Raja Yoga (the Yoga Sūtras with commentary) — trans. Swami Vivekananda (1896)

DHYANA AND SAMADHI.

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In order to reach the super-conscious state in a scientific manner we have to pass through these various steps that I have been teaching you in Raja Yoga. After Pratyahara and Dharana, which I taught you in the last lecture, we come to Dhyana, meditation. When the mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power of, as it were, flowing in an unbroken current towards that point. This state is called Dhyana. When this power of Dhyana has been so much intensified as to be able to reject the external part of perception, and remain meditating only on the internal part, the meaning, that state is called Samadhi. The three — Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi — together are called Samyama. That is, if the mind can first concentrate upon an object, and then is able to continue in that concentration for a length of time, and then, by continued concentration, to dwell only on the internal part of the perception of which the object was the effect, everything comes under the control of such a mind.

This meditative state is the highest state of existence. So long as there is desire no real happiness can come. It is only the contemplative, witness-like study of objects that brings to us real enjoyment and happiness. The animal has its happiness in the senses, the man in his intellect, and the God in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world has really become beautiful. To him who desires nothing, and does not mix himself up

^^ KAJA YOGA.

with them, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and subHmity.

These ideas have to be understood in Dhyana, or meditation. We hear a sound. First there is the external vibration, second, the nerve motion that carries it to the mind, third, the reaction from the mind, along with which flashes the knowledge of the object which was the external cause of these different changes from the ethereal vibrations to the mental reaction. These three are called in Yoga, Sabdha (sound), Artha (meaning), and Jnana (knowledge). In the language of physiology they are called the ethereal vibration, the motion in ihe nerve and brain, and the mental reaction. Now these, though distinct processes, have become mixed up in such a fashion as to become quite indistinct. In fact, we cannot now perceive any of these causes ; we only perceive the effect of these three, which effect we call the external object. Every act of perception includes these three, and there is no reason why we shouUl not be able to distinguish between them.

When, by the previous preparations, the mind becomes strong and controlled, and the power of finer perception has been attained, then the mind should be employed in meditation. This meditation must begin witli gross objects and slowly rise to finer, then to finer and finer, until it has become objectless. The mind should first be employed in perceiving the external causes of sensations, then the internal motions, and then the reaction of the mind. When it has succeeded in perceiving the

DHYANA AND SAMADHI 8^