Gurmukh on Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi
Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa's class at the end of the day was kind of like an Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, minus the acid. As we shook our legs at a 60-degree angle to some wildly tropical rhythm, Gurmukh whispered, "Just three more minutes. Go! Go! Go!" My classmates whooped and giggled under the sparkling faux crystals and mirrors of the hotel ballroom's mega chandeliers, my mind finally stopped trying to lower my aching legs, and I felt a sense of otherworldliness and presence and community, all at once. Maybe it was the euphoria that comes from an unrelenting physical activity, or maybe it had to do with the group energy. It was fun, and it did quiet my mind!
Gurmukh spoke of the yogic habits recommended to achieve the remaining four limbs of yoga: pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditative absorption) and eventually samadhi (oneness, integration). She stressed the necessity of rising early in the morning, before sunrise, taking a cold shower, then doing sadhana, or morning meditation. She also reminded us of the importance of being a vegetarian (not taking the energy and adrenaline of an animal's death into our bodies) and the importance of service.
"Serve and you will be served,": she advised. "Your happiness lies in serving. I don't care who you are—it's the law!"
I particularly loved the final meditation, during which we all moved to the periphery of the room—a couple hundred yogis sitting knee to knee, holding hands. Listening to a Sanskrit mantra, chanted over and over, we moved our hands up and down, "riding the waves of the Ganges" so that we became almost like one living, breathing organism. My own body felt as if it was rowing a boat, one side tilting forward, then the other, as I moved with the disparate rhythms of my neighbors. So many hands, clasped together, moving up and down, back and forth: We became one. This was the experience of Samadhi (the eighth limb) that Gurmukh had wanted us to find.
posted by Kaitlin Quistgaard and Andrea Kowalski
Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa is cofounder and director of