Omprakash Ji
DHARNA: DESHBANDISHACHASAYA DHARANA (3/1)

Next to Pratayahar, is Dharna. This the sixth organ of Yoga. In this respect, Lord Patanjali says: “DESHBANDISHACHASAYA DHARANA”, which means Binding of mind to a particular specific state is Dharna. Which implies that after Pranayam and cooling and slowing down of breathing and senses (indriya) away from worldly affairs, mind automatically gets stable to a particular state.

This is the Deshbandh of mind. And this is called Dharna. Swami Charan Dass has stated Patanjali’s this Dharna as the aim and has tried to make it simple to achieve by its own way.

According to him, this state does not come of its own or by short practice. Hence, he has proposed to stable Dharna of mind on each of all five bhootas of our body structure. After describing different place, color and Gods of these Panch Bhootas in our body, he has proposed to practice to stable the mind after remembering these Gods.

MahabhootName of DharnaPlaceShapeGodColorWord
EarthThambiMuladharSquareVidhiYellowLam
WaterDravaniSwadisthanHalf moonHrishikeshWhiteBam
RaysDahaniManipurTriangleRudraRedRam
AirBhraminiAnahadHexagonIshwarCloud colorBam
SkyShakhaniAgyaBodylessBrahamhaBrownHam

As per above description, at first place of Muladhar, one should practice making one’s mind stable by doing Prithavi Dharna. Slowly increasing timings, mind get practice to stay for two hours and be under control of Prathavi Mahabhoot Similarly doing Jal Dharna in Swadhishtan, Agni Dharna in Manipur,

Vayu Dharna in Anahad and in the end Akash Dharna in Prime place Agya and keeping mind stable for two hours each and one gets Patanjali’s state of Dharna automatically. This way, the followers should increase the practice and thereby progress towards Dhayana.