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The Natural State of Withdrawal (Verse 136)

1. Exercise Title & Verse

The Natural State of Withdrawal (Dhāraṇā 113)

2. Sanskrit (IAST)

indriyadvārakaṃ sarvaṃ sukhaduḥkhādisaṃgamam | itīndriyāṇi saṃtyajya svasthaḥ svātmani vartate || 136 ||

3. English (Literal)

All contact with pleasure, pain, and the like occurs through the doors of the senses. Knowing this, having let go of the senses, one who is established in himself (svastha) abides in his own essential self.

4. Main Commentary (Bhāṣya)

The previous dhāraṇā required the practitioner to rise above the activity of buddhi; this one says the sensory organs must also be left aside. Pleasure, pain, and the rest are encountered only through the doors of the senses (indriyadvārakaṃ). For Singh, these contacts do not belong to the cidātmā, the essential Self, but to the psycho-physical complex miscalled the self. Therefore the instruction is not to improve sensory experience but to detach from the senses and withdraw within.

Singh makes the mechanism explicit through śakti-saṅkoca: the consciousness that is spreading outward through the sensory doors toward objects is turned back toward the Self. Then one becomes svastha, poised in oneself, no longer troubled by the attractions of the world or by the opposites of pleasure and pain. Lakshmanjoo states the same point in oral form: pleasure, pain, sorrow, excitement, and ego arise only through the limited functioning of the organs, so one must leave aside their functioning and remain above them.

The practice, then, is a wisdom-practice rather than a physical feat. When sensory pleasure or pain appears, recognize it as mediated contact rather than as the nature of the Self. Let the outward-going movement of awareness contract back from the sensory doors. In that interiorization, the senses lose their compulsive demand and awareness abides in its own nature. Singh reinforces the point with the Yoga-vāsiṣṭha: when cit shines forth, the wayward activities of mind, intellect, and senses come to an end.

5. Jaideva Singh — The Logical

All experiences of worldly pleasure and pain are not the true characteristics of the cidātmā, the essential spiritual self, but belong only to the psycho-physical complex acting through the senses. Śakti-saṅkoca—the deliberate inward turning of the consciousness that normally spreads outward through the sensory doors toward objects—arrests this outward dispersion. Through this inward turning, one becomes svastha, poised intrinsically in oneself, where the push and pull of external attractions cease entirely.

6. Swami Lakshmanjoo — The Lineage

When you find pleasure, you inevitably find pain. All these states—sorrow, excitement, ego—happen only through the functioning of your limited organs. Leave aside the functioning of these organs. Be above them. This is a practice in wisdom, not a technique of physical sādhana or activity. It is an understanding that shifts your awareness. When you elevate your attention above the sensory demands, you naturally remain in your real nature of God consciousness.

7. Mark Dyczkowski & Christopher Wallis — Context & Philology

Both Wallis and Dyczkowski provide direct translation support in the official VBT concordance, but no verse-specific prose commentary was located. Wallis renders the close as "be at ease in the natural state (svastha), abiding in oneself." Dyczkowski renders it as abiding within one's own true nature after abandoning the senses.

8. Daniel Odier — The Somatic Grounding

At the exact moment when your attention begins to awaken and move outward through the sensory organs, do not follow it into the world. Instead, redirect that very impulse and enter the spatiality of your own heart.

9. Paul Reps — The "Sudden Hit"

N/A — Reps' numbering for the dhāraṇās concludes at verse 135 (Reps 112).

10. Upāya Type

Śāktopāya ending in Śāmbhavopāya. Singh categorizes this withdrawal (śakti-saṅkoca) as Śāktopāya. Lakshmanjoo clarifies that it begins as Śāktopāya (a practice of understanding) and culminates in the immediate, unmediated absorption of the Śāmbhava state.

11. Resonance Check (Adhikāra)

This practice suits the practitioner who can recognize pleasure and pain as mediated through the senses rather than as properties of the Self, and who is ready to turn awareness inward instead of following sensory demand.

12. The "What Else?" — The Pitfall

The most common trap is mistaking sensory withdrawal for dullness, dissociation, or forced sensory deprivation. The practice is not about closing your eyes tightly and trying to block the world out; it is about withdrawing the investment of your attention from the sensory doors while remaining radiantly awake at the center.

13. Verse-Specific Glossary

  • indriyadvārakaṃ: Occurring through the doors or channels of the senses. Here, it highlights the mechanical, mediated nature of worldly experience.
  • śakti-saṅkoca: The contraction or inward withdrawal of conscious energy. In this verse's context, it is the deliberate reversal of awareness from its habitual outward spilling through the senses.
  • svasthaḥ: Literally "standing in oneself." Not merely "healthy" in a medical sense, but fundamentally poised, at ease, and established in one's own natural state of unmodified consciousness.