The sixth limb, dharana, is about training the mind to be calm and focused. Dhyana, the seventh limb, is a state of unbroken concentration in stillness. Different authors describe it as contemplation, meditation, focus, or devotion. It’s a combination of all of them. Because in dhyana, the mind is still with few thoughts, it isn’t a concept we can harness or define with one word.
Dhanya is a state of quiet-mind, of being aware without focus – yet also contemplation with the goal of separating illusion from reality and of knowing truth. This may seem contradictory, but sometimes the most important truths blossom organically when you just give them time. Think about any sort of relationships in your life – work, friendship, family, love. The truth, for better or worse, always comes out in time. Dhyana is a state of stillness that allows illusions to fall away from the mind. You may even forget that you’re meditating, but you’ll be aware of being. As Corey says: just be.
Dhyana is frequently tied to worship or devotion – but you don’t need one specific religion to practice it. Because it is so profound, dhyana will deepen your connection with faith or spirituality. For many people, it’s a way of contemplating the Divine. Atheists and agnostics are not excluded! If anything inspires a sense of wonder and awe – the complexity of the universe, the strength of the human spirit, the elegant principles of math and geometry – then it is a connection to something greater than yourself.
Some consider meditation and contemplation as withdrawal from the world. There is a method of immersion in the world through objectivity and concentration. Both approaches can take us beyond apparent dualities of subject and object / self and other. Two paragraphs from my ebook on comparative mysticism:
Some might say that going outside self and outside other contradicts traditional teachings of mysticism: to go within to seek our inner self, or the soul. Rational consciousness, with its constant imaging, conceives of outer or inner. In suprarational consciousness of mystics, it is focusing beyond apparent realities to the underlying Reality. Whether we follow the inner path of contemplation and meditation, or an outer path of objectivity and concentration, the goal is transcending appearances to realize the One essence in All.
Barriers to the inner path are an endless stream of our subjective thoughts. Blockades to the outer path are the multitude of physical objects. Our ego creates those interior barriers; our individuality experiences the external blockades. When you discard the first, and abandon the second, you can then move in any direction from the apparent to the Real. Those thoughts and objects do not vanish; their disparities are insignificant in light of shared divine essence.