classes ::: state, power, capacity, Jnana Yoga, Raja Yoga, Sanskrit,
children :::
branches ::: Samadhi

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object:Samadhi
class:state
class:power
class:capacity
class:Jnana Yoga
class:Raja Yoga
datecreated:2020-08-19


language class:Sanskrit

see also :::

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now begins generated list of local instances, definitions, quotes, instances in chapters, wordnet info if available and instances among weblinks


OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
Letters_On_Yoga
Letters_On_Yoga_III
Liber_157_-_The_Tao_Teh_King
Liber_ABA
Mind_-_Its_Mysteries_and_Control
Patanjali_Yoga_Sutras
Questions_And_Answers_1950-1951
Raja-Yoga
Sayings_of_Sri_Ramakrishna_(toc)
The_Blue_Cliff_Records
The_Essential_Songs_of_Milarepa
The_Integral_Yoga
The_Study_and_Practice_of_Yoga
The_Synthesis_Of_Yoga
The_Yoga_Sutras
Words_Of_The_Mother_I

IN CHAPTERS TITLE
1.01_-_SAMADHI_PADA
1.06_-_Dhyana_and_Samadhi
1.07_-_Samadhi
1951-01-27_-_Sleep_-_desires_-_repression_-_the_subconscient._Dreams_-_the_super-conscient_-_solving_problems._Ladder_of_being_-_samadhi._Phases_of_sleep_-_silence,_true_rest._Vital_body_and_illness.
1956-08-22_-_The_heaven_of_the_liberated_mind_-_Trance_or_samadhi_-_Occult_discipline_for_leaving_consecutive_bodies_-_To_be_greater_than_ones_experience_-_Total_self-giving_to_the_Grace_-_The_truth_of_the_being_-_Unique_relation_with_the_Supreme
2.26_-_Samadhi

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
0.00_-_INTRODUCTION
0.00_-_The_Book_of_Lies_Text
0.04_-_The_Systems_of_Yoga
0.05_-_The_Synthesis_of_the_Systems
01.04_-_The_Poetry_in_the_Making
01.13_-_T._S._Eliot:_Four_Quartets
0.12_-_Letters_to_a_Student
0_1958_12_-_Floor_1,_young_girl,_we_shall_kill_the_young_princess_-_black_tent
0_1959-04-07
0_1960-05-24_-_supramental_flood
0_1960-12-31
0_1961-01-07
0_1961-01-22
0_1961-04-18
0_1961-05-19
0_1961-06-24
0_1961-11-07
0_1962-07-07
0_1962-08-18
0_1962-12-04
0_1963-07-20
0_1964-02-22
0_1965-06-23
0_1965-09-25
0_1966-01-26
0_1966-05-14
0_1967-04-27
0_1968-02-07
0_1968-03-20
0_1968-04-27
0_1968-07-17
0_1968-11-02
0_1968-11-06
0_1969-03-12
0_1969-08-20
0_1969-10-25
0_1970-07-18
0_1970-09-12
0_1972-04-05
0_1972-08-16
02.06_-_The_Integral_Yoga_and_Other_Yogas
08.29_-_Meditation_and_Wakefulness
10.01_-_A_Dream
10.04_-_Lord_of_Time
1.00_-_Preliminary_Remarks
1.01_-_Hatha_Yoga
1.01_-_MASTER_AND_DISCIPLE
1.01_-_SAMADHI_PADA
1.02_-_Prana
1.02_-_SADHANA_PADA
1.02_-_The_Eternal_Law
1.035_-_The_Recitation_of_Mantra
1.03_-_Invocation_of_Tara
1.03_-_The_House_Of_The_Lord
1.03_-_The_Human_Disciple
1.03_-_To_Layman_Ishii
1.03_-_YIBHOOTI_PADA
1.04_-_GOD_IN_THE_WORLD
1.04_-_KAI_VALYA_PADA
1.04_-_The_Gods_of_the_Veda
1.04_-_Wake-Up_Sermon
1.05_-_Pratyahara_and_Dharana
1.05_-_The_Universe__The_0_=_2_Equation
1.06_-_Dhyana
1.06_-_Dhyana_and_Samadhi
1.06_-_Raja_Yoga
1.075_-_Self-Control,_Study_and_Devotion_to_God
1.078_-_Kumbhaka_and_Concentration_of_Mind
1.07_-_A_Song_of_Longing_for_Tara,_the_Infallible
1.07_-_Note_on_the_word_Go
1.07_-_Raja-Yoga_in_Brief
1.07_-_Samadhi
1.081_-_The_Application_of_Pratyahara
1.089_-_The_Levels_of_Concentration
1.08_-_Adhyatma_Yoga
1.08a_-_The_Ladder
1.08_-_Summary
1.08_-_The_Depths_of_the_Divine
1.094_-_Understanding_the_Structure_of_Things
1.096_-_Powers_that_Accrue_in_the_Practice
1.097_-_Sublimation_of_Object-Consciousness
1.099_-_The_Entry_of_the_Eternal_into_the_Individual
1.09_-_Concentration_-_Its_Spiritual_Uses
1.09_-_Kundalini_Yoga
1.1.02_-_The_Aim_of_the_Integral_Yoga
1.107_-_The_Bestowal_of_a_Divine_Gift
1.10_-_Concentration_-_Its_Practice
1.10_-_The_Yoga_of_the_Intelligent_Will
1.11_-_Powers
1.11_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_AT_DAKSHINEWAR
1.12_-_God_Departs
1.12_-_Independence
1.12_-_The_Significance_of_Sacrifice
1.12_-_The_Superconscient
1.13_-_Conclusion_-_He_is_here
1.1.3_-_Mental_Difficulties_and_the_Need_of_Quietude
1.13_-_SALVATION,_DELIVERANCE,_ENLIGHTENMENT
1.19_-_Life
1.200-1.224_Talks
1.240_-_1.300_Talks
1.240_-_Talks_2
1.25_-_Fascinations,_Invisibility,_Levitation,_Transmutations,_Kinks_in_Time
1.25_-_SPIRITUAL_EXERCISES
1.300_-_1.400_Talks
1.400_-_1.450_Talks
1.4.03_-_The_Guru
1.42_-_This_Self_Introversion
1.439
1.450_-_1.500_Talks
1.550_-_1.600_Talks
1.63_-_Fear,_a_Bad_Astral_Vision
1951-01-27_-_Sleep_-_desires_-_repression_-_the_subconscient._Dreams_-_the_super-conscient_-_solving_problems._Ladder_of_being_-_samadhi._Phases_of_sleep_-_silence,_true_rest._Vital_body_and_illness.
1951-04-21_-_Sri_Aurobindos_letter_on_conditions_for_doing_yoga_-_Aspiration,_tapasya,_surrender_-_The_lower_vital_-_old_habits_-_obsession_-_Sri_Aurobindo_on_choice_and_the_double_life_-_The_old_fiasco_-_inner_realisation_and_outer_change
1953-06-17
1954-12-15_-_Many_witnesses_inside_oneself_-_Children_in_the_Ashram_-_Trance_and_the_waking_consciousness_-_Ascetic_methods_-_Education,_spontaneous_effort_-_Spiritual_experience
1956-08-22_-_The_heaven_of_the_liberated_mind_-_Trance_or_samadhi_-_Occult_discipline_for_leaving_consecutive_bodies_-_To_be_greater_than_ones_experience_-_Total_self-giving_to_the_Grace_-_The_truth_of_the_being_-_Unique_relation_with_the_Supreme
1957-01-02_-_Can_one_go_out_of_time_and_space?_-_Not_a_crucified_but_a_glorified_body_-_Individual_effort_and_the_new_force
1958-08-13_-_Profit_by_staying_in_the_Ashram_-_What_Sri_Aurobindo_has_come_to_tell_us_-_Finding_the_Divine
1965_09_25
1.hcyc_-_It_is_clearly_seen_(from_The_Song_of_Enlightenment)
1.he_-_Hakuins_Song_of_Zazen
1.he_-_The_Form_of_the_Formless_(from_Hakuins_Song_of_Zazen)
1.jm_-_Response_to_a_Logician
1.jm_-_The_Song_of_Food_and_Dwelling
1.srh_-_The_Royal_Song_of_Saraha_(Dohakosa)
1.sv_-_In_dense_darkness,_O_Mother
2.01_-_On_Books
2.01_-_The_Object_of_Knowledge
2.02_-_On_Letters
2.02_-_The_Ishavasyopanishad_with_a_commentary_in_English
2.03_-_Karmayogin__A_Commentary_on_the_Isha_Upanishad
2.03_-_On_Medicine
2.04_-_Concentration
2.06_-_The_Synthesis_of_the_Disciplines_of_Knowledge
2.06_-_The_Wand
2.08_-_The_Sword
2.09_-_On_Sadhana
2.09_-_The_Pantacle
2.09_-_The_Release_from_the_Ego
2.1.01_-_The_Central_Process_of_the_Sadhana
2.1.02_-_Classification_of_the_Parts_of_the_Being
2.1.02_-_Nature_The_World-Manifestation
2.12_-_On_Miracles
2.13_-_The_Difficulties_of_the_Mental_Being
2.17_-_December_1938
2.18_-_January_1939
2.19_-_The_Planes_of_Our_Existence
2.2.02_-_Becoming_Conscious_in_Work
2.21_-_1940
2.22_-_THE_MASTER_AT_COSSIPORE
2.23_-_THE_MASTER_AND_BUDDHA
2.25_-_AFTER_THE_PASSING_AWAY
2.25_-_List_of_Topics_in_Each_Talk
2.26_-_Samadhi
2.27_-_Hathayoga
2.28_-_Rajayoga
2.3.01_-_Concentration_and_Meditation
2.3.03_-_The_Overmind
2.3.07_-_The_Mother_in_Visions,_Dreams_and_Experiences
3.02_-_The_Motives_of_Devotion
3.04_-_The_Way_of_Devotion
3.1.01_-_Distinctive_Features_of_the_Integral_Yoga
31.01_-_The_Heart_of_Bengal
31.02_-_The_Mother-_Worship_of_the_Bengalis
31.04_-_Sri_Ramakrishna
31_Hymns_to_the_Star_Goddess
3.2.01_-_The_Newness_of_the_Integral_Yoga
3.2.03_-_Jainism_and_Buddhism
3.2.04_-_Sankhya_and_Yoga
3.2.2_-_Sleep
3.8.1.03_-_Meditation
3_-_Commentaries_and_Annotated_Translations
4.1.1.04_-_Foundations_of_the_Sadhana
4.16_-_The_Divine_Shakti
4.2.1.03_-_The_Psychic_Deep_Within
4.24_-_The_supramental_Sense
4.25_-_Towards_the_supramental_Time_Vision
4.4.3.04_-_The_Order_of_Descent_into_the_Being
4.4.4.05_-_The_Descent_of_Force_or_Power
6.09_-_THE_THIRD_STAGE_-_THE_UNUS_MUNDUS
6.0_-_Conscious,_Unconscious,_and_Individuation
9.99_-_Glossary
Blazing_P3_-_Explore_the_Stages_of_Postconventional_Consciousness
BOOK_II._--_PART_II._THE_ARCHAIC_SYMBOLISM_OF_THE_WORLD-RELIGIONS
BOOK_I._--_PART_I._COSMIC_EVOLUTION
BOOK_I._--_PART_III._SCIENCE_AND_THE_SECRET_DOCTRINE_CONTRASTED
Conversations_with_Sri_Aurobindo
Diamond_Sutra_1
Liber_111_-_The_Book_of_Wisdom_-_LIBER_ALEPH_VEL_CXI
Liber_71_-_The_Voice_of_the_Silence_-_The_Two_Paths_-_The_Seven_Portals
LUX.01_-_GNOSIS
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Sayings_of_Sri_Ramakrishna_(text)
Talks_001-025
Talks_026-050
Talks_051-075
Talks_076-099
Talks_100-125
Talks_125-150
Talks_151-175
Talks_176-200
Talks_225-239
Talks_500-550
Talks_600-652
Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_1
The_Act_of_Creation_text
The_Anapanasati_Sutta__A_Practical_Guide_to_Mindfullness_of_Breathing_and_Tranquil_Wisdom_Meditation
The_Five,_Ranks_of_The_Apparent_and_the_Real
The_Riddle_of_this_World

PRIMARY CLASS

capacity
Jnana_Yoga
power
Raja_Yoga
state
SIMILAR TITLES
Samadhi

DEFINITIONS


TERMS STARTING WITH

Samadhi ::: A certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi. Not merely a state withdrawn from all consciousness of the outward, withdrawn even from all consciousness of the inward into that which exists beyond both whether as seed of both or transcendent even of their seed-state; but a settled existence in the One and Infinite, united and identified with it, and this status to remain whether we abide in the waking condition in which we are conscious of the forms of things or we withdraw into the inward activity which dwells in the play of the principles of things, the play of their names and typal forms or we soar to the condition of static inwardness where we arrive at the principles themselves and at the principle of all principles, the seed of name and form.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 321


Samadhi and norma! sleep, between the dream*state of Yoga and the physical state of dream. The latter belongs to the physical mind ; in the former the mind proper and subtle is at work liberated from the immixture of the physical mentality. The dreams of the physical mind are an incoherent jumble made up partly of responses to vague touches from the physical world round which the lower mind*faculttes disconnected from the will and reason, the buddhi, weave a web of wandering phantasy, partly of disordered associations from the brain>memory, partly of refieclions from the soul travelling on the mental plane, reflec- tions which arc, ordinarily, received without intelligence or co- ordination, wildly distorted in the reception and mixed up confusedly with the other dream elements, with brain-memories and fantastic responses to any sensory touch from the physical world. In the Yogic dream-state, on the other hand, the mind is in clear possession of itself, though not of the physical world, works coherently and is able to use either its ordinary will and intelligence with a concentrated power or else the higher will and intelligence of the more exalted planes of mind. It withdraws from experience of the outer world, it puts its seals upon the physical senses and their doors of conununicatinn with maJerJal things ; but everything that is proper to itself, thought, reasoning, reflection, vision, it can continue to execute with an increased purity and power of sovereign concentration free from the dis- tractions and unsteadiness of the waking mind. It can use too its will and produce upon itself or upon its environment mental, moral and even physical effects which may continue and have

Samadhindriya (Sanskrit) Samādhīndriya The root of meditation, the organ of meditation; “the fourth of the five roots called Pancha Indriyani, which are said in esoteric philosophy to be the agents in producing a highly moral life, leading to sanctity and liberation; when these are reached, the two spiritual roots lying latent in the body (Atma and Buddhi) will send out shoots and blossom. Samadhindriya is the organ of ecstatic meditation in Raj-yoga practices” (TG 286).

Samadhi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths according as it draws farther and farther away from the normal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or call back the soul that has receded into them; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the system owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a time cannot return; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had inhabited it. Finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary phenomena of death, by an act of will,1 or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current (udana), opening for it a way through the mystic brahmarandhra in the head. By departure from life in the state of Samadhi he attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 520-21


Samadhi(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word formed of sam, meaning "with" or "together"; a, meaning "towards"; andthe verbal root dha, signifying "to place," or "to bring"; hence samadhi, meaning "to direct towards,"generally signifies to combine the faculties of the mind with a direction towards an object. Hence, intensecontemplation or profound meditation, with the consciousness directed to the spiritual. It is the highestform of self-possession, in the sense of collecting all the faculties of the constitution towards reachingunion or quasi-union, long or short in time as the case may be, with the divine-spiritual. One whopossesses and is accustomed to use this power has complete, absolute control over all his faculties, andis, therefore, said to be "completely self- possessed." It is the highest state of yoga or "union."Samadhi, therefore, is a word of exceedingly mystical and profound significance implying the completeabstraction of the percipient consciousness from all worldly or exterior or even mental concerns orattributes, and its absorption into or, perhaps better, its becoming the pure unadulterate, undilutesuperconsciousness of the god within. In other words, samadhi is self-conscious union with the spiritualmonad of the human constitution. Samadhi is the eighth or final stage of genuine occult yoga, and can beattained at any time by the initiate without conscious recourse to the other phases or practices of yogaenumerated in Oriental works, and which other and inferior practices are often misleading, in some casesdistinctly injurious, and at the best mere props or aids in the attaining of complete mental abstractionfrom worldly concerns.The eight stages of yoga usually enumerated are the following: (1) yama, signifying "restraint" or"forbearance"; (2) niyama, religious observances of various kinds, such as watchings or fastings,prayings, penances, etc.; (3) asana (q.v.), postures of various kinds; (4) pranayama, various methods ofregulating the breath; (5) pratyahara, a word signifying "withdrawal," but technically and esoterically the"withdrawal" of the consciousness from sensual or sensuous concerns, or from external objects; (6)dharana (q.v.), firmness or steadiness or resolution in holding the mind set or concentrated on a topic orobject of thought, mental concentration; (7) dhyana (q.v.), abstract contemplation or meditation whenfreed from exterior distractions; and finally, (8) samadhi, complete collection of the consciousness and ofits faculties into oneness or union with the monadic essence.It may be observed, and should be carefully taken note of by the student, that when the initiate hasattained samadhi he becomes practically omniscient for the solar universe in which he dwells, becausehis consciousness is functioning at the time in the spiritual-causal worlds. All knowledge is then to himlike an open page because he is self-consciously conscious, to use a rather awkward phrase, of nature'sinner and spiritual realms, the reason being that his consciousness has become kosmic in its reaches.

Samadhi: Sanskrit for putting together. Profound meditation, absorption in the spirit. The final stage in the practice of Yoga, in which the individual becomes one with the object of meditation, thus attaining a condition of superconsciousness and unqualified blissfulness, which is called moksha.

Samadhi (Sanskrit) Samādhi [from sam with, together + ā towards + the verbal root dhā to place, bring] To direct towards; to combine the mental faculties towards an object. Self-consciousness union with the spiritual monad by intense and profound spiritual contemplation or meditation. It implies “the complete abstraction of the percipient consciousness from all worldly, or exterior, or even mental concerns or attributes, and its . . . becoming the pure unadulterate, undilute super-consciousness of the god within. . . . Samadhi is the eighth or final stage of genuine occult Yoga, and can be attained at any time by the initiate without conscious recourse to the other phases or practices of Yoga enumerated in Oriental works, and which other and inferior practices are often misleading, in some cases distinctly injurious, and at the best mere props or aids in the attaining of complete mental abstraction from worldly concerns” (OG 150-1). The seeker on attaining samadhi becomes practically omniscient for his solar universe because his consciousness is functioning in the cosmic spiritual and causal worlds.

Samadhi (S) Deep and abstract meditation, highest condition of being that brings peace and balance. Comparable to the Buddhist term Nirwana and the sufi term Hahut

Samadhi ::: See Absorption Concentration.

Samadhi: (Skr.) The final stage in the practice of Yoga (q.v.) according to the Yogasutras (q.v.) in which individuality is given up while merging with the object of meditation; thus producing a state of unqualified blissfulness and unperturbed consciousness, which is moksa (q.v.). -- K.F.L.

Samadhi (Skt.): Lit. Together with (sam) the Lord (adhi). There are various degrees of

Samadhi, the highest of which is Sahaja Samadhi or Thought-free Consciousness. This differs from otherforms of Samadhi in that it is not a trance condition at all but the natural state of pure Self-realization-the aim of all spiritual culture, Eastern and Western.

Samadhi: The state of superconsciousness where Absoluteness is experienced attended with all-knowledge and joy; Oneness; here the mind becomes identified with the object of meditation; the meditator and the meditated, thinker and thought become one in perfect absorption of the mind.

samadhi (antardrishta jagrat samadhi) ::: same as . s.t.a jagrat antardr.s.t.a jagrat. antardrsta antardr

samadhi (antardrishta samadhi) ::: same as antardr.s.t.a . s.t.a samadhi ..20 jagrat.

samadhi ::: a type of samadhi in which the mind is open to all kinds of inner experiences.

samadhi ::: a type of samadhi in which the mind is withdrawn into itself, but goes on thinking and reasoning.

samadhi (avichara samadhi) ::: a type of samadhi in which the mind ceases to judge and perceive.

samadhi ::: concentration; trance; the last member of the vijñana samadhi catus.t.aya: the placing of the consciousness in particular conditions that give it access to larger fields of experience, so that "one can become aware of things in this world outside our ordinary range or go into other worlds or other planes of existence". The term samadhi includes three principal states corresponding to those of waking (jagrat), dream (svapna) and deep sleep (sus.upti), but it is applied especially to states of consciousness "in which the mind is withdrawn from outward things" and is often equivalent to svapnasamadhi

samadhi (sadarsha samadhi) ::: samadhi with inner vision on the plane of vijñana. sad atman

samadhi ::: samadhi in the waking state, "when in the waking consciousness, we are able to concentrate and become aware of things ... beyond our [normal] consciousness". This has two forms, antardarsi(inward-looking) and bahirdarsi (outward-looking), in which images are seen "with the bodily eyes closed or open, projected on or into a physical object or medium or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical ether revealing itself through this grosser physical atmosphere; seen through the physical eyes themselves as a secondary instrument and as if under the conditions of the physical vision or by the psychical vision alone and independently of the relations of our ordinary sight to space". jjagrat agrat suksmavisaya

samadhi ::: samadhi with cessation of variety of inner experience..

samadhi ::: samadhi with intuitive discrimination, a higher form of savitarka samadhi.

samadhi ::: samadhi with thought, sight and other kinds of experience on the plane of vijñana

samadhi ::: same as savijñana samadhi.

samadhi (savichara samadhi) ::: a type of samadhi "in which the mind does not reason logically but judges and perceives". savij ñana

SAMADHI (Skt contemplation). The highest stage in esoteric meditation, in which consciousness merges with the object of meditation.

