The news Anchor

A long time back I got an opportunity to visit a news studio. I was really amazed by the technological advancements in the news industry and also how the news anchors make the act of telling the news very easy.

A small section in that studio caught my attention where it was person who was giving weather forecasts.  If we see it on BBC or CNN, the feeling that we get is that there is live video being played on the wall and the news anchor is standing in front of it reading what's there in the video.

But it's not like that in reality. The person is standing in from of a wall of certain color. (Just like we have when we take a passport photo). He imagines the map on the blank wall and then technology puts the live video while broadcasting it giving it the desired effect.

I asked for reasons for such a process and the answer was - its difficult to have a desired background if there are multiple colors to be dealt with. If we have only one color then it can be easily replaced with whatever background we wish.  In fact similar technology is used in photography in many situations and cases.

What is the relevance of this in Yoga.

Shloka 50 and 51 of Samadhipada in Patanjali Yoga Sutras tell us the same thing.

As we have seen earlier a person's mind is a stream of multiple thoughts. If one is desiring of Seedless Samadhi then biggest obstacle to it is series of waves caused by impressions of past karma. What is then the way of getting rid of all these waves. The answer is in the News Achor's situation. Create a wave big enough that will suppress all other waves (like creating a single color canvas clearing all other colors). It will then be very easy to get rid of that as well.

What can be done in reality

Anyone remembers a magic spell from Harry Potter on that lake? The way he created was by thinking of a very strong memory. The trick is the same. There is no wonder that in Spirituality by devotion people always think of their image of God and always have that in mind while on Samadhi. But it can be any other image or Situation. Have your own image, real or imaginary ready. Whenever there is a storm of wavess what you need to do is just concentrate on that image or scene - a positive one though. Once it has been enough practiced, it wont be difficult to remove that and attain a thoughtless or seedless Samadhi.

Give it a try a do let me know your thoughts or experiences.