A report on Meditation and Samadhi

The term "yoga" in the Western world often denotes a modern form of Hatha yoga and a posture-based physical fitness, stress-relief and relaxation technique, consisting largely of the asanas; this differs from traditional yoga, which focuses on meditation and release from worldly attachments.

In accordance with Pāṇini, Vyasa (who wrote the first commentary on the Yoga Sutras) says that yoga means samadhi (concentration).

Commonly translated as meditation, and often equated with "concentration," though meditation may refer to a wider scala of exercises for bhāvanā, development.

At the stage of pratyahara, the consciousness of the individual is internalized in order that the sensations from the senses of taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell don't reach their respective centers in the brain and takes the sadhaka (practitioner) to next stages of Yoga, namely Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (mystical absorption), being the aim of all Yogic practices.

He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree — now called the Bodhi Tree — in the town of Bodh Gaya and attained "Awakening" (Bodhi).

A wide range of meditation practices has developed in the Buddhist traditions, but "meditation" primarily refers to the attainment of samādhi and the practice of dhyāna (Pali: jhāna).

The term Zen is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the Middle Chinese word 禪 (chán), an abbreviation of 禪那 (chánnà), which is a Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit word ध्यान dhyāna ("meditation").

Among the most influential early Chinese meditation texts include the Anban Shouyi Jing (安般守意經, Sutra on ānāpānasmṛti), the Zuochan Sanmei Jing (坐禪三昧經，Sutra of sitting dhyāna samādhi) and the Damoduoluo Chan Jing (達摩多羅禪經, Dharmatrata dhyāna sutra). These early Chinese meditation works continued to exert influence on Zen practice well into the modern era.

Dhyana in Hinduism means contemplation and meditation.

Dhyana is taken up in Yoga practices, and is a means to samadhi and self-knowledge.

The Ānāpānasati Sutta specifically concerns mindfulness of inhalation and exhalation, as a part of paying attention to one's body in quietude, and recommends the practice of anapanasati meditation as a means of cultivating the Seven Factors of Enlightenment: sati (mindfulness), dhamma vicaya (analysis), viriya (persistence), which leads to pīti (rapture), then to passaddhi (serenity), which in turn leads to samadhi (concentration) and then to upekkhā (equanimity).

One may decide to either practice anapanasati while seated or standing or lying down or walking, or to alternate seated, standing, lying down and walking meditation.

Paramahansa Yogananda (born Mukunda Lal Ghosh; January 5, 1893 – March 7, 1952) was an Indian Hindu monk, yogi and guru who introduced millions to the teachings of meditation and Kriya Yoga through his organization Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) / Yogoda Satsanga Society (YSS) of India, and who lived his last 32 years in America.

In March 1936, upon Yogananda's return to Calcutta after visiting Brindaban, Sri Yukteswar died (or, in the yogic tradition, attained mahasamadhi) at his hermitage in Puri.

Sema includes various forms of worship such as recitation, singing (the most well known being the Qawwali music of the Indian subcontinent), instrumental music, dance (most famously the Sufi whirling of the Mevlevi order), incense, meditation, ecstasy, and trance.

Other scholars have likewise compared the Sufi concept of Waḥdat al-Wujūd to Advaita Vedanta, Fanaa to Samadhi, Muraqaba to Dhyana, and tariqa to the Noble Eightfold Path.