Practice Concentration YS I - 32

In order to meditate one has to first be able to have sustained dharana or concentration. Dharana is the Sanskrit word for concentration. Look at the picture of this post. The man is sitting in a meditative posture with many pictures around his head. This is a great illustration of how it is when we attempt to sit and still the mind. The pictures are representative of the many thoughts, distractions which become obstacles. Thus many of us give up attempting to meditate.

Yoga Sutras I-32 TAT PRATISEDHARTHAM EKA TATTVABHYASAH - The practice of concentration on a single subject [or the use of technique] is the best way to prevent the obstacles and their accompaniments.

This sutra is telling us in order to prevent the obstacles/distractions we need to develop one pointedness . Swami Satchidananda states that we should not keep changing our object of concentration. It's like if one digging for a well, instead of digging many shallow ones, decide to stick to one and dig deep. If you have to use dynamite when encountering a rock, do it and continue to keep going down. So with the goal to make the mind steady, it does not matter what technique or object you use. It is not the symbol we use, like our ideas, objects or mantrams but the holding on to the symbol to take us to the goal. 'There are different strokes for different folks' thus different symbols for different people. Swami Satchidananda concludes with saying we want this one-pointed concentration to make the mind clear so we can transcend it.