What is samadhi?

If you have no interest in Truth, Self-Realization, Freedom, Peace and completeness beyond reasoning you can stop reading this now.

The word itself can be broken down into the root

“sam” - complete,

“a” - eternal,

“dhi” - inner wisdom.

It is thus a blissful union with the divine. A self-realisation to the eternal consciousness. Liberation from suffering.

In samadhi one transcends beyond or before the awareness of an individual self, time or space because this awareness was there before the individual self and will also be there after. Thus the mind can not comprehend or grasp all samadhi states.

It is a pure and direct experience in conscious existence without the mind (in some samadhi states).

Samadhi is eternal blissfulness or “Sat Chit Ananda”. This translates to Truth consciousness and bliss.

Like a vibratory ocean and we are all drops in that ocean, samadhi merges all those energy drops as undifferentiated and indivisible oneness. This is to say the different vibrations can’t be distinguished from one another. They all merge into a cosmic melody.

There are a lot of different orders or levels of samadhi. Some people call it levels but there is also a misunderstanding in that. Once fully awake there are no levels, but for comprehension purposes, I will describe the different layers of perception awareness goes through to enlightenment or samadhi.

The final ones are very difficult to use language to explain as they are beyond worldly experience, so please understand language here falls short every time. These words are not it but it can point into the correct direction.

It is also very important to understand that I wrote this article from a non dualistic approach. There are a lot of information out there regarding this subject and due to the poor translation the message gets lost. Sanskrit doesn’t have English words to describe things and other words that is closely related is used but it does also alter the understanding. Gavagay theory is at play.

The sources of information I refer to here are from Patanjali’s sutras, Raja yoga, Upanishads and mostly non-duality teachers like Sri Ramana (he achieved Sahaja Nirvikalpa at 16), actualised.org , Parveen Nair etc. I have to give credit here to my favourite author - Santata Gamana.

I share information here that might shed some light on deep breath work or meditation experiences. Please don’t give attention to the ego here because it will turn this information into a goal of achieving the different samadhi’s and labelling levels of yourself and others in comparison. This is not the sentiment of the share at all, but I am not responsible or in any way in control of the way it is received.

The 6 different orders mentioned here are a simplified way from personal verification. Why is this important? The ego and mind is very intelligent. Once the spiritual realm is open, they notice that there is a threat on their existence. They will do everything in their power to preserve their own existence by convincing you how important it is to live from ego and mind. If light is not shed on this, ignorance becomes the default. The ego has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. A few that I have come across are: having mystical spiritual experiences, having nothing happen, feeling absolutely nothing, mind going crazy, inspirational ideas jumping forward. It is important to notice that the mind and ego will do everything they can to delay or stop transcendence progress, because it means they have to dissolve.

The best way they know how is to create distractions. If you are sitting in purvashta or after poise (pure being) about to transcend beyond the mind, a thought or great idea might pop into your field which pulls you back to the actions of the mind along with a thought, “I should write this down before I forget it and take action”

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not labelling it as bad. It simply is. I am mentioning it because I got stuck in striving towards the distractions instead of surrendering into the substratum of awareness which is the only eternal bliss that exist. All the other experiences is temporary in nature and therefor only offers momentary satisfaction. Leaving the search hungry for more!

It can be explained as the dog chasing its own tail. The tail can be anything from, liberation, happiness, moksha, wealth, peace. It is only once the dog stops the chase that he realises the tail he is chasing is a part of itself.

So use this article as information to verify and navigate the spiritual experiences of meditation if you please.

1 Waking state

Mental state - Active

Non-duality - No

Permanent - No

Samprajna - Samadhi (savikalpa) - this is an experience with a seed . An object of concentration, action or something happening like yoga, meditation or life. The state of enlightenment accompanied by reasoning, reflection, bliss and pure being. So the mind, ego and body is still present. In this state of samadhi we are able to think and cognise about our experience, analysing the body and the mind and describing its beauty. Peaceful and quiet while being available to the outside world.

Knowledge based on words and descriptions and other ordinary knowledge based on sense perception. The mind alters between these two. It means “through transformation on an object with the help of words”. This is the state where it becomes easy to discern Truth from that appearing to be real. The mind becomes the object and awareness the subject observing the mind.

