The three that become one

Patanjali (Sutra 3.4) defines samyama as dharana, dhyana and samadhi practised together on one object:

• Dharana (concentration) — binding the attention to a single point and holding it there.
• Dhyana (meditation) — that attention becoming an unbroken flow, like oil poured in a steady thread.
• Samadhi (absorption) — the flow deepening until the meditator forgets himself and the object alone shines forth.

When these three lock onto one object as a single continuous act, that is samyama. The first five limbs (from yama to pratyahara) are the outer supports; these last three are the inner core (antaranga) where yoga truly ripens.

From scattered thoughts to one thought

How does samyama begin? In a full moon address on this subject, Yogiraj Gurunath Siddhanath describes the everyday mind as a swarm of stray and random thoughts — the vrittis, whirlpool-like vibrations of thought pulling awareness in every direction. The work of dharana is to collect and comb these many currents into a single thought — the form of Rama, Krishna or the Christ — letting the stray thoughts fall away one by one, as one peels the layers of an onion.

Here lies a beautiful paradox: the more the mind is emptied of random thoughts, the more full it becomes. When one thought alone fills the mind so completely that there is no room left for it to move, concentration has ripened into true mind-fullness — the faculty of exclusive attention. This, Gurunath clarifies, is what mindfulness really means in the yogic sense: not casual present-moment awareness, but total concentration upon the One.

“You become what you meditate on”

Gurunath calls this state soulfulness. In ordinary concentration you are still here, observing the image of the Divine; but through samyama, subject and object become one — “you become what you meditate upon.” Holding the living form of Rama, Krishna or the Christ, you no longer merely picture it; you are transformed into it. This is the doorway to savikalpa samadhi, and the lifting of awareness toward the spiritual eye.

Mindfulness, however deep, still watches: the seer beholds the image of God through the mind. Samyama — soulfulness — is the further stage where, through repeated practice, rhythmic breathing and the gradual stilling of the breath, the watcher dissolves into the watched. Gurunath gathers the whole ascent into a single aphorism:

“Mindfulness informs, soulfulness transforms — and consciousness simply is.”

Even soulfulness, he reminds us, is still beholding the Supreme through the mirror of a highly purified, divine mind — the state of perfect savikalpa samadhi. Beyond it shines that which neither informs nor transforms, but simply is: divine consciousness itself, of which nothing can be said.

Watch: the journey from mind to samyama

In this full moon address, Gurunath unfolds the whole arc described above — from the scattered mind, to mindfulness, to the soulfulness that is samyama and beyond.

Insight — and a caution

From samyama arises prajna, the light of direct insight; the third chapter of the Yoga Sutras even describes the extraordinary powers (siddhis) that unfold from samyama upon different objects. Patanjali is careful, though: these powers are by-products and can become snares — obstacles to the one true goal of liberation. The yogi takes samyama not for powers but to still the vrittis and arrive at samadhi.