True samadhi requires in the first place the ability to centre the monad-the self in the innermost crown chakra. In genuine samadhi the organism is fully active, directed by the lowest triad, while the monad, centred in one of the three units of the second triad, is active elsewhere, centred in one of the three worlds of the triad. K 7.11.11


samadhistha ::: absorbed in samadhi.

samadhistha ::: arrived at the essential samadhi and settled in it.

samadhi (sushupta samadhi) ::: the state of profound samadhi . upta samadhi that is compared to dreamless sleep. It is not an unconscious state, but "the Yogic sleep of the mind with wakefulness of the vijnana", which "is the gate of union with the supreme state of Sachchidananda". sus susupta-svapna

samadhi (sushupta swapna samadhi) ::: same as su. upta svapna samadhi s.upta-svapna.

samadhi ::: "trance in which there is no formation or movement of the consciousness", a kind of samadhi "in which all the lower organs are stopped and there is only the superconscious experience of the Brahman".

samadhi. ::: transcendental awareness; the quiet state of blissful awareness; oneness; union with Brahman; the goal of all yogic practice, which is attained when the yogi constantly sees the supreme Self in his Heart; a direct but temporary absorption in the Self in which there is only the feeling "I am" and no thoughts; the state of superconsciousness where Reality is experienced attended with all-knowledge and joy &

samadhi ::: Yogic trance (in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness); [in the Gita]: calm, desireless, griefless fixity of the buddhi in self-poise and self-knowledge. ::: samadhih [nominative]


TERMS ANYWHERE

6. dharana, 7. dhyana, and 8. samadhi&

AbhidhammAvatAra. In PAli, "Introduction to Abhidhamma"; a primer of PAli ABHIDHAMMA attributed to BUDDHADATTA (c. fifth century CE), who is said to have been contemporaneous with the premier PAli scholiast BUDDHAGHOSA; some legends go so far as to suggest that the two ABHIDHAMMIKAS might even have met. The book was written in south India and is the oldest of the noncanonical PAli works on abhidhamma. It offers a systematic scholastic outline of abhidhamma, divided into twenty-four chapters called niddesas (S. nirdesa; "expositions"), and displays many affinities with Buddhaghosa's VISUDDHIMAGGA. These chapters include coverage of the mind (CITTA) and mental concomitants (CETASIKA), the various types of concentration (SAMADHI), the types of knowledge (JNANA) associated with enlightenment, and the process of purification (visuddhi, S. VIsUDDHI). The work is written in a mixture of prose and verse.

AbhidharmakosabhAsya. (T. Chos mngon pa'i mdzod kyi bshad pa; C. Apidamo jushe lun; J. Abidatsuma kusharon; K. Abidalma kusa non 阿毘達磨倶舎論). In Sanskrit, "A Treasury of ABHIDHARMA, with Commentary"; an influential scholastic treatise attributed to VASUBANDHU (c. fourth or fifth century CE). The AbhidharmakosabhAsya consists of two texts: the root text of the Abhidharmakosa, composed in verse (kArikA), and its prose autocommentary (bhAsya); this dual verse-prose structure comes to be emblematic of later SARVASTIVADA abhidharma literature. As the title suggests, the work is mainly concerned with abhidharma theory as it was explicated in the ABHIDHARMAMAHAVIBHAsA, the principal scholastic treatise of the VAIBHAsIKAABHIDHARMIKAs in the SarvAstivAda school. In comparison to the MahAvibhAsA, however, the AbhidharmakosabhAsya presents a more systematic overview of SarvAstivAda positions. At various points in his expositions, Vasubandhu criticizes the SarvAstivAda doctrine from the standpoint of the more progressive SAUTRANTIKA offshoot of the SarvAstivAda school, which elicited a spirited response from later SarvAstivAda-VaibhAsika scholars, such as SAMGHABHADRA in his *NYAYANUSARA. The AbhidharmakosabhAsya has thus served as an invaluable tool in the study of the history of the later MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS. The Sanskrit texts of both the kArikA and the bhAsya were lost for centuries before being rediscovered in Tibet in 1934 and 1936, respectively. Two Chinese translations, by XUANZANG and PARAMARTHA, and one Tibetan translation of the work are extant. The Kosa is primarily concerned with a detailed elucidation of the polysemous term DHARMA, the causes (HETU) and conditions (PRATYAYA) that lead to continued rebirth in SAMSARA, and the soteriological stages of the path (MARGA) leading to enlightenment. The treatise is divided into eight major chapters, called kosasthAnas. (1) DhAtunirdesa, "Exposition on the Elements," divides dharmas into various categories, such as tainted (SASRAVA) and untainted (ANASRAVA), or compounded (SAMSKṚTA) and uncompounded (ASAMSKṚTA), and discusses the standard Buddhist classifications of the five aggregates (SKANDHA), twelve sense fields (AYATANA), and eighteen elements (DHATU). This chapter also includes extensive discussion of the theory of the four great elements (MAHABHuTA) that constitute materiality (RuPA) and the Buddhist theory of atoms or particles (PARAMAnU). (2) Indriyanirdesa, "Exposition on the Faculties," discusses a fivefold classification of dharmas into materiality (rupa), thought (CITTA), mental concomitants (CAITTA), forces dissociated from thought (CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKARA), and the uncompounded (ASAMSKṚTA). This chapter also has extensive discussions of the six causes (HETU), the four conditions (PRATYAYA), and the five effects or fruitions (PHALA). (3) Lokanirdesa, "Exposition on the Cosmos," describes the formation and structure of a world system (LOKA), the different types of sentient beings, the various levels of existence, and the principle of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA) that governs the process of rebirth, which is discussed here in connection with the three time periods (TRIKALA) of past, present, and future. (4) Karmanirdesa, "Exposition on Action," discusses the different types of action (KARMAN), including the peculiar type of action associated with unmanifest materiality (AVIJNAPTIRuPA). The ten wholesome and unwholesome "paths of action" (KUsALA-KARMAPATHA and AKUsALA-KARMAPATHA) also receive a lengthy description. (5) Anusayanirdesa, "Exposition on the Proclivities," treats the ninety-eight types of ANUsAYA in relation to their sources and qualities and the relationship between the anusayas and other categories of unwholesome qualities, such as afflictions (KLEsA), contaminants (ASRAVA), floods (OGHA), and yokes (yoga). (6) MArgapudgalanirdesa, "Exposition on the Path and the [Noble] Persons," outlines how either insight into the four noble truths and carefully following a series of soteriological steps can remove defilements and transform the ordinary person into one of the noble persons (ARYAPUDGALA). (7) JNAnanirdesa, "Exposition on Knowledge," offers a detailed account of the ten types of knowledge and the distinctive attributes of noble persons and buddhas. (8) SamApattinirdesa, "Exposition on Attainment," discusses different categories of concentration (SAMADHI) and the attainments (SAMAPATTI) that result from their perfection. (9) Appended to this main body is a ninth section, an independent treatise titled the Pudgalanirdesa, "Exposition of the Notion of a Person." Here, Vasubandhu offers a detailed critique of the theory of the self, scrutinizing both the Buddhist PUDGALAVADA/VATSĪPUTRĪYA "heresy" of the inexpressible (avAcya) "person" (PUDGALA) being conventionally real and Brahmanical theories of a perduring soul (ATMAN). Numerous commentaries to the Kosa, such as those composed by VASUMITRA, YAsOMITRA, STHIRAMATI, and Purnavardhana, attest to its continuing influence in Indian Buddhist thought. The Kosa was also the object of vigorous study in the scholastic traditions of East Asia and Tibet, which produced many indigenous commentaries on the text and its doctrinal positions.

A certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi. Not merely a state withdrawn from all consciousness of the outward, withdrawn even from all consciousness of the inward into that which exists beyond both whether as seed of both or transcendent even of their seed-state; but a settled existence in the One and Infinite, united and identified with it, and this status to remain whether we abide in the waking condition in which we are conscious of the forms of things or we withdraw into the inward activity which dwells in the play of the principles of things, the play of their names and typal forms or we soar to the condition of static inwardness where we arrive at the principles themselves and at the principle of all principles, the seed of name and form.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 321


ad.ha-supta svapna (gadha-supta swapna) ::: svapnasamadhi in profound sleep; the deepest sus.upta-svapna.

adhigamadharma. (T. rtogs pa'i chos; C. zhengfa; J. shoho; K. chŭngbop 證法). In Sanskrit, "realized dharma"; one of the two divisions of the dharma or teaching of the Buddha, together with the "scriptural dharma" (AGAMADHARMA). The adhigamadharma is the practice of the dharma, often identified in this context as the training in higher morality (ADHIsĪLAsIKsA), the training in higher meditation (ADHISAMADHIsIKsA), and the training in higher wisdom (ADHIPRAJNAsIKsA), which leads to direct realization (ADHIGAMA), rather than mere conceptual understanding. It is also identified with the truths of cessation and path within the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. See also AGAMA; AGAMADHARMA.

adhisamAdhisiksA. (T. lhag pa'i ting nge 'dzin gyi bslab pa; C. zengshangding xue; J. zojojogaku; K. chŭngsangjong hak 增上定學). In Sanskrit, "training in higher meditation"; the second of the three trainings (TRIsIKsA) required to achieve enlightenment, said to be set forth primarily in the SuTRA basket of the TRIPItAKA. AdhisamAdhisiksA is primarily associated with the last three constituents of the eightfold path (ARYAstAnGAMARGA), viz., right effort (SAMYAGVYAYAMA), right mindfulness (SAMYAKSMṚTI), and right concentration (SAMYAKSAMADHI).

adhi ::: simultaneous experience of sus.upta samadhi, svapnasamadhi and jagrat samadhi, the three states of samadhi being superimposed so that the consciousness "in sushupta perceives below it the activities of the swapna & perceives also what is happening in the jagrat".

adhi ::: simultaneous experience of two states of samadhi, especially svapnasamadhi and jagrat samadhi, so that one is "aware in the dream-trance of the outer physical world through the subtle senses which belong to the subtle body".

adhi ::: the simultaneous experience of different states of samadhi, in the form of double samadhi or triple samadhi.

Advaita-avastharupa-samadhi: Nirvikalpa Samadhi of Advaitins where there is no Brahmakara Vritti. [This is the highest superconscious state in which there is no triad (knowledge, knower and known), but One alone exists in Its own state.]

Agni Dhatu Samadhi (Sanskrit) Agni Dhātu Samādhi A type of yogic contemplation where kundalini is excited and “the infinitude appears as one sheet of fire.” (TG 10)

agrat (antardarshi jagrat) ::: jagrat samadhi of the inwardlooking (antardarsi) type, in which images or other objects of subtle sensory experience are perceived internally in a subtle ether such as the cittakasa or cidakasa, usually with the eyes closed. antardarsi antardarsi rupa

agrat (antardrishta jagrat) ::: samadhi in the waking state . s.t.a jjagrat in which images, etc., are perceived internally; same as antardarsi jagrat. antardr antardrsta jagrat samadhi

agrat (bahirdarshi jagrat) ::: jagrat samadhi of the outward-looking (bahirdarsi) type, in which images or other objects of subtle sensory experience are perceived as if outside oneself. bahirdarsi bahirdarsi rupa

agrat (sukshmavishaya jagrat) ::: samadhi in the waking state in which subtle objects (sūks.ma vis.ayas) are perceived.

Akankheyyasutta. (C. Yuan jing; J. Gangyo; K. Won kyong 願經). In PAli, "Discourse on What One May Wish," the sixth sutta in the MAJJHIMANIKAYA (a separate SARVASTIVADA recension appears as SuTRA no. 105 in the Chinese translation of the MADHYAMAGAMA, and a recension of uncertain affiliation in the Chinese translation of the EKOTTARAGAMA); preached by the Buddha to a group of disciples in the JETAVANA grove in the town of sRAVASTĪ. The Buddha describes how a monk who wishes for all good things to come to himself, his fellow monks, and his lay supporters should restrain his sense faculties by seeing danger (ADĪNAVA) in the slightest fault and by abiding by the dictates of the disciplinary codes (PRATIMOKsA). This restraint will allow him to develop morality (sĪLA), meditative concentration (SAMADHI), and liberating wisdom (PRAJNA), leading to the destruction of the contaminants (ASRAVAKsAYA).

AkAsAnantyAyatana. (P. AkAsAnaNcAyatana; T. nam mkha' mtha' yas skye mched; C. kong wubian chu; J. kumuhenjo; K. kong mubyon ch'o 空無邊處). In Sanskrit, "sphere of infinite space"; the first and lowest (in ascending order) of the four levels of the immaterial realm (ARuPYADHATU) and the first of the four immaterial absorptions (DHYANA). It is a realm of rebirth as well as a meditative state that is entirely immaterial (viz., there is no physical [RuPA] component to existence) in which the mind comes to an awareness of unlimited pervasive space (AKAsA) without the existence of material objects. Beings reborn in this realm are thought to live as long as forty thousand eons (KALPAS). However, as a state of being that is still subject to rebirth, even the realm of infinite space remains part of SAMSARA. Like the other levels of the realm of subtle materiality (RuPADHATU) and the immaterial realm, one is reborn in this state by achieving the specific level of meditative absorption of that state in the previous lifetime. One of the most famous and influential expositions on the subject of these immaterial states comes from the VISUDDHIMAGGA of BUDDHAGHOSA, written in the fifth century. Although there are numerous accounts of Buddhist meditators achieving immaterial states of SAMADHI, they are also used polemically in Buddhist literature to describe the attainments of non-Buddhist yogins, who mistakenly identify these exalted states within saMsAra as states of permanent liberation from rebirth. See also DHYANASAMAPATTI; DHYANOPAPATTI.

Akasic Samadhi [adjective of ākāśa ether, space + samādhi profound meditation from sam-ā-dha to hold or fix together (in abstract thought)] Used for the state of consciousness into which victims of accidental death enter: “a state of quiet slumber, a sleep full of rosy dreams, during which, they have no recollection of the accident, but move and live among their familiar friends and scenes, until their natural life-term is finished, when they find themselves born in the Deva-Chan . . .” (ML 109).

Akhanda-samadhi: Unbroken Samadhi.

amaya svapna siddhi (nidramaya swapna siddhi) ::: perfection of svapnasamadhi during sleep.

ana ahaituka ::: ahaituka ananda without vijñana. nirvikalpa samadhi

anaṁ brahma (jnanam brahma; gnanam brahma) ::: the realisation of "Brahman as self-existent consciousness and universal knowledge", bringing a perception of "all knowledge and conscious experience as the outflowing of that consciousness", the third member of the brahma ..84 catus.t.aya; the divine Reality (brahman) realised as "a consciousness in everything which is aware of all". j ñanam anaṁ, trikaladr.s.t.ir, as.tasiddhih., samadhir, iti vijñanacatus.t.ayam

AnantaryasamAdhi. (T. bar chad med pa'i ting nge 'dzin; C. wujian ding; J. mukenjo; K. mugan chong 無間定). In Sanskrit, "unimpeded concentration"; the culmination of the path of preparation (PRAYOGAMARGA), the second segment of the five-path schema outlined in the VAIBHAsIKA school system of SARVASTIVADAABHIDHARMA and treated similarly in YOGACARA soteriology. After mastering all four of the "aids to penetration" (NIRVEDHABHAGĪYA) that catalyze knowledge of the reality of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, the meditator acquires fully the highest worldly dharmas (LAUKIKAGRADHARMA), the last of these aids, an experience that is marked by the AnantaryasamAdhi. This distinctive type of SAMADHI receives its name from the fact that the adept then continues on without interruption to the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA), the third stage of the path, which provides access to sanctity (ARYA) as a stream-enterer (SROTAAPANNA).

ana-samadhi (vijnana-samadhi; vijnana samadhi) ::: samadhi transformed by the action of vijñana; a higher counterpart of the traditional savicara samadhi, replacing intellectual judgment and perception by their supra-intellectual equivalents. vij ñanasarathyupeta anasarathyupeta rathi rathi vidv vidvan

ana ::: (samadhi) with experiences on the plane of vijñana; same as vijñanamaya. savij ñana ana samadhi

antardarsi (antardarshi) ::: inward-looking; samadhi in the waking antardarsi state with internal vision and experience (same as antardarsi jagrat). antardarsi antardarsi jjagrat

antardr.s.t.a (antardrishta) ::: (images, etc.) seen or perceived within; antardrsta samadhi in the waking state with such vision or perception (same as antardarsi jagrat); same as antardr.s.t.a lipi or antardr.s.t.a rūpa. antardr antardrsta

antardr.s.t.i (antardrishti) ::: internal vision (in the waking state of samadhi); same as antardarsi jagrat.

antardr.s.t.i (jagrat antardrishti) ::: internal vision in the waking state of samadhi; same as antardarsi jagrat. jjagrat agrat bahirdarsi

Antaryoga (Sanskrit) Antaryoga [from antar interior, within + yoga union from the verbal root yuj to join, unite] Interior union; a state of deep thought or abstraction signifying that high stage of inner spiritual and intellectual recollection in which all the superior part of a person’s constitution is gathered together and focused as it were into a single point of consciousness. It is involved in the attaining of the higher states of consciousness such as turiya-samadhi.

Anubhava-gamyam: Obtainable by direct perception (through Samadhi).

anusmṛti. (P. anussati; T. rjes su dran pa; C. nian; J. nen; K. yom 念). In Sanskrit, "recollection." The PAli form anussati is applied to a number of mental exercises enumerated in the PAli tradition under the category of KAMMAttHANA, or topics of meditation. The fifth-century VISUDDHIMAGGA lists ten such recollections conducive to the cultivation of concentration (SAMADHI): namely, recollection of (1) the BUDDHA, (2) the DHARMA, (3) the SAMGHA, (4) morality, (5) generosity, (6) the gods, (7) death, (8) the body, (9) the in-breath and out-breath, and (10) peace. Of these, recollection or mindfulness (P. sati; S. SMṚTI) of the in-breath and out-breath can produce all four meditative absorptions (DHYANA; P. JHANA), while recollection of the body can produce the first absorption. The remaining recollections can produce only "access concentration" (UPACARASAMADHI), which immediately precedes but does not quite reach the first absorption. In East Asia, the practice of recollection of the Buddha (BUDDHANUSMṚTI) evolved into the recitation of name of the buddha AMITABHA in the form of the Chinese phrase namo Amituo fo (Homage to the buddha AmitAbha; see NAMU AMIDABUTSU). See also BUDDHANUSMṚTI.

appanAsamAdhi. In PAli, "absorptive concentration"; the more advanced of the two broad types of concentration (SAMADHI) discussed in PAli commentarial literature. Both of these two types of samAdhi are used with reference to meditators who are specializing in calmness (samatha; S. sAMATHA) techniques. The preliminary "threshold concentration" (UPACARASAMADHI) helps to calm and focus the mind but is too discursive to lead to full meditative absorption (JHANA; S. DHYANA). In order to develop jhAna, meditators must proceed to cultivate less discursive topics of meditation (KAMMAttHANA) that will lead to "absorptive concentration" and thence jhAna: e.g., mindfulness of breathing (AnApAnasati, S. ANAPANASMṚTI); the four "divine abidings" (BRAHMAVIHARA; [alt. P. appamaNNa], S. APRAMAnA), namely, loving-kindness (P. mettA; S. MAITRĪ), compassion (KARUnA), altruistic or empathetic joy (MUDITA), and equanimity or impartiality (P. upekkhA; S. UPEKsA); and the ten "visual devices" (KASInA)-devices that are constructed from the elements earth, water, fire, and air; the colors blue, yellow, red, and white; and light and space. See also KHANIKASAMADHI.

Ariya Atthangika Magga (Pali) Ariya Aṭṭhaṅgika Magga [from ariya noble + aṭṭhaṅgika eight-limbed, eightfold from aṭṭha eight + aṇga limb, division + magga way, road from the verbal root mṛg to track, trace, investigate] Noble eightfold path; the fourth of the Four Noble Truths (chattari ariyasachchani) traditionally held to constitute the initial discourse of Gautama Buddha, comprising: 1) right insight (sammaditthi); 2) right resolve (sammasamkappa); 3) right speech (sammavacha); 4) right action (sammakammanta); 5) right living (sammajiva); 6) right effort (sammavayama); 7) right mindfulness, right recollection (sammasati); 8) right concentration (sammasamadhi). See also ARYASHTANGAMARGA (for Sanskrit equivalents).

