When we talk Ashtanga Yoga or Raja Yoga, we talk about a process of many steps that they guide us too a very specific experience that is the experience of the union of the consciousness with itself In this process, we begin from a state of consciousness that is fractured is broke in tw bject and subject we see ourselves as subjects and whatever we see or experience are only objects different from us there is a difference between the subject and the object so, from the beginning, whenever you come to somebody and say that everything is consciousness, everything is one for any person is very difficult to accept it because my state of consciousness, according to my experience, and what we see is that the tree is there and I am here you are there and I am here so there are two, how it is possible that tree or you, and me are one. In other words, what the person says is how is it possible that subject and object are one when according to what experience we are totally differen here is subject here and an object there. Through the process of Ashtanga Yoga or Raja Yoga we see that every step asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, make me near and near to this state or in other words we can say, create the conditions the proper conditions in order to allow to this union of the consciousness with itself to happen. A very important part of it is Dharana Why? Because dharana is very much related v to the now, to the present and now the present is an essential part of the conditions in order to to allow this meeting to happens Why? Because We know that this moment, the now is the only reality. and if we want something real happens, is should happen in the now but usually we live in the past and we project this part to the future When we do hatha yoga for example to be in the now is to watch the body to watch the legs, to watch the muscles, to watch the hands to watch our feelings same thing, when we advance, we can practice dharana that it is external because when you concentrate on your body that is external dharana external, in the sense that the external world is a world that we perceive through the senses, of the information that reaches us through the senses. At the moment that you watch and concentrate in the extenal happenings you are in the now and there is the other way that is the internal dharna that is to watch the more subtle internal world means the world of the thoughts for example At the moment that you watch the thoughts or the mental activity, you are in this moment, you are in the now that requires certain attention In the beginning you will see that it's not easy but with the condition that you don't fall to identify with the thoughts then you are in the past this is a very very interesting game. You watch the mental activity,you watch the thoughts at the moment that you watch them from distance, that you are not identified with the thoughts the mental activity a witness you are in this moment, you are in the now you are in reality in the present at the moment that you identify yourself with the thought in that moment you fall asleep As long as you watch the thoughts the mental activity decreases till one moment that your experience will of a witness without thoughts an empty ocean or an emptiness of thoughts, no thoughts no mental activity and the witness is there and then the next step would be to watch the watcher the witness witnessing of the witness itself and that moment is very important because that is the moment that we we ask in the beginning that the subject can become object, it is in this moment that you are a subject become object simultaneously at the same time It is not that you stop to be a subject and become an object You continued to be subject but now you are object simultaneously in this situation of simultaneously perception because you are the subject and the object simultaneously the experience will be that the observer is nowhere and is everywhere and the same with the object, means the platform of space and time disappear. This is what I said a silent explotion because is an expansion of the consciousness when this platform of space dissapear and the next will be that even whatever was external to this field of perception become part of it, everything become part of this field of perception and that we call is the next step from dhyana to samadhi samadhi is the fusion of consciousness with itself it is the meeting of consciousness with itself. That begins with this dhyana, with this state when you become the watched that is the moment that attention is focused on itself the attention is focused on itself and this is a very very interesting process that we call Raja Yoga