Dhyāna means Meditation in the Indian context.
It holds the Key to unfold the full human potential which invariably is mostly lying dormant due to ignorance. How? The word ‘dhyāna’ itself offers the answer – as it literally means … ‘Paying attention to the Self’.
The process calls for disengaging one’s attention from the outer environment and instead turn it – Inwards. As we look within, we are able to scan various layers of the inner realms of our mind, which has the answers to how we conduct in life.
We first come across our “wild monkey” mind, which keeps randomly flirting with numerous ‘thought-constructs’. These reflect our fears, insecurities, uncertainties, complexes, and dream perceptions. These fleeting thoughts keep us so much engaged that we are hardly left with space for objectively processing fresh thoughts. It doesn’t allow scope for discriminating between ‘what we want’ and ‘what is worth pursuing’ either. This compromises our quality efforts towards productive applications – underutilizing our mind-power. Once these thought imprints are identified, acknowledged, and consciously resolved, we get access to deeper layers.
The next steps lead us to discover our innate fault lines, virtues and attributes that have become a part of our habits. This defines our unique character. Once the innate infirmities are resolved, the virtues and attributes start getting self-evident. Still deeper … we are able to access the full landscape of the limitless mind – resulting in our best.
The fruition would therefore be – a sustained qualitative growth of the enriched intrinsic energies, a well- coordinated thought process and a healthy body – the 3 ingredients of a successful life.
Why do we need to Meditate?
The Power of The Mind is immeasurable. It, however, mostly remains untapped because of the numerous veils of ignorance – the effect of numerous delusionary impressions gathered in the past, necessitating correction. All these imperfections, being ingrained deep in the inner realms of mind, spontaneously reflect in our day to day-to-day accomplishments. Unless they are resolved, they continue chasing us from within. Meditation helps reflect upon and resolve them through fresh educative inputs.
Mere ‘intellectual awareness’ does not help much, as in the first place, by itself, it cannot stop the negative imprints from playing up. Second, the learning cannot find spontaneous reflection unless it sinks deep into our minds through continued auto-suggestion. This again is achievable through Meditation.
Dhyāna needs to be pursued under the guidance of an enlightened Guru.