Whenever I tell someone I'm interested in going on float tanks or "sensory deprivation" tanks, there is usually either the reaction of fear or curiosity. The idea of not being able to see anything or hear anything is very unfamiliar to us. Understandably so. Our entire lives are built on experiences we have with our senses. We create memories with snippets of smelling baked bread, staring into the eyes of the ones we love, touching the soft fur of a beloved animal companion, hearing the pitter patter of rain falling into the roof, and so on.
To practice pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses) then is usually unchartered territory for most people. Why even do it? Are there any benefits? Or is it just an act of self-sacrifice and deprivation? What will we find when we let the outside world go as a temporary practice? When we direct the energy inwards instead of outwards, we will begin to understand the vast richness of our consciousness, that there is this space where the past and future are irrelevant, where worries and guilt and fear have no place, where we can simply surrender and let go. In the empty space, there is only the present moment, where everything is perfect, as they were meant to be. We live in a world designed almost counter to practicing pratyahara. We can spend hours online, or its sensory overload equivalent, we can spend our entire day at the mall. And then these are hours spent using our energy to absorb external experiences, and we are buried deeper and deeper into the cycle of looking outside for satisfaction-- which will never come. Through pratyahara practice, we do the opposite. We direct the energy inwards, we uncover the layers that hide our true identity, the unchanging reality of who we are that is not dependent on the chaos of the outside world. Through pratyahara, we find peace and discover we are that peace itself.
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