The Power Of Attention, Concentration, Meditation, Samadhi

Concentration is Power. If you wish to achieve anything in life, material or spiritual, there is no other way than to learn to rightly concentrate. In the first 20 minutes of the discourse you will learn about:
- The importance of concentration
- Differences between attention, concentration, meditation and samadhi
- 5 levels of concentration.

Format: Discourse (20 mins) + Guided Meditation (30 mins)

Transcript

Hi,

This is Dhyans here and you'll be tuning into a unique meditation session recorded live with my meditators in Switzerland,

Where for the first 15 minutes you'll listen to the theme of the session which will bring your mind,

Your heart and your energies together into a meditative state.

Then I'll guide you to go deep in a 30-minute meditation experience.

I wish you all the love,

Peace,

Happiness and awareness in life.

A very warm welcome to all of you in this meditation session with me Dhyanser.

Today we are going to practice concentration.

And what does this ability of concentration bring to meditation,

Bring to our life?

This is one of the most powerful tools for both a meditator and also for our daily lives.

Without the way we live and all the information technology that we have,

Everything is consciously,

Unconsciously,

Intentionally,

Unintentionally,

Is taking this ability of concentration away from us.

Before we go into the topic of concentration,

What is concentration,

What is meditation,

How to practice concentration,

How to use concentration and go within ourselves,

Let's take a moment to close our eyes and contemplate what does this mean for us?

What does concentration bring to us?

If we improve this ability of concentration,

How will this impact,

Improve your quality of life?

Whatever that means to you,

It doesn't have to be reaching to enlightenment,

It doesn't have to be gaining psychic powers.

It could be simply that you can learn better what you are learning,

You can work better the way you are working.

Just take a moment to recognize this ability in your life where all it plays a role.

And if you have a chance to improve this,

What does this bring to you?

How is this going to enhance and improve the quality of your life,

Even if it's just a bit?

I would like you to close your eyes and just give yourself a couple of moments to be here,

To go into the topic of concentration,

See what it means for you and if you improve this ability,

Is there anything that is improving in your life?

What is that?

And just contemplate over this topic to acknowledge the role of concentration in your life.

Gently open your eyes.

You know,

Without concentration,

We almost cannot do anything.

If you cannot concentrate,

You can read whatever you want,

But you will not understand.

You can listen to the greatest music,

But you will not enjoy it.

You can have the best food in front of you,

The most expensive restaurant you go to,

But if you cannot concentrate,

If you cannot be in that moment,

It's useless.

What does it mean to our daily lives?

Anyone having any thoughts to share?

Yes.

It means to be able to be close to my priorities in life.

Very nice.

And be able to always be close to your priorities in life,

To not get distracted away and get caught up with things.

What else can concentration do to our life?

Anyone else?

Yes.

To focus on one thing and then to be able to maintain that focus,

That is the definition of concentration.

What does it bring to your life when you are able to maintain a certain level of focus?

Is there something that it brings to your life or is this an option to have in life to be able to concentrate?

If you cannot focus,

You cannot move on,

You cannot perform your daily tasks.

Any other meaning for any other person?

Yes.

With meditation,

You can be aware of senses or feelings or wants.

You can be aware of what you want to focus on.

Yes.

Exactly.

To be aware of oneself and to be able to be aware of one's own feelings,

Sensations.

These are all the physical or let's say the gross things that you can understand,

You can really recognize when you are concentrating,

When you are able to concentrate in meditation.

And this is one of the very reasons why concentration is so important.

Because for a meditator,

He is not concerned about daily activities of life for the purpose of concentration.

Yes,

It's important.

But for a meditator,

Concentration is the only tool with which he or she can go within.

It's the only tool with which he or she can know oneself.

And if you know yourself,

You know the entire cosmos,

You know the entire world.

It's not just philosophy.

It's real experiences of people who are able to go within.

It could be for very,

Let's say,

Mundane,

Superficial reasons to be able to perform the job well,

To be able to maneuver your senses as you like,

Or to go as deep within and really find out who we are in our inner depths.

