Vedas and Upanishads The term
dhyanam appears in Vedic literature, such as hymn 4.36.2 of the Rigveda and verse 10.11.1 of the Taittiriya Aranyaka. The term, in the sense of meditation, appears in the
Upanishads. The
Kaushitaki Upanishad uses it in the context of mind and meditation in verses 3.2 to 3.6, for example as follows: The word
Dhyana refers to meditation in the
Chandogya Upanishad, while the
Prashna Upanishad asserts that the meditation on
AUM () leads to the world of
Brahman (Ultimate Reality).
Agnihotra The development of meditation in the Vedic era paralleled the ideas of "interiorization", where social, external
yajna fire rituals (
Agnihotra) were replaced with meditative, internalized rituals (
Prana-agnihotra). This interiorization of Vedic fire-ritual into yogic meditation ideas from Hinduism, that are mentioned in the
Samhita and
Aranyaka layers of the Vedas and more clearly in chapter 5 of the Chandogya Upanishad (~800 to 600 BCE), are also found in later Buddhist texts and esoteric variations such as the
Dighanikaya,
Mahavairocana-sutra and the
Jyotirmnjari, wherein the Buddhist texts describe meditation as "inner forms of fire oblation/sacrifice". This interiorization of fire rituals, where life is conceptualized as an unceasing
sacrifice and emphasis is placed on meditation occurs in the classic Vedic world, in the early Upanishads and other texts such as the Shrauta Sutras and verse 2.18 of Vedic
Vaikhanasa Smarta Sutra. Beyond the early Upanishads composed before 5th-century BCE, the term
Dhyana and the related terms such as
Dhyai (Sanskrit: ध्यै, deeply meditate) appears in numerous Upanishads composed after the 5th-century BCE, such as: chapter 1 of
Shvetashvatara Upanishad, chapters 2 and 3 of
Mundaka Upanishad, chapter 3 of
Aitareya Upanishad, chapter 11 of Mahanarayana Upanishad, and in various verses of Kaivalya Upanishad, Chulika Upanishad, Atharvasikha Upanishad, Brahma Upanishad, Brahmabindu Upanishad, Amritabindu Upanishad, Tejobindu Upanishad, Paramahamsa Upanishad, Kshuriki Upanishad, Dhyana-bindu Upanishad, Atharvasiras Upanishad, Maha Upanishad,
Pranagnihotra Upanishad, Yogasikha Upanishad, Yogatattva Upanishad, Kathasruti Upanishad, Hamsa Upanishad, Atmaprabodha Upanishad and Visudeva Upanishad. His discussion there is similar to his extensive commentary on
Dhyana in his
Bhasya on Bhagavad Gita and the early Upanishads.
Bhagavad Gita The term Dhyana, and related words with the meaning of meditation appears in many chapters of the
Bhagavad Gita, such as in chapters 2, 12, 13 and 18. The chapter 6 of the Gita is titled as the "Yoga of Meditation".
Huston Smith summarizes the need and value of meditation in Gita, as follows (abridged): {{Blockquote| To change the analogy, the mind is like a lake, and stones that are dropped into it (or winds) raise waves. Those waves do not let us see who we are. (...) The waters must be calmed. If one remains quiet, eventually the winds that ruffle the water will give up, and then one knows who one is. God is constantly within us, but the mind obscures that fact with agitated waves of worldly desires.
Meditation quiets those waves (Bhagavad Gita V.28). Meditation in the Bhagavad Gita is a means to one's spiritual journey, requiring three moral values –
Satya (truthfulness),
Ahimsa (non-violence) and
Aparigraha (non-covetousness). The direction of deep meditation, in the text, is towards detaching the mind from sensory distractions and disturbances outside of oneself, submerging it instead on the indwelling spirit and one's soul towards the state of
Samadhi, a state of bliss (Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6: Yoga of Meditation). The
Bhagavad Gita talks of four branches of yoga: Bronkhorst states that Buddhist influences are noticeable in the first chapter of the Yogasutras, and confirmed by sutra 1.20 because it mentions asamprajnata samadhi is preceded by "trust (
sraddha), energy (virya), mindfulness (
smriti), concentration (samadhi), and insight (prajna)". According to Bronkhorst, "the definition of Yoga given in the first chapter of the
Yoga Sutra does not fit the descriptions contained in the same chapter," and this may suggest the
sutra incorporated Buddhist elements as described in the
four jhanas. Wynne, in contrast to Bronkhorst's theory, states that the evidence in early Buddhist texts, such as those found in
Suttapitaka, suggest that these foundational ideas on formless meditation and element meditation were borrowed from pre-Buddha Brahamanical sources attested in early Upanishads and ultimately the cosmological theory found in the Nasadiya-sukta of the
Rigveda.
