6th Limb · Antaraṅga
The Single Point — where the mind is held, not forced.
Root: √dhṛ — “to hold, to bear, to sustain” — one-pointed concentration. One-line: the single point.
What is Dhāraṇā
The sixth limb — working with the mind directly
The first of the three antaraṅga — inner — limbs, and the point where the practice stops working with body, breath, or senses and starts working directly with citta, the mind itself. The definition is almost deceptively simple: bind attention to one place.
What the sūtra doesn't say, but every practitioner discovers immediately, is that the binding is never permanent on the first try — attention drifts, is noticed, and is brought back. That return, repeated without frustration, is the practice of dhāraṇā, not a failure to achieve it.
In the Ashtanga Tradition
Tristhāna — three places of attention
Tristhāna — the three places of attention: breath, bandha, dṛṣṭi — function as a built-in, moving dhāraṇā throughout an Ashtanga practice. The mind is never left without somewhere specific to rest. The memorised, self-paced structure of the Mysore method — no verbal cueing, no external pacing — adds another layer: the practitioner has to choose, continuously, where attention goes, which is itself sustained training in one-pointedness.
Practising It
Pick one anchor
Pick one anchor — a breath count, a specific dṛṣṭi point, the felt line of the spine — and keep returning attention to it, on the mat and off. Treat the wandering itself as unremarkable and expected, not as evidence the practice isn't working; the returning is the entire technique.
Saṃyama · the three held together
One deepening process, viewed at three depths
Dhāraṇā, Dhyāna and Samādhi are not three separate techniques but one continuous operation — attention bound, attention flowing without break, and the gap between subject and object dissolving entirely. Patañjali names the three together saṃyama the moment he has defined them, and relies on it constantly thereafter. It is why he calls these three the antaraṅga — the more internal limbs: unlike the five before them, none touch conduct, body, breath, or the senses. All three work directly, and only, with citta, the mind.