We move through the world with many faces—boss or subordinate, teacher or student, parent, child, friend, seeker... The role depends always on the actual situation. These roles form a kind of psychological mask that allows us to engage with society, but they are not who we really are. In Patanjali’s Yoga, the practice of Dhyana, or meditation, is the process through which these roles are gradually set aside—not through rejection, but through quiet observation. As defined in the Yoga Sutras (3.2), Dhyana is the uninterrupted flow of awareness toward a single object. Over time, even that object becomes secondary, and awareness turns in on itself.
In the stillness of Dhyana, the fluctuations of thought and emotion begin to fade. What remains is a kind of inner clarity—a spacious, witnessing presence that does not depend on identity or narrative. We begin to sense the difference between what we do and what we are. This is one of the most profound gifts of meditation: the recognition that beneath the mask of personality lies a self that is quiet, luminous, and free.
