Dharana means the act of holding, preserving or retaining in the mind. In yoga it indicates a steady abstraction of the mind. It is the first among the three constituents of antaranga yoga or esoteric concentration and the sixth part of Patanjali’s eight fold Yoga, where it is defined as “the binding of chitta or the mind to a desha (a restricted sphere of attention). Unlike dhyana (meditation), it is not ekagrata (a state of pin pointedness) but in it, the natural tendency of the mind to move from object to object is to be curbed and still it is focused on an object, which may be a picture, image, symbol, a part of the body, the tip of the nose, or chakra (a spiritual energy center) inside the body. Definitions of dharana are found in many texts. In Goraksha Paddhati (II.52-58) and Yoga Yajnavalkya (VII 1-15), dharana is defined on the basis of the five basic elements in the body such as earth, water, fire, air, and akasha (ether) giving their location and the effects of con