Aryashtangamarga (Sanskrit) Āryāṣṭāṅgamārga [from ārya holy, noble + aṣṭa eight + aṅga limb, division + mārga path, way from the verbal root mṛg to seek, strive to attain, investigate] Holy eight-limbed way; in Buddhism the Noble Eightfold Path enunciated by Gautama Buddha as the fourth of the Four Noble Truths (chattari aryasatyani). Consistent practice of aryashtangamarga leads the disciple ultimately to perfect wisdom, love, and liberation from samsara (the round of repetitive births and deaths). The Eightfold Path is enumerated as: 1) samyagdrishti (right insight); 2) samyaksamkalpa (right resolve); 3) samyagvach (right speech); 4) samyakkarmantra (right action); 5) samyagajiva (right living); 6) samyagvyayama (right exertion); 7) samyaksmriti (right recollection); and 8) samyaksamadhi (right concentration). See also ARIYA ATTHANGIKA MAGGA (for Pali equivalents)

AryAstAngamArga. (P. ariyAtthangikamagga; T. 'phags lam yan lag brgyad; C. bazhengdao; J. hasshodo; K. p'alchongdo 八正道). In Sanskrit, "noble eightfold path"; the path (MARGA) that brings an end to the causes of suffering (DUḤKHA); the fourth of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvAry AryasatyAni). This formulation of the Buddhist path to enlightenment appears in what is regarded as the Buddha's first sermon after his enlightenment, the "Setting Forth the Wheel of Dharma" (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANASuTRA), in which he sets forth a middle way (MADHYAMAPRATIPAD) between the extremes of asceticism and sensual indulgence. That middle way, he says, is the eightfold path, which, like the four truths, he calls "noble" (ARYA); the term is therefore commonly rendered as "noble eightfold path." However, as in the case of the four noble truths, what is noble is not the path but those who follow it, so the compound might be more accurately translated as "eightfold path of the [spiritually] noble." Later in the same sermon, the Buddha sets forth the four noble truths and identifies the fourth truth, the truth of the path, with the eightfold path. The noble eightfold path is comprised of (1) right views (SAMYAGDṚstI; P. sammAditthi), which involve an accurate understanding of the true nature of things, specifically the four noble truths; (2) right intention (SAMYAKSAMKALPA; P. sammAsankappa), which means avoiding thoughts of attachment, hatred, and harmful intent and promoting loving-kindness and nonviolence; (3) right speech (SAMYAGVAC; P. sammAvAcA), which means refraining from verbal misdeeds, such as lying, backbiting and slander, harsh speech and abusive language, and frivolous speech and gossip; (4) right action or right conduct (SAMYAKKARMANTA; P. sammAkammanta), which is refraining from physical misdeeds, such as killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct; (5) right livelihood (SAMYAGAJĪVA; P. sammAjīva), which entails avoiding trades that directly or indirectly harm others, such as selling slaves, selling weapons, selling animals for slaughter, dealing in intoxicants or poisons, or engaging in fortune-telling and divination; (6) right effort (SAMYAGVYAYAMA; P. sammAvAyAma), which is defined as abandoning unwholesome states of mind that have already arisen, preventing unwholesome states that have yet to arise, sustaining wholesome states that have already arisen, and developing wholesome states that have yet to arise; (7) right mindfulness (SAMYAKSMṚTI; P. sammAsati), which means to maintain awareness of the four foundations of mindfulness (SMṚTYUPASTHANA), viz., body, physical sensations, the mind, and phenomena; and (8) right concentration (SAMYAKSAMADHI; P. sammAsamAdhi), which is one pointedness of mind. ¶ The noble eightfold path receives less discussion in Buddhist literature than do the four noble truths (of which they are, after all, a constituent). Indeed, in later formulations, the eight factors are presented not so much as a prescription for behavior but as eight qualities that are present in the mind of a person who has understood NIRVAnA. The eightfold path may be reduced to a simpler, and more widely used, threefold schema of the path that comprises the "three trainings" (TRIsIKsA) or "higher trainings" (adhisiksA) in morality (sĪLA; P. sīla; see ADHIsĪLAsIKsA), concentration (SAMADHI, see ADHISAMADHIsIKsA), and wisdom (PRAJNA; P. paNNA; see ADHIPRAJNAsIKsA). In this schema, (1) right views and (2) right intention are subsumed under the training in higher wisdom (adhiprajNAsiksA); (3) right speech, (4) right conduct, and (5) right livelihood are subsumed under higher morality (adhisīlasiksA); and (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration are subsumed under higher concentration (adhisamAdhisiksA). According to the MADHYANTAVIBHAGA, a MAHAYANA work attributed to MAITREYANATHA, the eightfold noble path comprises the last set of eight of the thirty-seven constituents of enlightenment (BODHIPAKsIKADHARMA), where enlightenment (BODHI) is the complete, nonconceptual awakening achieved during the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA). After that vision, following the same pattern as the Buddha, right view is the perfect understanding of the vision, and right intention is the articulation of the vision that motivates the teaching of it. Right mindfulness, right effort, and right concentration correspond respectively to the four types of mindfulness (SMṚTYUPASTHANA), four efforts (PRAHAnA), and four ṚDDHIPADA ("legs of miraculous attainments," i.e., samAdhi) when they are perfect or right (samyak), after the vision of the four noble truths.

asaiksamArga. (T. mi slob lam; C. wuxuedao; J. mugakudo; K. muhakto 無學道). In Sanskrit, "the path of the adept" (lit. "the path where there is nothing more to learn" or "the path where no further training is necessary"); the fifth of the five-path schema (PANCAMARGA) used in both SARVASTIVADA ABHIDHARMA and the YOGACARA and MADHYAMAKA schools of MAHAYANA. It is the equivalent of the path of completion (NIstHAMARGA) and is synonymous with asaiksapatha. With the consummation of the "path of cultivation" (BHAVANAMARGA), the adept (whether following the sRAVAKA, PRATYEKABUDDHA, or BODHISATTVA path) achieves the "adamantine-like concentration" (VAJROPAMASAMADHI), which leads to the permanent destruction of even the subtlest and most persistent of the ten fetters (SAMYOJANA), resulting in the "knowledge of cessation" (KsAYAJNANA) and in some presentations an accompanying "knowledge of nonproduction" (ANUTPADAJNANA), viz., the knowledge that the fetters are destroyed and can never again recur. Because the adept now has full knowledge of the eightfold path (ARYAstAnGAMARGA) and has achieved full liberation (VIMOKsA) as either an ARHAT or a buddha, he no longer needs any further instruction-thus he has completed the "path where there is nothing more to learn."

asaiksa. (P. asekha; T. mi slob pa; C. wuxue; J. mugaku; K. muhak 無學). In Sanskrit, lit. "one for whom no further training is necessary," an "adept"; a term for one who has completed the path (see AsAIKsAMARGA), used especially as an epithet of the ARHAT. The asaiksa has completed the three "higher trainings" (adhisiksA; P. adhisikkhA) in morality (ADHIsĪLAsIKsA), concentration (ADHISAMADHIsIKsA), and wisdom (ADHIPRAJNAsIKsA).

Asakrit Samadhi (Sanskrit) Asakṛtsamādhi [from a-sakṛt not once, repeatedly + samādhi meditation] In Buddhism, repeated spiritual and intellectual meditation of the highest kind.

Asamprajnata-samadhi: Highest superconscious state where the mind and the ego-sense are completely annihilated.

asamprajnata samadhi. ::: highest superconscious state where the mind and the ego-sense are completely annihilated

Asamvedana: Non-receptivity of the mind; imperishable state of quiescent Jnana; Nirvikalpa Samadhi; thought­less state.

Asana(Sanskrit) ::: A word derived from the verbal root as, signifying "to sit quietly." Asana, therefore,technically signifies one of the peculiar postures adopted by Hindu ascetics, mostly of the hatha yogaschool. Five of these postures are usually enumerated, but nearly ninety have been noted by students ofthe subject. A great deal of quasi-magical and mystical literature may be found devoted to these variouspostures and collateral topics, and their supposed or actual psychological value when assumed bydevotees; but, as a matter of fact, a great deal of this writing is superficial and has very little indeed to dowith the actual occult and esoteric training of genuine occultists. One is instinctively reminded of otherquasi-mystical practices, as, for instance, certain genuflections or postures followed in the worship of theChristian Church, to which particular values are sometimes ascribed by fanatic devotees.Providing that the position of the body be comfortable so that the mind is least distracted, genuinemeditation and spiritual and actual introspection can be readily and successfully attained by any earneststudent without the slightest attention being paid to these various postures. A man sitting quietly in hisarmchair, or lying in his bed at night, or sitting or lying on the grass in a forest, can more readily enterthe inner worlds than by adopting and following any one or more of these various asanas, which at thebest are physiological aids of relatively small value. (See also Samadhi)

Asmita-samadhi: Superconscious state immediately below.

asya (dasyam) ::: an intermediate form of dasya, also called secondary / prakritic dasya, in which, unlike simple dasya, "there is no active & constant freedom, but only a general & ultimate freedom which is used little", for "we do not determine what is God"s will and act thereby or order Prakriti to act thereby, but leave everything to God to determine; the whole responsibility is His & a given impulse of Prakriti fulfils itself or not as He chooses without our interference". double sam samadhi

Atadvyavritti-samadhi: Samadhi that does not care or require the aid of other; Samadhi attained through the negation of Anatma.

Atala (Sanskrit) Atala [from a not + tala place] No place, no material locality; the first and most spiritual of the seven talas, so nearly one with satyaloka, its corresponding loka or pole, that the two nearly conjoin into one — hence it is called “no place.” Atala bears somewhat the same relation to satyaloka that prakriti bears to Brahma; hence it is the first quasi-spiritual, quasi-material plane in the solar universe. “In satyaloka-atala, the highest loka combines into or rejoins the monadic essence of the planetary chain. The differentiation so marked on the lower planes ceases here and, because of this, the two blend into or become one” (FSO 264). Cosmically atala emanates directly from the solar logos and contains with satyaloka the substantial seeds of all that was, is, and will be, from the beginning to the end of the solar mahamanvantara. Atala, with satyaloka, may be considered from one standpoint the sphere of the hierarchies of the dhyanis, who are, when completely in this condition, in a state of parasamadhi, and hence clothed in the dharmakaya.

Atmanam Atmana Pasya (Sanskrit) Ātmānam ātmanā paśya [from ātman self + the verbal root paś to see] See the self by the self; a favorite phrase used in Vedanta philosophy, especially by Sankaracharya. In its highest interpretation it refers to Avalokitesvara which is “in one sense ‘the divine Self perceived or seen by Self,’ the Atman or seventh principle ridded of its mayavic distinction from its Universal Source — which becomes the object of perception for, and by the individuality centred in Buddhi, the sixth principle, — something that happens only in the highest state of Samadhi. This is applying it to the microcosm” (ML 343).

auddhatya. (P. uddhacca; T. rgod pa; C. diao; J. jo; K. to 掉). In Sanskrit, "restlessness," "agitation," or "distraction"; along with its related "worry" or "regret" (KAUKṚTYA), with which it is often seen in compound, auddhatya constitutes the fourth of the five hindrances (NĪVARAnA) to the attainment of meditative absorption (DHYANA). Auddhatya-kaukṛtya is the specific hindrance to joy (SUKHA), the fourth of the five factors of dhyAna (DHYANAnGA). Restlessness and worry are fostered by unwise attention (AYONIsOMANASKARA) to mental unrest and are overcome through learning and reflecting on the SuTRAs and VINAYA and by associating with elders of calm demeanor. Restlessness and worry are countered by SAMADHI, the fourth of the five spiritual faculties (INDRIYA) and the sixth of the factors of enlightenment (BODHYAnGA), together with development of the factors of tranquillity (PRAsRABDHI), and equanimity (UPEKsA).

AvataMsakasutra. (T. Mdo phal po che; C. Huayan jing; J. Kegongyo; K. Hwaom kyong 華嚴經). In Sanskrit, "Garland Scripture"; also known as the BUDDHAVATAMSAKASuTRA ("Scripture of the Garland of Buddhas"), or *BuddhAvataMsakanAmamahAvaipulyasutra, the Sanskrit reconstruction of the title of the Chinese translation Dafangguang fo huayan jing, which is usually abbreviated in Chinese simply as the HUAYAN JING ("Flower Garland Scripture"). The sutra is one of the most influential Buddhist scriptures in East Asia and the foundational text of the indigenous East Asian HUAYAN ZONG. The first major edition of the AvataMsakasutra was said to have been brought from KHOTAN and was translated into Chinese by BUDDHABHADRA in 421; this recension consisted of sixty rolls and thirty-four chapters. A second, longer recension, in eighty rolls and thirty-nine chapters, was translated into Chinese by sIKsANANDA in 699; this is sometimes referred to within the Huayan tradition as the "New [translation of the] AvataMsakasutra" (Xin Huayan jing). A Tibetan translation similar to the eighty-roll recension also exists. The AvataMsakasutra is traditionally classified as a VAIPULYASuTRA; it is an encyclopedic work that brings together a number of heterogeneous texts, such as the GAndAVYuHA and DAsABHuMIKASuTRA, which circulated independently before being compiled together in this scripture. No Sanskrit recension of the AvataMsakasutra has been discovered; even the title is not known from Sanskrit sources, but is a reconstruction of the Chinese. (Recent research in fact suggests that the correct Sanskrit title might actually be BuddhAvataMsakasutra, or "Scripture of the Garland of Buddhas," rather than AvataMsakasutra.) There are, however, extant Sanskrit recensions of two of its major constituents, the Dasabhumikasutra and Gandavyuha. Given the dearth of evidence of a Sanskrit recension of the complete AvataMsakasutra, and since the scripture was first introduced to China from Khotan, some scholars have argued that the scripture may actually be of Central Asian provenance (or at very least was heavily revised in Central Asia). There also exists in Chinese translation a forty-roll recension of the AvataMsakasutra, translated by PRAJNA in 798, which roughly corresponds to the Gandavyuha, otherwise known in Chinese as the Ru fajie pin or "Chapter on the Entry into the DHARMADHATU." Little attempt is made to synthesize these disparate materials into an overarching narrative, but there is a tenuous organizational schema involving a series of different "assemblies" to which the different discourses are addressed. The Chinese tradition presumed that the AvataMsakasutra was the first sermon of the Buddha (see HUAYAN ZHAO), and the sutra's first assembly takes place at the BODHI TREE two weeks after he had attained enlightenment while he was still immersed in the samAdhi of oceanic reflection (SAGARAMUDRASAMADHI). The AvataMsaka is therefore believed to provide a comprehensive and definitive description of the Buddha's enlightenment experience from within this profound state of samAdhi. The older sixty-roll recension includes a total of eight assemblies held at seven different locations: three in the human realm and the rest in the heavens. The later eighty-roll recension, however, includes a total of nine assemblies at seven locations, a discrepancy that led to much ink in Huayan exegesis. In terms of its content, the sutra offers exuberant descriptions of myriads of world systems populated by buddhas and bodhisattvas, along with elaborate imagery focusing especially on radiant light and boundless space. The scripture is also the inspiration for the famous metaphor of INDRAJALA (Indra's Net), a canopy made of transparent jewels in which each jewel is reflected in all the others, suggesting the multivalent levels of interaction between all phenomena in the universe. The text focuses on the unitary and all-pervasive nature of enlightenment, which belongs to the realm of the Buddha of Pervasive Light, VAIROCANA, the central buddha in the AvataMsaka, who embodies the DHARMAKAYA. The sutra emphasizes the knowledge and enlightenment of the buddhas as being something that is present in all sentient beings (see TATHAGATAGARBHA and BUDDHADHATU), just as the entire universe, or trichiliocosm (S. TRISAHASRAMAHASAHASRALOKADHATU) is contained in a minute mote of dust. This notion of interpenetration or interfusion (YUANRONG) is stressed in the thirty-second chapter of Buddhabhadra's translation, whose title bears the influential term "nature origination" (XINGQI). The sutra, especially in FAZANG's authoritative exegesis, is presumed to set forth a distinctive presentation of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA) in terms of the dependence of the whole on its parts, stressing the unity of the universe and its emptiness (suNYATA) of inherent nature; dependent origination here emerges as a profound ecological vision in which the existence of any one thing is completely dependent on the existence of all other things and all things on any one thing. Various chapters of the sutra were also interpreted as providing the locus classicus for the exhaustive fifty-two stage MahAyAna path (MARGA) to buddhahood, which included the ten faiths (only implied in the scripture), the ten abodes, ten practices, ten dedications, and ten stages (DAsABHuMI), plus the two stages of awakening itself: virtual enlightenment (dengjue) and sublime enlightenment (miaojue). This soteriological process was then illustrated through the peregrinations of the lad SUDHANA to visit his religious mentors, each of whom is identified with one of these specific stages; Sudhana's lengthy pilgrimage is described in great detail in the massive final chapter (a third of the entire scripture), the Gandavyuha, titled in the AvataMsakasutra the "Entry into the DharmadhAtu" chapter (Ru fajie pin). The evocative and widely quoted statement in the "Brahmacarya" chapter that "at the time of the initial arousal of the aspiration for enlightenment (BODHICITTOTPADA), complete, perfect enlightenment (ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI) is already achieved" was also influential in the development of the East Asian notion of sudden enlightenment (DUNWU), since it implied that awakening could be achieved in an instant of sincere aspiration, without requiring three infinite eons (ASAMKHYEYAKALPA) of religious training. Chinese exegetes who promoted this sutra reserved the highest place for it in their scriptural taxonomies (see JIAOXIANG PANSHI) and designated it the "perfect" or "consummate" teaching (YUANJIAO) of Buddhism. Many commentaries on and exegeses of the sutra are extant, among which the most influential are those written by FAZANG, ZHIYAN, CHENGGUAN, LI TONGXUAN, GUIFENG ZONGMI, WoNHYO, ŬISANG, and MYoE KoBEN.

avesamaya (aveshamaya) ::: inspired; enthusiastic. avesamaya avic avicara ara samadhi

avidya ::: ignorance; the power by which "the Spirit dwells . . . in the avidya consciousness of multiplicity and relativity"; "the knowledge of the Many" (bahu), which "becomes no longer knowledge at all but ignorance, Avidya" because it "takes the Many for the real fact of existence and views the One [eka1] only as a cosmic sum of the Many". avikalpa samadhi

bahirdarsi (bahirdarshi) ::: outward-looking; samadhi in the waking state with externalised vision and experience (same as bahirdarsi jagrat). bahirdarsi bahirdarsi ak akasa

bahirdr.s.t.a (bahirdrishta) ::: (images, etc.) seen or perceived outside bahirdrsta oneself; samadhi in the waking state with such vision or perception (same as bahirdarsi jagrat).

Ba Khin, U. (1899-1971). Influential lay Burmese teacher of insight meditation (S. VIPAsYANA; P. VIPASSANA). Born to a working-class family in Rangoon, U Ba Khin was educated in Christian middle and high schools. Married with six children, he began his career as a government clerk during the British colonial period, later becoming accountant general of independent Burma. He began practicing vipassanA in 1937 under the guidance of Saya Thet Gyi, a lay meditation teacher and disciple of the Burmese monk LEDI SAYADAW. He explored several styles of tranquility (P. samatha, S. sAMATHA) and insight meditation and eventually developed his own technique of vipassanA by drawing on his own experiences. The method he devised focuses on physical sensations (VEDANA), beginning at the crown of the head and continuing throughout the body; his approach is considered to be especially effective in producing states of deep concentration (SAMADHI). In 1941, U Ba Khin met the famous meditation teacher Webu Sayadaw, who encouraged him to teach his meditation technique to others. He began teaching small groups informally and eventually, while accountant general, taught vipassanA to his staff. Under his influence, the government of Burma instituted a policy of encouraging civil servants to practice meditation as part of their daily routine. In 1952, U Ba Khin established the International Meditation Centre in Rangoon, where he taught meditation and began holding intensive ten-day vipassanA retreats on a regular basis. After his retirement from government service in 1953, he devoted all of his time to promoting vipassanA practice. He also played an active role in the sixth Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, SIXTH), held in Rangoon from 1954-1956. His style of vipassanA is one of the most widely disseminated techniques internationally, and his disciples include such well-known meditation teachers as S. N. Goenka.

bala. (T. stobs; C. li; J. riki; K. yok 力). In Sanskrit and PAli, "power" or "strength"; used in a variety of lists, including the five powers (the eighteenth to twenty-second of the BODHIPAKsIKADHARMAs, or "thirty-seven factors pertaining to awakening"), the ten powers of a TATHAGATA, the ten powers of a BODHISATTVA, and the ninth of the ten perfections (PARAMITA). The five powers are the same as the five spiritual faculties (INDRIYA)-faith (sRADDHA), perseverance (VĪRYA), mindfulness (SMṚTI), concentration (SAMADHI), and wisdom (PRAJNA)-but now fully developed at the LAUKIKAGRADHARMA stage of the path of preparation (PRAYOGAMARGA), just prior to the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA). A tathAgata's ten powers are given in both PAli and Sanskrit sources as the power of the knowledge (jNAnabala) of: (1) what can be and cannot be (sthAnAsthAna), (2) karmic results (karmavipAka), (3) the various dispositions of different beings (nAnAdhimukti), (4) how the world has many and different elements (nAnAdhAtu), (5) the higher (or different) faculties people possess (indriyaparApara), (6) the ways that lead to all destinations (sarvatragAminīpratipad), (7) the defilement and purification of all meditative absorptions (DHYANA), liberations (VIMOKsA), samAdhis, and trances (SAMAPATTI) (sarvadhyAnavimoksasamAdhisamApatti-saMklesavyavadAnavyavasthAna), (8) recollecting previous births (PuRVANIVASANUSMṚTI), (9) decease and birth (cyutyupapatti), and (10) the extinction of the contaminants (ASRAVAKsAYA). Another list gives the Buddha's ten powers as the power of aspiration (Asaya), resolution (ADHYAsAYA), habit (abhyAsa), practice (PRATIPATTI), wisdom (prajNA), vow (PRAnIDHANA), vehicle (YANA), way of life (caryA), thaumaturgy (vikurvana), the power derived from his bodhisattva career, and the power to turn the wheel of dharma (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA). When the MahAyAna six perfections (PARAMITA) are expanded and linked to the ten bodhisattva stages (DAsABHuMI), four perfections are added: the perfections of skillful means (UPAYA), vow, power, and knowledge (JNANA). Thus the perfection of power (BALAPARAMITA) is linked with the ninth bodhisattva stage (BHuMI). When the ten powers are listed as a bodhisattva's perfection of power, they are sometimes explained to be the powers of a tathAgata before they have reached full strength.

