Self Awareness Through Meditation

Author(s): Ranjitsingh Kumat
Publisher: Ranjitsingh Kumat

Page 99

DHYANA AND SAMADHI IN PANTANJALI YOGA DARSHAN
Pantanjali Yoga Darshan (Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali) is one of the six main philosophies prevalent in India. Maharshi Pantanjali's philosophy on Yoga is very succinct and direct and is contained in four chapters. A number of treatises and commentaries have been written and published on this book and it has been translated into many languages. Yoga has become world famous because of its positive impact on health and containment of diseases. In common parlance, Yoga has been propagated mainly in relation to ‘Aasana' (sitting and standing posture) and 'Pranaayaam' (breathing exercises and by limiting to this, its importance has been severely minimized. Yoga is the means to attain self-realization or ‘Kaivalya’ or enlightenment and ‘Mukti’ or 'eternal freedom and not mere physical health.
First chapter of the Yoga Darshan is ‘Samaadhipaad' or the way to attain peace. Yoga has been defined as “to restrain or control mental proclivity”104 and by doing so one comes into one's own. “To be into one's own is to attain ‘Kaivalya’ or enlightenment.”105 According to Hindu belief attaining Moksha or 'eternal freedom' is the prime effort out of the four ‘Purusharthas' or efforts that man has to do in one's life.106 The life is fulfilled only when one can attain enlightenment and eternal freedom from the cycle of birth and death and this can be achieved through Yoga.
Restraint of Mental Proclivities
There are two types of mental proclivities: the wrong and the right ones. By wrong mental proclivities we make ourselves as well as others miserable; by right mental proclivities we make ourselves as well as others happy. Our mind is quite eccentric and fanciful. It takes fancy to all the glitter of this
67