The most frequent questions I get from students involve meditation. What is meditation? Am I doing meditation when I do this or that? What are the techniques? What's the difference between the types of meditation?

This topic is immense and one could spend an entire lifetime studying it. But I'd like to at least clear up the difference between concentration and meditation and samadhi.

Concentration is the fixing of the consciousness on one particular thing (dharana). This is what we do in class when the pose is broken down into parts and we are told to watch one part only or to do one thing and see what happens with the other. Our mind is being taught to focus and concentrate. The object of focus can be in the body or outside of the body. Either way the mind is being trained.

When the mind has good concentration, meditation (dhyana) can then be done. Meditation is the maintaining of an uninterrupted flow of attention. Psychological and chronological time come to a standstill as the mind observes its own behavior. By maintaining the same intensity of awareness, the awareness moves from one point of attentiveness to no point of attentiveness. The attentive mind dissolves into an all-awareness.

Later, meditation turns into Samadhi which is when the subject and object become one. This is the innermost quest, to the soul itself.

Because the first steps for the meditation student is to train the body and the intellect to prepare for one-pointed mindfulness it is important to select a good, qualified teacher of yoga who can stress the importance of discipline in concentration and focus.  Our teachers here at Syoga are excellent for this preparation.

Next, the student should choose a qualified and clear- speaking meditation teacher who can lead the meditation experience by using the body's rested energy and the intellect's focused power for the sake of uniting with the subtle, spiritual body in meditation.  Proper meditation practices are those that have been taught by masters and transmitted thru the generations to us today.  Our Sangha group on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings is excellent in leading this meditation. 

Spring is here!  Now is the time for us to bring forth our ideas and projects and creative beings that we've attentively maintained and nourished all winter.  May we all grow and prosper!


Namasté,  

Suzy