Baojing sanmei. (J. Hokyo sanmai/zanmai; K. Pogyong sammae 寶鏡三昧). In Chinese, "Jeweled-Mirror SAMADHI"; a definitive poem on enlightenment and practice from the standpoint of the Chinese CAODONG ZONG; otherwise known as the Baojing sanmei ge, or "GATHA of the Jeweled-Mirror SamAdhi." This lengthy Chinese song is attributed to the Chan master DONGSHAN LIANGJIE and, along with the CANTONG QI, is revered in the Chinese Caodong and Japanese SoTo schools of CHAN and ZEN as the foundational scripture of their tradition. Although the song is traditionally attributed to Dongshan, a number of sources note that Dongshan secretly received this song from his teacher Yunyan Tansheng (780-841), and Dongshan in turn transmitted it to his head disciple CAOSHAN BENJI. The earliest version of this song appears in the entry on Caoshan in the CHANLIN SENGBAO ZHUAN, written in 1123. The Baojing sanmei emphasizes the "inherent enlightenment" (BENJUE; cf. HONGAKU) of sentient beings and the futility of seeking that enlightenment through conscious reflection. Instead, the song urges its audience to allow one's inherently pure enlightened nature to "silently illuminate" itself through meditation (MOZHAO CHAN), as the Buddha did under the BODHI TREE. Numerous commentaries on this song are extant.

Bardo (Tibetan) [from bar between + do two] Between two; generally a gap, interval, or intermediate state, especially the state between two births. The term has become known in the West through the Bar do thos sgrol (bar-do tho-dol), “Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo,” translated by W. Y. Evans-Wentz as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. According to the Bardo Thodol, there are six such “intervals”: the bardo of birth, the bardo of dreams, the bardo of samadhi (meditation), the bardo of the moment before death, the bardo of dharmata, and the bardo of becoming. The Bardo Thodol describes the last three of these, and is recited in the presence of the deceased believed to be experiencing these states, usually for a total period of 49 days. It is believed that the teaching contained in the text can enable the deceased to attain liberation while in the bardo states, or at least to attain the best possible rebirth.

Being or a Presence — sometimes one of these, sometimes several of them or all together. The movement of ascension has diffe- rent results ; it may liberate the consciousness so that one feels no longer in he body, but above it or else spread in wideness with the body whether almost non-existent or only a point in one’s free expanse. It may enable the being or some part of the being to go out from the body and move elsewhere, and this action is usually accompanied by some kind of partial Samadhi or else a complete trance. Or, it may result in empowering the cons- ciousness, no longer limited by the body and the habits of the external nature, to go within, to enter the inner mental depths, the inner vital, the inner (subtle) physical, the psychic, to become aware of its inmost psychic self or its inner mental, vital, and subtle physical being, and it may be, to move and live in the domains, the planes, the worlds that correspond to these parts of the nature. It is the repeated and constant ascent of the lower consciousness that enables the mind, the vital, the physical to come into touch with the higher planes up to the Supramental and get impregnated with their light and power and influence.

bhadrakalpa. (P. bhaddakappa; T. bskal pa bzang po; C. xianjie; J. kengo/gengo; K. hyon'gop 賢劫). In Sanskrit, "auspicious eon"; the current of the numerous "great eons" (MAHAKALPA), or cyclic periods in the existence of a universe, that are recognized in Buddhist cosmology. The "auspicious eon" along with the last and the next "great eons"-that is, the "glorious eon" (vyuhakalpa) and "the eon of the constellations" (naksatrakalpa)-are together termed the "three great eons." Each great eon is presumed to consist of four "intermediate eons" (antarakalpa), viz., an "eon of formation" (VIVARTAKALPA); "stability" or "abiding" (VIVARTASTHAYIKALPA); "decay" (SAMVARTAKALPA); and "dissolution" (SAMVARTASTHAYIKALPA). A bhadrakalpa refers specifically to an eon in which buddhas appear, the present eon being such an era. The bhadrakalpa occurs during an eon (KALPA) of stability, following a period when the lifespan of human beings has been gradually reduced from innumerable years to eighty thousand. The number of buddhas who take rebirth during a bhadrakalpa varies widely in the texts, some stating that five buddhas will appear during this era, others that upward of a thousand buddhas will appear. In many texts, sAKYAMUNI is presumed to have been preceded by six previous buddhas, bridging two different eons, who together are called the "seven buddhas of antiquity" (SAPTATATHAGATA). Elsewhere, it is presumed that a thousand buddhas appear during the "eon of stability" in each of the three preceding great eons. The full list of the thousand buddhas of the present bhadrakalpa is extolled in the BHADRAKALPIKASuTRA, a MAHAYANA scripture that lists the names of the buddhas, their entourages, and their places of residence and enjoins the practice of various concentrations (SAMADHI) and perfections (PARAMITA). In this sutra, the current buddha sAkyamuni is said to be the fourth buddha of the present kalpa, MAITREYA is to follow him, and another 995 buddhas will follow in succession, in order to continually renew Buddhism throughout the eon. A bhadrakalpa is presumed to last some 236 million years, of which over 151 million years have already elapsed in our current eon.

Bhadrakalpikasutra. (T. Bskal pa bzang po'i mdo/Mdo sde bskal bzang; C. Xianjie jing; J. Gengogyo; K. Hyon'gop kyong 賢劫經). In Sanskrit, "Auspicious Eon Scripture"; a MAHAYANA text in twenty-four chapters, written c. 200-250 CE and translated into Chinese by DHARMARAKsA in either 291 or 300 CE. In this scripture, the Buddha teaches a special concentration (SAMADHI) through the mastery of which bodhisattvas come to be equipped with 2,100 perfections (PARAMITA), 84,000 samAdhis and 84,000 codes (DHARAnĪ). He then lists the names of a thousand buddhas who will appear during the "auspicious eon" (BHADRAKALPA) due to the merit they obtained from practicing this samAdhi, as well as their residences, parents, disciples, spiritual powers, teachings, and so on. In the Tibetan BKA' 'GYUR the Bhadrakalpikasutra takes pride of place as the first in the sutra section (mdo sde); it is recited often, and it is not uncommon for the elaborate hagiographies (RNAM THAR) of important Tibetan religious figures or incarnations (SPRUL SKU) to identify their subject as an earlier rebirth of one of the thousand buddhas.

BhadrapAla. (T. Bzang skyong; C. Xianhu/Batuoboluo; J. Kengo/Batsudahara; K. Hyonho/Palt'abara 賢護/跋陀波羅) In Sanskrit, "Auspicious Protector"; a lay (GṚHAPATI) BODHISATTVA who is listed as one of the eight great bodhisattvas (S. AstAMAHOPAPUTRA), who have vowed to protect and propagate the true dharma (S. SADDHARMA) in the age of decline (S. SADDHARMAVIPRALOPA; C. MOFA) after sAKYAMUNI Buddha's death and to guard sentient beings. He is also listed in the DAZHIDU LUN (*MahAprajNApAramitAsAstra) as one of the sixteen great bodhisattvas who have remained a householder. In the RATNAKutASuTRA, BhadrapAla is described as the son of a wealthy merchant (gṛhapati) whose enjoyments surpassed even those of INDRA, the king of the gods, himself. In the Banzhou sanmei jing (PRATYUTPANNABUDDHASAMMUKHAVASTHITASAMADHISuTRA), BhadrapAla appears together with his five hundred attendant bodhisattvas to ask the Buddha how bodhisattvas can obtain wisdom that is as deep and broad as the ocean. In the twentieth chapter of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), BhadrapAla is identified as someone who slighted the Buddha in a previous lifetime and as a result fell into AVĪCI hell. After suffering there for a thousand eons (KALPA) and requiting his offenses, BhadrapAla was again able to encounter the Buddha and finally accept his teaching. He is also mentioned as one of the eighty thousand bodhisattvas who attended the assembly on Vulture Peak (GṚDHRAKutAPARVATA) where sAkyamuni preached in the opening chapter of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra. BhadrapAla eventually became a buddha who attained enlightenment through the contemplation of water. Drawing on this experience, the Chinese apocryphal *suRAMGAMASuTRA (Shoulengyan jing) says that BhadrapAla became enlightened as he entered the bathhouse; hence, the Chinese CHAN tradition enshrined an image of BhadrapAla in the monastic bathhouse and some Japanese Buddhist schools similarly considered him to be the patron of the temple bathhouse.

bhAsya. (T. bshad pa; C. lun; J. ron; K. non 論). In Sanskrit, "commentary," or "exposition"; especially an exegesis on a set of aphoristic statements (SuTRAS) or kArikAs (the same in verse form): e.g., ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA. In East Asia, the term lun was reserved for the commentaries of the eminent bodhisattva-exegetes of Indian MAHAYANA Buddhism, such as VASUBANDHU, ASAnGA, and MAITREYA/MAITREYANATHA; commentaries by indigenous East Asian exegetes are usually termed shu. One of the very few exceptions is the "Exposition of the *VajrasamAdhisutra (KŬMGANG SAMMAE KYoNG)" (KŬMGANG SAMMAEGYoNG NON), by the Korean exegete WoNHYO, which was so highly regarded that it was given this special designation.

BhAvanAkrama. (T. Sgom rim). In Sanskrit, "Stages of Meditation," the title of three separate but related works by the late-eighth century Indian master KAMALAsĪLA. During the reign of the Tibetan king KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN at the end of the eighth century, there were two Buddhist factions at court, a Chinese faction led by the Northern Chan (BEI ZONG) monk Heshang Moheyan (MahAyAna) and an Indian faction of the recently deceased sANTARAKsITA, who with the king and PADMASAMBHAVA had founded the first Tibetan monastery at BSAM YAS (Samye). According to traditional accounts, sAntaraksita foretold of dangers and left instructions in his will that his student Kamalasīla should be summoned from India. A conflict seems to have developed between the Indian and Chinese partisans (and their allies in the Tibetan court) over the question of the nature of enlightenment, with the Indians holding that enlightenment takes place as the culmination of a gradual process of purification, the result of perfecting morality (sĪLA), concentration (SAMADHI), and wisdom (PRAJNA). The Chinese spoke against this view, holding that enlightenment was the intrinsic nature of the mind rather than the goal of a protracted path, such that one need simply to recognize the presence of this innate nature of enlightenment by entering a state of awareness beyond distinctions; all other practices were superfluous. According to both Chinese and Tibetan records, a debate was held between Kamalasīla and Moheyan at Bsam yas, circa 797, with the king himself serving as judge (see BSAM YAS DEBATE). According to Tibetan reports (contradicted by the Chinese accounts), Kamalasīla was declared the winner and Moheyan and his party banished from Tibet, with the king proclaiming that thereafter the MADHYAMAKA school of Indian Buddhist philosophy (to which sAntaraksita and Kamalasīla belonged) would have pride of place in Tibet. ¶ According to Tibetan accounts, after the conclusion of the debate, the king requested that Kamalasīla compose works that presented his view, and in response, Kamalasīla composed the three BhAvanAkrama. There is considerable overlap among the three works. All three are germane to the issues raised in the debate, although whether all three were composed in Tibet is not established with certainty; only the third, and briefest of the three, directly considers, and refutes, the view of "no mental activity" (amanasikAra, cf. WUNIAN), which is associated with Moheyan. The three texts set forth the process for the potential BODHISATTVA to cultivate BODHICITTA and then develop sAMATHA and VIPAsYANA and progress through the bodhisattva stages (BHuMI) to buddhahood. The cultivation of vipasyanA requires the use of both scripture (AGAMA) and reasoning (YUKTI) to understand emptiness (suNYATA); in the first BhAvanAkrama, Kamalasīla sets forth the three forms of wisdom (prajNA): the wisdom derived from learning (sRUTAMAYĪPRAJNA), the wisdom derived from reflection (CINTAMAYĪPRAJNA), and the wisdom derived from cultivation (BHAVANAMAYĪPRAJNA), explaining that the last of these gradually destroys the afflictive obstructions (KLEsAVARAnA) and the obstructions to omniscience (JNEYAVARAnA). The second BhAvanAkrama considers many of these same topics, stressing that the achievement of the fruition of buddhahood requires the necessary causes, in the form of the collection of merit (PUnYASAMBHARA) and the collection of wisdom (JNANASAMBHARA). Both the first and second works espouse the doctrine of mind-only (CITTAMATRA); it is on the basis of these and other statements that Tibetan doxographers classified Kamalasīla as a YOGACARA-SVATANTRIKA-MADHYAMAKA. The third and briefest of the BhAvanAkrama is devoted especially to the topics of samatha and vipasyanA, how each is cultivated, and how they are ultimately unified. Kamalasīla argues that analysis (VICARA) into the lack of self (ATMAN) in both persons (PUDGALA) and phenomena (DHARMA) is required to arrive at a nonconceptual state of awareness. The three texts are widely cited in later Tibetan Buddhist literature, especially on the process for developing samatha and vipasyanA.

bhAvanAmArga. (T. sgom lam; C. xiudao; J. shudo; K. sudo 修道). In Sanskrit, "the path of cultivation" or "path of meditation"; the fourth of the five stages of the path (MARGA) in the SARVASTIVADA soteriological system (also adopted in the MAHAYANA), which follows the path of vision or insight (DARsANAMARGA) and precedes the adept path where no further training is necessary (AsAIKsAMARGA). In the SarvAstivAda path schema, the path of vision consists of fifteen thought-moments, with a subsequent sixteenth moment marking the beginning of the path of cultivation (BHAVANAMARGA). This sixteenth moment, that of subsequent knowledge (ANVAYAJNANA) of the truth of the path (mArga), is, in effect, the knowledge that all of the afflictions (KLEsA) of both the subtle-materiality realm (RuPADHATU) and the immaterial realm (ARuPYADHATU) that are associated with the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS have been abandoned. As a result, the meditator destroys all causes for future rebirth as an animal, ghost, or hell denizen, but is not liberated from rebirth altogether and may still be reborn as a human or divinity. The more deeply rooted afflictions are destroyed over the course of the path of cultivation. For each of the nine levels of the three realms of rebirth-the sensuous realm (with one level), the realm of subtle materiality (with four levels), and the immaterial realm (with four levels)-there are nine levels of afflictions (KLEsA), from the most coarse to the most insidious, making eighty-one levels of affliction to be destroyed. As was the case with the path of vision, these defilements must be destroyed in a two-step process: the actual destruction of the particular affliction and the knowledge that it has been destroyed. There are therefore 162 "moments" of the abandoning of afflictions. This process, which takes place over the course of the path of cultivation, may occur over several lifetimes. However, when the 162nd stage is reached, and the subtlest of the subtle afflictions associated with the ninth level-that is, the fourth absorption of the immaterial realm-has been abandoned, the adept is then liberated from rebirth. The bhAvanAmArga is one of the "paths of the nobles" (ARYAMARGA) and one on this stage is immune to any possibility of retrogression and is assured of eventually achieving NIRVAnA. Reference is also sometimes made to the mundane path of cultivation (LAUKIKA-bhAvanAmArga), which refers to the three trainings (TRIsIKsA) in morality (sĪLA), concentration (SAMADHI), and wisdom (PRAJNA) as they are developed before the first of the three fetters (SAMYOJANA) is eradicated and insight achieved. In the MahAyAna path system, with variations between YOGACARA and MADHYAMAKA, the bhAvanAmArga is the period in which the BODHISATTVA proceeds through the ten BHuMIs and destroys the afflictive obstructions (KLEsAVARAnA) and the obstructions to omniscience (JNEYAVARAnA).

Bhava-samadhi: Superconscious state attained by Bhaktas or devotees through intense divine emotion.

bhava samadhi. ::: superconscious state attained by devotees through intense divine emotion in which the devotee retains his ego and enjoys communion with the Self

Bodhi (enlightenment) is a particular state of samadhi, during which the subject reaches the culmination of spiritual knowledge. Samadhi is the highest state on earth that can be reached while in the body; its highest stage or degree is called turiya. To attain beyond this, the initiate must have become a nirmanakaya.

Bodhi (Sanskrit) Bodhi [from the verbal root budh to acquire understanding, awaken] Perfect wisdom or enlightenment; true divine wisdom. A state of consciousness in which one has so emptied the mind that it is filled only with the selfless selfhood of the eternal. In this state one realizes the ineffable visions of reality and of pure truth. Bodhi is a name for the enlightened intellect of buddha. “ ‘Bodhi’ is likewise the name of a particular state of trance condition, called Samadhi, during which the subject reaches the culmination of spiritual knowledge” (SD 1:xix). The bodhi state is called a buddha, and the organ in and by which it is manifested is termed buddhi.

bodhyanga. (P. bojjhanga; T. byang chub kyi yan lag; C. juezhi/qijuezhi; J. kakushi/shichikakushi; K. kakchi/ch'ilgakchi 覺支/七覺支). In Sanskrit, "branches of enlightenment," or "limbs of awakening"; seven qualities attained at the point of realizing the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA): mindfulness (SMṚTI; P. sati), investigation of factors (dharmapravicaya; P. dhammavicaya), energy (VĪRYA; P. viriya), rapture (PRĪTI; pīti), tranquility (PRAsRABDHI; passaddhi), concentration (SAMADHI), and equanimity (UPEKsA; upekkhA). In their roles as "branches of enlightenment," mindfulness, first, refers to the "four foundations of mindfulness" (SMṚTYUPASTHANA; P. SATIPAttHANA), where the practitioner dwells contemplating four types of objects: namely, the body (KAYA), sensations (VEDANA), the mind (CITTA), and mental objects (DHARMA). Investigation of factors refers to investigating, examining, and reflecting on the teachings and numerical lists of factors taught by the Buddha. Energy refers to firm and unshaken energy that arises in the mind of the practitioner while investigating factors, etc. Rapture refers to the supersensuous bliss that arises as a consequence of contemplating with energy. Tranquility refers to the tranquility that arises as a consequence of the mind experiencing rapture. Concentration refers to the mental absorption that arises as a consequence of tranquility. Finally, equanimity refers to the sense of complete composure that arises as a consequence of the mind being well concentrated on an object. These are called factors of "enlightenment," because they lead to awakening (BODHI) or more specifically to the attainment of the "threefold knowledge" (TRIVIDYA; P. tevijjA): "recollection of former lives" (S. PuRVANIVASANUSMṚTI; P. pubbenivAsAnussati), the "divine eye" (DIVYACAKsUS; P. dibbacakkhu), which sees the death and rebirth of beings occurring according to their actions, and the "knowledge of the extinction of the contaminants" (ASRAVAKsAYA JNANA; P. AsavakhayaNAna).

Bodhyanga (Sanskrit) Bodhyaṅga [from bodhi wisdom + aṅga limb, portion, division] Limb or division of essential wisdom; often used collectively to signify the branches of esoteric knowledge or understanding, usually enumerated as seven: 1) smriti (memory); 2) dharma-pravichaya (investigation — hence correct understanding or discrimination of the Law); 3) virya (energy); 4) priti (spiritual joy); 5) prasrabdhi (confidence, tranquillity); 6) samadhi (absorption of the consciousness in a high spiritual and intellectual objective); and 7) upeksha (absolute indifference). Esoterically these correspond to seven states of consciousness (TG 59).

Brahmarandhra downward. People went above this only in samadhi or in a condition of static mukii without any dynamic descent. All that was dynamic took place in the region of the spiritualised mental and vital-physical consciousness.

Samadhi ::: A certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi. Not merely a state withdrawn from all consciousness of the outward, withdrawn even from all consciousness of the inward into that which exists beyond both whether as seed of both or transcendent even of their seed-state; but a settled existence in the One and Infinite, united and identified with it, and this status to remain whether we abide in the waking condition in which we are conscious of the forms of things or we withdraw into the inward activity which dwells in the play of the principles of things, the play of their names and typal forms or we soar to the condition of static inwardness where we arrive at the principles themselves and at the principle of all principles, the seed of name and form.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 321


Samadhi and norma! sleep, between the dream*state of Yoga and the physical state of dream. The latter belongs to the physical mind ; in the former the mind proper and subtle is at work liberated from the immixture of the physical mentality. The dreams of the physical mind are an incoherent jumble made up partly of responses to vague touches from the physical world round which the lower mind*faculttes disconnected from the will and reason, the buddhi, weave a web of wandering phantasy, partly of disordered associations from the brain>memory, partly of refieclions from the soul travelling on the mental plane, reflec- tions which arc, ordinarily, received without intelligence or co- ordination, wildly distorted in the reception and mixed up confusedly with the other dream elements, with brain-memories and fantastic responses to any sensory touch from the physical world. In the Yogic dream-state, on the other hand, the mind is in clear possession of itself, though not of the physical world, works coherently and is able to use either its ordinary will and intelligence with a concentrated power or else the higher will and intelligence of the more exalted planes of mind. It withdraws from experience of the outer world, it puts its seals upon the physical senses and their doors of conununicatinn with maJerJal things ; but everything that is proper to itself, thought, reasoning, reflection, vision, it can continue to execute with an increased purity and power of sovereign concentration free from the dis- tractions and unsteadiness of the waking mind. It can use too its will and produce upon itself or upon its environment mental, moral and even physical effects which may continue and have

Samadhindriya (Sanskrit) Samādhīndriya The root of meditation, the organ of meditation; “the fourth of the five roots called Pancha Indriyani, which are said in esoteric philosophy to be the agents in producing a highly moral life, leading to sanctity and liberation; when these are reached, the two spiritual roots lying latent in the body (Atma and Buddhi) will send out shoots and blossom. Samadhindriya is the organ of ecstatic meditation in Raj-yoga practices” (TG 286).