2 Dream

Mental state - Active

Non-duality - No

Permanent - No

There is a sense of “I” and “me”.

Vachara: Savichara - this is the verbal thinking aspect, knowledge from reality in energy form is contemplated. The experience can be information and opinion, so evaluation is still important but it abides to blissfully higher ideals.

Vachara: Nirvichara - this phase is home to the intuitive and inspired areas of the higher mental realm. Verbal thinking fails here and can’t keep up anymore. Language itself is not expanded enough to describe the whole picture, only small parts can be translated into verbal energy and symbolism. It is similar to Nirvitarka. Absolute Truth shines through and needs no explanation.

The mind (buddhi) experiences a subtler level of awareness between temporal, casual aspects and spacial aspects.

3 Savikalpa

Mental state - Active

Non-duality - No

Permanent - No

There is no sense of “I” as a person but still as an experiencer.

Sa-Ananda Samadhi - awareness moves beyond the intellect of the mind and the world. Reasoning and reflection dissolves into tranquility. The sattvic (whole) mind is only aware of its own joyful peace.

Sa-Asmita Samadhi - this is the last stage of Samprajna Samadhi. The mind is more purified and its ability to penetrate deeper. This may result in an experience of directly perceiving the ahankara (true inner self)

“Self-evidently-true”

4 Deep sleep/ Unconscious

Mental state - Inactive

Non-duality - Yes

Permanent - No

Asamprajnata Samadhi (Nirvikalpa) - (only a self aware being but no concept or consciousness of being) it could be referred to as the cloud void. Nothing is happening at all. Just the pure silent and seemingly empty awareness. Also referred to as pure potential awareness. The mind is blank and dissolved and the remnant impressions fade away. It can reappear between blissful states and experiences. It is in itself a blissful state without any particularity of bliss. Thus no reason to be blissful. This is when you go deeper inward and further away from the outer world, if there is a stimulus, it won’t affect this state. There is no duality here, so no perceiver, no act of perceiving and nothing perceived.

The enlightened knowledge fades away or dissolves back into pure potential and results in an empty state of awareness. This is difficult to have any word to describe it but can awaken the pure awe of a child staring without looking for an explanation.

Nirvitarka/ nirbija Samadhi - when the mind is dissolved back into its natural emptiness. The memory is deactivated and the minds’ ability to reflect consciousness objectively through itself ceases. The mind no longer analyses or compares. Consciousness is now in a pure perceiving without the mind super imposing stories onto the pure raw experience.

5 Kevala Nirvakalpa

Mental state - Inactive

Non-duality - Yes

Permanent - No

Formless absorption. There is no sense of “I” or “me” but full consciousness of being. Aware of nothing. This is a state of pure bliss and peace where everything is in pure potential. It is experienced through the Anandamaya kasha or bliss body. Cognition, words and concepts are not present nor needed. The experience is clear and needs no explanation which means it is beyond a description too.

It is not permanent, like with deep sleep the ego will arise from it.

Like a bucket of water (mind) that is tied to a rope and submerged in an ocean of water. The other end of the rope (desires/tendencies) will pull the bucket out of the ocean.

6 Sahaja Nirvikalpa

Mental state - Inactive

Non-duality - Yes

Permanent - Yes

Individual awareness merges into universal awareness. Complete and final union with the True and real, formless eternal.

This is the natural formless absorption, true Self-Realisation “state”. There is no “I” or “me” super imposing over pure blissful consciousness. There is no return to the “I” ego consciousness, making this a permanent state.

The individual river merges into the ocean and the water can never be redirected back.

Any meditation, breath work or yoga practice once had the intent to catalyse and deliver one back to Self-Realization. The practice should be used purely as the bridge and not the goal. There is a space where the techniques should be dropped in order to surrender into pure being.

This is why it is important to not get lost in only practicing mechanically. That will only lead you to experience the distractions meant to point you in the True direction.

It is with this realisation that I practice and also teach.

“There is no path to enlightenment but only a fool doesn’t walk it.”

It is not the mind that has to die or be eliminated, it is the realization that You were never the mind to begin with. When ever an enlightenment experience happened, it was never the mind “doing or achieving” it. It was the mind dissolving back into source and You rested into your own True nature (Awareness).

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Till next time…