D.D.S MEDITATION CONCEPT
One can find a way, if lost in a crowd. But what shall become of the person who is lost within himself?
Day in and day out we are working towards making our life simpler and happier. But we get so much involved in this process that we rather end up making our life more complicated. Money gives a lifestyle but cannot give style to live. What is the point of sweating each muscle and straining your mind so much that whatever you have in hand is not enough to bring a smile of contentment on your face?
It’s an irony that we tend to spend so much time worrying about a problem but do not spend 5 minutes of calmness to tackle it. We get entangled in the web of thoughts and this collection of thoughts not only leads to cerebral chaos but ego as well. This is where meditation helps.
Meditation not only lets you know your life better way, but also lets you know yourself in the best way possible. However, this great art comes with great practice.
Meditation has three processes:
- Dharana
- Dhyana
- Samadhi
Dharana
Dharana means concentrating the mind upon an object. However, in order to experience a great meditation session one should begin with the correct posture. It is a position where the body is still and alert at the same time. So something that’s likely to be upright and seated because those are the two characteristics of the meditative state- alertness and calmness.
After you have acquired the correct posture, focusing begins. Everyone has his/her way of focusing. One can either start by chanting mantra, or by focusing on your breath pattern or simply by focusing on an object in front of you.
Our mind is a chatter box. To control it, is like controlling the naughtiest child you know. And many people do get discouraged controlling it. The only difference between a mad person and you is that the mad person talks aloud to himself while you talk silently. But all that is needed is a little patience for when the internal dialogue, the constant conversation that we have with ourselves, begins to fade into the background a little bit, things get calm and focused.
Dhyana
Dhyana is concentration taken to perfection. In other words, a meditative state is the natural result of ‘perfect concentration’. Practicing dhyana allows the person to calm his mind and allows him/her to look at the outside world without any distractions. This enables him/her to reach a heightened level of awareness of himself and his surroundings. It is easy said than done but can be achieved with a riddance of ego and experiencing the situation as a witness. For when you become a witness, you stop associating yourself with the subject and start forming an objective point of view which is free from bias, ego etc. It produces a state of tranquility and silence. When you have mastered this art of silence, you start learning the art of listening and the one, who has begun to hear his body from within, comes to know the secrets of the body as well as the methods of yoga. Patanjali found all these findings by experiencing this state of bliss in his own body. His findings still stand totally correct even to this day.
This enlightenment is permanent. Whether you concentrate or you don’t concentrate, whether your life is going well or not so well, you always know, you are always abiding in the fluid source of your being. So that’s the stage number two. That is not the end of the meditative path though.
Samadhi
When we succeed in becoming so absorbed in something that our mind becomes completely one with it, we are in a state of Samadhi. Samadhi means “to bring together, to merge”. In Samadhi our personal identities completely disappear. At the moment of Samadhi none of that exists anymore. We become one with the Divine Entity. The final stage terminates at the instant the soul is freed. The absolute and eternal freedom of an isolated soul is beyond all stages and beyond all time and place. Once freed, it does not return to bondage.
Thinking is innate to human. Web of thoughts leads to web of chaos, hence sufferings. As the saying goes, nip the evil in the bud, we should try to reach from the state of ‘thought’ to the state of ‘zero thoughts’. When this state of silence is reached, state of bliss awaits us for lifelong.