7th Limb · Antaraṅga
The Unbroken Thread — when holding becomes flowing.
Root: √dhyai — “to contemplate, to meditate” — sustained, unbroken attention. One-line: the unbroken thread.
What is Dhyāna
The seventh limb — continuity, not technique
The distinction from Dhāraṇā is continuity, not technique. Dhāraṇā is the repeated act of binding and re-binding attention to its object; dhyāna is what happens when the re-binding stops being necessary, and attention simply flows toward the object without gaps.
It's the same practice, a layer deeper — not a different thing to learn.
In the Ashtanga Tradition
One breath into the next
The sustained arc of a full practice — ideally unbroken by verbal cueing, particularly in Mysore-style self-practice — is treated as direct training for exactly this kind of continuity: one breath into the next movement, without a seam for the mind to slip out and back in. Teachers in this lineage often recommend sitting quietly after practice, framed not as a separate discipline bolted onto the physical work, but as the same unbroken attention simply continuing once the body stops moving.
Practising It
Holding, and simply staying
After practice, or at any quiet point in the day, let attention settle on one support — breath at the nostrils, a mantra — and notice the difference between holding it there and it simply staying there. The second is dhyāna beginning.
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.