What are the things on which we are going to concentrate or meditate? We are specially concerned here with the system of Patanjali, and so, we shall not touch upon any other subject or theme which may be discussed in the Vedanta or other systems of philosophy. According to the system of Patanjali, the objects of concentration are the evolutes of Prakriti. The stages by which Prakriti descends into diversity are the very same stages by which we may say that we ascend to the completeness of the object in the form of Prakriti. This is the sum and substance of the concentrational or the meditational process. The Samkhya or the Yoga has it that Prakriti is a vast indivisible, incomprehensible, indistinguishable mass which is the whole universe itself. What we call the entire creation is comprehended within Prakriti. There is nothing outside it. We are also a part of it. The peculiar activity of the Cosmic Sattva of Prakriti projects a Cosmic Intelligence, called Mahat. These are terms used in the Samkhya. An intensification of this Cosmic Intelligence into what we may call Cosmic Self-consciousness is called Ahamkara. So, there is Prakriti, there is Mahat, and there is Ahamkara, gradually descending from the higher to the lower. This Ahamkara, sometimes known as Bhutadi in the language of the Samkhya, because of the fact that it is the 'Adi' of the 'Bhutas', or the origin of all the elements, is supposed to manifest itself in a tripartite form - the subject, the object, and that which connects the subject with the object. We have touched upon this theme, this tripartite division into the Adhibhuta, the Adhyatma and the Adhidaiva in an earlier chapter. The cosmic subtle elements known as the Tanmatras - Sabda, Sparsa, Rupa, Rasa and Gandha - are the immediate evolutes of the Ahamkara or the Cosmic Self-affirmation. These Tanmatras, by a process of permutation and combination, become the substances known as the five gross elements - Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. Meditation, properly speaking, in the light of the system of Patanjali, is the concentration of the mind on these stages, the five elements, the Tanmatras, the Ahamkara, the Mahat, and Prakriti.

No one can imagine what all these things mean, if these things are told at once, at the very outset. Therefore, cautiously, Patanjali has given us other minor techniques of concentration in the very first chapter itself, the chapter known as the Samadhi Pada. It is not possible for anyone of us to think of the five elements suddenly, though we are expected to gather our minds to such a height one day or the other. So, we take one particular object before us, any object which is a form of the five elements themselves. This particular form should have those characteristics which will attract our attention. Unless we are so deeply philosophical as to know the connection of this particular physical frame with all the five elements, we have to emotionally relate ourselves to the object. In meditation, especially in its advanced stages, there is no necessity to bring in the emotional aspect. There is more the logical side of things than the emotional one. But, in the earlier stages, emotions do not leave us, because we have a liking even for God Himself, so to say, due to an emotion that is worked up when we think of this great idea called God.

Our concept of God is not purely logical. It is also emotional. And, therefore, when we take to any point in concentration, and choose any object for this purpose, we have to see if it agrees with us emotionally. For instance, we cannot keep a snake in front of us and meditate upon it, though, for the purpose of concentration, that is also good enough, as any other thing is. But, emotionally, we will not be in harmony with the thought of a cobra sitting in front of us. There will be a disharmony, for reasons well known to us. But, if we choose an object which is emotionally connected with what we like for reasons of our own, our mind will concentrate immediately. While it is true that we have to be emotionally appreciative of the object of concentration or meditation, we must also see what sort of emotion it is that we entertain when we meditate. There are emotions and emotions. Even when we are rebellious, outrageous and rude, we are in a state of emotion. But, that is not the type of emotion that we speak of when we say that emotionally we have to be related to the object of concentration. Rebellious emotions are distracting emotions. They are not wholesome feelings. They tear our personality to shreds and throw us in different directions. But, the constructive emotions knit the parts of our personality into a whole, and we become brighter and more beautiful than a tyrannical individual with a self-assertive individuality. When we frown, we are in a state of emotion. When we smile, we are again in a state of emotion. But, the two emotions are of two different types. When we are very ruthless and cruel, we are also in a state of emotion. When we are compassionate, kind and merciful, we are again in a state of emotion. There can thus be different kinds of emotion and we have to know where we stand. The constructive emotions make us strong in our personality, and the destructive emotions make us weak and dejected in our moods. Thus, it requires a lot of psychological training in the beginning to find out what sort of object would best suit us for the purpose of meditation.

