:: May 2006 Volume 5/Number 3

8 Limbs of Yoga:
Dharana, Dhyana &
Samadhi

By Sydney and Kevin Light

Patanjali’s 2300-year-old Yoga Sutra contains a progressive series of disciplines, which chart a roadmap to the highest possible state of human potential. This article is the final installment of a three part series discussing the Eight Limbs of Yoga (ashta-anga-yoga). The first five limbs are in preparation for these three, which involve long seated meditations to hone our powers of concentration.

Dharana
“Break into the peace within
Hold attention in stillness” –Lao Tzu

With the advent of the internet, cell phones, Blackberries, 300+ cable channels, satellite TV, ipods, Nintendo… Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has become a household term. In this ‘age of information’, dharana, the sixth limb of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, is a necessity to balance the daily bombardment of sensory input we all experience. Holding our attention steady on a single point is not only a way to strengthen our minds, but it correlates directly to our ability to manifest.

Sometimes, without even trying, we drop so deeply into whatever we are doing that everything external to that activity recedes into the background and fades away. Many of us have experienced the funneling of our awareness in a single direction such that our powers of observation become intensely acute. This generally occurs when the activity is one we find particularly engaging like: making love, listening to someone sing or observing a piece of art. However, every day can offer endless opportunities to practice dharana.

Even the most mundane task can become extraordinary. If we’re walking we can narrow our focus to the rolling transfer of weight from the heel to the ball of our foot or how we’re balancing on a moving vertical line of energy. When choosing our breath as the object of concentration, we can observe the sensation of the air touching the inside of our nostril and then refine our perception still further by trying to feel the temperature of the air. There is no limit to the level of specificity we can explore by focusing on the ‘minute particulars’ of a situation.

In the normal course of living, our awareness is frittered away in many different directions, diluting our effectiveness similar to the way a light bulb spreads its light in all directions, diminishing its potency. If the illumination from that same light were brought to bear on a single point, the result would be a laser powerful enough to burn through steel. Likewise, dharana is the acquired skill of focusing our awareness in laser-like fashion, piercing through barriers of consciousness into realms we previously imagined as impenetrable.

Unlike visible light our consciousness is not bound by the dimension of time and space, so the object of concentration need not be an isolated physical point. We can spotlight our attention onto a sound or an energy center. In reflective meditation the object can be a point in the psyche, a memory or a feeling. Mantra and the art of kirtan offer an especially powerful way to focus the mind. Repetition of a single word or phrase eliminates ‘noise’ by putting the thinking mind into a loop, freeing us to perceive beyond the limitation of thought.

Dharana is the precursor to dhyana, plowing the field of our consciousness in preparation for a meditative state. In this stage of concentration we are conscious of our self as observer, the object we’re observing, and the act of continually bringing our awareness back to the single point of focus. It’s like when we’re tuning our FM dial to find the station we want to hear: we’re aware of our self as listener, the music we’re trying to listen to, and the act of tuning.
As with all of the eight limbs, dharana should be practiced with a positive approach. Rather than attempting to negate or block out the portions of our awareness escaping in unwanted directions, it is much more effective to ‘amp up’ our attention on the target point of focus.

In our modern, western society we’ve grown accustomed to fast results. “How long will it take and does it come in a pill?” Those of the Ram Dass era and since can tell us a pill may provide a glimpse into expanded consciousness, but it is not sustainable. Dharana is a skill, which we can only cultivate with practice and time. His Holiness the Dalai Lama encourages us to have patience.
The Vedas warn us against a potential danger when practicing hatha yoga to the exclusion of the other limbs. When the enhanced ability to concentrate is directed toward our ego, we’re lead away from union toward a state of self-absorption. Ravana, the demon King in the Ramayana, is a good example of the havoc that can be wreaked when yogic power is channeled to ego instead of compassion. Dharana is a powerful tool. Like all powerful tools, if not wielded with a sense of responsibility and thoughtfulness toward the higher good, this tool can become a weapon. Although ego is the vehicle we all must ride to liberation, it should be driven with a sense of consequence to the other travelers on the road.

Dhyana
Dhyana, meditation, is yet a deeper level of concentration where awareness of the act of meditating falls away, leaving only our self as observer and that which we are observing. In terms of our FM radio, dhyana occurs once we’ve obtained a ‘frequency lock’ and are conscious only of our self as listener and the music we’re listening to, without further necessity to tune.

Just as the intention with which we do anything will drastically affect the outcome, the object on which we meditate will have a profound affect on our experience. Once we’re able to lock onto a frequency, what type of music do we want to hear? What we choose to ‘look at’ with this enhanced ability to ‘see’ can be the difference between dissolving into nothingness and expanding into fullness.

