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by Dinu Roman Samyama means to simultaneously perform dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation) and Samadhi (identification). "By mastering samyama, the light of superconsciousness rises." Yoga Sutra Watch the movie To understand samyama easier, let's make an analogy with a motion-picture film. Let's suppose you can stop the film on a certain frame (a single exposure) that shows the main protagonist. Thus you can study as long as you want the motionless frame. This stage corresponds to dharana (concentration). Then you let the movement of the movie start again. You are able now to follow the image you have studied during the stopping of the film, to see the links of that image with the action of the movie, to integrate that image into a continuous flow of action. This stage corresponds to dhyana (meditation). Following the action of the movie, you participate emotionally, you identify yourself with what happens (you feel sad if it is a tragedy, you laugh if it is a comedy, etc.). This identification corresponds to the beginning of samadhi. A new way of knowing In samyama, the practitioner discovers that the stream of his thoughts is charged with a harmonious and beatific emotion. The yogin not only "sees" the object of his samyama, but also "feels" it with a strange intensity, as if he absorbed now that object and the object absorbed him. The yogin merges, at a subtle level, into the reality of that object, as if the object’s identity has blended with his own. This is samyama, which is the most complete method of intuitive knowledge ("intuitive" means "to enter, to place oneself inside"). Here are a few hints about the state of samyama: • Naivety - leading to selfless identification with the object, through absorption. • Aspiration to reach the Reality that is beyond the limitations of personal ego; you become the channel of manifestation of that Reality. Allow it to speak for itself, without interrupting.Become "transparent" to it. • Samyama is leading to understanding by becoming, not by thinking. • Dwelling upon only one topic or idea at a time (so, it is the very opposite of "thinking about") and the absorption of the practitioner into the idea upon which he dwells. • The process of knowledge is released by the object, not by the subject. This is non-verbal, non-conceptual knowledge. • In samyama the mind is like a mirror: it grasps nothing, it refuses nothing, it receives but does not keep, it adds nothing. Don't "translate" into spoken language what you experience during samyama; this is a new kind of experience, gained outside the usual ways. Samyama is a new way of being into the world, a new way of perceiving and relating to the Reality through shifting to a higher state of consciousness. It is seeing the Reality the way it is, finding it in a thoughtless state of mind rather than inventing or imagining it with the aid of discursive thinking. Find your pleasure in doing samyama every day, and forget about the results: think that there is no real purpose in meditation; this attitude will greatly accelerate your success.
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Dharana is the stationing of the mind at one spot. Dhyana is the continuously gradual absorption of the mind into the object. Samadhi is the complete immersion of the mind into that object. The three are inseparably linked: from dharana to samadhi there is a continuous process, whose purpose is the assimilation of the object, just as one assimilates the food one eats. In samyama, one enters the object and becomes aware of its essence in a knowledge by identity (prajna).