What is Swad Pratyahara? It is the shutting out the sense of taste. We are aware how powerful the sense of taste is. In the terrible times of Covid, some of us lost our sense of taste and everything tasted like sawdust.

There are five different types of taste. Sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Sweet is a pleasant taste, which enhances the taste of food. Too much can overpower it. Salty enhances the taste of food but too much can overwhelm it. Sour is a taste that is found in raw apples, plums and lemons. Bitter is a taste that the back of the tongue is particularly sensitive to. Umami is a taste that originated from Asian gluten related food.

The same principle of pratyahara is applied here as in pratyahara of smell. Taste something like chocolate. Hold the response, neutralize it. Next taste a chip, hold the response and then neutralize it. Go on like that. Taste pungent food, spicy food, bland food, neutralize them.

What are we doing here? We are becoming aware of the different tastes and then we are neutralizing the craving. In Swad pratyahara if you are thirsty, you do not start imagining that you are having a drink of water. You have to become free of that desire.

Gradually one is able to reduce the craving for the different tastes.

Learn more in my pratyahara series.

Aim Hrim Klim

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash