Eight Lectures on Yoga

11. Dharana is meditation proper, not the kind of meditation which consists of profound consideration of the subject with the idea of clarifying it or gaining a more comprehensive grasp of it, but the actual restraint of the consciousness to a single imaginary object chosen for the purpose. These two limbs of Yoga are therefore in a sense the two methods employed mentally by the Yogi. For, long after success in Samadhi has been attained, one has to conduct the most extensive explorations into the recesses of the mind. 12. The word Dhyana is difficult to define; it is used by many writers in quite contrary senses. The question is discussed at some length in Part I. of my Book IV. I will quote what I have written about it in conclusion— 'Let us try a final definition. Dhyana resembles Samadhi in many respects. There is a union of the ego and the non-ego, and a loss of the sense of time and space and causality. Duality in any form is abolished. The idea of time involves that of two consecutive things, that of space two non-coincident things, that of causality two connected things.' 13. Samadhi, on the contrary, is in a way very easy to define. Etymology, aided by the persistence of the religious tradition, helps us here. “Sam is a prefix in Sanskrit which developed into the prefix 'syn' in Greek without changing the meaning—'syn' in 'synopsis,' 'synthesis,' 'syndrome.' It means 'together with.' 'Adhi' has also come down through many centuries and many tongues. It is one of the oldest words in human language; it dates from the time when each sound had a definite meaning proper to it, a meaning suggested by the muscular movement made in producing the sound. Thus, the letter D originally means 'father'; so the original father, dead and made into a 'God,' was called Ad. This name came down unchanged to Egypt, as you see in the Book of the Law. The word 'Adhi' in Sanskrit was usually translated 'Lord.' In the Syrian form we get it duplicated Hadad. You remember Ben Hadad, King of Syria. The Hebrew word for 'Lord' is Adon or Adonai. Adonai, my Lord, is constantly used in the Bible to replace the name Jehovah where that was too sacred to be mentioned, or for other reasons improper to write down. Adonai has also come to mean, through the Rosicrucian tradition, the Holy Guardian Angel, and thus the object of worship or concentration. It is the same thing; worship is worth-ship, means worthiness; and anything but the chosen object is necessarily an unworthy object. 14. As Dhyana also represents the condition of annihilation of dividuality, it is a little difficult to distinguish between it and Samadhi. I wrote in Part I., Book IV.— 'These Dhyanic conditions contradict those of normal thought, but in Samadhi they are very much more marked than in Dhyana. And while in the latter it seems like a simple union of two things, in the former it appears as if all things rush together and unite. One might say this, that in Dhyana there was still this quality latent, that the one existing was opposed to the many non-existing; in Samadhi the many and the one are