From Dhaarana to Samadhi

Q: Why can't we straight away practice Meditation and skip Dhaarana?

A: To experience Samadhi, we need something more, it’s not just dhaarana or it’s not just dhyana. When we perfect our dhaarana, then there is a spontaneous experience of meditation. Because meditation we cannot do, if I say "I am meditating", it means I am not meditating!! May be conventionally you can say that, just to communicate the idea, but factually it is not so. Because one really cannot meditate, meditation has to happen. As long as the sense of "I" is there, "I am Meditating", the very element of "I AM" will nullify your meditation.

There is a beautiful episode of Swami Rama in the book "Living with Himalayan Masters". When he was very young in the gurukula in the Himalayan caves, he was given the practice of mediation, and he says in the book, there was a big row of students, all siting in the cave, one by one, and His Guru started walking around to find out how well his students are in meditation.

Jyothi Ma on Dhaarana

Then Swami Rama says in the book, I could feel, I could sense, I could hear my guru coming near, hear his walking steps etc., then all the time, I pretended to meditate. When my Guru came and asked “What are you doing?, then Swami Rama opened his eyes and said “I am meditating”.. for which his Guru Bengali Baba replied, "your very statement 'I am meditating', tells me that you are not meditating". Because all your indriyas are outward, when you can hear your guru coming, when you can smell your guru presence, when you can feel his presence, physically here, How can you say that you are meditating ?".

So if the meditation has to be perfected, it has to happen. How can you make it happening? How can you make your meditation to happen, and not you doing it ? There the Dhaarana comes into picture. So initially it is wise on our part to spend more and more time on dhaarana, and not worry too much about dhyana and not at all worry about Samadhi.

Samadhi is bound to come, meditation is bound to happen, provided you focus, you spend more time on your dhaarana. So it is dhaarana, when perfected, when you become the master of your dhaarana, then the other two results Dhyana & Samadhi, fruits of the destination, you are bound to get.

- Extract from the DVD 'Concept of Dhaarana'