This is the reason why many of the Yoga teachers, Gurus and Masters tell us that it would be good and profitable to take to the chanting of the Name of God instead of unnecessarily struggling in the mind by an imposition upon itself of thoughts and feelings which it is not accustomed to or familiar with. Each individual has his own notion of God, the Almighty Creator, to whatever religious faith he may belong. It is sure and certain, and clear and obvious for him, that his own notion of God is the best of thoughts. He may not have a better thought than that. There, his emotions come together in a fraternal embrace, and his logic also works in a friendly manner. So, Japa of a Name of God, concentration on the meaning of the Mantra, or the formula containing the Name, is regarded as perhaps the best method to bring the mind to the point of concentration. When we offer prayers to God, we say something, at least mentally. We say something in our mind, and emotionally, we feel certain attitudes towards God. These are the things that we have to maintain perpetually, as far as possible, by repeated sessions of prayers, and a continuous sitting for Japa or chanting of the Divine Name, which will bring us to the point of concentration. This is a religious technique of concentration.

There are other techniques of concentration that need not necessarily be called religious. They are, rather, psychoanalytic or psychological, and they are suggested by Hatha Yogins, Tantriks and others. In those techniques, there need not be thoughts of God in the sense of an omnipresent Creator, but there may be any particular thing with which one is emotionally tied down. These are subtle secrets. All meditation is a secret working of the mind, in accordance with the instructions received from a superior. What is it that the seeker is emotionally tied to? Only he knows this, and he cannot shout it, will not be able to shout it in the market. But he has to reveal himself to the Guru, as a patient reveals himself to the doctor. The patient should not hide facts before a physician, if his ailment is to be cured. Similarly, in spiritual life, there must be a complete confession before a superior, as sometimes this process is insisted upon in churches. So, the disciple confesses, inwardly and outwardly, the totality of his emotional set-up before his great Guru, who is responsible, who is supposed to be responsible, for the spiritual progress of the disciple. So, there is no hiding of facts from a Guru, if we regard a particular person as our Guru.

We should not try to tear our emotions from the objects of our affection under the impression that they are unholy, irreligious and unspiritual, because, finally, there is no unholy thing in the world. We have been brought and bred up somehow in some atmosphere of religiosity, which makes us sometimes think that something is evil, and, therefore, it has to be thrown away as religion is opposed to it. But, religion is not opposed to anything. It is opposed only to a misunderstanding of the context of things. Very difficult is Yoga practice. It is a very hard thing to do and a long time is to be taken in understanding its requirements. A sudden bounce of a spirit of renunciation and rejection is not called for. Yoga is a process of healthy living, and not an unhealthy wrenching of oneself from all ties, like tearing one's own skin. Even if we have certain emotions which religion would not permit as holy, even if we think that they are rogues, they have to be treated as our friends for the time being. Because, the association that we have maintained within ourselves, with those feelings, is so intense that the knot of this association has to be gradually untied. And, in Yoga, there is no such thing as cutting the knot. There is only a gradual untying of it, and a vehement behaviour with anything will prove to be a disastrous process.

No one can understand these processes by one's own self, nor can one practise them by one's own self, especially when one reaches these stages where one has to fight with one's own mind and not with other people in the world. We cease to have a practical relationship with the objects and the persons of the world, when we realise that the objects are only psychological objects finally, and there are no other objects in the world. Physical objects appear to be external things, because of the operation of the mind in a particular manner, and if this operation ceases and is transformed into a different process altogether the so-called persons and things cease to be objects any more. So, we have to deal only with our mind finally, and not with persons and things, or the world as such. A gradual healing process has to take place in our mind, with constant guidance from an experienced teacher. We all are emotionally connected to things. These emotional connections have to be brought into right relation, directly or indirectly or in some way, with the purpose of our meditation. Otherwise, though our conscious mind may be putting forth hectic efforts in concentration on the so-called religious ideal of ours in Yoga, our subconscious mind will be revolting against our practice. We will become a double personality, inwardly one thing, and outwardly another thing, and we will be dreaming of our rejected form, while in waking life, like an unhealthy individual, we will be trying to practise Yoga.