Samadhi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths according as it draws farther and farther away from the normal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or call back the soul that has receded into them; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the system owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a time cannot return; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had inhabited it. Finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary phenomena of death, by an act of will,1 or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current (udana), opening for it a way through the mystic brahmarandhra in the head. By departure from life in the state of Samadhi he attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 520-21


Samadhi(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word formed of sam, meaning "with" or "together"; a, meaning "towards"; andthe verbal root dha, signifying "to place," or "to bring"; hence samadhi, meaning "to direct towards,"generally signifies to combine the faculties of the mind with a direction towards an object. Hence, intensecontemplation or profound meditation, with the consciousness directed to the spiritual. It is the highestform of self-possession, in the sense of collecting all the faculties of the constitution towards reachingunion or quasi-union, long or short in time as the case may be, with the divine-spiritual. One whopossesses and is accustomed to use this power has complete, absolute control over all his faculties, andis, therefore, said to be "completely self- possessed." It is the highest state of yoga or "union."Samadhi, therefore, is a word of exceedingly mystical and profound significance implying the completeabstraction of the percipient consciousness from all worldly or exterior or even mental concerns orattributes, and its absorption into or, perhaps better, its becoming the pure unadulterate, undilutesuperconsciousness of the god within. In other words, samadhi is self-conscious union with the spiritualmonad of the human constitution. Samadhi is the eighth or final stage of genuine occult yoga, and can beattained at any time by the initiate without conscious recourse to the other phases or practices of yogaenumerated in Oriental works, and which other and inferior practices are often misleading, in some casesdistinctly injurious, and at the best mere props or aids in the attaining of complete mental abstractionfrom worldly concerns.The eight stages of yoga usually enumerated are the following: (1) yama, signifying "restraint" or"forbearance"; (2) niyama, religious observances of various kinds, such as watchings or fastings,prayings, penances, etc.; (3) asana (q.v.), postures of various kinds; (4) pranayama, various methods ofregulating the breath; (5) pratyahara, a word signifying "withdrawal," but technically and esoterically the"withdrawal" of the consciousness from sensual or sensuous concerns, or from external objects; (6)dharana (q.v.), firmness or steadiness or resolution in holding the mind set or concentrated on a topic orobject of thought, mental concentration; (7) dhyana (q.v.), abstract contemplation or meditation whenfreed from exterior distractions; and finally, (8) samadhi, complete collection of the consciousness and ofits faculties into oneness or union with the monadic essence.It may be observed, and should be carefully taken note of by the student, that when the initiate hasattained samadhi he becomes practically omniscient for the solar universe in which he dwells, becausehis consciousness is functioning at the time in the spiritual-causal worlds. All knowledge is then to himlike an open page because he is self-consciously conscious, to use a rather awkward phrase, of nature'sinner and spiritual realms, the reason being that his consciousness has become kosmic in its reaches.

Samadhi: Sanskrit for putting together. Profound meditation, absorption in the spirit. The final stage in the practice of Yoga, in which the individual becomes one with the object of meditation, thus attaining a condition of superconsciousness and unqualified blissfulness, which is called moksha.

Samadhi (Sanskrit) Samādhi [from sam with, together + ā towards + the verbal root dhā to place, bring] To direct towards; to combine the mental faculties towards an object. Self-consciousness union with the spiritual monad by intense and profound spiritual contemplation or meditation. It implies “the complete abstraction of the percipient consciousness from all worldly, or exterior, or even mental concerns or attributes, and its . . . becoming the pure unadulterate, undilute super-consciousness of the god within. . . . Samadhi is the eighth or final stage of genuine occult Yoga, and can be attained at any time by the initiate without conscious recourse to the other phases or practices of Yoga enumerated in Oriental works, and which other and inferior practices are often misleading, in some cases distinctly injurious, and at the best mere props or aids in the attaining of complete mental abstraction from worldly concerns” (OG 150-1). The seeker on attaining samadhi becomes practically omniscient for his solar universe because his consciousness is functioning in the cosmic spiritual and causal worlds.

Samadhi (S) Deep and abstract meditation, highest condition of being that brings peace and balance. Comparable to the Buddhist term Nirwana and the sufi term Hahut

Samadhi ::: See Absorption Concentration.

Samadhi: (Skr.) The final stage in the practice of Yoga (q.v.) according to the Yogasutras (q.v.) in which individuality is given up while merging with the object of meditation; thus producing a state of unqualified blissfulness and unperturbed consciousness, which is moksa (q.v.). -- K.F.L.

Samadhi (Skt.): Lit. Together with (sam) the Lord (adhi). There are various degrees of

Samadhi, the highest of which is Sahaja Samadhi or Thought-free Consciousness. This differs from otherforms of Samadhi in that it is not a trance condition at all but the natural state of pure Self-realization-the aim of all spiritual culture, Eastern and Western.

Samadhi: The state of superconsciousness where Absoluteness is experienced attended with all-knowledge and joy; Oneness; here the mind becomes identified with the object of meditation; the meditator and the meditated, thinker and thought become one in perfect absorption of the mind.

Bsam yas debate. An important event in the early dissemination (SNGA DAR) of Buddhism in Tibet. During the reign of the king KHRI SRONG LDE BRTSAN at the end of the eighth century, there were two Buddhist factions at court, a Chinese faction led by the Northern Chan (BEI ZONG) monk Heshang MOHEYAN (the Chinese transcription of "MahAyAna") and an Indian faction associated with the recently deceased sANTARAKsITA who, with the king and PADMASAMBHAVA, had founded the first Tibetan monastery at BSAM YAS. According to traditional accounts, sAntaraksita foretold of dangers and left instructions in his will that his student KAMALAsĪLA be called from India. A conflict seems to have developed between the Indian and Chinese partisans (and their allies in the Tibetan court) over the question of the nature of enlightenment, with the Indians holding that enlightenment takes place as the culmination of a gradual process of purification, the result of combining ethical practice (sĪLA), meditation (SAMADHI), and wisdom (PRAJNA). The Chinese spoke against this view, holding that enlightenment was the intrinsic nature of the mind itself rather than the goal of a protracted path of practice. Therefore, to recognize the presence of this innate nature of enlightenment, one need only enter a state of awareness beyond distinctions; all other practices were superfluous. According to both Chinese and Tibetan records, a debate was held between Kamalasīla and Moheyan at Bsam yas, circa 797, with the king himself serving as judge. According to Tibetan records (contradicted by Chinese accounts), Kamalasīla was declared the winner and Moheyan and his party were banished from Tibet, with the king proclaiming that the MADHYAMAKA school of Indian Buddhist philosophy (to which sAntaraksita and Kamalasīla belonged) would thereafter be followed in Tibet. Kamalasīla died shortly after the debate, supposedly assassinated by members of the Chinese faction. Scholars have suggested that although a controversy between the Indian and Chinese Buddhists (and their Tibetan partisans) occurred, it is unlikely that a face-to-face debate took place or that the outcome of the controversy was so unequivocal. The "debate" may instead have been an exchange of statements; indeed, KAmalasīla's third BHAVANAKRAMA seems to derive from this exchange. It is also important to note that, regardless of the merits of the Indian and Chinese philosophical positions, China was Tibet's chief military rival at the time, whereas India posed no such threat. The debate's principal significance derives from the fact that from this point on, Tibet largely sought its Buddhism from India; no school of Chinese Buddhism subsequently exerted any major influence in Tibet. It is said that when he departed, Moheyan left behind one shoe, indicating that traces of his view would remain in Tibet; some scholars have suggested possible connections between Chan positions and the RDZOGS CHEN teachings that developed in the ninth century. In Tibetan polemics of later centuries, it was considered particularly harsh to link one's opponent's views to the antinomian views of Moheyan. Moheyan himself was transformed into something of a trickster figure, popular in Tibetan art and drama. This event is variously referred to in English as the Council of Samye, the Council of Lha sa, and the Samye Debate. See also DUNWU.

Buddhaghosa. (S. Buddhaghosa) (fl. c. 370-450 CE). The preeminent PAli commentator, who translated into PAli the Sinhalese commentaries to the PAli canon and wrote the VISUDDHIMAGGA ("Path of Purification"), the definitive outline of THERAVADA doctrine.There are several conflicting accounts of Buddhaghosa's origins, none of which can be dated earlier than the thirteenth century. The Mon of Lower Burma claim him as a native son, although the best-known story, which is found in the CulAVAMSA (chapter 37), describes Buddhaghosa as an Indian brAhmana who grew up in the environs of the MAHABODHI temple in northern India. According to this account, his father served as a purohita (brAhmana priest) for King SangAma, while he himself became proficient in the Vedas and related Brahmanical sciences at an early age. One day, he was defeated in a debate by a Buddhist monk named Revata, whereupon he entered the Buddhist SAMGHA to learn more about the Buddha's teachings. He received his monk's name Buddhaghosa, which means "Voice of the Buddha," because of his sonorous voice and impressive rhetorical skills. Buddhaghosa took Revata as his teacher and began writing commentaries even while a student. Works written at this time included the NAnodaya and AttHASALINĪ. To deepen his understanding (or according to some versions of his story, as punishment for his intellectual pride), Buddhaghosa was sent to Sri Lanka to study the Sinhalese commentaries on the PAli Buddhist canon (P. tipitaka; S. TRIPItAKA). These commentaries were said to have been brought to Sri Lanka in the third century BCE, where they were translated from PAli into Sinhalese and subsequently preserved at the MAHAVIHARA monastery in the Sri Lankan capital of ANURADHAPURA. At the MahAvihAra, Buddhghosa studied under the guidance of the scholar-monk SanghapAla. Upon completing his studies, he wrote the great compendium of TheravAda teachings, Visuddhimagga, which summarizes the contents of the PAli tipitaka under the threefold heading of morality (sīla; S. sĪLA), meditative absorption (SAMADHI), and wisdom (paNNA; S. PRAJNA). Impressed with his expertise, the elders of the MahAvihAra allowed Buddhaghosa to translate the Sinhalese commentaries back into PAli, the canonical language of the TheravAda tipitaka. Attributed to Buddhaghosa are the VINAYA commentaries, SAMANTAPASADIKA and KankhAvitaranī; the commentaries to the SUTTAPItAKA, SUMAnGALAVILASINĪ, PAPANCASuDANĪ, SARATTHAPPAKASINĪ, and MANORATHAPuRAnĪ; also attributed to him is the PARAMATTHAJOTIKA (the commentary to the KHUDDAKAPAtHA and SUTTANIPATA). Buddhaghosa's commentaries on the ABHIDHAMMAPItAKA (see ABHIDHARMA) include the SAMMOHAVINODANĪ and PANCAPPAKARAnAttHAKATHA, along with the AtthasAlinī. Of these many works, Buddhaghosa is almost certainly author of the Visuddhimagga and translator of the commentaries to the four nikAyas, but the remainder are probably later attributions. Regardless of attribution, the body of work associated with Buddhaghosa was profoundly influential on the entire subsequent history of Buddhist scholasticism in the TheravAda traditions of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

buddhAnusmṛti. (P. buddhAnussati; T. sangs rgyas rjes su dran pa; C. nianfo; J. nenbutsu; K. yombul 念佛). In Sanskrit, "recollection of the Buddha"; one of the common practices designed to develop concentration, in which the meditator reflects on the meritorious qualities of the Buddha, often through contemplating a series of his epithets. The oldest list of epithets of the Buddha used in such recollection, which is found across all traditions, is worthy one (ARHAT), fully enlightened (SAMYAKSAMBUDDHA), perfect in both knowledge and conduct (vidyAcaranasampanna), well gone (SUGATA), knower of all worlds (lokavid), teacher of divinities (or kings) and human beings (sAstṛ devamanusyAnaM), buddha, and BHAGAVAT. BuddhAnusmṛti is listed among the forty meditative exercises (KAMMAttHANA) discussed in the VISUDDHIMAGGA and is said to be conducive to gaining access concentration (UPACARASAMADHI). In East Asia, this recollection practice evolved into the recitation of the name of the buddha AMITABHA (see NIANFO) in the form of the phrase namo Amituo fo ("homage to AmitAbha Buddha"; J. NAMU AMIDABUTSU). This recitation was often performed in a ritual setting accompanied by the performance of prostrations, the burning of incense, and the recitation of scriptures, all directed toward gaining a vision of AmitAbha's PURE LAND (SUKHAVATĪ), which was considered proof that one would be reborn there. Nianfo practice was widely practiced across schools and social strata in China. In Japan, repetition of the phrase in its Japanese pronunciation of namu Amidabutsu (homage to AmitAbha Buddha) became a central practice of the Japanese Pure Land schools of Buddhism (see JoDOSHu, JoDO SHINSHu).

caitta. [alt. caitasika] (P. cetasika; T. sems byung; C. xinsuo; J. shinjo; K. simso 心所). In Sanskrit, "mental concomitants" or "mental factors." In the ABHIDHARMA, the term encompasses those mental factors that accompany, in various combinations, the mind (CITTA) and its six sensory consciousnesses (VIJNANA), viz., visual (lit. eye), auditory (ear), olfactory (nose), gustatory (tongue), tactile (body), and mental. The VAIBHAsIKA school of SARVASTIVADA abhidharma lists forty-six caittas, the PAli ABHIDHAMMA lists fifty-two (called CETASIKA), while the mature YOGACARA system of MAHAYANA abhidharma gives a total of fifty-one specific mental concomitants, listed in six categories. The first, mental concomitants of universal application (SARVATRAGA), includes the five factors of sensory contact (SPARsA), sensations (VEDANA), intention or volition (CETANA), perception (SAMJNA), and attention (MANASKARA). The second category, five concomitants that are of specific application (VINIYATA) in spiritual progress, includes mindfulness (SMṚTI), concentration (SAMADHI), and wisdom (PRAJNA). The third category, salutary (KUsALA) factors, includes nine positive mental states such as faith (sRADDHA), lack of greed (ALOBHA), lack of hatred (ADVEsA), and vigor (VĪRYA). The fourth category, the primary afflictions (KLEsA), includes six negative mental states such as sensuality (RAGA), aversion (PRATIGHA), pride (MANA), and doubt (VICIKITSA). The fifth category, secondary afflictions (UPAKLEsA), includes twenty lesser forms of negative mental states, such as envy (ĪRsYA), harmfulness (VIHIMSA), and carelessness (PRAMADA). The sixth and final category, mental concomitants of indeterminate (ANIYATA) quality, includes the four factors of remorse (KAUKṚTYA), torpor (MIDDHA), thought (VITARKA), and analysis (VICARA). See also CETASIKA.

caturmudrA. (T. phyag rgya bzhi; C. siyin; J. shiin; K. sain 四印). In Sanskrit, lit. "four seals" or "four assertions"; the Tibetan translation lta ba bkar btags kyi phyag rgya bzhi literally means "the four seals that mark a view as the word [of the Buddha]," i.e., that mark a philosophical system or certify a doctrine as being Buddhist. The four seals are: all compounded factors (SAMSKṚTADHARMA) are impermanent (ANITYATA), all contaminated things are suffering (DUḤKHA), all things are devoid of any perduring self (ANATMAN), and NIRVAnA is peace (sAnta). In the MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA, the four seals are connected with the three "gates to deliverance" (VIMOKsAMUKHA), which mark the transition from the compounded (SAMSKṚTA) realm of SAMSARA to the uncompounded (ASAMSKṚTA) realm of NIRVAnA. "All compounded factors are impermanent" and "all contaminated things are suffering" are the cause of the SAMADHI of wishlessness (APRAnIHITA). "All phenomena are selfless" is the cause of the samAdhi of emptiness (suNYATA). "NirvAna is peace" is the cause of the samAdhi of signlessness (ANIMITTA).

causal body ::: The mass-energy support (or “body”) for such states of consciousness as formless meditation, nirvikalpa samadhi, the chikhai bardo, and the deep, dreamless sleep state. The term “causal” technically refers only to this mass-energy but is sometimes broadly used to refer to states of consciousness supported by the causal body. See gross body and subtle body.

cetasika. In PAli, "mental concomitant" or "mental factor"; the PAli equivalent of the Sanskrit term caitasika (see CAITTA). Mental concomitants are factors associated with the arising of consciousness (CITTA or viNNAna; S. VIJNANA). According to the PAli ABHIDHAMMA, there are fifty-two mental concomitants, of which twenty-five are either karmically salutary or neutral, fourteen are karmically unsalutary, and thirteen are simply neutral. Out of the fifty-two types of cetasikas, seven are invariably associated with all moments of consciousness-viz., consciousness cannot arise without these seven all being present: (1) sensory contact or sense impression (phassa; S. SPARsA), (2) sensation or feeling (VEDANA), (3) perception or conception (saNNA; S. SAMJNA), (4) volition (CETANA), (5) concentration (SAMADHI), (6) vitality (JĪVITA), and (7) attention, viz., the advertence of the mind toward an object (manasikAra; S. MANASKARA). See also CAITTA; List of Lists.

Cetokhilasutta. (C. Xinhui jing; J. Shinnekyo; K. Simye kyong 心穢經). In PAli, "Discourse on Mental Obstructions"; the sixteenth sutta of the MAJJHIMANIKAYA (a separate SarvAstivAda recension appears as the 206th sutra in the Chinese translation of the MADHYAMAGAMA; a recension of unidentified affiliation also occurs in the Chinese translation of the EKOTTARAGAMA), preached by the Buddha to a gathering of monks in the JETAVANA grove in the town of SAvatthi (sRAVASTĪ). The Buddha describes five mental obstructions and five fetters that constitute impediments to overcoming suffering. The five obstructions include (1) doubt about the teacher, the Buddha; (2) doubt about the dhamma (DHARMA); (3) doubt about the SAMGHA; (4) doubt about the value of morality (sīla; S. sĪLA), meditative concentration (SAMADHI), and wisdom (paNNA; S. PRAJNA); 5) ill will and animosity toward one's fellow monks. The five fetters include (1) attachment to sensual desires, (2) attachment to a sense of self, (3) attachment to material possessions, (4) excessive sleeping and eating, and (5) adopting the life of renunciation merely for the limited goal of a blissful existence in the heavens.

cetovimukti. (P. cetovimutti; T. sems rnam par grol ba; C. xin jietuo; J. shingedatsu; K. sim haet'al 心解). In Sanskrit, "liberation of mind"; a meditative concept associated with the mastery of any of the four meditative absorptions (P. JHANA; S. DHYANA). Cetovimukti results in the temporary suppression of the contaminants (P. Asava; S. ASRAVA) through the force of concentration (SAMADHI). It is also associated with the acquisition of the "superknowledges" (P. abhiNNA; S. ABHIJNA). Cetovimukti alone is insufficient to bring about the attainment of enlightenment (BODHI) or the cessation of rebirth and must therefore be complemented by the "liberation through wisdom" (P. paNNAvimutti; S. prajNAvimukti; see PRAJNAVIMUKTA).

Chaitanya-samadhi: The state of superconsciousness which is marked by absolute self-awareness and illumination as distinguished from Jada-samadhi in which there is no such awareness.

chatusthaya) ::: the third catus.t.aya, the quaternary of the supraintellectual faculty (vijñana), whose members are usually listed as jñana, trikaladr.s.t.i, as.t.asiddhi and samadhi; as.t.asiddhi is sometimes replaced by rūpadr.s.t.i and tapas, making five members. vij ñana ana darsana

Chonghye Kyolsa. (定慧結社). In Korean, the "SAMADHI and PRAJNA Society"; an important Korean "retreat society" (kyolsa; C. JIESHI) during the Koryo dynasty. The first SamAdhi and PrajNA Society was established by the Korean SoN master POJO CHINUL at the monastery of Kojosa on Mt. Kong in 1188. At the invitation of a monk by the name of Tŭkchae (d.u.), Chinul and a handful of monks gathered at Kojosa in 1188 and formally began their retreat two years later in 1190. Throughout the retreat, Chinul continued to invite willing participants, both clergy and laity, to join the community. Among the most renowned of these recruits was the Korean CHoNT'AE CHONG (TIANTAI ZONG) adept WoNMYO YOSE (1163-1240). Seven years later, in 1197, the community had grown to such a size that Chinul began looking for a larger, more suitable site to relocate the community. A small, dilapidated monastery known as Kilsangsa on Mt. Songgwang was chosen as the new site, and reconstruction of the temple began immediately. King Hŭijong (r. 1204-1211) later renamed Kilsangsa SUSoNSA, or Son Cultivation Community; it is now the major monastery of SONGGWANGSA, the so-called SaMgha-Jewel monastery (Sŭngbo sach'al) of Korean Buddhism. Chinul's first composition, the Kwon su Chonghye kyolsa mun ("Encouragement to Practice: The Compact of the SamAdhi and PrajNA Society"), written in 1290, provides the rationale behind the establishment of the community and critiques PURE LAND adepts who claim that buddhahood cannot be achieved in the present lifetime.

