Whenever I'm in the car, I go through a mini-vinyasa with myself. I turn on the radio, usually to WAMU, think I should probably disconnect from too much media input, and then fell guilty and turn it off. This is usually followed by about 5 minutes of the following internal dialogue:

"I can listen to the radio. Who says I can't? Why am I being so puritanical? It's just the radio. You talk about integration all the time - listen to it in a state of non-attachment. But I know it's good to sit in silence, too. I want it all!!!"

This past week, I've kept the dial firmly turned to off and tried resisitng the urge to call someone on my cell (this is helped along greatly by using up all your anytime minutes). Why do I feel the need to be in contact, to have some kind of running noise going on at all times?

If ever there's a time for what yogis call "pratyahara," it's the 21st-century. Constant access to news via radio, internet, iPhone alerts; texts, e-mails sent to cell phones; full-up internet on the cell; music going on non-stop, piped in through our iTunes on whatever contraptions we use; not to mention the pounding car radios, endless announcements on the Metro and blaring televisions at restaurants, bars, and our own homes.

Pratyahara is often translated as "sense withdrawal," a pulling back of our attachment to sensory input and the consequent places that leads us. By retreating from the constant flights of fancy initiated by reactions to our sensory perceptions, we have the opportunity to smooth the turbulent surface of the mind. Even when I drive in the car without the radio and avoid yapping away on the phone, I arrive at my destination in a more grounded and peaceful frame of mind.

Who needs the constant input anyway? Very often, I'm not even interested. I'll turn on WTOP specifically to listen to the traffic and weather, and I'm so absorbed in my own monkey mind that I miss the very thing I was seeking - an apt observation for so much of the spiritual journey.

I can't even count the number of times I've gone searching only to waylay myself along the road to illumination. It's not that I didn't want it - it's that I didn't give the possible unfolding the time, the quiet, the single-pointed focus that it needed to fully blossom.

So, consider turning off the radio or (gasp!) the cell phone when you're not at work and enjoy a little bit of modern-day pratyahara.

Next challenge? Text messaging.