Dhāraṇā
Dhāraṇā · dhāraṇā, “holding the mind fixed”
Medhā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Medhā.
Grammar: feminine noun, from the root dhṛ (to hold, to bear): “holding”, “keeping fixed”.
Meaning: in yoga, the fixing of the citta (mind) firmly and unmovingly on one place, such as a part of the body. The word also means the power of holding in memory (dhāraṇā-śakti).
In the scriptures: in the Brahma Purāṇa, Vyāsa teaches the munis the power of yoga, and then says: “I will tell you some still subtler points, and examples of the stilling of the mind and of dhāraṇā.” The yogī who knows and practises them, as a heedful archer intently strikes his target, will surely reach moksha. He gives the examples one by one. As one keeps an unmoving mind on a full bowl of oil that shines like the sun, so the seeker of moksha should make his mind unmoving and climb the ladder of yoga. As brāhmaṇas in the great ocean reach the shore in a boat with a careful boatman, so the seeker, by the help of yoga, makes the mind collected, fixes it on the tattva and, after giving up the body, reaches moksha. Like an arrow that does not miss its mark, and like a chariot-warrior with good horses and an able charioteer, the seeker reaches siddhi. As an unmoving fisherman casts his net and catches fish, the yogī who fixes his mind firmly on the ātma-tattva gains the tattva.
The places of dhāraṇā are nine: the navel, the head, the belly, the heart, the chest, the two sides, the eyes, the ears and the nose. One of great strength, devoted to the great niyamas, who fixes the citta firmly on these places and practises, burns up the heaps of śubha and aśubha karma (good and bad deeds) that lie piled like mountains, wins the highest yoga-siddhi, and becomes free according to his own will.
The path is hard. A rare man may reach his goal safely along a road full of serpents, pits and thorns, through burning forests and among thieves, and one may walk safely even along the edge of a razor; but for those without control of the mind this path of yoga is the hardest of all, and for them dhāraṇā is not possible. Like those who board a boat without a helmsman, they do not reach the shore. The seeker who stays in dhāraṇā according to the way of yoga, as it is laid down, passes beyond the sorrows of birth and death and beyond worldly pleasures, and gains the bliss of moksha (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 239).
Related terms: Yoga · Dhyāna · Samādhi · Citta · Niyama · Moksha
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 239