Dhyana.
Dhyana is the seventh limb of yoga and dhyana meaning meditation.
So we'll talk about dhyana especially in the context of practicing dhyana in our daily life.
Starting with a short story.
A couple of months ago,
A friend of mine told me something that made me take a pause.
She said,
I feel like I'm living on autopilot.
So she described a morning when she was making her cup of tea.
She filled the kettle,
Turned it on and by the time it whistled,
She realized she couldn't remember the last 10 minutes.
Her body had been moving but her mind had been racing somewhere else.
Her mind had been all over the place.
Emails,
Deadlines,
Worries and initially she laughed about it but then she admitted that it was scary.
That she didn't feel like she was actually living her life.
She felt like she was just rushing through it.
Have you all felt that way?
I definitely know that I have felt that way.
Just rushing through the motions of life without actually living my life.
It's like you're driving somewhere and suddenly you don't remember the last few streets or you're scrolling on your phone and then suddenly you wonder whether that was the reason you actually picked up your phone for.
That is the modern challenge of attention and it's exactly the challenge that this yogic philosophy of dhyana,
Of meditation was meant to answer.
In the yoga sutras of Patanjali,
Dhyana is the seventh limb of yoga.
It's the seventh of the eight limbs of yoga and this word meditation,
It gets thrown around a lot but in yoga,
Meditation has a very specific meaning and meditation comes in the eight limbs.
It comes just after dharana.
Dharana meaning focused concentration,
Holding your attention steady on one object like a candle flame or the mantra or your breath but dhyana goes a bit deeper.
Dhyana is not just concentration.
Dhyana is when that focus flows continuously like an unbroken stream of water.
Dhyana is when you're no longer straining to hold attention.
Your attention simply rests and that's dhyana,
That's meditation.
How many of you all can relate to the feeling of trying to meditate?
I'm trying to meditate.
I'm trying to get into a meditative state and ironically that's even though we are trying to get into meditation in the context of yoga,
In the context of dhyana,
That really isn't meditation.
We should not really be trying.
The beautiful part is that you've probably already tasted dhyana even if you never sat on the yoga mat,
Even if you never sat in a meditative pose or with the intention of meditating.
In those moments when you're completely absorbed,
You're so absorbed in something that you're so present that time disappears like when you're painting or when you're playing the gita or your favorite instrument or when you're drawing and you suddenly realize that two hours have passed or when you're reading a novel and the whole world fades away except the story or when you're watching your child sleep and you feel completely still,
Completely there,
Completely present and that is meditation.
We are not trying to escape.
We are not trying to zone out.
What we are doing is we are zoning in.
We are immersing ourselves in the present moment.
So how do we bring about dhyana?
How do we bring about this concept of meditation in our daily lives?
Not as a philosophy that we admire but more as a practice that we can live some very simple ways and some very practical ways.
Morning ritual.
Instead of scrolling on your phone first thing in the morning,
Sit with your tea or sit with your coffee or your favorite morning beverage.
Hold it and notice its warmth in your hands or if it is a cool beverage,
Notice its coolness in your hands.
Notice the aroma.
If there's steam rising,
That moment of awareness,
That's meditation.
So you can try doing this as a morning ritual.
Another effective way of practicing dhyana,
Single tasking.
The next time you're washing the dishes,
Simply wash the dishes.
Feel the water,
Notice the sound,
Watch the bubbles and it can seem simple and it may also seem silly but that's exactly what dhyana is.
Complete attention in action.
So whether you're washing the dishes,
Whether you're doing the laundry,
Whether you're dusting the house,
Immerse yourself in that experience.
Another effective strategy,
Doing a digital detox pause.
In the middle of the day,
Look out of the window,
Watch the sky,
Look at the trees,
Look at the birds.
Even two minutes of this,
Where you're not checking,
Where you're not planning,
Where you're simply seeing,
This can give that reset to your nervous system.
And then getting into creative flow.
When you cook,
When you write,
When you garden with your full attention without rushing,
You're already meditating.
You don't have to call it meditation but that's just what it is.
So in the yogic philosophy,
Dhyana becomes the doorway to samadhi.
Samadhi being the eighth pillar.
Samadhi is union with the self or pure awareness and samadhi,
Pure awareness,
This can sound very lofty,
Very unreachable,
Something that's probably deserved for monks in caves or for serious meditators.
But the truth is that every time you practice being fully present,
You're stepping into that state,
You're stepping into that state of union with the self,
Of samadhi.
The purpose is not to withdraw from life but to engage with life more deeply.
To live in the moment instead of running past the moment,
Instead of rushing to the next moment.
And as you do this,
You will start to notice something shifting.
Life will feel less than a blur.
It will feel less like a blur.
Time will start to slow down.
Your stress will not vanish but it will not own you anymore.
You will feel grounded,
You will feel anchored and you will definitely feel more alive.
So coming back to my friend,
The one who felt that she was living on autopilot,
She started small.
Five minutes each morning before opening her phone,
Before checking her mails,
She would sit quietly,
Breathe and notice her body.
That's it.
Simple,
Nothing complicated.
Five minutes,
Sitting quietly,
Breathing,
Noticing her body for five minutes.
And just recently she told me that the stress is still there.
It hasn't disappeared.
It hasn't gone away.
Her schedule is still packed but she's not lost in it anymore.
She feels present.
And this is the gift that dhyana gives us.
This is the gift that meditation gives us.
It does not erase life's chaos but it gives us an anchor within that chaos.
So my invitation to you today,
When you drink your next cup of tea or you drink your next cup of coffee or you walk to your car or you hug someone you love,
Pause.
Be fully there.
For just a few breaths,
Be fully there.
This is not just mindfulness or it's not just a trick to relax.
This is yoga and this is dhyana.
Thank you for listening.
