The English word meditation covers all three, which is why the distinction between them is so rarely made and so useful once you have it.
They aren't three techniques. They are three degrees of one continuous process, and Patanjali defines them in three consecutive sutras that make the progression explicit.
Which has a practical consequence that changes how you sit: only the first is something you can do.
The Three Definitions
Dharana, binding attention to one place. A single object, held. The Sanskrit root carries the sense of holding or supporting, and the definition is about restriction: attention confined to one thing, not ranging.
Dhyana — the continuous, uninterrupted flow of attention toward that object. Not a different object, not a different action. The same thing, without the gaps.
Samadhi — when the object alone shines forth, and the sense of the process, and of yourself doing it, drops away. Patanjali's phrase is often rendered as the mind becoming empty of its own form.
The progression is unbroken. Dharana repeatedly interrupted becomes dhyana when the interruptions stop. Dhyana sustained becomes samadhi when the observer drops out. There is no point at which you switch from one to another — the same attention on the same object gets less interrupted, and the names describe how interrupted it's.
Why This Matters Practically
You can only practise dharana.
Dhyana isn't an action. You cannot decide to have uninterrupted attention any more than you can decide to fall asleep. It is what dharana becomes when it stops breaking.
Samadhi still less so. It is described as what happens when the doer drops out, and a practitioner attempting to make that happen has installed a doer at the centre of the attempt.
Which means the instruction is unusually simple. Choose an object. Return to it. Keep returning. That is the whole practice, and everything beyond it is a description of what happens when the returning becomes unnecessary.
And it dissolves the most common frustration. A student who believes they're supposed to be doing dhyana, and whose mind wanders every few seconds, concludes they're failing. They aren't. They are practising dharana, which is the practice. The wandering is the thing the practice acts on, not evidence against it.
Samyama
Patanjali gives the three together a name.
Samyama is dharana, dhyana and samadhi applied to the same object, the whole continuum, directed at one thing.
And it is the engine of the third chapter. Patanjali describes samyama on various objects producing various kinds of knowledge, and this is where the siddhis, the powers, come from. Samyama on this yields that.
Which reframes chapter three. It is not a list of magical abilities so much as a systematic claim: sustained undivided attention on an object yields knowledge of it. Whether you accept the specific results is a separate question from the structure of the claim.
Samyama is covered in its own article, and the powers chapter in another, since both deserve more than a paragraph.
Why the English Word Causes Trouble
Worth naming, because the vocabulary problem is doing real damage to how people practise.
"Meditation" collapses all three, and it also covers things Patanjali wouldn't have grouped with them at all — guided relaxation, visualisation, contemplation of a theme, and mindfulness in the modern therapeutic sense.
Which produces a specific confusion. A student told to meditate doesn't know whether they're supposed to be concentrating on one thing, letting thoughts pass without engaging, following a recorded voice, or thinking carefully about a subject. These are different practices with different aims, and the word covers all of them.
The three Sanskrit terms are more precise than any English equivalent, which is the case for using them — not as decoration, but because they distinguish things the English does not.
And the imprecision has a practical cost. Someone who has tried "meditation" and concluded it doesn't work for them has frequently tried one specific approach — usually breath-focused concentration — and generalised from it. A person for whom breath focus is activating, and who would do well with mantra or sound, has been told the whole category is not for them.
The useful move when someone says meditation is to ask what they're actually doing. The answer is often something quite different from what the person they learned it from was doing.
Where They Sit in the Eight Limbs
The order isn't decorative.
Yama and niyama — the ethical and personal disciplines.
Asana, the steady seat.
Pranayama, the regulation of breath.
Pratyahara — the withdrawal of the senses.
Then dharana, dhyana, samadhi.
The first five prepare the conditions for the last three, and the last three are described as internal — Patanjali groups them explicitly, calling them the inner limbs relative to what precedes.
Pratyahara is the hinge, and it's the limb almost nobody teaches. Attention can't be bound to one object while the senses are still pulling it outward, which is why the fifth limb sits where it does, the subject of pratyahara.
And asana's job in this scheme is narrow. It exists so you can sit still, which is what the word means and what the classical repertoire was for, the argument in what asana actually means.
What Dharana Is Not
Three things it gets confused with, and the distinctions are practically useful.
Not concentration in the effortful sense. The English word suggests furrowed-brow strain, and a practitioner who grips will find attention becomes more brittle rather than steadier. The action is returning, repeatedly, without force — closer to patience than to effort.
Not thinking about the object. Attending to the breath isn't analysing the breath, describing it, or noticing things about it. The moment you're constructing sentences about it, attention is on the sentences.
Not open awareness. Several contemporary approaches ask you to rest in awareness without an object, noticing whatever arises. That's a real practice with its own history and it's the opposite of dharana, which binds attention to one place. Neither is better; they're different, and mixing them within one session means doing neither.
