Good Business_ Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [68]
Although the remaining three stages do not properly belong to the present chapter—they involve the control of consciousness through purely mental operations, rather than physical techniques—we shall discuss them here for the sake of continuity, and also because these mental practices are, after all, solidly based on the earlier physical ones. Dharana, or “holding on,” is the ability to concentrate for long periods on a single stimulus, and thus is the mirror image of the earlier stage of pratyahara; first one learns to keep things out of the mind, then one learns to keep them in. Intense meditation, or dhyana, is the next step. Here one learns to forget the self in uninterrupted concentration that no longer needs the external stimuli of the preceding phase. Finally the yogin may achieve samadhi, the last stage of “self-collectedness,” when the meditator and the object of meditation become as one. Those who have achieved it describe samadhi as the most joyful experience in their lives.
The similarities between Yoga and flow are extremely strong; in fact it makes sense to think of Yoga as a very thoroughly planned flow activity. Both try to achieve a joyous, self-forgetful involvement through concentration, which in turn is made possible by a discipline of the body. Some critics, however, prefer to stress the differences between flow and Yoga. Their main divergence is that, whereas flow attempts to fortify the self, the goal of Yoga and many other Eastern techniques is to abolish it. Samadhi, the last stage of Yoga, is only the threshold for entering Nirvana, where the individual self merges with the universal force like a river blending into the ocean. Therefore, it can be argued, Yoga and flow tend toward diametrically opposite outcomes.
But this opposition may be more superficial than real. After all, seven of the eight stages of Yoga involve building up increasingly higher levels of skill in controlling consciousness. Samadhi and the liberation that is supposed to follow it may not, in the end, be that significant—they may in one sense be regarded as the justification of the activity that takes place in the previous seven stages, just as the peak of the mountain is important only because it justifies climbing, which is the real goal of the enterprise. Another argument favoring the similarity of the two processes is that, even till the final stage of liberation, the yogin must maintain control over consciousness. He could not surrender his self unless he was, even at the very moment of surrender, in complete control of it. Giving up the self with its instincts, habits, and desires is so unnatural an act that only someone supremely in control can accomplish it.
Therefore it is not unreasonable to regard Yoga as one of the oldest and most systematic methods of producing the flow experience. The details of how the experience is produced are unique to Yoga, as they are unique to every other flow activity, from fly-fishing to racing a Formula One car. As the product of cultural forces that occurred only once in history, the way of Yoga bears the stamp of the time and place in which it was created. Whether Yoga is a “better” way to foster optimal experience than others cannot be decided on its own merits alone—one must consider the opportunity costs involved in the practice, and compare them with alternative options. Is the control that Yoga makes possible worth the investment of psychic energy that learning its discipline requires?
Another set of Eastern disciplines that have become popular recently in the West are the so-called “martial arts.” There are many variations of these, and each year