Sutra 1.17. Meditation in the Context of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

The word “meditation” is one of the brands that the mass consciousness has inseparably linked to yoga, spiritual practices and person’s development. And this opinion is justified: yoga is not yoga without psycho-practices, since it was yet in Hatha Yoga Pradipika that they wrote that “All the methods of hatha are meant for gaining success in Raja-yoga”. But what is it that we can actually refer to as meditation? There is no such word in Sanskrit, though it is actively used by Indian Schools of today. Moreover, in scope of closer investigation of the issue we see that they apply the word ‘meditation’ to a whole range of psychical activities that differ both in their essence and in their results. In addition to this we also see that the theme is evidently getting more and more “popular”. Most people who considered themselves to have been practicing meditation failed to answer my three simple questions: “What is the target?”, “What is the method?” and “What comes as the object?” The situation in some way reminds the already told story about one’s “dharana” on the carton box. Or some even more absurd “practices” similar to those used by naïve attendees of the trainings made out of thin air, like: put the picture of the car of your dream on the fridge door and spend 15 minutes of your day staring at it and hoping that one day it will “appear” in your life.

Sutra 3.1. Conceptual Mistakes in Understanding the Category of “Dharana” by Yogis of Today. A Psychologist’s Opinion

Instead of drawing an epigraph I shall cite an anecdote.

A man is walking along the city streets and sees a queer picture: two workmen with spades are walking one by one. One is digging a pit, the second one is filling the pit up. This makes our man astonished, and so he asks them: “why do you do it this way – one of you digs a pit and the second one fills it up?” And receives the answer from the second one: “I am not the second one, I am the third one. The second one has fallen ill. He was supposed to plant trees”.

In the would-be yogic environment of today the understanding of the category of “Dharana” (just like of many other basic categories as well) in many aspects resembles the situation described in this anecdote. If one small detail is missing, the entire activity becomes totally meaningless. I shall further expand my idea.

As I have already mentioned in one of the previous articles, Patanjali has given a fairly precise definition of Dharana category:

Sutras 3.1 - 3.3. Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi: Basic Considerations

Since the next lines of the Yoga Sutras text already contain the category of Samadhi used by Patanjali, at this stage it becomes fairly appropriate to start figuring out the meaning of this term, let alone that this notion probably comes as the most mystified one of all (well, maybe, except for the Chitta J). In order to understand the scale of its misunderstanding let us use the definition given in the Wikipedia [the Russian version of the Wiki – trans. note]. 

Samadhi (Sanskrit: समाधि, samādhi IAST, “wholeness, unity; implementation, performance; composure”) – in scope of the Hinduism and Buddhism meditative practices – it is the state when the very idea of personal individuality (but not the consciousness) disappears and there emerges the integrity of the perceiving subject and the perceived object. The Samadhi is the state of (spiritual) enlightenment achieved by means of meditation when the mind becomes very still and all contradictions between the internal and the external world (the subject and the object) vanish, when the individual consciousness as a microcosm merges with the cosmic absolute as a macrocosm. The Samadhi is the last stage of the Noble Eightfold Path that brings the person most close to the state of Nirvana.