It is in the last three of the eight limbs of yoga presented in the Saga Ultras that we find the training and use of the mind. In this there are three clearly defined stages. These three may be translated as:
? Concentration
? Meditation
? Contemplation
In this first of these there is the application of the attention of the mind, to a particular thing or idea, without wandering away from it. This not wandering away, constitutes what is called control (nirodha).
In the second of the three, namely meditation, there is a play of thought upon the object. While this is going on the concentration is still in operation, but the play of thought goes on with reference to the object of attention without passing away to other things. Thus, for example, if the object is a flower there will be every possible thought about the flower. Usually in looking at things we are content to note a few outstanding features and the same is true also m our thinking about them, but in meditation there should be complete thinking, if possible.
A and B were at a party last night. Today A says to B. Do you remember Mrs. Whelkson, who was there? B replies, Yes, I remember her very clearly. She was the lady with the big nose.' A then asks, What was the colour of her eyes and her hair and dress? B cab only reply that he has not even the foggiest notion.
The usual thinking of most people is based upon data almost as bad as this. In matters philosophical or devotional, with which yoga is very much concerned, this will not do. Hence the need for the three processes already named, which are thus described in the aphorisms:
The binding of the mind (chitta) to one place is concentration (dharana).
Continuity of ideation there is meditation (dhyana).
The same, but with the shining of the mere object, as though with a part of ones own nature, is contemplation (Samadhi)
In the last of the three the reader may recognize the chief characteristic of ecstasy or rapture. In that one forgets oneself, is taken out of oneself, and yet is intensely conscious. The quality of consciousness is, in fact, at its best. This is not an emotional state, but an operation of seeing or knowing, in which there is nothing partial and nothing brought to the picture from memory, or from the past, to colour the present experience with any comparison or classification. If you were looking at a picture, and saying, 'How nice it is. See this group of trees here, and that little stream there, and that light on the hillside...', you would be experiencing the delight of meditative examination, which would gradually build the picture into one unit, as you grasped these various interesting items clearly and then combined them into one and discovered the unity of the whole.
But if you 'took in' the whole picture at once, missing nothing, not flitting among the parts from one to another, you would undergo ecstatic discovery and experience of the unity. For this, the picture must of course be good; that is, there must be no slightest mark on the canvas which is not necessary, just as, for example, in an excellent human body all the parts must be there, but there must be no redundancy, such as an extra thumb growing on the side of the proper one.
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