Patanjali, known as the father of Yoga, is credited with authoring the Yoga Sutras, wherein he extensively speaks of the Eight Limbs of Ashtanga Yoga. In a nutshell, the eight limbs serve as the scope for living a holistic life. “Dharana”is known as the 6th limb of Ashtanga Yoga. 

What does Dharana encompass? 

Dharana is described as “focused concentration”; in order to focus on something with utmost determination, the senses withdraw and channel all the attention to a particular point of concentration. Attaining Dharana is no easy task, however once achieved, it empowers us to deal with all the distractions of life, enabling our concentration power. 

Imbibing the Dharana Way of Life 

Dharana is a feeling of ease and relaxation, where your inner core is in tandem with its surroundings. Dharana Wellness Centre, located within the lush green 300+ acre Sahyadris, is a sanctuary for the body, mind and spirit, helping you achieve long-term wellbeing through tailor-made wellness programmes that are goal oriented and sustainable so you can find a sense of balance.

Pillars of Dharana

To achieve health and wellness goals, an integrative, holistic understanding is required. At Dharana, our team approaches each day with an awareness of health and ourselves. It is imperative for well-being to be sustainable. Dharana’s 5 core pillars are individually important and come together.  

• Preventive Medicine: the success of a wellness programme lies in its in-depth assessments and correct diagnosis. At our wellness retreat, a thorough evaluation is conducted to understand if any health anomalies may exist or arise due to genetics, habits or due imbalance in Ayurvedic doshas. The Dharana approach uses traditional methods like Ayurveda, Naturopathy and combines them with modern evaluation methods, such as gene testing, etc to design recommendations meant only for you, based on your goals. 
• Exercise Physiology: to help you understand your biological makeup, our experts assess your current level of fitness and goal, do a thorough assessment of your body composition and determine a suited programme to rehabilitate and maintain your health and wellness. Our belief resides in natural experience; we encourage embracing our surroundings through excursions, nature trails, hikes, treks and more. 
• Nutrition & Dietetics: Dharana’s food philosophy has firm roots in age old Ayurveda traditions, believing in the farm-to-table approach, where guests are encouraged to pick farm-fresh produce from the organic garden, which is further cooked using slow-cooking techniques to preserve all nutritional benefits. 
• Conflict Resolution: A crucial pillar of your wellness journey, we gauge your emotional responses, sleep patterns, etc. The Dharana approach uses meditation, conscious relaxation, being in nature and other techniques to enhance your physical, mental clarity and aid your spiritual development.
• Spiritual Well-being: This Dharana pillar is involved in helping you realise the purpose of your life, through various discourses that have a heavy emphasis on Yoga, Pranayama and Meditation, to give you the necessary calmness, bringing balance to your physical, mental and emotional being. 

Each one of Dharana’s wellness programmes have these pillars at the core of it, with a single goal of aiding people to find a sense of balance and achieve holistic wellness.