Adi Shankara, in his commentary on
Yoga Sutras, distinguishes Dhyana from Dharana, by explaining Dhyana as the yoga state when there is only the "stream of continuous thought about the object, uninterrupted by other thoughts of different kind for the same object"; Dharana, states Shankara, is focussed on one object, but aware of its many aspects and ideas about the same object. Shankara gives the example of a yogin in a state of dharana on morning sun may be aware of its brilliance, color and orbit; the yogin in dhyana state contemplates on sun's orbit alone for example, without being interrupted by its color, brilliance or other related ideas. In Patanjali's Raja Yoga, also called "meditation yoga", dhyana is "a refined meditative practice", a "deeper concentration of the mind", which is taken up after preceding practices. In Hinduism, dhyāna is considered to be an instrument to gain self-knowledge. It is a part of a self-directed awareness and unifying
Yoga process by which a world that by default is experienced as disjointed, comes to be experienced as Self, and an integrated oneness with
Brahman.
Dharana The stage of meditation preceding dhyāna is called
dharana. Dharana, which means "holding on", is the focusing and holding one's awareness to one object for a long period of time. In Yogasutras, the term implies fixing one's mind on an object of meditation, which could be one's breath or the tip of one's nose or the image of one's personal deity or anything of the yogi's choice. in meditating yogic posture.
Dhyana The Yogasutras in verse 3.2 and elsewhere, states Edwin Bryant, defines
Dhyana as the "continuous flow of the same thought or image of the object of meditation, without being distracted by any other thought". Vivekananda explains
Dhyana in Patanjali's Yogasutras as, "When the mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power of flowing in an unbroken current, as it were, towards that point. This state is called Dhyana". While Dharana was the stage in yoga where the yogi held one's awareness to one object for a long period of time, Dhyana is concentrated meditation where he or she contemplates without interruption the object of meditation, beyond any memory of ego or anything else. In Dhyana, the meditator is not conscious of the act of meditation (i.e. is not aware that he/she is meditating) but is only aware that he/she exists (consciousness of
being), his mind and the object of meditation. Dhyana is distinct from Dharana, in that the yogi contemplates on the object of meditation and the object's aspects only, free from distractions, with his mind during Dhyana. With practice, the process of Dhyana awakens self-awareness (soul, the purusha or
Atman), the fundamental level of existence and Ultimate Reality in Hinduism, the non-afflicted, conflictless and blissful state of freedom and liberation (
moksha).
Samadhi The
Dhyana step prepares a yogi to proceed towards practicing
Samadhi.
Swami Vivekananda describes the teachings of Yogasutras in the following way: Michael Washburn states that the
Yogasutras text identifies stepwise stages for meditative practice progress, and that "Patanjali distinguishes between Dharana which is effortful focusing of attention, Dhyana which is easy continuous one-pointedness, and Samadhi which is absorption, ecstasy, contemplation". A person who begins meditation practice, usually practices
Dharana. Samadhi is oneness with the object of meditation. There is no distinction between act of meditation and the object of meditation. Samadhi is of two kinds, •
Samprajnata Samadhi, also called
savikalpa samadhi and
Sabija Samadhi, is object-centered, and is associated with deliberation, reflection, blissful ecstasy that has been assisted by an object or anchor point. and
Nirbija Samadhi: Samyama, asserts the text, is a powerful meditative tool and can be applied to a certain object, or entire class of objects.
Vachaspati Mishra, a scholar of the
Vedanta school of Hinduism, in his
bhasya on the Yogasutra's 3.30 wrote, "Whatever the yogin desires to know, he should perform
samyama in respect to that object".
Moksha (freedom, liberation) is one such practice, where the object of
samyama is Sattva (pure existence), Atman (soul) and
Purusha (Universal principle) or
Bhagavan (God).
Adi Shankara, another scholar of the Vedanta school of Hinduism, extensively commented on
samyama as a means for
Jnana-yoga (path of knowledge) to achieve the state of
Jivanmukta (living liberation).
Samāpatti By the time the Yogasutras were compiled, the Hindu traditions had two broad forms of meditation, namely the ecstatic and enstatic types. ==Comparison of Dhyana in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism==