Aim of meditation and its accomplishment in Patanjali yoga and Vedanta

Abstract

This article comprehends the actual goal, philosophy and practice of meditation prescribed in the ancient Yoga system of Patanjali and Vedanta. Meditation is very popular in present days, especially in the west becoming increasingly popular and rightly so as it offers lots of benefits, which is already researched and published. Many schools of Meditation have come to west from east, for instance Yogic Meditation (Hatha Yoga) at the beginning followed by Zen Meditation and transcendental meditation and many other forms of meditation. Presently Mindfulness is well acknowledged meditation in the west, which helps in controlling the wondering mind to calm down by anchoring the attention to the breath means paying attention to the rhythm of breathing cycles. Therefore, the focus of the mind can be attained by effort of meditation, it means the distracted mind can be transformed into concentrated mind by a process of meditation. According to Yoga and Vedanta objective of the meditation is ‘self-realization’, which means true recognition of the self as the ‘witness consciousness’ which is beyond the mind, it is not to be manufactured and it is not to be attained, it is always there and natural, which is the true nature of individual being, but it cannot be objectified, it is has to be recognised subjectively as the true self by which every objective experience is possible and to get this realization is the actual goal of meditation.