How long can the mind be still?

When I started learning about yoga, I used to gobble up every bit of info on it -- yoga was an intoxication for me, and still, thankfully is though not with the fever pitch I used to feel, at the amount of knowledge I was stumbling upon.. My love for it has moved from the infatuation stage to a mature one..

That was then I learnt that the mind could stay in these stages for this period

dharana -- four matras (I assume they meant seconds or beats of thoughts, or electrical waves of the brain -- the yogic language can be rather confounding)

Dhyana -- eight matras

Samadhi - continuum

Only when you meditate regularly do you realise the mind's oscillation -- and wonder at how these yogis explained and understood the mind.


Free MySpace Animations! When the infatuation with yoga began, I read up madly about all related science material too. For me, the connections were immense. The other day one girl who wants to become yoga teacher said what I write on my white boards, she does find elsewhere. That is because I read one thing and connect to something else I've read, on yoga. It is possible that the scientists who wrote the book from where I draw the connection would squirm at the psychic link I chance upon.. but for me, everything in science is a powerful reiteration of what I find and experience in yoga.

So, yes, to return to the mind stuff I was talking of: I read in one of the neurological books that the mind's attention span on any object intensely is for four seconds only..

So, yes, the mind is created to oscillate and its movement gave it a greater expanse. But in yoga, the oscillation must stop! Or be controlled...

Those who don't do that, they are not doing yoga at all:(