And with that knowledge,

With that experience,

Know this world.

Let me give you a very,

An example from all these ancient yogis and gurus and all these spiritual people who brought the sciences of astrology,

Astronomy and all these other sciences which are now somewhat lost.

How did they,

Without having any measurements,

Instruments,

Any scientific instruments,

Know precise locations of where all the planets are,

Where all the stars are,

Where all the constellations,

What is happening in the cosmos,

And also what is happening within.

How did they find that out?

They had no instruments.

How did they find out what is happening in the cosmos and precise locations of stars or anything else,

Far distant objects.

How did they,

How were they able to do that?

The answer lies in understanding what is concentration,

What is meditation,

What is attention.

Think of it with an example of a torch lamp that you have or a light that you have in your hand.

Imagine you are in a dark room.

You have a light or a torch light in your lamp which you can focus somewhere.

If so you have one source,

That source of light.

Then you have the light which is coming out of the source and if you put that light on an object,

Let's say a table or a chair,

You suddenly see that object which was otherwise out of your reach.

And if you keep on moving that light like this,

You are not able to see anything because you are completely distracted all the time.

You are only able to see when you are able to maintain the flow of that light towards an object for a certain amount of time.

Then you see,

Then that object is illuminated and you see that object,

What is that object.

Now if you take this analogy to yourself,

You also have a source of light.

That's your own consciousness.

Let me repeat,

The source of your light is your consciousness which we all have within us.

The light is what we call as awareness,

When we say I am aware of this,

I am aware of that.

That is in the light of your consciousness,

That light itself,

You can think of it as awareness.

When with that light,

With that awareness,

You can attend to something,

It becomes attention.

Meaning you can point it somewhere,

You can point it at an object,

You can point it at anything that you would like to point and that ability of attention we have,

That is attention.

When you let that attention prolong for a while,

When the flow of awareness is flowing undisturbed,

It's known as concentration.

In Sanskrit,

We call it dharana,

Meaning uninterrupted flow of awareness.

This is what is the source of all knowledge,

All experience.

Without concentration,

You cannot experience,

You cannot know the object,

What is the object.

If you are able to take this further,

If the flow of concentration is uninterrupted,

What happens is that your source,

The consciousness transcends closer to the object and that is what is known as dhyana meditation,

Where your consciousness is travelling towards the object and that's how all these people had known whatever they wanted to know.

If they wanted to know the cosmos,

They travelled towards the cosmos,

Their consciousness travelled and when I say travelled,

Not in the physical sense of travel,

But the more you concentrate,

The distance between the object and the observer starts to decrease and that is what is known as dhyana meditation in its purest form.

There are lots of various variations in which we can interpret meditation,

But in the yogic sciences,

In the absolute terms dhyana,

This is what is meditation.

And then there is one more higher stage which is out of scope for us,

Which is when the object and the observer and the observation,

All three merge together.

This is known as samadhi.

This is for those who are crazy,

Who are not wanting this world,

Who have a different goal in mind,

Who want to renounce everything and be in this state of samadhi where the observer,

The object and the observation,

All three collapse into one.

We cannot go that far here and we are not going to attempt or try even thinking of that stage.

But what we are going to focus today is to learn and practice a little bit more of concentration because this is something that is so much missing in our daily lives that even if we could take few improvements out of this session,

Out of the practice and bring it into our daily practice,

This will tremendously impact the rest of your life,

Not only meditation.

Let me very briefly tell you five stages of concentration before we start the meditation because I would like you to know how far,

How deep one can go with concentration.

It's a very interesting and fascinating topic where it starts with the first level of concentration which is the gross object,

Meaning the object of concentration is gross.

It's very obvious like you can concentrate on your physical body,

You can concentrate on your senses,

What you hear,

What you see,

What you smell.

You can concentrate on the sensations of the body,

You can concentrate on the breath and if you notice all the meditation techniques,

They somehow are mapped on these five different levels of concentration.