Chongjung Musang. (C. Jingzhong Wuxiang; J. Joshu Muso 淨衆無相) (680-756, alt. 684-762). Korean-Chinese CHAN master of the Tang dynasty; because he was of Korean heritage, he is usually called Musang in the literature, following the Korean pronunciation of his dharma name, or Master Kim (K. Kim hwasang; C. Jin heshang), using his Korean surname. Musang is said to have been the third son of a Silla king and was ordained in Korea at the monastery of Kunnamsa. In 728, he arrived in the Chinese capital of Chang'an (present-day Xi'an) and had an audience with the Tang emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756), who appointed him to the monastery of Chandingsi. Musang subsequently traveled to Chu (in present-day Sichuan province) and became a disciple of the monk Chuji (alt. 648-734, 650-732, 669-736), who gave him dharma transmission at the monastery of Dechunsi in Zizhou (present-day Sichuan province). He later resided at the monastery of Jingzhongsi in Chengdu (present-day Sichuan province; later known as WANFOSI), which gave him his toponym Chongjung (C. Jingzhong). Musang became famous for his ascetic practices and meditative prowess. Musang also began conferring a unique set of precepts known as the three propositions (SANJU): "no recollection" (wuji), which was equated with morality (sĪLA); "no thought" (WUNIAN) with concentration (SAMADHI); and "no forgetting" (mowang) with wisdom (PRAJNA). He also taught a practice known as YINSHENG NIANFO, a method of reciting the name of the Buddha by extending the length of the intonation. Musang's prosperous lineage in Sichuan came to be known as the JINGZHONG ZONG line of Chan. Musang seems to have taught or influenced several renowned Chan monks, including HEZE SHENHUI (668-760), BAOTANG WUZHU (714-774), and MAZU DAOYI (707-786); he also played an important role in transmitting Chan to Tibet in the 750s and 760s.

Ch'ont'ae chong. (C. Tiantai zong; J. Tendaishu 天台宗). In Korean, "Altar of Heaven order"; a new order of Korean Buddhism, founded in 1966 by Won'gak Sangwol (1911-1974). Despite the order's name, which evokes that of the Chinese TIANTAI ZONG, the Ch'ont'ae chong is not heavily beholden to traditional Tiantai (K. Ch'ont'ae) doctrine and practice but is a thoroughly modern order, which seeks to respond to contemporary religious and social concerns. The school professes "aeguk Pulgyo" (patriotic Buddhism), which purports to contribute to the development of the nation through personal cultivation and social-welfare activities. Its primary method of spiritual cultivation involves the repetitive recitation of the name of Kwanseŭm posal (AVALOKITEsVARA bodhisattva), based in part on the constant-action SAMADHI (K. sanghaeng sammae; C. changxing sanmei), one of the four kinds of samAdhi attributed to the Chinese TIANTAI monk TIANTAI ZHIYI (538-597). The Ch'ont'ae order introduced a few distinctive elements that distinguish it from other Korean Buddhist orders, e.g., (1) all its followers, whether monks, nuns, or lay people, participate together in a one-month retreat each summer and winter, although monks and nuns have an additional fifty-five day retreat period that immediately follows the winter retreat; (2) monks observe the tradition of shaving their heads, while nuns keep their hair in a small chignon in order to distinguish themselves from laywomen. Since its inception, the order has emphasized lay activities: it encourages lay people to involve themselves in administrative affairs, such as temple finance; it founded the Kŭmgang Buddhist seminary, which offers a two-year program to educate lay people on Tiantai and general Buddhist doctrines and a one-year program to train lay propagators of Buddhism (p'ogyosa); finally, the order has also established Kŭmgang University (Geumgang Daehakkyo), which offers a full range of majors in both Buddhism and secular topics. The order is also active in social activities, such as the promotion of social welfare and environmental preservation. Its major temples are the Kuinsa headquarters founded by Sangwol in 1945 in North Ch'ungch'ong province; and Samgwangsa, founded in 1969 in Pusan. The school also has overseas branches in Canada, the United States, Denmark, and Mongolia.

cidakasa (chidakasha; chidakash) ::: the ether of pure consciousness cidakasa (cit); a subtle ether (sūks.ma akasa) or "inner space" behind the cittakasa; its accessibility to the mind in antardarsi jagrat and svapnasamadhi and its mention in connection with the cittakasa suggest that the cidakasa referred to by Sri Aurobindo is the ether of cit on the mental plane, not on its own highest plane.

cittakasa (chittakasha; chittakash) ::: the ether (akasa) of the citta cittakasa or basic mental consciousness, a mental akasa defined as the "ether of the pranic manas", whose contents are experienced especially in antardarsi jagrat and svapnasamadhi.

cittakasa (jagrat chittakasha) ::: the waking cittakasa; a mental ether in which images are seen in jagrat samadhi. jjagrat agrat rupa

cittakasa. These may be transcriptions there or impresses of physical things, persons, scenes, happenings, whatever is, was or will be or may be in the ph^ical universe. These images are very variously seen and under all kinds of conditions ; in samadhi or in the waking stale, and in the latter with the bodily eyes closed or open, projected on or into a physical object or medium or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical ether revealing itself through this grosser physical atmosphere ; seen through the physical eyes themselves as a secondary instrument and as if under the conditions of the physical vision or by the psychical vision alone and indepen- dently of the relations of our ordinary sight to space. The real agent is always the psychical sight and the power indicates that the consciousness is more or less awake, intermittently or nor- mally and more or less perfectly, in the psj’chical body. It is possible to see In this way the transcriptions or impressions of things at any distance beyond the range of the physical vision or the images of the past or the future.

citta. (T. sems; C. xin; J. shin; K. sim 心). In Sanskrit and PAli, "mind," "mentality," or "thought"; used broadly to refer to general mentality, citta is the factor (DHARMA) that is present during any type of conscious activity. Citta is contrasted with the physical body or materiality (RuPA), and is synonymous in this context with "name" (NAMA), as in the term NAMARuPA. In this sense, citta corresponds to the last four of the five aggregates (SKANDHA), excluding only the first aggregate, of materiality (RuPA), i.e., sensation (VEDANA), perception (SAMJNA), conditioning factors (SAMSKARA), and consciousness (VIJNANA). (Where the correspondences on this list are further refined, the first three of these mentality aggregates correspond to the mental concomitants, viz., CAITTA, while citta is restricted to the last aggregate, that of consciousness, or vijNAna.) Citta in this broad sense is synonymous with both mentality (MANAS) and consciousness (vijNAna): mind is designated as citta because it "builds up" (cinoti) virtuous and nonvirtuous states; as manas, because it calculates and examines; and as vijNAna, because it discriminates among sensory stimuli. Mind as "consciousness" refers to the six consciousnesses (sadvijNAna): the five sensory consciousnesses of the visual (CAKsURVIJNANA), auditory (sROTRAVIJNANA), olfactory (GHRAnAVIJNANA), gustatory (JIHVAVIJNANA), and tactile (KAYAVIJNANA), along with the mental consciousness (MANOVIJNANA). In some strands of MAHAYANA thought, such as YOGACARA, mind is instead considered to encompass not only mentality but all dharmas, and the distinction between mentality and materiality is presumed to be merely nominal; YogAcAra is thus sometimes called the school of CITTAMATRA, or "mind-only." Citta as mentality serves as one of the four foundations of mindfulness (SMṚTYUPASTHANA) in Buddhist meditative training, and refers to various general states of mind, e.g., a mind (citta) that is depressed, distracted, developed, concentrated, or freed. Citta is also used to signify mind itself in distinction to various sets of mental concomitants (caitta) that accompany the basic sensory consciousnesses. The DHAMMASAnGAnI, the first of the seven books of the PAli ABHIDHAMMAPItAKA, classifies citta as the first of a fourfold division of factors into mind (citta), mental concomitants (P. CETASIKA), materiality or form (rupa), and NIRVAnA (P. nibbAna). In this text's treatment, a moment of consciousness (citta) will always arise in association with a variety of associated mental factors (P. cetasika), seven of which are always present during every moment of consciousness: (1) sensory contact or sense impression (P. phassa; S. SPARsA), (2) feeling or sensation (VEDANA), (3) perception or conception (P. saNNA; S. SAMJNA), (4) volition (CETANA), (5) concentration (SAMADHI), (6) vitality (JĪVITA), and (7) attention, viz., the advertence of the mind toward an object (P. manasikAra; S. MANASKARA). The SARVASTIVADA ABHIDHARMA instead divides all dharmas into five groups: mind (citta), mental concomitants (caitta), materiality (rupa), forces dissociated from thought (CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKARA), and the unconditioned (ASAMSKṚTA). In this system, ten specific factors are said universally to accompany all conscious activity and are therefore called "factors of wide extent" or "omnipresent mental factors" (MAHABHuMIKA): (1) sensation (vedanA); (2) volition (cetanA); (3) perception (saMjNA); (4) zeal or "desire-to-act" (CHANDA) (5) sensory contact (sparsa); (6) discernment (mati); (7) mindfulness (SMṚTI); (8) attention (manaskAra); (9) determination (ADHIMOKsA); (10) concentration (samAdhi). According to the system set forth by ASAnGA in his ABHIDHARMASAMUCCAYA, this list is divided into two sets of five: the five omnipresent (SARVATRAGA) mental factors (vedanA, saMjNA, cetanA, sparsa, and manaskAra) and the five determining (pratiniyama) mental factors (chanda, adhimoksa, smṛti, samAdhi, and prajNA). ¶ In the experience of enlightenment (BODHI), the citta is said to be "freed" from the "point of view" that is the self (ATMAN). The citta is then no longer subject to the limitations perpetuated by ignorance (AVIDYA) and craving (TṚsnA) and thus becomes nonmanifesting (because there is no longer any projection of ego into the perceptual process), infinite (because the mind is no longer subject to the limitations of conceptualization), and lustrous (because the ignorance that dulls the mind has been vanquished forever). Scriptural statements attest to this inherent luminosity of the citta, which may be revealed through practice and manifested in enlightenment. For example, in the PAli AnGUTTARANIKAYA, the Buddha says, "the mind, O monks, is luminous" (P. pabhassaraM idaM bhikkhave cittaM). Such statements are the strands from which the MahAyAna subsequently derives such concepts as the inherent quality of buddhahood (BUDDHADHATU; C. FOXING) or the embryo of the TATHAGATAs (TATHAGATAGARBHA) that is said to be innate in the mind.

cittavisuddhi. (S. cittavisuddhi). In PAli, "purity of mind"; according to the VISUDDHIMAGGA, the second of seven "purities" (VISUDDHI) to be developed along the path to liberation. Purity of mind refers to the eight meditative absorptions (P. JHANA; S. DHYANA) or attainments (SAMAPATTI) belonging to the subtle-materiality realm (rupAvacara) and the immaterial realm (ArupyAvacara). Meditative absorption belonging to the subtle-materiality realm (P. rupAvacarajhAna; S. RuPAVACARADHYANA) is subdivided into four stages, each of which is characterized by an increasing attenuation of consciousness as the meditator progresses from one stage to the next. Meditative absorption belonging to the immaterial realm (P. arupAvacarajhAna; S. ARuPYAVACARADHYANA) is likewise subdivided into four stages, but in this case it is the object of meditation that becomes attenuated from one stage to the next. In the first immaterial absorption, the meditator sets aside the perception of materiality and abides in the sphere of infinite space (P. AkAsAnaNcAyatana; S. AKAsANANTYAYATANA). In the second immaterial absorption, the meditator sets aside the perception of infinite space and abides in the sphere of infinite consciousness (P. viNNanaNcAyatana; S. VIJNANANANTYAYATANA). In the third immaterial absorption, the meditator sets aside the perception of infinite consciousness and abides in the sphere of nothingness (P. AkiNcaNNAyatana; S. AKINCANYAYATANA). In the fourth immaterial absorption, the meditator sets aside the perception of nothingness and abides in the sphere of neither perception nor nonperception (P. nevasaNNAnAsaNNAyatana; S. NAIVASAMJNANASAMJNAYATANA). To this list of eight absorptions is added "access" or "neighborhood" "concentration" (P. UPACARASAMADHI), which is the degree of concentration present in the mind of the meditator just prior to entering any of the four jhAnas.

clari [Latin] ::: of a clear (consciousness). combined sam samadhi

Concentration With meditation, an equivalent for certain parts of yoga, as found in samadhi, dharana; the removal or surmounting of distractions originating in the mind and centering the latter on the spiritual and intellectual objective to be attained, which in the best sense is union with the inner god, the divine monad — a conscious identification of oneself with the universal through the individual’s innate divinity. The method of meditative concentration prescribed in the Bhagavad-Gita is to perform all the duties of life without either attachment or avoidance. The hindrances to concentration which are to be removed are those arising from anger, lust, vanity, fear, sloth, etc. Such obstacles are removed by lifting the mind above them or by deliberately ignoring them, since directly fighting with them serves to concentrate the mind on them, thus defeating the object aimed at; and by cultivating the spirit of impersonal love and the light of wisdom which it evokes. Thus the blending of the personal self with the impersonal self is achieved by an orderly process of self-directed evolution, first by unselfish work in the cause of humanity, continued in the various degrees of chelaship, culminating in initiation.

correct concentration. See SAMYAKSAMADHI.

Cudapanthaka. (P. Culapanthaka/Cullapantha; T. Lam phran bstan; C. Zhutubantuojia; J. Chudahantaka; K. Chudobant'akka 注荼半托迦). An eminent ARHAT declared in PAli sources as foremost among the Buddha's disciples in his ability to create mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKAYA) and to manipulate mind (cittavivatta). Cudapanthaka was the younger of two brothers born to a merchant's daughter from RAJAGṚHA who had eloped with a slave. Each time she became pregnant, she wanted to return home to give birth to her children, but both were born during her journey home. For this reason, the brothers were named "Greater" Roadside (MahApanthaka; see PANTHAKA) and "Lesser" Roadside. The boys were eventually taken to RAjagṛha and raised by their grandparents, who were devoted to the Buddha. The elder brother Panthaka often accompanied his grandfather to listen to the Buddha's sermons and was inspired to be ordained. He proved to be an able monk, skilled in doctrine, and eventually attained arhatship. He later ordained his younger brother Cudapanthaka but was gravely disappointed in his brother's inability to memorize even a single verse of the dharma. Panthaka was so disappointed that he advised his brother to leave the order, much to the latter's distress. Once, the Buddha's physician JĪVAKA invited the Buddha and his monks to a morning meal. Panthaka gathered the monks together on the appointed day to attend the meal but intentionally omitted Cudapanthaka. So hurt was Cudapanthaka by his brother's contempt that he decided to return to lay life. The Buddha, knowing his mental state, comforted the young monk and taught him a simple exercise: he instructed him to sit facing east and, while repeating the phrase "rajoharanaM" ("cleaning off the dirt"), continue to wipe his face with a clean cloth. As Cudapanthaka noticed the cloth getting dirty from wiping off his sweat, he gained insight into the reality of impermanence (ANITYA) and immediately attained arhatship and was equipped with the four analytical knowledges (PRATISAMVID), including knowledge of the entire canon (TRIPItAKA). (According to other versions of the story, he came to a similar realization through sweeping.) Thereafter Cudapanthaka became renowned for his vast learning, as well as for his supranormal powers. He was a master of meditative concentration (SAMADHI) and of the subtle-materiality absorptions (RuPAVACARADHYANA). He could simultaneously create a thousand unique mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKAYA), while other meditative specialists in the order could at best produce only two or three. ¶ Cudapanthaka is also traditionally listed as the last of the sixteen arhat elders (sOdAsASTHAVIRA), who were charged by the Buddha with protecting his dispensation until the advent of the next buddha, MAITREYA. In CHANYUE GUANXIU's standard Chinese depiction, Cudapanthaka sits among withered trees, his left hand raised with fingers slightly bent, and his right hand resting on his right thigh, holding a fan.

Culavedallasutta. (C. Fale biqiuni jing; J. Horaku bikunikyo; K. Pomnak piguni kyong 法樂比丘尼經). In PAli, "Shorter Discourse on Points of Doctrine"; the forty-fourth sutta in the MAJJHIMANIKAYA (a separate SARVASTIVADA recension appears as the 210th sutra in the Chinese translation of the MADHYAMAGAMA; the entire discourse is also subsumed in the Tibetan translation of samathadeva's commentary to the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA), expounded by the nun DhammadinnA (S. DHARMADINNA) to her former husband, the householder VisAkha, at the Veluvana (S. VEnUVANAVIHARA) bamboo grove in RAjagaha (S. RAJAGṚHA). VisAkha approached DhammadinnA and questioned her concerning a number of points of doctrine preached by the Buddha. These questions included: what is the nature of this existing body (P. sakkAya; S. satkAya); what is its origin (SAMUDAYA), its cessation (NIRODHA), and the path (P. magga; S. MARGA) leading to its cessation; how does wrong view concerning this body (P. sakkAyaditthi; S. SATKAYADṚstI) arise and how is it removed; what is the noble eightfold path; what is concentration (SAMADHI); what are bodily, verbal, and mental formations; what is the attainment of cessation (nirodha); what is sensation (VEDANA); what are the underlying tendencies with regard to pleasant, painful, and neutral sensations and how should these be overcome; and what are the counterparts of pleasant, painful, and neutral sensations. DhammadinnA answered all of the questions put to her to the satisfaction of the householder VisAkha-proving why the Buddha considered her foremost among his nun disciples in the gift of preaching.

Daoxin. (J. Doshin; K. Tosin 道信) (580-651). Chan monk and reputed fourth patriarch of the CHAN tradition. Although Daoxin's birthplace is not certain, some sources say he was a native of Qizhou in present-day Hubei province, while others mention Henei in Henan province. Little is known of his early training, but early Chan sources such as the LENGQIE SHIZI JI and CHUAN FABAO JI claim that Daoxin studied under SENGCAN, the putative third patriarch of Chan and supposed successor to BODHIDHARMA and HUIKE, his connection to this dubious figure is tenuous at best, however, and is probably a retrospective creation. The earliest biography of Daoxin, recorded in the XU GAOSENG ZHUAN ("Supplementary Biographies of Eminent Monks"), not only does not posit any connection of Daoxin to the preceding three patriarchs but does not even mention their names. The Chuan fabao ji states that Daoxin was fully ordained in 607, after his purported period of study under Sengcan. Daoxin is subsequently known to have resided at the monastery of Dalinsi on LUSHAN in Jiangxi province for ten years. At the invitation of the inhabitants of his native Qizhou, Daoxin moved again to Mt. Shuangfeng in Huangmei (perhaps in 624), where he remained in seclusion for about thirty years. He is therefore sometimes known as Shuangfeng Daoxin. During his residence at Mt. Shuangfeng, Daoxin is claimed to have attracted more than five hundred students, among whom HONGREN, the fifth patriarch of Chan, is most famous. The lineage and teachings attributed to Daoxin and Hongren are typically called the East Mountain Teachings (DONGSHAN FAMEN) after the easterly peak of Mt. Shuangfeng, where Hongren dwelled. Daoxin was given the posthumous title Chan Master Dayi (Great Physician) by Emperor Daizong (r. 762-779) of the Tang dynasty. According to the Lengqie shizi ji, Daoxin composed the Pusajie zuofa ("Method of Conferring the BODHISATTVA Precepts"), which is no longer extant, and the Rudao anxin yaofangbian famen ("Essentials of the Teachings of the Expedient Means of Entering the Path and Pacifying the Mind"), which is embedded in the Lengqie shizi ji. This latter text employs the analogy of a mirror from the Banzhou sanmei jing (S. PRATYUTPANNABUDDHASAMMUKHAVASTHITASAMADHISuTRA) to illustrate the insubstantiality of all phenomena, viz., one's sensory experiences are no more substantial than the reflections in a mirror. The text then presents the "single-practice SAMADHI" (YIXING SANMEI) as a practical means of accessing the path leading to NIRVAnA, based on the Wenshushuo bore jing ("Perfection of Wisdom Sutra Spoken by Manjusrī"). Single-practice samAdhi here refers to sitting in meditation, the supreme practice that subsumes all other practices. In single-practice samAdhi, the meditator contemplates every single aspect of one's mental and physical existence until one realizes they are all empty, and "guards that one without deviation" (shouyi buyi).

