Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi together comprise meditation in Yoga. Dharana or concentration is the first step in yogic meditation. Dharana is focusing the mind on one object. Patanjali allows you to choose any object whatsoever. The only condition is that you must be favorably inclined towards the object. The entire effort in the dharana is to keep distractions at bay. Given the nature of the human mind, except for the object chosen everything comes in the mind or again and again the mind is taken away from the object of concentration. Dharana is practically speaking very tiring. In fact, awareness helps here tremendously to immediately realize that one has run away with the distracting thoughts away from the object of concentration. If and
…show more content…
All knowledge of human beings is derived through sense organs. The sense organs of human beings are limited (the eyes cannot see beyond the spectrum of VIBGYOR; the ears cannot hear very shrill or very loud sound; the sense of smell is totally limited; etc). Therefore, human knowledge is …show more content…
This conditioned mind distorts our experiences.
Thus, the sense organs limit our knowledge and the mind distorts our knowledge. Human knowledge is limited and distorted. Through our sense organs we can only have knowledge of the attributes or characteristics about the object but never know its essence.
In the state of Samadhi, the sense organs are not working because pratyahar has already taken place. Therefore there is no possibility of sensory knowledge with its normal limitations. The meditator is as if not there and hence there is no distortion due the conditioning of his mind. Therefore, in this state of Samadhi the object reveals itself – the object reveals its essence and not its attributes and characteristics. This is gained by the meditator not as intellectual knowledge but as an intuition. Thus every state of Samadhi is a state of intuitive knowledge (prajna). This intuition is of the essence of the object which itself is the siddhi that Patanjali is talking about. This state of Samadhi is called sabija Samadhi because of the bija or seed of experience being still there. The meditator has not yet gone beyond
All knowledge of human beings is derived through sense organs. The sense organs of human beings are limited (the eyes cannot see beyond the spectrum of VIBGYOR; the ears cannot hear very shrill or very loud sound; the sense of smell is totally limited; etc). Therefore, human knowledge is …show more content…
This conditioned mind distorts our experiences.
Thus, the sense organs limit our knowledge and the mind distorts our knowledge. Human knowledge is limited and distorted. Through our sense organs we can only have knowledge of the attributes or characteristics about the object but never know its essence.
In the state of Samadhi, the sense organs are not working because pratyahar has already taken place. Therefore there is no possibility of sensory knowledge with its normal limitations. The meditator is as if not there and hence there is no distortion due the conditioning of his mind. Therefore, in this state of Samadhi the object reveals itself – the object reveals its essence and not its attributes and characteristics. This is gained by the meditator not as intellectual knowledge but as an intuition. Thus every state of Samadhi is a state of intuitive knowledge (prajna). This intuition is of the essence of the object which itself is the siddhi that Patanjali is talking about. This state of Samadhi is called sabija Samadhi because of the bija or seed of experience being still there. The meditator has not yet gone beyond