What Does It Mean to Meditate and How Do I Begin?
What is Meditation in Yoga?
In the West, meditation is often thought of as having vague eastern origins. If pressed, many people might say the practice stems from Buddhism. And they wouldn’t be wrong, they’d just be focusing on a large branch while disregarding the tree root. Scholars generally agree that Buddhism originated in Hinduism.
Yoga is rooted in that same Hindu philosophy — it’s the sort of practical guide to liberation — and meditation, or Dhyana, is one of the 8 limbs of Yoga. The second to last limb, the last step on the way to Samadhi — what some would call enlightenment or total absorption into the Divine.
In Yogic philosophy, meditation as we know it is captured in the concepts of both Dharana (translated as Concentration) and Dhyana (translated as Meditation). Dharana is about finding an object — an internal object, so you may focus on the breath, or a mantra, or a feeling within the body, among other things — and concentrating all focus on that object.
Other sensations will arise that distract the mind, and the practice of Dharana is bringing the focus back to the object again and again.
Dhyana
Eventually, with much practice, a state may arise in which there is no focus. There is just the…
