The importance of realising our connection to the universe

Dhyana and Samadhi are the last two limbs of yoga’s eight-limb path. You could think of them as the ultimate goal of yoga practice and the reward you’ll gain from practising the eight limbs consistently. They are usually studied in combination with the sixth limb, dharana (‘concentration’), which I talked about in my last blog.

What is dhyana?

In Sanskrit, dhyana means ‘meditation’, or ‘moving the mind’(‘dhi’ means ‘the mind’, and ‘yana’ means ‘moving’ or ‘going’.)

When dharana, dhyana and samadhi are practised together, the aim is to completely detach you from the rest of the world so that your entire focus is on the object of your meditation. In other words, you’re not ‘practising’ meditation any longer; you’re so wholly a part of it that you and the meditation are at one. You can’t separate your ‘Self’ from it.

Another way to think about dhyana is ‘being in the zone.’ We’ve all had moments when we’ve felt so connected to an event that everything around us seems to disappear. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen often, and it’s usually at times when we’re especially physically or mentally concentrated – like playing an instrument, dancing, or focusing on the finish line at the end of a race. It can also happen at extreme times – for example, during childbirth, or when something so urgent and unexpected takes place that everything else inside us ‘turns off’ so we can give this new development our full attention. Afterwards, it feels as if time disappeared, and you’re not entirely sure what happened. All you know is that you were fully there at that moment.

That is dhyana.

How to practice dhyana

As I’ve just said, dhyana isn’t something you practice; it’s something you become. But, to better understand the mental state you’re aiming for, and help yourself realise it’s something you can achieve because you’ve already been there before, here’s an exercise to try:

Think about an event in your life when you felt totally absorbed in what was happening, to the extent there were no other thoughts in your head. Try to remember what that continuous inward flow of consciousness felt like.

When you practice dharana, you’re actively focusing your concentration. When you’re in a state of dhyana, you’re not actively focusing any longer. Concentration is what you are, and it requires no effort.

Which isn’t to say it’s going to be easy. As soon as you start meditating, you’ll notice that your mind refuses to keep still. Thoughts keep tumbling over each other, and your monkey mind keeps chattering. But don’t be discouraged. Instead, let the thoughts continue and observe them, silently and without judgement. Some people have been practising meditation and yoga for many years, and still aren’t able to turn the ‘thought faucet’ off. Instead, they’ve made impartially observing their thoughts the object of their meditation.When their thoughts are all they are observing, that is also dhyana.

What is samadhi?

In Sanskrit, ‘sam’ means ‘together’, ‘a’ means ‘toward’, and ‘dhe’ means ‘put’. When you combine those three roots into the single word ‘samadhi’, it means everything from ‘enlightenment’ to ‘bliss’ to ‘ultimate freedom.

To put it more simply, samadhi is the pinnacle. It is the state when you’ve become so absorbed in the meditation that you and the universal consciousness are totally united.

In a spiritual sense, samadhi symbolises complete self-realisation and ultimate connection with the Divine. Negative emotions like ‘anger’ and ‘greed’ no longer disturb us, and we’re released from ego and the illusion of separation. We experience ‘Oneness’ with everything and everyone.

If that sounds like a remote, ‘it seems great, but it will never happen to me’ concept, try thinking about samadhi like this: the point when you’re intensely present and mindful of everything, and you can see all points of view at once without judgement, and without focusing on any particular one, is samadhi. Like dhyana, it’s a state most of us have experienced, but we’ve been too ‘in the moment’ to put it into words. It’s when we turn off all our in-built filters and simply ‘be’. Some people experience this during prayer; some people experience this during intimacy with their significant other; some people experience it by lying on the grass at night and losing themselves in the beauty of the stars. It’s the cellular awareness that we are more than ourselves; we are at one with the universe.

The bottom line with samadhi is that it awakens us to what is truly important. While we’re dealing with the mundane tasks of our daily lives, we know that going to work, paying the bills, looking for something new, bright and shiny to buy… none of those things is who we are, deep down inside. It’s all transient. Every moment of every day, we have the potential to become fully present with the universe. We’ve always had that potential; it’s who and what we’ve always been and always will be.

Final thoughts

Over the last few months, we’ve covered every limb on the eight-limb path apart from the third limb, ‘asana’. ‘Asana’ is ‘posture’, which is the physical act of practising yoga. Although I’d encourage you to make yoga part of your daily lifestyle, this is an Ayurvedic blog, not a yoga blog. For that reason, I’ve deliberately concentrated on the seven limbs that will help you take better control of your mind, your mood, and your emotions. All of these are fundamental to achieving perfect physical and mental wellbeing, staying on the Ayurvedic journey, and keeping your doshas in balance.

Of all of them, I’d recommend:

Pranayama – to calm your breathing and relax your body.
Pratyahara – to shut out the world and withdraw your senses.
Dharana – to focus your concentration on a sound (usually a mantra), object, or part of your body.
Dhyana – when your concentration is so total, it becomes who you are.