dasabhumi. (T. sa bcu; C. shidi; J. juji; K. sipchi 十地). In Sanskrit, lit., "ten grounds," "ten stages"; the ten highest reaches of the bodhisattva path (MARGA) leading to buddhahood. The most systematic and methodical presentation of the ten BHuMIs appears in the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA ("Ten Bhumis Sutra"), where each of the ten stages is correlated with seminal doctrines of mainstream Buddhism-such as the four means of conversion (SAMGRAHAVASTU) on the first four bhumis, the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (CATVARY ARYASATYANI) on the fifth bhumi, and the chain of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA) on the sixth bhumi, etc.-as well as with mastery of one of a list of ten perfections (PARAMITA) completed in the course of training as a bodhisattva. The list of the ten bhumis of the Dasabhumikasutra, which becomes standard in most MahAyAna traditions, is as follows: (1) PRAMUDITA (joyful) corresponds to the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA) and the bodhisattva's first direct realization of emptiness (suNYATA). The bodhisattva masters on this bhumi the perfection of giving (DANAPARAMITA), learning to give away those things most precious to him, including his wealth, his wife and family, and even his body (see DEHADANA); (2) VIMALA (immaculate, stainless) marks the inception of the path of cultivation (BHAVANAMARGA), where the bodhisattva develops all the superlative traits of character incumbent on a buddha through mastering the perfection of morality (sĪLAPARAMITA); (3) PRABHAKARĪ (luminous, splendrous), where the bodhisattva masters all the various types of meditative experiences, such as DHYANA, SAMAPATTI, and the BRAHMAVIHARA; despite the emphasis on meditation in this bhumi, it comes to be identified instead with the perfection of patience (KsANTIPARAMITA), ostensibly because the bodhisattva is willing to endure any and all suffering in order to master his practices; (4) ARCIsMATĪ (radiance, effulgence), where the flaming radiance of the thirty-seven factors pertaining to enlightenment (BODHIPAKsIKADHARMA) becomes so intense that it incinerates obstructions (AVARAnA) and afflictions (KLEsA), giving the bodhisattva inexhaustible energy in his quest for enlightenment and thus mastering the perfection of vigor or energy (VĪRYAPARAMITA); (5) SUDURJAYA (invincibility, hard-to-conquer), where the bodhisattva comprehends the various permutations of truth (SATYA), including the four noble truths, the two truths (SATYADVAYA) of provisional (NEYARTHA) and absolute (NĪTARTHA), and masters the perfection of meditative absorption (DHYANAPARAMITA); (6) ABHIMUKHĪ (immediacy, face-to-face), where, as the name implies, the bodhisattva stands at the intersection between SAMSARA and NIRVAnA, turning away from the compounded dharmas of saMsAra and turning to face the profound wisdom of the buddhas, thus placing him "face-to-face" with both the compounded (SAMSKṚTA) and uncompounded (ASAMSKṚTA) realms; this bhumi is correlated with mastery of the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNAPARAMITA); (7) DuRAnGAMA (far-reaching, transcendent), which marks the bodhisattva's freedom from the four perverted views (VIPARYASA) and his mastery of the perfection of expedients (UPAYAPARAMITA), which he uses to help infinite numbers of sentient beings; (8) ACALA (immovable, steadfast), which is marked by the bodhisattva's acquiescence or receptivity to the nonproduction of dharmas (ANUTPATTIKADHARMAKsANTI); because he is now able to project transformation bodies (NIRMAnAKAYA) anywhere in the universe to help sentient beings, this bhumi is correlated with mastery of the perfection of aspiration or resolve (PRAnIDHANAPARAMITA); (9) SADHUMATĪ (eminence, auspicious intellect), where the bodhisattva acquires the four analytical knowledges (PRATISAMVID), removing any remaining delusions regarding the use of the supernatural knowledges or powers (ABHIJNA), and giving the bodhisattva complete autonomy in manipulating all dharmas through the perfection of power (BALAPARAMITA); and (10) DHARMAMEGHA (cloud of dharma), the final bhumi, where the bodhisattva becomes autonomous in interacting with all material and mental factors, and gains all-pervasive knowledge that is like a cloud producing a rain of dharma that nurtures the entire world; this stage is also described as being pervaded by meditative absorption (DHYANA) and mastery of the use of codes (DHARAnĪ), just as the sky is filled by clouds; here the bodhisattva achieves the perfection of knowledge (JNANAPARAMITA). As the bodhisattva ascends through the ten bhumis, he acquires extraordinary powers, which CANDRAKĪRTI describes in the eleventh chapter of his MADHYAMAKAVATARA. On the first bhumi, the bodhisattva can, in a single instant (1) see one hundred buddhas, (2) be blessed by one hundred buddhas and understand their blessings, (3) live for one hundred eons, (4) see the past and future in those one hundred eons, (5) enter into and rise from one hundred SAMADHIs, (6) vibrate one hundred worlds, (7) illuminate one hundred worlds, (8) bring one hundred beings to spiritual maturity using emanations, (9) go to one hundred BUDDHAKsETRA, (10), open one hundred doors of the doctrine (DHARMAPARYAYA), (11) display one hundred versions of his body, and (12) surround each of those bodies with one hundred bodhisattvas. The number one hundred increases exponentially as the bodhisattva proceeds; on the second bhumi it becomes one thousand, on the third one hundred thousand, and so on; on the tenth, it is a number equal to the particles of an inexpressible number of buddhaksetra. As the bodhisattva moves from stage to stage, he is reborn as the king of greater and greater realms, ascending through the Buddhist cosmos. Thus, on the first bhumi he is born as king of JAMBUDVĪPA, on the second of the four continents, on the third as the king of TRAYATRIMsA, and so on, such that on the tenth he is born as the lord of AKANIstHA. ¶ According to the rather more elaborate account in chapter eleven of the CHENG WEISHI LUN (*VijNaptimAtratAsiddhi), each of the ten bhumis is correlated with the attainment of one of the ten types of suchness (TATHATA); these are accomplished by discarding one of the ten kinds of obstructions (Avarana) by mastering one of the ten perfections (pAramitA). The suchnesses achieved on each of the ten bhumis are, respectively: (1) universal suchness (sarvatragatathatA; C. bianxing zhenru), (2) supreme suchness (paramatathatA; C. zuisheng zhenru), (3) ubiquitous, or "supreme outflow" suchness (paramanisyandatathatA; C. shengliu zhenru), (4) unappropriated suchness (aparigrahatathatA; C. wusheshou zhenru), (5) undifferentiated suchness (abhinnajAtīyatathatA; C. wubie zhenru), (6) the suchness that is devoid of maculations and contaminants (asaMklistAvyavadAtatathatA; C. wuranjing zhenru), (7) the suchness of the undifferentiated dharma (abhinnatathatA; C. fawubie zhenru), (8) the suchness that neither increases nor decreases (anupacayApacayatathatA; C. buzengjian), (9) the suchness that serves as the support of the mastery of wisdom (jNAnavasitAsaMnisrayatathatA; C. zhizizai suoyi zhenru), and (10) the suchness that serves as the support for mastery over actions (kriyAdivasitAsaMnisrayatathatA; C. yezizai dengsuoyi). These ten suchnessses are obtained by discarding, respectively: (1) the obstruction of the common illusions of the unenlightened (pṛthagjanatvAvarana; C. yishengxing zhang), (2) the obstruction of the deluded (mithyApratipattyAvarana; C. xiexing zhang), (3) the obstruction of dullness (dhandhatvAvarana; C. andun zhang), (4) the obstruction of the manifestation of subtle afflictions (suksmaklesasamudAcArAvarana; C. xihuo xianxing zhang), (5) the obstruction of the lesser HĪNAYANA ideal of parinirvAna (hīnayAnaparinirvAnAvarana; C. xiasheng niepan zhang), (6) the obstruction of the manifestation of coarse characteristics (sthulanimittasamudAcArAvarana; C. cuxiang xianxing zhang), (7) the obstruction of the manifestation of subtle characteristics (suksmanimittasamudAcArAvarana; C. xixiang xianxing zhang), (8) the obstruction of the continuance of activity even in the immaterial realm that is free from characteristics (nirnimittAbhisaMskArAvarana; C. wuxiang jiaxing zhang), (9) the obstruction of not desiring to act on behalf of others' salvation (parahitacaryAkAmanAvarana; C. buyuxing zhang), and (10) the obstruction of not yet acquiring mastery over all things (fa weizizai zhang). These ten obstructions are overcome by practicing, respectively: (1) the perfection of giving (dAnapAramitA), (2) the perfection of morality (sīlapAramitA), (3) the perfection of forbearance (ksAntipAramitA), (4) the perfection of energetic effort (vīryapAramitA), (5) the perfection of meditation (dhyAnapAramitA), (6) the perfection of wisdom (prajNApAramitA), (7) the perfection of expedient means (upAyapAramitA), (8) the perfection of the vow (to attain enlightenment) (pranidhAnapAramitA), (9) the perfection of power (balapAramitA), and (10) the perfection of knowledge (jNAnapAramitA). ¶ The eighth, ninth, and tenth bhumis are sometimes called "pure bhumis," because, according to some commentators, upon reaching the eighth bhumi, the bodhisattva has abandoned all of the afflictive obstructions (KLEsAVARAnA) and is thus liberated from any further rebirth. It appears that there were originally only seven bhumis, as is found in the BODHISATTVABHuMI, where the seven bhumis overlap with an elaborate system of thirteen abidings or stations (vihAra), some of the names of which (such as pramuditA) appear also in the standard bhumi schema of the Dasabhumikasutra. Similarly, though a listing of ten bhumis appears in the MAHAVASTU, a text associated with the LOKOTTARAVADA subsect of the MAHASAMGHIKA school, only seven are actually discussed there, and the names given to the stages are completely different from those found in the later Dasabhumikasutra; the stages there are also a retrospective account of how past buddhas have achieved enlightenment, rather than a prescription for future practice. ¶ The dasabhumi schema is sometimes correlated with other systems of classifying the bodhisattva path. In the five levels of the YogAcAra school's outline of the bodhisattva path (PANCAMARGA; C. wuwei), the first bhumi (pramuditA) is presumed to be equivalent to the level of proficiency (*prativedhAvasthA; C. tongdawei), the third of the five levels; while the second bhumi onward corresponds to the level of cultivation (C. xiuxiwei), the fourth of the five levels. The first bhumi is also correlated with the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA), while the second and higher bhumis correlate with the path of cultivation (BHAVANAMARGA). In terms of the doctrine of the five acquiescences (C. ren; S. ksAnti) listed in the RENWANG JING, the first through the third bhumis are equivalent to the second acquiescence, the acquiescence of belief (C. xinren; J. shinnin; K. sinin); the fourth through the sixth stages to the third, the acquiescence of obedience (C. shunren; J. junnin; K. sunin); the seventh through the ninth stages to the fourth, the acquiescence to the nonproduction of dharmas (anutpattikadharmaksAnti; C. wushengren; J. mushonin; K. musaengin); the tenth stage to the fifth and final acquiescence, to extinction (jimieren; J. jakumetsunin; K. chongmyorin). FAZANG's HUAYANJING TANXUAN JI ("Notes Plumbing the Profundities of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA") classifies the ten bhumis in terms of practice by correlating the first bhumi to the practice of faith (sRADDHA), the second bhumi to the practice of morality (sĪLA), the third bhumi to the practice of concentration (SAMADHI), and the fourth bhumi and higher to the practice of wisdom (PRAJNA). In the same text, Fazang also classifies the bhumis in terms of vehicle (YANA) by correlating the first through third bhumis with the vehicle of humans and gods (rentiansheng), the fourth through the seventh stage to the three vehicles (TRIYANA), and the eighth through tenth bhumis to the one vehicle (EKAYANA). ¶ Besides the list of the dasabhumi outlined in the Dasabhumikasutra, the MAHAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA and the DAZHIDU LUN (*MahAprajNApAramitAsAstra) list a set of ten bhumis, called the "bhumis in common" (gongdi), which are shared between all the three vehicles of sRAVAKAs, PRATYEKABUDDHAs, and bodhisattvas. These are the bhumis of: (1) dry wisdom (suklavidarsanAbhumi; C. ganhuidi), which corresponds to the level of three worthies (sanxianwei, viz., ten abidings, ten practices, ten transferences) in the srAvaka vehicle and the initial arousal of the thought of enlightenment (prathamacittotpAda) in the bodhisattva vehicle; (2) lineage (gotrabhumi; C. xingdi, zhongxingdi), which corresponds to the stage of the "aids to penetration" (NIRVEDHABHAGĪYA) in the srAvaka vehicle, and the final stage of the ten transferences in the fifty-two bodhisattva stages; (3) eight acquiescences (astamakabhumi; C. barendi), the causal incipiency of stream-enterer (SROTAAPANNA) in the case of the srAvaka vehicle and the acquiescence to the nonproduction of dharmas (anutpattikadharmaksAnti) in the bodhisattva path (usually corresponding to the first or the seventh through ninth bhumis of the bodhisattva path); (4) vision (darsanabhumi; C. jiandi), corresponding to the fruition or fulfillment (PHALA) level of the stream-enterer in the srAvaka vehicle and the stage of nonretrogression (AVAIVARTIKA), in the bodhisattva path (usually corresponding to the completion of the first or the eighth bhumi); (5) diminishment (tanubhumi; C. baodi), corresponding to the fulfillment level (phala) of stream-enterer or the causal incipiency of the once-returner (sakṛdAgAmin) in the srAvaka vehicle, or to the stage following nonretrogression before the attainment of buddhahood in the bodhisattva path; (6) freedom from desire (vītarAgabhumi; C. liyudi), equivalent to the fulfillment level of the nonreturner in the srAvaka vehicle, or to the stage where a bodhisattva attains the five supernatural powers (ABHIJNA); (7) complete discrimination (kṛtAvibhumi), equivalent to the fulfillment level of the ARHAT in the srAvaka vehicle, or to the stage of buddhahood (buddhabhumi) in the bodhisattva path (buddhabhumi) here refers not to the fruition of buddhahood but merely to the state in which a bodhisattva has the ability to exhibit the eighteen qualities distinctive to the buddhas (AVEnIKA[BUDDHA]DHARMA); (8) pratyekabuddha (pratyekabuddhabhumi); (9) bodhisattva (bodhisattvabhumi), the whole bodhisattva career prior to the fruition of buddhahood; (10) buddhahood (buddhabhumi), the stage of the fruition of buddhahood, when the buddha is completely equipped with all the buddhadharmas, such as omniscience (SARVAKARAJNATĀ). As is obvious in this schema, despite being called the bhumis "common" to all three vehicles, the shared stages continue only up to the seventh stage; the eighth through tenth stages are exclusive to the bodhisattva vehicle. This anomaly suggests that the last three bhumis of the bodhisattvayāna were added to an earlier srāvakayāna seven-bhumi scheme. ¶ The presentation of the bhumis in the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ commentarial tradition following the ABHISAMAYĀLAMKĀRA uses the names found in the Dasabhumikasutra for the bhumis and understands them all as bodhisattva levels; it introduces the names of the ten bhumis found in the Dazhidu lun as levels that bodhisattvas have to pass beyond (S. atikrama) on the tenth bodhisattva level, which it calls the buddhabhumi. This tenth bodhisattva level is not the level of an actual buddha, but the level on which a bodhisattva has to transcend attachment (abhinivesa) to not only the levels reached by the four sets of noble persons (ĀRYAPUDGALA) but to the bodhisattvabhumis as well. See also BHuMI.

Dharana(Sanskrit) ::: A state in the practice of yoga as taught in Hindustan when the mind or percipient intelligenceis held with inflexible firmness, with fortitude of soul, and with indomitable resolution upon the object ofinvestigation to be attained through this form of yoga practice. (See also Samadhi)

Dharanayoga: The Yoga of concentration, before the stage of Dhyana and Samadhi.

Dharmakaya (Sanskrit) Dharmakāya [from dharma law, continuance from the verbal root dhṛ to support, carry, continue + kāya body] Continuance-body, body of the law. One of the trikaya of Buddhism, which consists of 1) nirmanakaya, 2) sambhogakaya, and 3) dharmakaya. “It is that spiritual body or state of a high spiritual being in which the restricted sense of soulship and egoity has vanished into a universal (hierarchical) sense, and remains only in the seed, latent — if even so much. It is pure consciousness, pure bliss, pure intelligence, freed from all personalizing thought” (OG 38). In the dharmakaya vesture the initiate is on the threshold of nirvana or in the nirvanic state. Sometimes the dharmakaya is called the “nirvana without remains,” for once having reached that state the buddha or bodhisattva remains entirely outside of every earthly condition; he will return no more until the commencement of a new manvantara, for he has crossed the cycle of births. Dharmakaya state is that of parasamadhi, where no progress is possible — at least as long as the entity remains in it. Such entities may be said to be for the time being crystallized in purity and homogeneity. This is, likewise, one of the states of adi-buddha, and as such is called the mystic, universally diffused essence, the robe or vesture of luminous spirituality. See also TRIKAYA; TRISARANA

dharma megha samadhi. ::: the final state of one-pointedness, when an individual becomes disinterested even in omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence; when all vasanas are entirely destroyed

Dharmameghasamadhi: The state of superconsciousness or Samadhi is called 'cloud of virtue' in as much as it showers nectar drops of immortality through knowledge of Brahman, when all the hosts of Vasanas are entirely destroyed. The cloud of virtue is the name given to Samadhi in the Ashtanga Yoga of Patanjali.

DHYAI^A . Meditation ; contemplation ; inner concentration of the consciousness ; going inside in samadhi ; prolonged absorp- tion of the mind in the object of concentration.

Dhyana(Sanskrit) ::: A term signifying profound spiritualintellectual contemplation with utter detachment from allobjects of a sensuous and lower mental character. In Buddhism it is one of the six paramitas ofperfection. One who is adept or expert in the practice of dhyana, which by the way is a wonderfulspiritual exercise if the proper idea of it be grasped, is carried in thought entirely out of all relations withthe material and merely psychological spheres of being and of consciousness, and into lofty spiritualplanes. Instead of dhyana being a subtraction from the elements of consciousness, it is rather a throwingoff or casting aside of the crippling sheaths of ethereal matter which surround the consciousness, thusallowing the dhyanin, or practicer of this form of true yoga, to enter into the highest parts of his ownconstitution and temporarily to become at one with and, therefore, to commune with the gods. It is atemporary becoming at one with the upper triad of man considered as a septenary, in other words, withhis monadic essence. Man's consciousness in this state or condition becomes purely buddhi, or ratherbuddhic, with the highest parts of the manas acting as upadhi or vehicle for the retention of what theconsciousness therein experiences. From this term is drawn the phrase dhyani-chohans ordhyani-buddhas -- words so frequently used in theosophical literature and so frequently misconceived asto their real meaning. (See also Samadhi)

Dhyeyatyaga: Renunciation of object in meditation; Absolute Experience or Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

dr.s.t.a (drishta) ::: thing seen (in samadhi).

dr.s.t.i (jagrad drishti) ::: waking vision; rūpadr.s.t.i in jagrat samadhi. jjagrad agrad rupa

dr.sya (drishya; drisya) ::: visible object, "thing seen"; scene or object drsya seen in samadhi; subtle sight (darsana), especially vision of actual forms belonging to subtle worlds.

formless mysticism ::: A peak experience of oneness with phenomena (or lack thereof) in the causal state. Can also refer to meditative formless absorption, nirvikalpa samadhi, jnana samadhi, the Void, the Abyss, Ayin, Urgrund, etc.

Hahut See: Samadhi

Hence the ushnisha represents that radiant crown of buddhic fire that surrounds the head of initiates when they are in deep samadhi or meditation. The initiate’s head becomes surrounded with rays from the vital inner fire of the third eye, the spiritual organ of the brain, which likewise is the source from which radiates the spiritual, intellectual, and psychovital nimbus or aura surrounding the head — known to the iconographies of every religion. These rays thus form a glory around the head and sometimes even around the entire body. “They stream upwards from the back of the head, often symbolically represented in the buddha-iconography as one single, lambent flame soaring upwards from and over the top of the skull. In this case you may perhaps find that the ushnisha is missing, its place being taken by this flame issuing from the top of the head, a symbolic representation of the fire of the spirit and of the aroused and active buddhic faculty in which the man is at the time” (Fund 493).

(i(djna), opening for it a way through the mystic brcdimarandhra in the head. By departure from fife in the state of Samadhi he



  “In Pralaya, or the intermediate period between two manvantaras, it [the monad] loses its name, as it loses it when the real ONE self of man merges into Brahm in cases of high Samadhi (the Turiya state) or final Nirvana; ‘when the disciple’ in the words of Sankara, ‘having attained that primeval consciousness, absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed by the atma just as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on)’ ” (SD 1:570).

INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.

Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.

Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.

Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.

Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.

In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.

There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.

Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.

Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.

Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.

The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.

Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.

Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.

Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.

Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.

Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.

Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.

By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.

The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.

Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.

The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.

Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.

Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.

Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.

The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.

This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.

Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.

Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.

The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.

Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.

It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.

If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.

(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.

(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.

Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.

It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.

Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.