You can pick up almost any technique and you will see that there is a mapping of that on these five levels.

You must have heard a lot about that Buddha got enlightened with just this one technique by concentrating on the breath,

On just as gross an object as your breath.

So it's very powerful.

But if you want to go deeper,

Beyond the gross is the subtle object.

What is a subtle object?

Your energies.

Something that is not obvious,

Something that is not physical,

Something that you cannot point out with saying this is it,

Which you cannot measure with an instrument,

But you can feel it.

We all have this sensation of energies within us without calling them prana or energies of the chakras or anything else.

We all have this sense of energy within us.

That is the second object,

The subtle object of concentration.

If you bring your awareness,

Your concentration to this subtle object,

For example your energies,

You start knowing about your entire energy system.

That's how the Chinese made the whole system of I Ching and the Meridians and the Yin and Yang and this is how they came to know about how our energies are flowing,

How the Tao is flowing and how to be with that flow because there is a flow inside us and then there is a flow all around us or in this cosmos and this is where they learned how the flow functions within us and outside.

If you bring your awareness further,

Concentrated further down beyond the gross,

Beyond the subtle,

You encounter a level within you where there is bliss.

You must have heard people saying happiness is within,

Bliss is within.

What does that mean?

Does that mean that you acquire a certain artificial state of mind and you call that happiness?

What does it mean to say happiness is within?

Think about it.

When you concentrate,

When you are not distracted,

When you can go beyond the gross,

Beyond the subtle,

You see that there is a certain sense of peace,

Bliss,

Happiness within you.

The source of it is within you.

You don't need to go anywhere.

You don't need to substitute that with external stimulations for that.

There is a place for the external world and then there is a place for your internal peace,

Happiness,

Joy that you always carry within you.

And if you are able to concentrate and reach to that,

You will be amazed that you don't need anything to be happy.

You can go further one level deeper.

This is the last level with the objects.

The first object is the gross object,

Second object is the subtle object,

Third object is your bliss and the fourth object is your being,

The sense of emness,

Easiness.

From these two words,

I am,

If you remove the I,

The am,

From,

It is,

If you remove the it,

The easiness,

The amness,

The easiness,

The sense of being is the most finest object you can bring your concentration to.

When you are able to do that,

You are at the source of all knowledge.

You are at the source of everything that you want in your life,

Everything that you are here for,

Not only your purpose,

Not only your meaning,

But the source,

The fountain of all knowledge is there in that being,

In that emness.

At the least,

You will be centered,

You will be feeling very strong and nothing can deviate you from what your priorities are in your life.

Then the very last,

Which is not an object,

You can concentrate also on something within you which is objectless.

You can think of it as a space,

You can think of it as emptiness or simply objectless aliveness,

Objectless existence and when you bring your awareness to that objectless awareness,

You don't need to go anywhere,

Then you are,

Then everything is resolved,

All the journey that you were taking within is complete.

In this session,

I would like us to taste and try and attempt to try to go one level deeper,

One after the other and see if we can bring our awareness,

Our attention,

Our concentration,

Our meditation to all these levels.

There will be a million distractions from outside the noises,

From your own thoughts,

From your own ideas,

Plans,

It will not work but you don't have to be disheartened when your concentration is not happening,

You don't have to feel guilty about it,

You don't have to stress yourself.

The last thing you can do is sit here and try and stress yourself that well I'm trying to concentrate and concentration is not happening.

If it's not happening,

It's fine,

Practice,

Practice as much as you can without forcing yourself,

Without trying to put too much effort,

Try to see that you can move and be in concentration effortlessly as much as you can.

If you are missing the flow,

If you jump out of the flow of what we are building for ourselves in the next minutes,

Simply come back and start again or just listen to my instructions and be with it and continue going deeper within yourself.

There is no right,

There is no wrong in this.

It's up to you,

It's your own depths as far as you can go,

If you can,

Good,

If you cannot,

Stay silent,

Relax at the most,

You will be,

Or at the least,

You will be feeling centered,

You will be feeling more and more silent and more and more aware as we go into meditation.