Sometimes Yogis become queer individuals, unsocial and anti-social, and sorry within themselves and unhappy in their core, because some of them have not succeeded in bringing the subconscious and the conscious into a proper relationship. The two levels of consciousness always remain separate. They are like warring camps and they do not agree with each other. The conscious mind does not agree with the subconscious, and vice versa And psychologists tell us that we have got a deeper terror inside us, known as the 'unconscious vast', the racial unconscious as the psychoanalysts tell us, which keeps us in contact with the whole of humanity. And that is why we are always thinking of mankind only, and we cannot think anything else in this world. All our problems are human problems. Why is it so? Why should there not be anything else? It is because our racial unconscious has the larger say, it forms the larger base of our personality. It is connected to the species into which we are born. That is why our problems are problems of the human species only, and not of other things in the world, though they may be more important than the human ones. So, when we enter into the deeper levels of Yoga practice, we are entering into dangerous zones, forbidden areas where angels fear to tread. But, no fear will be there if we have a good Guru. No person should have the hardened egoism to imagine that he does not require a Guru. It is a stupidity and he will not succeed, because he will be faced with terrors as he goes further and further, and these terrors are not outside things, lions, tigers. They are the forms taken by the incapacity of the person's own mind to adjust itself to the requirements of meditation. So, here the seeker lands in a tumult within himself, caused by various obstructing powers, mentioned in some of the Sutras of Patanjali, in the third chapter called the Vibhuti Pada.

While the concentration process has the fourfold aspect mentioned earlier, in meditation there are only three processes. The rejecting, process is dropped. The consciousness of the meditator and the consciousness of the nature of the object of meditation, together with the process of concentration or meditation, remain - what are known as the Dhyatr, Dhyeya, and Dhyana. These three continue, but the earlier requirement of the effort on the part of the mind to reject certain ideas is no more there. We will be continually flowing to the object of meditation, as it were. We will be flowing in the whole of our personality, and not merely in one of the aspects of our mind. All meditation worth the name, in the spiritual sense at least, is an integrated movement of the whole mind, and not merely of a segment of it. In the light of this analysis of the nature of meditation, very few of us will be fit for it. We struggle unnecessarily and reach at nothing. However, this is the ideal before us, to reach one day or the other, may be in this birth with the Grace of God, and if not, in the next birth. It does not matter; one day or the other, we have to get there. The movement of our wholesome, soulful individuality towards the object of meditation is Dhyana. This is what Patanjali calls "Pratyayaikatanata" or the continuity of the flow. There is no break in the flow, but a wholesome continuity, as in the flow of oil from one vessel to another, or as in the flow of a lamp where bits of process join together in such a harmonious manner that we do not feel that the flame is a process at all. The whole flame looks like a compact completeness. Likewise, though meditation is constituted of bits of thought, we will not feel these bits as different from one another. They will together make one whole process, like the movement of a river where we cannot see the distinguishing drops of the waters. The whole river will be one mass. So, in meditation, the whole mind assumes the shape of a mass that moves wholly, entirely, totally, completely towards the object, the great point on which we may be concentrating for the purpose of our union with it.

The union that is attempted in Yoga is known as Samadhi. It is a very hard word even to hear, because each one has his own or her own idea about it, which is quite natural, and we get frightened by the definitions given of it. A complete absorption of ourselves with anything is impossible. We cannot identify ourselves with anything in this world. We cannot become anything other than what we are ourselves. A cannot become B. A is A, and B is B, always; and this is the essence of the world. But, why should A be A and B be B, and not otherwise? The Yoga psychology or philosophy tells us that the very fact that we know that B exists, and yet B cannot be A, must tell us implicitly as a meaning between the lines, that there is an undercurrent of unity between the seer and the seen, between A and B. A totally dissociated B cannot become the object of knowledge of A. While A says, "I am different from B", A is not fully conscious of what he is speaking, because, though in the light of the characteristics of B, as situated in space and time, B may be different from A, the fact that A has a knowledge of the existence of B itself should reveal a deeper truth than is available on the surface. Here is a deeper psychology, the philosophy of perception or knowledge. A hidden connectedness of A with B is the reason behind the knowledge which A has about B, and A takes advantage of this fact of there being such a connecting link, and touches B through this knowledge process, rather than through the form or the name which B has apparently assumed in the spatio-temporal location. So, when we go further and further in Yoga, we confront greater and greater difficulties which we will not be able to accommodate in our minds at once. Hence, the slower we go, the better for us. We must go very slowly. The union or the coming together in utter communion between the seer and the seen is the aim of Dhyana or meditation and towards this end, we have to move with great caution.