Nirodhaḥ Yoga Blog
Concentration is the key that opens up to the child the latent treasures within him. - Maria Montessori This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series. Want to start at the beginning? Yoga Sutra 3.1 देशबन्धश्चित्तस्य धारणा deśabandhaścittasya dhāraṇā Concentration is fixing the mind to one point. If we followed just this one sutra, we would learn to meditate and eventually reach enlightenment. How often I hear some variation of “I can’t meditate, my mind is too busy!” But this is exactly what the practice is designed to do: reduce the busyness of the mind. The problem is we think we should be able to meditate right away or within a few weeks or even months. The truth is that unless we’ve been gifted with an unusual mind, we will likely have to work at it for a long time. As Swami Satchidananda encourages us, “nothing is learned that easily. While learning to bicycle, how many times did you fall down? So keep trying.” (214) Because it takes practice, Patanjali has divided the internal practices of yoga, or samyama, into three steps. First, we have to work at binding our minds to the thought of one thing. (Want ideas on what to fix your concentration on? Our blog post from November 2023 has several ideas.) Simplifying the mind like this is deceptively difficult. It is called dharana and is also the sixth limb of Raja Yoga. Swami Satchidananda tells us that with dharana, we are training the mind to become fit to meditate. “Concentration is the beginning of meditation; meditation is the culmination of concentration. They are more or less inseparable.” (213) It is a process that takes time. Most of us have little experience concentrating on literally one thing for an extended period of time. We may remember times when we were children and spent a great deal of time totally absorbed in play or creation. But how often, even when absorbed in something engrossing, is our mind shunted toward thoughts that are unrelated to the task at hand. Our mind is agile and quickly moves through thoughts. For example, first, we are watching a movie. An object on screen reminds us of something we once desired. We start to think about that thing and how we didn’t get it. Then, we feel discouraged because we lack it. Before long, we have to rewind the movie because we missed some important dialogue. How quickly our mind has moved from the story on screen to what’s happened in the story we are playing out. The effort to develop our power of concentration is one that pays off in increased focus, efficiency and intensity of action. When our mind wanders from the point of concentration, the work to bring our mind back to the point strengthens that neural pathway. I’ve heard it compared to lifting weights. When your mind wanders away, it is “lowering the weight.” When we bring our mind back, we are “lifting the weight.” Strengthening our muscles by weight training or our mind by dharana cannot happen without both parts of the process. To practice dharana, we may find it easiest to use something external to use. Subtler objects of concentration (e.g. a state of being, a feeling, the essence of a spiritual person who inspires us) are more difficult to get a grasp on when we are just learning how to bind the mind to one place. Although dharana is officially the sixth limb of Raja Yoga, it can be practiced in any of the preceding limbs as well. We can meditate on our vows of yama and niyama, we can meditate during our practices of asana and pranyama, and we make our mind “fit to proceed on the inner quest” (Iyengar, 178) through pratyahara. BKS Iyengar explains that “if one performs each asana zealously, fusing with integrated attention the parts of the body the wandering mind and the discriminative intelligence with the soul, is this not spiritual practice?” (179) My own teacher, Sonia Sumar tells us time and again that “asana is a prayer I say with my body.” So although the yoga practitioner is eventually benefitted by a formal seated practice of meditation, don’t think this is the only way we develop our ability to meditate. Each action we undertake is an opportunity to be present and develop our power of concentration. << PREVIOUS BLOG POST IN YOGA SUTRA SERIES NEXT POST IN YOGA SUTRAS SERIES COMING IN MARCH Do you have a formal meditation practice? How does it go? Are there times that your mind wanders? Are you able to compassionately bring your mind back when it wanders? Do you use concentration in other areas of your life or yoga practice?
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