In plain words
Through it control of the senses comes about. Sacred feelings too keep growing. It is through sacred feelings that the Supreme Principle is attained. That is why in the Bhagavad Gītā,
Better indeed is knowledge than practice; than knowledge, meditation is higher; than meditation, the giving up of the fruit of action; from giving up comes Śānti at once.
Śānti, Śānti, Śānti: this is what we need. Today our dhyāna is confined only to the pūjā room. The moment we come out, we get all kinds of disturbance, snapping and hissing. So, satataṃ yoginaḥ: we must remain in the state of yoga always. That does not mean giving up worldly affairs in it. Study your own studies. Carry out your own duties. This is no obstacle to it at all. But in everything, this power of dhāraṇā is very necessary. Only then does it become true dhyāna. Dhyāna means thinking of that. We say it in everyday life. When someone is saying something, some people go on not listening. “Hey, you are meditating on something! What meditation are you in?” we say. What is dhyāna? Thinking about one thing: that is dhyāna. That thing, that person, that thing alone, is what we must think of. In Vedānta this is what they called sālokya. Being in that world.
Sālokya means thinking of whatever we long to have. If we want something, we think of that very thing. Whatever person you want, you think of that person. That is sālokya. Sālokya. Sā means the principle of Satya. That is Brahman. That is God. The syllable sa belongs to all-powerfulness. So, within humanness, we think, “that, this, mine, yours,” but it is not that at all. Nothing is yours. But what is, that one alone is yours. That is the Ātma. That alone is you. You cannot say, “That is mine.” Such a principle is gained by us through dhyāna alone. But today there are all kinds of meditation that people practise in the world. All these are petty paths. Through them one can never attain divinity. First the modifications of citta must be restrained. Only then does true dhyāna come to us. Sitting, crossing the legs in padmāsana, closing the eyes: today people take that to be dhyāna. This is not dhyāna at all. This is a disease.
Students, first develop the power of dhāraṇā. Set one single object before you for this dhāraṇā. Set before you the form you love. Or no, no form at all. Set before you any one object. Keep looking at that very object for twelve minutes with a gaze that does not waver.