Dhyana

When free-flow concentration is achieved it then becomes known as Dhyana or meditation. It is an extremely high stage of Yoga and not to be taken lightly. Few in this lifetime will achieve this stage and will have to go through many more lifetimes until they have raised themselves high enough to achieve it. Sadly in modern times the term meditation has become a household word and ‘everyone’ does it, but as I said earlier most are actually just practicing Pratyahara. Dhyana or meditation is something that you do not sit down and do it is something that happens to you. It happens to you when you have perfected concentration or Dharana. Many believe meditation to be thinking but this is not so. Any form of brain activity belongs at the conscious mind level and not in these higher stages of Yoga. Meditation is a state way beyond the mind. It is a transcendental state where as Swami Gitananda says, ‘ if there is awareness then it is awareness of awareness itself. Mind can not comprehend this state.

Therefore prolonged concentration leads naturally into Dhyana. When there is nothing but the object of concentration filling the mental space with no distraction, the one pointedness of attention becomes one flowingness in which the observer, the observed and the act of observation all merge into one. // As Dharana naturally flows into Dhyana, Dhyana once perfected flows into Samadhi or cosmic consciousness. Again this will happen to you and is not something you can sit down and do. One must be living a good yogic life for the satges of Samyana to occur. It is a process, which once started, must be cultivated and kept fresh and alive if one is to realise the purpose of ones life and existence in the body.