What is concentration and what is meditation?
Question by: Sankalp Gaud, student Shirpur.
Sankalp, the mind of the common man is dragged away by multiple objects around him. Due to this, it loses its power as the king of the body. Result: You fret, fume and become angry!
Sankalp, the mind of the common man is dragged away by multiple objects around him. Due to this, it loses its power as the king of the body. Result: You fret, fume and become angry!
To pull it back from all the distractors and employ it to one given task is called the practice of concentration. Through this constant practice, one is able to restore the mind’s capacity of focus. This practice helps the mind increase its natural capacities. A time comes when it gains the strength to focus even on multiple objects without losing the power of concentration. At this stage, the mind is like the king who watches all the movements on the ground from the top of the Kutubminar—once you have a holistic view, your mind gives you the right assessment and your decision is unmistakable. In the Gita this state is called udaaseen (ut + aseenah). The state which helps your mind rise above the distracting forces down on the ground is called concentration.
The continued practice of this concentration leads you to meditation. It is the state when your mind begins to communicate with the object by establishing a two-way bond with it —-one from the mind to the object and the other from the object to the mind. The bond from the mind to the object is called subjection (concentration). The bond from the object to the mind is called projection (of the object’s knowledge). The greater the power of subjection (concentration), the greater will be the power of projection. The projection is the state when the information of the object ceaselessly reflects on the mind’s screen. If we analyse the phenomenon of projection, we will come to know that it constitutes of constant flow of knowledge bits onto the screen which become part of it yet remain separate. It is something like rivers pouring into the sea and retaining their flow of separation even in the sea. The entire process of subjection and projection, is called meditation. It is the mind communicating with the mind. The state shows the best equilibrium between the mind and the object. When it is practised further, the division between the two vanishes and the mind resolves into the object and the object dissolves into the mind—no communication here, one becomes the other, the rivers loses themselves into the sea. This state is called the state of Samadhi—perfect resolution. The state of doubtlessness—-the yogis call it the state of nirvikalp samadhi. The state when there is no duality. When there is no duality, there is no doubt and when there is no doubt, only Full Knowledge (Consciousness) shines.Therefore, concentration leads to meditation and meditation to resolution.-- VS