DHYANA (Meditation)

 

Twelve Dharnas make a Dhyana.  Dhyana is focusing on something for about roughly two and a half minutes.  If you can hold your focus on a word, mantra, object, image, name of God, or anything; that would be a, ‘Dhyana’.  You may even meditate on one of the chakras (energy centers) of your body; just visualize a candle flame at your heart, or forehead.

 

Dhyana means worship, or profound and abstract religious meditation.  It is perfect contemplation.  It involves concentration upon a point of focus with the intention of knowing the truth about it.  The concept holds that when one focuses his or her mind in concentration on an object the mind is transformed into the shape of the object.  Hence, when one focuses on the divine they become more reflective of it and they know their true nature.  ‘His body, breath, senses, mind, reason and ego are all integrated in the object of his contemplation – the Universal Spirit.

      

During dhyana, the consciousness is further unified by combining clear insights into distinctions between objects and between the subtle layers of perception.  ‘We learn to differentiate between the mind of the perceiver, the means of perception, and the objects perceived, between words, their meanings, and ideas, and between all the levels of evolution of nature.

      

As we fine-tune our concentration and become more aware of the nature of reality we perceive that the world is unreal.  ‘The only reality is the universal self, or God, which is veiled by Maya (the illusory power).  As the veils are lifted, the mind becomes clearer.  Unhappiness and fear – even the fear of death – all vanish.  This state of freedom, or Moksha, is the goal of Yoga.  It can be reached by constant enquiry into the nature of things.   Meditation becomes our tool to see things clearly and perceive reality beyond the illusions that cloud our mind.