The test for whether you're doing dharana is simple: is there one thing you keep coming back to? If the answer is no, you may be doing something worthwhile and it isn't this.
Choosing an Object
Since dharana is the practicable limb, the object is the practical decision.
The breath. The most common, always available, and it moves — which suits attention better than something static for most beginners.
A mantra. Repeated internally or aloud. The tradition treats this as a complete path in its own right, and the practical material is in japa and the mala and mantra chanting for beginners.
A sound. Internal or external, the nada practices, covered in nadanusandhana.
A point in the body. The eyebrow centre, the heart, the navel.
A visual object. A flame, an image, a yantra.
Sensation itself, as in body-scanning approaches.
The tradition's advice is to choose one and stay with it. Switching objects is a form of the wandering the practice is meant to address, and the object matters far less than the staying.
One caveat. For some people the breath is the wrong object — attention on the breath can be activating, not settling, particularly with anxiety or a trauma history. A mantra or an external sound gives attention somewhere to go that isn't the body, and that's a legitimate and sometimes necessary substitution.
What Actually Happens When You Sit
Honest, because the definitions above can make it sound tidier than it is.
Attention breaks constantly. Every few seconds at first. This doesn't stop with practice so much as the noticing gets faster.
The noticing is the skill. The gap between wandering off and realising you've wandered off is the thing that shortens, and it shortens measurably over months.
Longer stretches appear unpredictably. Some sessions have them and some don't, and the ones that do are not obviously the ones you tried hardest in.
And most sessions are unremarkable. This is the part least often said. A practice that produces something notable every time is doing something other than this.
Progress isn't measured session by session. It is measured in whether your attention behaves differently outside the practice, which is where the change actually shows.
The Two Samadhis
Patanjali does not treat samadhi as one thing and most summaries do.
Samprajnata samadhi — absorption still involving an object, with the mind supported by something. Patanjali describes gradations within it, moving from grosser to subtler supports.
Asamprajnata samadhi — absorption without that support, where even the object drops away.
And in the first chapter he distinguishes further stages by what remains: absorption accompanied by reasoning, by reflection, by bliss, by the sense of individuality — each subtler than the last, each with less remaining.
The point of the gradation is that it's a progression, not a threshold. There is no line you cross into samadhi; there is a series of increasingly subtle states, described by what has fallen away.
Which is consistent with the whole structure. Dharana becomes dhyana becomes samadhi becomes subtler samadhi, and at no stage does anything switch on. The entire scheme is a continuum described at intervals, and the names are markers on it, not doors.
Practically this changes very little, you still practise dharana. It matters for reading, because a text that appears to describe a destination is describing a direction.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between dharana and dhyana?
Dharana is attention bound to one object, with interruptions. Dhyana is the same attention on the same object without the interruptions. They are degrees of one process, not different techniques.
What is samadhi?
The stage where the object alone remains and the sense of yourself observing it drops away. Patanjali describes the mind as becoming empty of its own form.
Which of the three can I actually practise?
Only dharana. Dhyana is what dharana becomes when it stops breaking, and samadhi is described as what happens when the doer drops out, which a practitioner trying to produce it has just reinstalled.
Is meditation dharana or dhyana?
The English word covers all three and in practice usually means dharana. That isn't a deficiency; dharana is what a practitioner does, and the other two are descriptions of what it becomes.
What is samyama?
The three applied together to one object. Patanjali makes it the engine of the third chapter, where samyama on various objects is described as producing various kinds of knowledge.
Why does my mind wander constantly?
Because that's the condition the practice acts on. A student who believes they should be doing dhyana concludes the wandering is failure, they're practising dharana, and the wandering is the material.
What should I use as my object?
The breath, a mantra, a sound, a point in the body, or a visual object. Choose one and stay with it. The object matters far less than the staying, and switching is a form of the wandering itself.
Does everyone have to use the breath?
No, and for some people it's the wrong choice. Attention on the breath can be activating, not settling, particularly with anxiety or a trauma history, and a mantra or external sound is a legitimate substitution.
How do I know if I am making progress?
Not session by session, most sessions are unremarkable. The measurable change is that the gap between wandering off and noticing shortens, and that your attention behaves differently outside the practice.
Three Names for One Thing Getting Quieter
Patanjali defines the last three limbs in three consecutive lines, and the definitions differ only in how interrupted the attention is. That is a more modest and more usable account than the English word meditation suggests, because it means there's one thing to practise, the instruction fits in a sentence, and everything else is what happens, not what you do.
Rohit Yoga Academy's residential 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training in Swargashram, Rishikesh teaches the eight limbs from the Sutras alongside daily sitting practice, in groups capped at fifteen.