies up, and when it settles, they settle. So when the mind is stilled, the senses come home with it, without being forced. Unlike other ways of governing the senses, he says, this needs no further means.

Vyāsa

“Just as, when the king bee flies up, the bees fly up after it, and when it settles, they settle after it, so when the mind is stilled, the senses are stilled. This is withdrawal.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 197.

Practice

Sit with your eyes closed for five minutes. Each time a sense pulls you out, whether a sound, an itch or a smell, notice it, then let attention return inward like a bee returning to the hive.

A question to sit with

Where are your senses dragging you?

Key ideas

pratyāhāra (withdrawal of the senses), citta (the mind-field)