The biggest challenge you're likely to face when learning to meditate is the struggle
to restrain your mind from wandering. In just a few moments, your mind can stray
and end up meandering in a maze of thoughts, memories, and emotions, like when you make a wrong
turn while driving and end up far from your destination. Once you lose your way,
it can be difficult to get back on the right track. Suppose you're practicing prana vikshana,
observing your breath, and you happen to hear your neighbor's car pull into the driveway next door.
"Inhale 1,2,3. Exhale 4,5,6. Sounds like my neighbor just returned from his vacation.
Before he left, he promised to return the ladder he borrowed from me.
He still hasn t returned the ladder. He didn't return my garden shears or shovel either."
This example actually shows two different sources of distraction. One is the sound of the car,
experienced through the sense of hearing. The other is a series of thoughts, produced by the
mind. Your senses and mind both have the power to drag your attention away from meditation,
and they both have to be restrained. Of course, everyone is susceptible to
distractions like these. It's completely natural for the mind to wander.
At the end of meditation workshops I've conducted, several participants have confided to me,
almost in a whisper, "Swamiji, I have a problem. Whenever I try to meditate, my mind wanders."
They seemed embarrassed to admit this, probably having assumed that none of the other attendees
had this problem. But that's certainly not the case. Regardless of one's intentions and
willpower, every mind is subject to distraction. In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna says,
O Arjuna, even though a person is intelligent and strives diligently, the senses, when
agitated, forcibly distract the mind. Sri Krishna also says, your senses and mind
have to be withdrawn from every possible source of distraction, like a turtle withdraws its limbs.
The turtle's legs and tail represent your five senses, and its head
represents your mind. Like a turtle withdraws into the safety of its shell, you have to completely
withdraw your senses from the outside world, and withdraw your mind from stray thoughts.
But, how can you do that? You can't simply turn off your mind or disconnect your eyes and ears.
If you could withdraw your power of sight, you'd be able to look at the screen you're watching
right now without seeing me. Yet, there are times when you really can withdraw your senses.
For example, suppose you're totally absorbed in watching this video, then someone enters
the room and speaks to you. You might not hear a thing he says. And if he speaks again, you still
might not hear anything, if your attention is sufficiently absorbed in watching this video.
So, you can withdraw your power of hearing, but not by simply choosing not to hear.
That withdrawal is the result of intensely concentrating your attention on something,
like this video. By concentrating your attention, it simultaneously gets withdrawn
from distractions. Patanjali describes this process in the Yoga Sutras. He says,
tat-pratishedhartham, to remove those distractions, the solution is, abhyasah,
concentrating your attention, eka-tattva, on one thing. This is a fundamental principle of
meditation: your mind and senses can be withdrawn from distractions by narrowly concentrating your
attention on something, specifically, on a chosen object of meditation.
This discussion about concentration brings us back to the eight limbs or angas of Yoga
defined by Patanjali. The next two angas, after yama,
niyama, asana, and pranayama, are pratyahara, sense withdrawal, and dharana,
concentration. As we just saw, sense withdrawal is accomplished by means of concentration,
so these two angas are like the two sides of a coin; they're inseparably connected. Here's
a modern-day example. Suppose you go outside at night with a flashlight that has an adjustable
lens. With the lens turned in one direction, the flashlight casts a wide beam of light, illumining
everything in a broad area in front of you. But when you turn its lens the other way,
the flashlight casts a narrow, highly focused beam of light that illumines only one small spot.
The wide beam of light represents a general or broad state of attention. Your mind has
the capacity to be aware of many things simultaneously. That's especially important
in certain situations like when you're driving on a crowded highway and you need to be constantly
aware of vehicles all around you. A wide scope of attention is absolutely necessary for driving.
But that same wide scope of attention becomes a problem sometimes,
like when you're trying to thread a needle, or study a textbook, or practice meditation.
A wide scope of attention makes you more subject to distraction. For some activities,
like meditation, you need to restrict or narrow your scope of attention.
When a flashlight's beam is sufficiently narrow, it illumines one thing, and that thing alone.
Everything else outside the beam is plunged into darkness.
In the same way, when your attention is sufficiently concentrated,
when it's narrowly focused on one and only one object, then distractions fade away.
Like this flashlight, your power of attention is also adjustable; it can be wide or narrow.
Of course, it's much easier to twist the lens of a flashlight than it is to narrowly focus your
attention. This flashlight has another advantage. After you adjust the lens, its beam remains fixed,
and no further adjustments are necessary. On the other hand, after you narrowly focus
your attention, over a period of time, it can grow wider and wider, allowing your mind to
wander once again. Constant effort is needed to maintain the narrow focus of your attention.
At first, it might be difficult to maintain that kind of narrow focus. But you can
certainly develop this ability. As we discussed in the introduction to this course, meditation is
a skill that's learned like any other skill. You just need proper instruction and enough practice.
Instructions are provided by the exercises later in this in this chapter. The practice involves
following a simple principle, and that is, each time your mind wanders away during meditation,
just bring it back. Bringing your mind back again and again is the key to developing your power of
concentration. It's a bit like learning to ride a bicycle. The first time you tried to ride a bike,
you probably fell off. After getting back on, you might have fallen off again. But before long,
you could ride without any difficulty. It's much the same for meditation.
When you're first learning to meditate and you try to focus your attention,
it soon wanders away. Then, you have to bring your attention back to the meditation, like getting
back on your bike. Each time your attention wanders, just bring it back, again and again,
as often as necessary. Sri Krishna gives this same advice in the Bhagavad Gita, yato yato nishcalati
manah, from wherever your mind might wander, cancalam asthiram, being restless and unsteady,
tatas tato niyamyaitad, bring it back again and again, atmanyeva vasham nayet,
restrain it, keeping it within. In a manner of speaking, you learn to
ride a bicycle by getting back on each time you fall off. And in the same way,
you learn to concentrate your attention by bringing your mind back each time it wanders.
It's extremely important not to criticize yourself each time your mind wanders. After all, that's
perfectly natural, and it takes time to develop the skill of concentration. Also, self-criticism
can lead to frustration and tension which are obviously counterproductive for meditation.
So each time your mind wanders, bring it back gently, without being harsh or blaming yourself.
And with enough practice, just like you became a skillful bicycle rider,
you'll become a skillful meditator. In the next lesson, we'll practice the first of
several exercises that will help you develop the skill of concentrating your attention.