section_path: Meditation traditions/Origins
section_name: Origins
paragraph_text: Origins
  
  The history of meditation is intimately bound up with the religious context within which it was practiced. Rossano suggested that the emergence of the capacity for focused attention, an element of many methods of meditation, may have contributed to the latest phases of human biological evolution. Some of the earliest references to meditation, as well as proto- Samkhya, are found in the Upanishads of India. According to Wynne, the earliest clear references to meditation are in the middle Upanishads and the Mahabharata (including the Bhagavad Gita). According to Gavin Flood, the earlier Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is describing meditation when it states that "Having become calm and concentrated, one perceives the self (Ātman) within oneself" (BU 4.4.23).