Dhyana is the seventh limb of Ashtaang yoga propounded by Maharishi Patanjali thousands of years ago. Since in the earlier articles we already have looked upon deep into Yamas, Niyamas, Asnas & Pranayama. There can not be a better time than this to introduce you to a tool which has the ability to take you to your ultimate nature & this tool is Dhyana. The word Dhyana, in general, is referred to as ‘Meditation’ in English. Nowadays these two words Dhyana & meditation are being used interchangeably but these are different from each other. Meditation does not tell us everything about Dhyana, it is just a small aspect of it. Let’s understand it in the proper perspective. The word meditation means a state wherein a person is silently sitting with abiding & enduring calmness within himself. Whereas Dhyana which is a Sanskrit word is much much deeper than the silent sitting process. Your life energies can be immensely intense even when you are in Dhyana. For the simplicity of understanding, Here I would be referring Dhyana as Meditation only. We need to understand the very basic fact that meditation is not something which we can do, meditation is something which we can become. Hence meditation is not an activity, Its a certain quality of being. When you have cultivated your body, mind, emotions & energy in a particular way, meditation blossoms within you. Hence you become meditative when you conduct your life energies with a certain level of preparedness & exuberance.

Let’s take the most simplistic example to understand this, When there is spring in the soil; when there is spring in the sunlight when there is spring in the atmosphere, flowers are bound to blossom. When you cultivate and work on the roots of the plant, flower’s blossoming is a natural phenomenon. The flowers will not blossom if you sit and start peeling them off. Similarly, if you simply try to meditate and do not work on the other aspects of your life, it never works that way. If you conduct your life energies in a certain way, meditation will blossom within you. This is the reason, the whole system of yogic science has been designed in a particular way by the yogis of India. If you do not follow these methods in the way they are designed, they will not work. All the stages of yoga which we talked about earlier be it the asanas, pranayama and others are nothing but the methods of preparing you for the higher possibilities of your life. The advantage here is that you don’t need to innovate anything of your own. All these subtle techniques have been scientifically designed in the ancient times, you just need to follow the path and you will be there. But today the irony of the fact is, that we have UN-numerable forms of yoga being practiced all over the world. The over-commercialization of this ancient technology has led to the most disastrous consequences today.

Until we have the basic understanding of all the initial stages of yoga, we should not dive ourselves into deep meditation. There are so many people who say that when they try to meditate, they get a headache. It’s very natural for them to get a headache because they are doing something which they don’t have any idea about. They have the wrong understanding & ideas about meditation. There are many people who claim to be mediators, but if you poke them a little bit, they will throw tantrums on you. That’s clearly not a sign of a Yogi. In the western countries & even in India there have been reported few cases wherein the people lost their mental balance while doing the meditation & yoga. The important thing which we need to understand here is that it’s not the meditation which is causing all this, It’s the wrong interpretations & methods which leads to all this mess. Let’s understand it this way. Say for e.g you bought a brand new Mercedes Benz & you try to somehow drive it, without taking any driving lessons. What will happen to you? You will lose balance, and you will head towards a sure disaster, No matter how good & expensive your car is, you are bound to crash it. So what this implies is that any tool or technology which is powerful in nature has both the tendencies and depends on who is handling it and how it is being handled. Don’t assume that the meditation or any other yogic technique is dangerous. If you look in this world, almost everything is dangerous if not being handled properly & sensitively. Even as simple a tool as a knife can cut your finger off if you don’t use it the right way.

When you become meditative, it becomes the source of your liberation from all kinds of sufferings. If we pay attention to all the yogic techniques, they have been designed to dissolve our personality. In our day to day life, we identify ourselves with unlimited things. For e.g my home, my car, my wife, my children, my company, my dog and so on. The more you identify yourself with the external entities, the more are the chances of your life being suffered; the reason for this is that you start becoming more and more dependent upon your identities which you have taken for your survival process. The less you identify yourself with external identities, the more you dissolve your personality and you have the ideal tendencies of becoming one with everything else.

Have you ever noticed in your life that those people who have a strong sense of personality seem to lose their cool so easily? Just about anything or everything can take away their peace. When somebody sits on their chair they have a problem, when someone eats on their plate they shout at them, when someone makes fun of them, they will go mad like anything. Have you noticed this? These are really the dead serious people. The reason for such kind of behavior is simply this. They get strongly attached to everything they are associated with and hence they start thinking that whatever they do is absolute. Let me tell you, today modern theoretical physicists are saying that nothing is absolute in nature in this vast cosmos. Even space and time are relative terms. One day passes like moments for a happy person, whereas one day can become 1 year or even eternity in worst cases for the other person who is feeling sad. Those people who have a great sense of good and bad in every aspect of their lives have more tendencies of becoming miserable. Some sort of right and wrong is acceptable as far as survival process is concerned. But instead of becoming Good or bad, we should become truly sensitive. Being sensitive means ‘Doing what is required or Appropriate’ or in other words acting as per the current need.

The problem today is that there are too many good people in this world. Good and Bad are not the absolute or the universal qualities. For someone who is a vegetarian, eating flesh can be bad, however for someone who is a non-vegetarian, eating flesh can be the most desirable thing in his life. So what is good and what is bad is not a universal truth, It’s for the society, culture & economic forces to decide good & bad. You as a piece of life should not waste your time on such things. What we need in this world are the ‘Sensitive’ people, who do what is required as per the given circumstances. The more you concretize your personality with good & bad, the far you will move from the truth & your original nature.

When you become meditative, you really lose the sense of your personality. For you, every experience of life becomes a pleasant experience. You may go through the highs and lows of your life, but these petty things no longer seem to bother you. Where ever you go, whatever you do, you seem to be in a perfect flow. You seem to have a perfect balance in your body, mind, emotions, and energy. Suddenly you unlock the door full of unlimited possibilities, You lose the sense of time and get completely drunk with eternal bliss & ecstasy.

This life is a game & you can play this game well only when you know the rules and most importantly you accept that these rules are my rules, not somebody Else’s. Until you have this approach towards life, you will be an ineffective player. Let’s take an e.g to understand this. If you were a college student and your warden tells you that you need to wake up early at 4:00 AM, then you have to do your breakfast 6:00, then do this and that. Let’s say your warden puts 10 different rules like this. Would you accept this? The clear answer is ‘NO. Instead, you will become Rebellious. Now in another scenario, if your best buddy comes to you and tells you that tomorrow early morning at 3:00 Am we will go for a trekking expedition in the nearby mountain ranges, What would you do? You will be dancing & become ecstatic and will wake up at 2 rather than 3 to be on time. Why do you think this happens. Please understand that it’s not about getting up early at 2 or 3, Its about your willingness to see & accept the situation as it exists without being judgmental. The only change which has happened is that you love the game in the second scenario and you accept the rules as your own rules, not your friend’s rules. Life is like the same. Either you live it to the fullest by accepting that the rules are your rules or you suffer it by cursing the rules.

The best thing which I can suggest you about life is ‘Take it easy’. It’s a very short life, Don’t waste it by being sad and bored. Spread happiness as much as you can. Please understand that the most important thing which is happening in your life is that you are Alive. Do you know there were few hundred thousand people who didn’t wake up today, But you woke up, Isn’t that a great thing? Yes of course it is….. If you don’t realize this thing, you are missing a big point. Just try this every day, Whenever you wake up in the morning, just give yourself a big smile, and thank this mother earth for you are still alive. You will be filled with a great sense of love & gratitude towards every piece of creation. When this happens, you have already started your spiritual journey towards the divine.

Happy Reading 🙂