For a bhakti yogi presence is the object of meditation, wherever presence is perceived to be: in our partner, our Self, a child, a pet, a sunset, a symphony, the smell of fresh cut grass, the taste of chocolate… We cannot force presence to reveal. We can only hold our focus steady, waiting and listening, setting the context for it to become apparent. When, as an act of grace, we truly connect to presence, we connect to the essence of what we are and the illusion of separation falls away.

Samadhi
“To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour” –William Blake

We’ve all had a taste, usually out in nature, void of thought, awareness spreads transcending our embodiment and the moment becomes timeless. Samadhi, the eighth limb, is an expanded state of consciousness where there no longer exists a separate ‘I.’ We’re aware of our existence, but in a non-thinking way, a state of undifferentiated ‘beingness.’ The cup, constructed of ego, which has held our intelligence apart from the infinite ocean of awareness, dissolves. Where we were once limited to the confines of our individual body, the consciousness we now experience has no bounds. The observer and the observed, merge as one. We become the bird and the sky, the listener and the music, the formless infinite behind all that is form. When we are able to fully dissolve into and sustain such a moment indefinitely, or return to it at will, we will have achieved the highest form of samadhi, enlightenment.

Although each of us has the potential to experience samadhi in this moment, enlightenment is a relatively rare occurrence, especially here in the west where the maya quagmires run deep with material attachment. Rather than rehash technical definitions and risk the impression that enlightenment is virtually unattainable in this life time, let’s look at some commonalities of first-hand samadhi experiences which were at the dawn preceding enlightenment.

Even prior to their first samadhi, many of the initiates shared a profound disinterest in worldly affairs. Their consciousness simply would not fit inside the box defined by what society or family deemed important. From the various accounts, we can gather that there are many different levels to the samadhi experience, and if one is not firmly established in the higher reaches, worldly activities can pull them back down. For many samadhi occurred spontaneously, perhaps because they were ripe in this birth. For others it took a determined, deliberate approach founded on the practices of introspection and selfless action.

The universal element seeming to underpin all of the samadhi experiences is an expanded unbounded awareness: the liberation of consciousness beyond the confines of the physical body signifying the liberation of the soul beyond the karmic cycle of birth, life and death. Often the magnitude of the initial experience was so disorienting, that the initiate’s loss of ‘I’ ness included a nearly total loss of body consciousness. Had there not been someone close by to care for their corporeal needs, we probably would never have heard their tale recounted.

A select few, like Yogananda and Swami Rama, benefited from the guidance and transmission of their guru to ease the feeling of disorientation. For some, like Eckhart Tolle and Ramana Maharshi, there was an overwhelming feeling of bliss from the very first, while for others, like Gopi Krishna and Suzanne Segal, the loss of ‘I’ was so intense it was accompanied by a feeling of angst and emptiness; a lonely limbo which took years to traverse. For centuries, especially in the west, the symptoms of this advanced evolutionary phenomenon have unfortunately been misdiagnosed as insanity.

Just prior to and during their samadhi experience many reported a shimmering, silvery blue luminance emanating from everything, even inanimate objects. Light seemed to take on another dimension. Another aspect of their expanded perception was a simplistic, knowing acceptance of the causal relationship of all things.

A good example of this is the account left by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Just prior to his enlightenment, through the discipline of prolonged austere practices, Siddhartha’s mind achieved such clarity that he could see the cause leading to almost every occurrence. Every occurrence except one, and that was the feeling of love he experienced when remembering a childhood moment of watching his father start the season’s plowing. By meditating on this causeless feeling, Gautama then discovered his own true essence and became the enlightened Buddha.

Realization that everything that is, was, and will be has an associated thought before it happens, and fully comprehending the extent of the implication, marks the beginning of stepping into our power to fashion the world as we would like it to be. The physical universe is essentially comprised of a moldable quantum foam. We are all co-creators, soul-creators of this experience. Our ability to concentrate our mind, to focus and hold our vibration is our ability to sculpt the foam and shape our reality.

From the accounts of the saints and masters who came before us, we can gather that the heights of human potential are reached when there is full absorption in the object of one’s love, the Way of the Christ. Once all ego obstructions to the act of giving (love) have been removed, and all of the mind’s faculties are directed solely toward God or Self, there is full integration and the emptiness becomes fullness. Full connectivity by way of the heart is not only a bliss state shared by saints, it is the ancient and well-traveled path known as bhakti yoga. Our capacity for happiness is our capacity to truly give (love), and that capacity is limitless. When the great Indian siddha saint, Sri Baba Neem Karoli, was asked by his devotees how Jesus meditated, he closed his eyes and leaned back in silence. Several minutes passed, seeming like days, and then tears began to roll down his cheeks. Finally he responded, “He lost himself in Love.”

 

Sydney and Kevin Light are Santa Monica based yoga teachers and co-founders of BhaktiWare.com. Reach them at CoaleLightYoga.com

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