Meditation
What is Meditation ? Stilling the mind on a single thought stream is Dhyana, says Patanjali (a great yoga teacher) in his aphorisms of Yoga. The nature of the mind is to wander, to jump from the mind – “Chanchalata” – is the grossest form the monkey mind. In this, there is no connection between thought and thought. All energies in the mind are totally wasted. The next phase is concentration or Ekagrata. Here the mind is trained to stay on single object without distraction or jumping around. If you like the topic, the mind automatically stays in it and you have a fine absorbing concentration. If you are not interested, the result is mental distraction. Energy is channelized in concentration just as a dam is built with control valves and chanales for flow of water to harness the useless,often dangerous, river.