How Can I Meditate When I Can’t Stop Thinking?

Contrary to a common belief, meditation is not about emptying the mind of

thoughts … not an easy thing to do as thinking is what the mind does… but to

observe or “witness” the thoughts that arise without engaging with them.

Meditation is both a state of mind and a process – a “state” of intensely focused and deepened awareness and a “process” involving practices to help us towards this state of mind.

Just as the farmer doesn’t grow the plants but simply prepares what he can to enable nature to do the work, meditation is the same........we can use Yoga practice to prepare the body/mind for meditation but then we simply get out of the way and let meditation take place.

Pratyahara

Considered by some to be the final stage in preparation for meditation practice and by others as the first stage of meditation itself, Pratyahara is a process whereby the awareness is withdrawn from the external environment. Full of distractions to waylay the awareness, we are constantly interacting with the external environment through the senses. Meditation is an internal state or process for which success relies on the ability of the practitioner to be able to withdraw the senses from interacting with the external environment so the focus can remain within.

Two of the most common practices we use in the Satyananda tradition to induce a state of Pratyahara are Yoga Nidra (deep relaxation) and Antar Mouna (inner silence).

Both these practices begin with the idea that if we flood the lower mind with input from the senses, eventually the mind will become bored and turn away from the external environment to seek out something more engaging. This is when our thoughts or ‘mind chatter’ can begin in earnest as the mind creates its own engaging activity. So we move into the next stage of meditation….

Dharana

Dharana or concentration is also known as single focussed awareness and is the next stage of the meditation process. This single focus is not so easy to achieve as the mind continues to wander and distractions are challenging to ignore. The mind, after all, is very good at bringing up thoughts that it knows you will want to engage with! During this stage of meditation, we practice developing and strengthening our focus ‘muscle’ by firstly training our awareness to notice when we are distracted and then bringing it back to the focus of our meditation.

When we first begin this ‘focus muscle training’, we may find the time lag is quite long between when we become distracted and when we become aware of our distracted state. With steady practice, we can work on changing this time lag.

During Dharana, we also practice the ‘attitude of the witness’ or the ability to observe something without engaging with it. This can help us to not become distracted in the first place.

This “attitude of the witness” enables us to stay in the present moment.....even when thoughts of the future or past arise, we focus on remaining the detached observer of these thoughts without becoming entangled in their story. Developing this skill can help us to become less distracted by the ‘mind chatter’.

The sage Patanjali describes Dharana as:

“…the uninterrupted flow of concentration of the mind on the object of meditation or concentration”

• Saraswati, Swami Satyananda “Meditations from the Tantras”. Yoga Publications Trust, Bihar, India. 1983. P. 80
  

So we can be constantly moving in and out of the state of Dharana. The guided meditations and other practices used in the Satyananda tradition help us to practice Dharana by guiding us through the initial stage of pratyahara and then developing, engaging and strengthening the ‘attitude of the witness’ and our focus muscle.

The final stage of meditation….and one that so few of us reach….is Samadhi.

Samadhi

Samadhi is said to be the ultimate state of meditation where there is no longer an awareness of the mind as being separate….only the consciousness of the object of focus. So there is no separation between the object of focus and the mind doing the focusing….the self-conscious mind disappears….merging with the object of focus.

It is said that the progression from Dharana to Samadhi is not a progression from one practice to another, but different degrees of achievement. The practitioner automatically progresses from one to the other as different stages in their own development of consciousness.

“More and more psychologists are advising people to practice meditation so that they observe their inner functioning…Half an hour of meditation every morning helps to bring quietude and to thereby improve external activities. Our ability to perform our daily work and play depends entirely on our inner being. If our inner being is not in harmony, then our interaction with the external environment cannot possibly be harmonious.”

- Saraswati, Swami Satyananda “Meditations from the Tantras”. Yoga Publications Trust, Bihar, India. 1983. pp. 21-22

Sources:
Swami Satyananda Saraswati, “Meditations from the Tantras” Yoga Publications Trust, Munger, Bihar, India. 1983.