Uthista Bhumi Yogashram
[Located in the City of Hoffman Estates, IL 60169, USA. Established on 4-Oct-2018]
DHARNA (Concentration)
Dharna
is focusing on something for a very short duration, say 12 seconds. If you can hold your focus on a word, mantra,
object, image, name of God, or anything; that would be a, ‘Dharna’. You may even concentrate on one of the
chakras (energy centers) of your body; just visualize a candle flame at your
heart, or forehead.
Dharana
means, ‘immovable concentration of the mind’. The essential idea is to hold the
concentration or focus of attention in one direction. ‘When the body has
been tempered by asanas, when the mind has been refined by the fire of
pranayama and when the senses have been brought under control by pratyahara,
the sadhaka (seeker) reaches the sixth stage, dharana. Here he is concentrated wholly on a single
point or on a task in which he is completely engrossed. The mind has to be stilled in order to achieve
this state of complete absorption.
In
dharana we create the conditions for the mind to focus its attention in one
direction instead of going out in many different directions. Deep contemplation and reflection can create
the right conditions, and the focus on this one point that we have chosen
becomes more intense. We encourage one
particular activity of the mind and, the more intense it becomes, the more the
other activities of the mind fall away.
The
objective in dharana is to steady the mind by focusing its attention upon some
stable entity. The
particular object selected has nothing to do with the general purpose, which is to stop the mind from wandering
-through memories, dreams, or reflective thought-by deliberately holding it
single-mindedly upon some apparently static object. B. K. S. Iyengar states that the objective is to
achieve the mental state where the mind, intellect, and ego are, ‘all
restrained and all these faculties are offered to the Lord for His use and in
His service. Here there is no feeling of,
'I' and, 'mine'.