Dharana

Dhāraṇā derives from the root dhṛ, 'to hold' or 'to bind.' It names the act of holding the attention in place — binding the mind to a single point or object and keeping it there, rather than letting it wander from one thing to the next.

As the sixth limb, dhāraṇā is concentration: fixing the mind on a single focus — a point in the body, an image, a mantra, the breath. Attention still flickers and drifts, but it is repeatedly gathered back to the chosen object. It is the first of the three inner limbs.

Patañjali defines dhāraṇā in the third chapter of the Yoga Sūtras, at 3.1, as the binding of the mind (citta) to a single place. It stands as the foundation for dhyāna and samādhi, which together with it he names saṃyama — the combined inner discipline.

In practice, dhāraṇā is the effortful stage of meditation. You choose an object and, each time the mind drifts, you notice and return — again and again. This repeated gathering, far from being failure, is the practice itself, gradually lengthening the periods of unbroken attention.

Dhāraṇā is sometimes confused with meditation proper (dhyāna), but the two differ in continuity. Dhāraṇā involves repeated returning — the attention breaks and is renewed. When that focus becomes an unbroken, effortless flow toward the object, it has matured into dhyāna.