Swami Vivekananda once said, “PRATYĀHĀRA is a gathering toward, an attempt to get hold of the mind and focus it on the desired object. The first step is to let the mind drift; watch it; see what it thinks; be only the witness. Mind is not soul or spirit. It is only matter in a finer form, and we own it and can learn to manipulate it through the nerve energies.”

Here in Yoga we find the original roots of Mindfulness, which has traveled and morphed through cultures over thousands of years, and which Vivekananda defines as the first step in PRATYĀHĀRA – to be a witness to our minds. Most of the scientific research on meditation in the western world has focused on this practice of witnessing the mind and the subsequent ability to “learn to manipulate it [the mind] through the nerve energies” – the basis of a lot of modern research in neuroscience.

But Pratyahara goes beyond this first step. Vivekananda goes on to say, “The body is the objective view of what we call mind (subjective). We, the Self, are beyond both body and mind; beyond being subjective or objective; we are Atman, the eternal, unchangeable witness. The body is crystallized thought.”

He gives us methods to develop PRATYĀHĀRA: “The easiest way to get hold of the mind is to sit quietly and let it drift where it will for a while. Hold fast to the idea, ‘I am the witness watching my mind drifting. The mind is not I.’ Then see it think as if it were a thing entirely apart from yourself. Identify yourself with God, never with matter or with the mind.

(source: Kamlesh Patel)