Samadhi in Yoga (rather than in Buddhism, which the current term "Samadhi" describes)

Samadhi or Super-consciousness ("Nirbikalpa Samadhi", sometimes spelled "Nirvikalpa") is a term used to describe a state of evolutionary progress by relinquishing a thought-identified form of mind, where a person identifies with his or her thought narrative, and shifting to a state of Enlightenment, where thoughts are merely a mental tool. In that state the default subjective experience is that of SILENCE. No unprovoked mental chatter whatsoever.

A Samadhi consciousness is very focused, relaxed, with a subjective feeling of harmony (no inner conflict) and clarity. Less sleep is needed, and both memory and oratory skills greatly improved.

While Jung wrote about the merging of subject and object (the supposed state of harmony) as early as 1943, the modern classic is the #1 NY Times bestseller "The Power of Now ", written by Eckhart Tolle. It is a 200-page description of what it is like to abide in this state. Its sequal is the aptly named "Stillness Speaks".

Some people are born in a state of natural Samadhi or partial Samadhi. Many of these are prodigees. They typically have near-perfect memory and concentration skills, require little sleep, and have somewhat rigid personalities as they have grown up surrounded by people who are less accountable than they are and without the flexibility that is a byproduct of the fuzziness of less-than-perfect memory. Some of these people are among the great minds of our times, and some progress even further to become fully enlightened e.g. the influential Osho.

The way to shift into Samadhi consciousness ("Nirbikalpa Samadhi" or "Nirvikalpa") is to practice Samadhi meditation ("Sabikalpa Samadhi" or "Savikalpa"). In yoga, meditation is seen as progressing in 3 stages:

• Concentration,
• Meditation (deep concentration) and
• Samadhi (deep meditation).

In meditation the EEG reading changes. Its formal definition is: "the breath drastically slows down without the need to compensate for it later by fast breathing, yet it is not a sleep state".

Samadhi is a meditation where instead of meditating on an object, the meditation is done on emptiness, on nothing. It's basically a passive practice: you let the mental chatter calm down, and eventually lose all bodily sensations (!!) and remain pure consciousness, which is an extremely pleasant feeling.

Frequent practice of Samadhi meditation ("Sabikalpa Samadhi" or "Savikalpa") leads to a shift in day-to-day consciousness into the Enlightened state, or "Nirbikalpa Samadhi" / "Nirvikalpa...".

Traditionally it took many years to practice the classic 8-limb system of Patanjali (generally dated 2nd century BC) and reach the 8th stage of [Sabikalpa] Samadhi. Since 1983, however, Samadhi is taught in a 3-week course by the Siddha ("perfected") Samadhi Yoga organization (SSY ) in India (www.ssy.org). It was developed by Guru Rishi Prabhakar, based in Bangalore, India. Westerners generally take the course in Pune, near Mumbai (Bombay). Establishing yourself in the technique supposedly takes a few months in which you meditate for 15 minutes, 3 times a day. Maintaining the state requires progressively infrequent meditation, e.g. after a year you would need to meditate twice a week rather than every day.

Additional evidence that Samadhi can be taught regardless of yogic progress is presented by Zen Master Seung Sahn. In this case the system to get into Samadhi was ongoing repetition of a mantra: "Once one of my students decided to practice with an Indian guru. This guru taught Samadhi practice. So my student got a Mantra, tried it all the time when he wasn't working, and went deeply into Samadhi." (found via Google)

To merge in the Samadhi state without the need for further meditation, the Kundalini needs to be raised. Kundalini awakening practices are detailed in the excellent RECOMMENDED textbook "Theories of the Chakras" by Hiroshi Motoyama. IMPORTANT: if you are in Samadhi it is RELATIVELY EASY to raise the Kundalini. The bulk of the work is meditational procedures, and in Samadhi the mind is a highly trained instrument so these procedures should pose only a moderate challenge. What remains is preparing the body physically through Yoga, as an unprepared body can suffer neaurological damage in the process. The physics of Kundalini were described by the late Itzhak Bentov; an article summarizing his findings can be found in the anthology "Kundalini" by John White, editor.

External links

• Samadhi by Spiritual Glossary