With that,

I would like us to take a posture in which we will move into this meditation on these five different levels of concentration.

Close your eyes.

Before we meditate together,

Let me remind you that a comfortable posture is essential for meditation.

If you ever need a perfect cushion for your sitting posture,

Do check out my website,

Theyansi.

Com.

Your body in a comfortable sitting posture with your hands either on your thighs or in your lap as you like.

Your back straight,

Shoulders down,

Neck straight,

Head straight,

Face relaxed and a gentle smile on your face.

Take a nice deep breath,

Inhale from the nose and also exhale from the nose.

Allow your body to settle.

Allow your mind to settle.

For the next minutes,

Be here with me as we go within and take a journey into ourselves.

Bring your awareness to your senses,

To what you hear.

To what you see in front of your closed eyes.

To what you smell.

To what you hear.

And the sensations in your body.

And the sensations in your body.

Awareness attending the sensations in your body.

And the sensations in your body.

Your attention settling into concentration.

Without forcing yourself effortlessly all your awareness on the inner sensations.

And the sensations in your body.

Awareness on your breath.

Breath flowing in and out naturally.

And all your awareness on the flow of breath.

And all your awareness on the flow of breath.

Allow your awareness to settle on your breath.

And the sensations in your body.

And the sensations in your body.

And all your awareness on the flow of breath.

And all your awareness on the flow of breath.

Attention becoming concentration.

Flow of awareness towards the breath.

And all your awareness towards the breath.

As your breath settles,

Your concentration settles.

Go one level deeper to subtle energies.

Try to feel all the energies in your body.

And all your awareness towards the breath.

Attention becoming concentration.

And all your awareness towards the breath.

Feel the flow of energy as you breath in and breath out.

And all your awareness towards the breath.

As your awareness settles.

A certain peace,

Silence arises in you.

Take your awareness to the silence,

To the peace.

Deeper than any object.

And youCSB Universe Australia Awareness on the inner silence.

Attention.

Attention on inner silence.

Concentration on inner silence.

Awareness on inner silence.

Attention on inner silence.

Concentration on inner silence.

Without effort,

Allow it to happen.

Awareness on the sense of being.

Emness.

Ease-ness.

You are in this moment.

Awareness on your being.

Attention on your being.

Concentration on your being.

Ease-ness.

Now awareness on the objectless space within you.

Let go of all objects and simply remain silent and aware of this objectlessness within you.

Within you.

Let go of everything in this objectless awareness.

Simply remain silent and aware.

Let go of everything in this objectless space.

Bring your awareness back to your breath.

Maintain the silence,

The awareness,

The concentration back on your breath.

On your body.

You may keep your eyes closed and stay silent for the next minutes or very gently and slowly.

If you like,

You may open your eyes.

And very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes.

Maintaining the silence,

The awareness.

You may move your body if you like or remain still as you like.

Give yourself these moments to absorb the experience,

To maintain the silence.

Reflect on the experience.

You may take these moments to be thankful that you are alive,

To be thankful that you are healthy,

To be thankful that you have this wonderful ability to maneuver your consciousness,

Your awareness,

Your attention,

Your concentration,

Your meditation,

Your samadhi.

You have all this power within you.

With that,

I would like to open the session for you if you have any questions.

I hope you enjoyed this meditation session brought to you by dhyansa.

Com.

If you have any questions regarding this meditation session or on your meditation journey,

Reach out to me on my website dhyansa.

Com.

Thank you.

Reviews

Always such good lessons, advice and lovely practices. Thank you. ☮️💖🙏

Beautiful and thank you

This was great thank you 🙏🏽 Concentration and presence in all situations ✨

Thank you! Giving us some eduction on concentrating and allowing us to apply that knowledge through mediation was effective.

One thing I’d like to sharpen is how to better oneself at working through the distracting thoughts whilst meditating. Any suggested strategies would be much welcomed! Many thanks for this lesson and practice. Namaste!

You make me go really deep with this meditation. Thank you!