Why Does Dhyana Become Effortless After Years of Yoga? For nearly ten years, I have practised yogasanas, pranayama and meditation almost daily. Like many beginners, I initially struggled to enter dhyana. Simply sitting quietly did not naturally produce meditation. Sometimes there were thoughts, sometimes restlessness and sometimes only sleep. Over the years, however, I began noticing a…

Daily Yoga May Establish Dhyana, but Daily Dhyana Also Needs Daily Preparation For a long time I have felt that just as all the limbs of Ashtanga Yoga practiced over years ultimately culminate in dhyana, the same principle seems to apply every single day. Even after meditation becomes established, daily practice of yoga asanas, pranayama, spinal breathing, ethical living, mental preparation and…

Only recently have I begun experiencing level 7 ‘Dhyana’ as suggested in Patanjali’s 8 limbed Raja Yoga. And that is why I am finally able to relate to the words for the level on Wikipedia. Here are a few chosen lines copied and pasted from the Wikipedia page titled ‘Ashtanga (eight limbs of yoga)’:

1 Dhyana is uninterrupted train of thought, current of cognition, flow of awareness.

2 Dhyana is distinct from Dharana in that the meditator becomes actively engaged with its focus.

3 Patanjali defines contemplation (Dhyana) as the mind process, where the mind is fixed on something, and then there is "a course of uniform modification of knowledge".

4 Adi Shankara, in his commentary on Yoga Sutras, distinguishes Dhyana from Dharana, by explaining Dhyana as the yoga state when there is only the "stream of continuous thought about the object, uninterrupted by other thoughts of different kind for the same object"; Dharana, states Shankara, is focussed on one object, but aware of its many aspects and ideas about the same object.

युक्ति योगाचें आंग पावे । ऐसें प्रयाग होय जें बरवें ।तेथ क्षेत्रसंन्यासे स्थिरावें । मानस जयाचें ।। ३५७ ।। ज्ञानेश्वरी अध्याय सहावा ओवीचा अर्थ – नियम आणि योग ज्यावेळी एकत्र होतात व असा दोघींचा प्रयागरूप चांगला संगम जेथे होतो, त्या ठिकाणी ज्याचें मन क्षेत्रसंन्यास करून स्थिर होते. ज्ञानेश्वरीच्या सहाव्या अध्यायात संत ज्ञानेश्वर महाराज ध्यानयोग आणि नियमयुक्त जीवन यांच्या मिलनाची अप्रतिम व्याख्या…