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Haribhadra's Synthesis of Yoga
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Patañjali describes this stage only in four words and says that Dhār. aņā is the holding of the miod in the Deśa. Now Deśa can be interpreted in more than one way. The very word Deśa suggests stability. It is the inner stability of the Self that is meant here but it can mean the fixation of the mind on any object of concentration also. The word Bandha too is suggestive of the stabilization of the mind. The mind now begins to rest in an easy style on the inner self-stability.
One practical instance can shed more light on this stage than any comments thereof. Ramana Maharshi was a symbol of the great Vedic Rşis of ancient India. His life was an open book and he was one of the greatest savants of this contury who only gave up his physical life in 1950. I had the good fortune to visit him and sit in his benign presence and talk to him on more than one occasion. There is one experience related in his biography that when as the runaway lad he went to Tiruvallamalaya he used to sit in front of the temple and meditate. But the urchins all around did not allow him to do so and they began to pelt him with stones on him. Ramana, the young chap hardly about sixteen years thereupon went to underground the temple-cellar and began to meditate. The place was unused and there were insects too. Now instead of the urchias the insects began to attack his legs and blood began to ooze from their bites. But Ramana was quite unaware of these highly disturbing physical pains because he was steadfast in his inner self-stability and very much engrossed in the joy of the elixir of inner life. Such is the joy, the supreme joy of the concentration due to Dhyana. It is truly the existential and experiential joy.
Prabha and Dhyana
The stage of Prabhā is the same as Dhyāna of Patañjali according to Haribhadra's description of the process of speedy evolution ka's personality. The main features of this stage are the inner feeling of complete calm, correct inner position, intense liking of concentration, conquest of sex, detachmend in actions and calm and steady inner flow of the psychic energies and bliss.
Dhyāna too is described by Patañjali in four words. It is the same process of Dhāraņā but the intensity is very great and the concentration is far greater. The concentration becomes one-spotted and the inner stability increases. The inner joy becomes the inner Rasa by repetitive or concentrative process of Dhāraņā. Haribhadra as we have already mentioned before, talks of Dhyāna-Rasa and Rasa signifies intense interest and joy by carvanā of the inner Bhāva. It is the bliss of the inner self and it
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