It is here, when this foundation has been secured, that the practice of Asana and Pranayama come in and can then bear their perfect fruits. By itself the control of the mind and moral being only puts our normal consciousness into the right preliminary condition; it cannot bring about that evolution or manifestation of the higher psychic being which is necessary for the greater aims of Yoga. In order to bring about this manifestation the present nodus of the vital and physical body with the mental being has to be loosened and the way made clear for the ascent through the greater psychic being to the union with the superconscient Purusha. This can be done by Pranayama. Asana is used by the Rajayoga only in its easiest and most natural position, that naturally taken by the body when seated and gathered together, but with the back and head strictly erect and in a straight line, so that there may be no deflection of the spinal cord. The object of the latter rule is obviously connected with the theory of the six chakras and the circulation of the vital energy between the muladhara and the brahmarandhra. The Rajayogic Pranayama purifies and clears the nervous system; it enables us to circulate the vital energy equally through the body and direct it also where we will according to need, and thus maintain a perfect health and soundness of the body and the vital being; it gives us control of all the five habitual operations of the vital energy in the system and at the same time breaks down the habitual divisions by which only the ordinary mechanical processes of the vitality are possible to the normal life. It opens entirely the six centres of the psycho-physical system and brings into the waking consciousness the power of the awakened Shakti and the light of the unveiled Purusha on each of the ascending planes. Coupled with the use of the mantra it brings the divine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates that concentration in Samadhi which is the crown of the Rajayogic method. Rajayogic concentration is divided into four stages; it commences with the drawing both of the mind and senses from outward things, proceeds to the holding of the one object of concentration to the exclusion of all other ideas and mental activities, then to the prolonged absorption of the mind in this object, finally, to the complete ingoing of the consciousness by which it is lost to all outward mental activity in the oneness of Samadhi. The real object of this mental discipline is to draw away the mind from the outward and the mental world into union with the divine Being. Th
   refore in the first three stages use has to be made of some mental means or support by which the mind, accustomed to run about from object to object, shall fix on one alone, and that one must be something which represents the idea of the Divine. It is usually a name or a form or a mantra by which the thought can be fixed in the sole knowledge or adoration of the Lord. By this concentration on the idea the mind enters from the idea into its reality, into which it sinks silent, absorbed, unified. This is the traditional method. There are, however, others which are equally of a Rajayogic character, since they use the mental and psychical being as key. Some of them are directed rather to the quiescence of the mind than to its immediate absorption, as the discipline by which the mind is simply watched and allowed to exhaust its habit of vagrant thought in a purposeless running from which it feels all sanction, purpose and interest withdrawn, and that, more strenuous and rapidly effective, by which all outward-going thought is excluded and the mind forced to sink into itself where in its absolute quietude it can only
   reflect the pure Being or pass away into its superconscient existence. The method differs, the object and the result are the same. Here, it might be supposed, the whole action and aim of Rajayoga must end. For its action is the stilling of the waves of consciousness, its manifold activities, cittavrtti, first, through a habitual replacing of the turbid rajasic activities by the quiet and luminous sattwic, then, by the stilling of all activities; and its object is to enter into silent communion of soul and unity with the Divine. As a matter of fact we find that the system of Rajayoga includes other objects,—such as the practice and use of occult powers,—some of which seem to be unconnected with and even inconsistent with its main purpose. These powers or siddhis are indeed frequently condemned as dangers and distractions which draw away the Yogin from his sole legitimate aim of divine union. On the way, th
   refore, it would naturally seem as if they ought to be avoided; and once the goal is reached, it would seem that they are then frivolous and superfluous. But Rajayoga is a psychic science and it includes the attainment of all the higher states of consciousness and their powers by which the mental being rises towards the superconscient as well as its ultimate and supreme possibility of union with the Highest. Moreover, the Yogin, while in the body, is not always mentally inactive and sunk in Samadhi, and an account of the powers and states which are possible to him on the higher planes of his being is necessary to the completeness of the science. These powers and experiences belong, first, to the vital and mental planes above this physical in which we live, and are natural to the soul in the subtle body; as the dependence on the physical body decreases, these abnormal activities become possible and even manifest themselves without being sought for. They can be acquired and fixed by processes which the science gives, and their use then becomes subject to the will; or they can be allowed to develop of themselves and used only when they come, or when the Divine within moves us to use them; or else, even though thus naturally developing and acting, they may be rejected in a single-minded devotion to the one supreme goal of the Yoga. Secondly, there are fuller, greater powers belonging to the supramental planes which are the very powers of the Divine in his spiritual and supramentally ideative being. These cannot be acquired at all securely or integrally by personal effort, but can only come from above, or else can become natural to the man if and when he ascends beyond mind and lives in the spiritual being, power, consciousness and ideation. They then become, not abnormal and laboriously acquired siddhis, but simply the very nature and method of his action, if he still continues to be active in the world-existence.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 539-40-41-42


It reminds me sometimes of that experience Nolini da had near the Samadhi. He saw a figure. It was standing by the Samadhi. It was late at night, the Ashram was empty and he saw a figure that looked exactly like Sri Aurobindo. He was about to fall at his feet when he saw the feet were different. This was actually a force of darkness and it was actually so powerful it was standing near the Samadhi. He stopped. If he had fallen at its feet it would have dragged him down, even someone so conscious. He (Nolini) would not have fallen down because he was always vigilant and that is why he noticed, but someone less conscious, less vigilant might be trapped, thinking ‘I am following the light.’ It is why this happens very often when one thinks one is speaking for God or speaking for the Divine.

jada samadhi ::: inert inner existence.

Jada-samadhi: The state of Samadhi induced by Hatha Yogic process in which there is no awareness or illumination as opposed to Chaitanya Samadhi of the Vedantins.

jagrat ::: awake, waking; the waking consciousness, in which one is jagrat aware of the outer world through the physical senses; the state of jagrat samadhi (sometimes restricted to bahirdarsi jagrat); (the condition of being) inwardly wakeful and self-possessed in states of samadhi in which the consciousness is withdrawn from the surface. jjagrat agrat antardarsi

Jagrat(Sanskrit) ::: The state of consciousness when awake, as opposed to svapna, the dreaming-sleeping state ofconsciousness, and different again from sushupti when the human consciousness is plunged intoprofound self-oblivion. The highest of all the states into which the consciousness may cast itself, or becast, is the turiya ("fourth"), which is the highest state of samadhi, and is almost a nirvanic condition.All these states or conditions of the consciousness are affections or phases of the constitution of man, andof beings constructed similarly to man. The waking state, or jagrat, is the state or condition ofconsciousness normal to the imbodied human being when not asleep. Svapna is the state ofconsciousness more or less freed from the sheath of the body and partially awake in the astral realms,higher or lower as the case may be. Sushupti is the state of self-oblivion into which the human being isplunged when the percipient consciousness enters into the purely manasic condition, which isself-oblivion for the relatively impotent brain-mind; whereas the turiya state, which is a practicalannihilation of the ordinary human consciousness, is an attainment of union with atma-buddhiovershadowing or working through the higher manas. Actually, therefore, it is becoming at one with themonadic essence.

jagrat-sus.upta (jagrat-sushupta) ::: sus.upta samadhi with inner wakejagrat-susupta fulness.

jagrat-svapna (jagrat-swapna) ::: svapnasamadhi with inner wakefuljagrat-svapna ness; light svapnasamadhi bordering on antardarsi jagrat.

jagratta ::: wakefulness in the deeper states of samadhi; conscious jagratta self-possession and overcoming of the tendency to nidra (sleep) and incoherent dreaming.

jagrat vis.aya (jagrat vishaya) ::: subtle sense-objects (usually other jagrat than images) perceived in the waking state; the perception of such objects (subtle sounds, touches, odours, tastes) in jagrat samadhi.

Jaya (Sanskrit) Jaya [from the verbal root ji to conquer] Conquering, winning, victorious. As a noun, conquest, victory, hence a favorite proper name, applied to gods and goddesses, Arjuna, the sun, etc. In the Puranas, the jayas are the twelve great gods (or twelve great hierarchies of beings) created by Brahma to assist him in his work of creation in the very beginning of the kalpa. Also termed chhandajas — those born of their own will or svabhava, in human and other form. Being lost in samadhi they neglected to create, and therefore they were cursed to be born repeatedly in each manvantara until the seventh. They are called respectively: Ajitas, Tushitas, Satyas, Haris, Vaikunthas, Sadhyas, and Adityas. They are equivalent to the manasaputras or reincarnating egos.

jnanam trikaladrstih astasiddhih samadhih iti vijnanacatustayam ::: see these words separate]y.

(jnanam, trikaldrishtir, ashtasiddhih, samadhir, iti vijnanachatusthayam) ::: jñana, trikaladr.s.t.i, as.tasiddhi and samadhi: these constitute the vijñana catus.t.aya. j ñanaprakasa

Karanopadhi(Sanskrit) ::: A compound meaning the "causal instrument" or "instrumental cause" in the long series ofreimbodiments to which human and other reimbodying entities are subject. Upadhi, the second elementof this compound, is often translated as "vehicle"; but while this definition is accurate enough for popularpurposes, it fails to set forth the essential meaning of the word which is rather "disguise," or certainnatural properties or constitutional characteristics supposed to be the disguises or clothings or masks inand through which the spiritual monad of man works, bringing about the repetitive manifestations uponearth of certain functions and powers of this monad, and, indeed, upon the other globes of the planetarychain; and, furthermore, intimately connected with the peregrinations of the monad through the variousspheres and realms of the solar kosmos. In one sense of the word, therefore, karanopadhi is almostinterchangeable with the thoughts set forth under the term maya, or the illusory disguises through whichspirit works, or rather through which spiritual monadic entities work and manifest themselves.Karanopadhi, as briefly explained under the term "causal body," is dual in meaning. The first and moreeasily understood meaning of this term shows that the cause bringing about reimbodiment is avidya,nescience rather than ignorance; because when a reimbodying entity through repeated reimbodiments inthe spheres of matter has freed itself from the entangling chains of the latter, and has risen intoself-conscious recognition of its own divine powers, it thereby shakes off the chains or disguises of mayaand becomes what is called a jivanmukta. It is only imperfect souls, or rather monadic souls, speaking ina general way, which are obliged by nature's cyclic operations and laws to undergo the repetitivereimbodiments on earth and elsewhere in order that the lessons of self-conquest and mastery over all theplanes of nature may be achieved. As the entity advances in wisdom and knowledge, and in the acquiringof self-conscious sympathy for all that is, in other words, as it grows more and more like unto itsdivine-spiritual counterpart, the less is it subject to avidya. It is, in a sense, the seeds of kama-manas leftin the fabric or being of the reincarnating entity, which act as the karana or reproducing cause, orinstrumental cause, of such entity's reincarnations on earth.The higher karanopadhi, however, although in operation similar to the lower karanopadhi, orkarana-sarira just described, nevertheless belongs to the spiritual-intellectual part of man's constitution,and is the reproductive energy inherent in the spiritual monad bringing about its re-emergence after thesolar pralaya into the new activities and new series of imbodiments which open with the dawn of thesolar manvantara following upon the solar pralaya just ended. This latter karanopadhi or karana-sarira,therefore, is directly related to the element-principle in man's constitution called buddhi -- a veil, as itwere, drawn over the face or around the being of the monadic essence, much as prakriti surroundsPurusha, or pradhana surrounds Brahman, or mulaprakriti surrounds and is the veil or disguise or sakti ofparabrahman. Hence, in the case of man, this karanopadhi or causal disguise or vehicle corresponds in ageneral way to the buddhi-manas, or spiritual soul, in which the spiritual monad works and manifestsitself.It should be said in passing that the doctrine concerning the functions and operations of buddhi in thehuman constitution is extremely recondite, because in buddhi lie the causal impulses or urges bringingabout the building of the constitution of man, and which, when the latter is completed, and when formingman as a septenary entity, express themselves as the various strata or qualities of the auric egg.Finally, the karana-sarira, the karanopadhi or causal body, is the vehicular instrumental form orinstrumental body-form, produced by the working of what is perhaps the most mysterious principle orelement, mystically speaking, in the constitution not only of man, but of the universe -- the verymysterious spiritual bija.The karanopadhi, the karana-sarira or causal body, is explained with minor differences of meaning invarious works of Hindu philosophy; but all such works must be studied with the light thrown upon themby the great wisdom-teaching of the archaic ages, esoteric theosophy. The student otherwise runs everyrisk of being led astray.I might add that the sushupti state or condition, which is that of deep dreamless sleep, involving entireinsensibility of the human consciousness to all exterior impressions, is a phase of consciousness throughwhich the adept must pass, although consciously pass in his case, before reaching the highest state ofsamadhi, which is the turiya state. According to the Vedanta philosophy, the turiya (meaning "fourth") isthe fourth state of consciousness into which the full adept can self-consciously enter and wherein hebecomes one with the kosmic Brahman. The Vedantists likewise speak of the anandamaya-kosa, whichthey describe as being the innermost disguise or frame or vehicle surrounding the atmic consciousness.Thus we see that the anandamaya-kosa and the karana-sarira, or karanopadhi, and the buddhi inconjunction with the manasic ego, are virtually identical.The author has been at some pains to set forth and briefly to develop the various phases of occult andesoteric theosophical thought given in this article, because of the many and various misunderstandingsand misconceptions concerning the nature, characteristics, and functions of the karana-sarira or causalbody.

Kashaya: The subtle influence in the mind produced by enjoyment and left there to fructify in time to come and distract the mind from Samadhi; hidden impressions.

kevala nirvikalpa samadhi. ::: a temporary state of Self-absorption

Likewise the reentering of the human into the divine, of the personality into the individuality, achieved in moments of samadhi even during the lifetime of the initiate on earth; also entrance of the individual into the nirvanic condition.

Mahasamadhi: In Hindu mystic terminology, the ultimate absorption in the Spirit.

mahasamadhi. ::: the Great Union; a sage's conscious departure from the physical body at death

Mohism: See Mo chia and Chinese philosophy. Moksa: (Skr.) Liberation, salvation from the effects of karma (q.v.) and resulting samsara (q.v.). Theoretically, good karma as little as evil karma can bring about liberation from the state of existence looked upon pessimistically. Thus, Indian philosophy early found a solution in knowledge (vidyd, jnana) which, disclosing the essential oneness of all in the metaphysical world-ground, declares the phenomenal world as maya (q.v.). Liberation is then equivalent to identification of oneself with the ultimate reality, eternal, changeless, blissful, or in a state of complete indifference either with or without loss of consciousness, but at any rate beyond good and evil, pleasure and pain. Divine grace is also recognized by some religious systems as effecting moksa. No generalization is possible regarding the many theories of moksa, its nature, or the mode of attaining it. See Nirvana, Samadhi, Prasada. -- K.F.L.

nidramaya ::: of the nature of sleep; (samadhi) under the hold of sleep.

nidravis.t.a samadhi (nidravishta samadhi) ::: samadhi invaded by sleep.

Nirbijasamadhi: Nirvikalpa Samadhi, wherein the seeds of Samskaras are fried by Jnana.

nirvichara samadhi. ::: a stage in samadhi wherein only pure awareness remains without deliberation, reasoning or enquiry

Nirvicharasamadhi: Superconscious state where there is no intellectual enquiry.

nirvikalpa samadhi ::: complete trance, in which there is no thought or movement of consciousness or awareness of either inner or outer things.

nirvikalpa samadhi. ::: the state of Self-absorption; transcendental awareness; a state in which all differences between the individual self and Reality cease to exist, because the distinction between knower, knowledge and known is lost; beyond all duality; the state free from ideation in which nothing is perceived

Nirvikalpasamadhi: The superconscious state where there is no mind or the triad, viz., knower, known and knowledge, or any idea whatsoever. See Asamprajnata-samadhi.

Nirvitarkasamadhi: Superconscious state where there is no intellectual argumentation or logic.

Rajayoga must cod. For its action is the stilling of the waves of consciousness, its manifold activities, cinovfUl, first, through a habitual replacing of the turbid rajaslc activities by the quiet and luminous sattwic, then, by the stilling of all activities, and its object is to enter into silent communion of soul and unity with the Divine. As a matter of fact we find that the system of Raja- yoga includes other objects, — such as the practice and use of occult powers, — some of which seem to be unconnected with and even inconsistent with its main purpose. These powers or siddhis arc indeed frequently condemned as dangers and dis- tractions wWch draw away the Yogin from his sole legitimate aim of divine union. On the way, therefore, it would naturally seem as if they ought to bfe* avoided; and once the goal is reached, it would seem that they are then frivolous and super- fluous. But Rajayoga is a psychic science and it includes the attainment of all the higher slates of consciousness and their powers by which the mental being rises towards the super- conscient as well as its ultimate and supreme possibility of union wnth the Highest. Moreover, the Yo^n, while in the body, is not always mentally inactive and sunk in Samadhi and an account of the powers and states which arc possible to him on the higher planes of his being is necessary to the completeness of the science.

Raja yoga ::: This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts th
   refore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalinı, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi. By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world. For the ancient system of Rajayoga aimed not only at Swarajya, self-rule or subjective empire, the entire control by the subjective consciousness of all the states and activities proper to its own domain, but included Samrajya as well, outward empire, the control by the subjective consciousness of its outer activities and environment.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 36-37


Rajayogic concentration is divided into four stages ; h com- mences with the drawing both of the mind and senses from out- ward things, proceeds to the bolding of the one object of con- centration to the exclusion of all tjther ideas and mental activi- ties, then to the prolonged absorption of the mind in this object, finally, to the complete ingoing of the consciousness by which it is lost to all outward mental activity in the oneness of Samadhi.

Rasasvada: Tasting the essence or the bliss of Savikalpa Samadhi; this is an obstacle to the higher Advaitic realisation, as it keeps away the meditator from attempting for Nirvikalpa Samadhi or Asamprajnata Samadhi.

rūpa (antardrishta rupa) ::: images seen with an internal . s.t.a rupa vision in the waking state of samadhi; same as antardarsi rūpa. antardr antardrsta

rūpadr.sya (rupadrishya; rupa-drishya; rupa drishya) ::: (in 1917) virupadrsya sion of images in samadhi; same as rūpadr.s.t.i.

rūpa ::: form; image; a non-material (sūks.ma) form, any of "those rupa sensible forms of which only the subtle grasp of the inner consciousness can become aware", which may be of either of two principal kinds, "mere image" (pratimūrti) or "actual form" (mūrti); the sūks.ma vis.aya of subtle form; (short for rūpadr.s.t.i) the faculty of seeing subtle images. Such images "are very variously seen and under all kinds of conditions; in samadhi [especially svapnasamadhi] or in the waking state [jagrat], and in the latter with the bodily eyes closed [antardarsi] or open [bahirdarsi], projected on or into a physical object or medium [sadhara] or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical ether revealing itself through this grosser physical atmosphere [akasarūpa]".

rūpa-samadhi (rupa-samadhi; rupasamadhi; rupa samadhi) ::: rūpa rupa-samadhi and samadhi, sometimes regarded as a single part of vijñana.

rūpa (swapna rupa) ::: image seen in svapnasamadhi.

sabdadr.s.t.i (jagrat shabdadrishti) ::: perception of subtle sounds in the waking consciousness. jjagrat agrat samadhi

sabija samadhi. ::: savikalpa samadhi wherein the seeds of samskaras or karmas are not destroyed, and which produces the highest and subtlest of samskaras or karmas

sadananda ::: "Ananda of pure existence apart from all objects and exsadananda periences", one of the seven forms of ananda, consisting of the delight of existence absorbed in unconditioned being (sat), where it is "at rest in peace of existence"; together with cidananda and suddhananda it comprises kaivalyananda, the bliss of the absolute, a term also applied to sadananda by itself. sadarsa sadarsa samadhi

Sadhana: A Sanskrit term for spiritual effort or quest of enlightenment. In Tantric Buddhism, a ceremony by the performance of which the worshipper can render visible any god he desires and is enabled to obtain control of the deity. In Hinduism, the means through which the Hindu student of esoteric sciences attains to samadhi (q.v.).

Sahaja-nirvikalpa-samadhi: Natural non-dual state of Brahmic Consciousness.

sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi. ::: the permanent and natural state of absorption in one's Self without concepts; remaining alertly aware and thought-free, with a still mind devoid of differentiation of Self and non-Self even while being engaged in the activities of worldly life

sahaja samadhi. ::: functioning naturally from the Self; natural and permanent abidance in Self

Sahija Samadhi: Savikalpa Samadhi wherein the seed of Sarnskaras is not destroyed.

samadhi (antardrishta jagrat samadhi) ::: same as . s.t.a jagrat antardr.s.t.a jagrat. antardrsta antardr

samadhi (antardrishta samadhi) ::: same as antardr.s.t.a . s.t.a samadhi ..20 jagrat.

samadhi ::: a type of samadhi in which the mind is open to all kinds of inner experiences.

samadhi ::: a type of samadhi in which the mind is withdrawn into itself, but goes on thinking and reasoning.

samadhi (avichara samadhi) ::: a type of samadhi in which the mind ceases to judge and perceive.

samadhi ::: concentration; trance; the last member of the vijñana samadhi catus.t.aya: the placing of the consciousness in particular conditions that give it access to larger fields of experience, so that "one can become aware of things in this world outside our ordinary range or go into other worlds or other planes of existence". The term samadhi includes three principal states corresponding to those of waking (jagrat), dream (svapna) and deep sleep (sus.upti), but it is applied especially to states of consciousness "in which the mind is withdrawn from outward things" and is often equivalent to svapnasamadhi

samadhi (sadarsha samadhi) ::: samadhi with inner vision on the plane of vijñana. sad atman

samadhi ::: samadhi in the waking state, "when in the waking consciousness, we are able to concentrate and become aware of things ... beyond our [normal] consciousness". This has two forms, antardarsi(inward-looking) and bahirdarsi (outward-looking), in which images are seen "with the bodily eyes closed or open, projected on or into a physical object or medium or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical ether revealing itself through this grosser physical atmosphere; seen through the physical eyes themselves as a secondary instrument and as if under the conditions of the physical vision or by the psychical vision alone and independently of the relations of our ordinary sight to space". jjagrat agrat suksmavisaya

samadhi ::: samadhi with cessation of variety of inner experience..

samadhi ::: samadhi with intuitive discrimination, a higher form of savitarka samadhi.

samadhi ::: samadhi with thought, sight and other kinds of experience on the plane of vijñana

samadhi ::: same as savijñana samadhi.

samadhi (savichara samadhi) ::: a type of samadhi "in which the mind does not reason logically but judges and perceives". savij ñana

SAMADHI (Skt contemplation). The highest stage in esoteric meditation, in which consciousness merges with the object of meditation.

True samadhi requires in the first place the ability to centre the monad-the self in the innermost crown chakra. In genuine samadhi the organism is fully active, directed by the lowest triad, while the monad, centred in one of the three units of the second triad, is active elsewhere, centred in one of the three worlds of the triad. K 7.11.11


samadhistha ::: absorbed in samadhi.

samadhistha ::: arrived at the essential samadhi and settled in it.

samadhi (sushupta samadhi) ::: the state of profound samadhi . upta samadhi that is compared to dreamless sleep. It is not an unconscious state, but "the Yogic sleep of the mind with wakefulness of the vijnana", which "is the gate of union with the supreme state of Sachchidananda". sus susupta-svapna

samadhi (sushupta swapna samadhi) ::: same as su. upta svapna samadhi s.upta-svapna.

samadhi ::: "trance in which there is no formation or movement of the consciousness", a kind of samadhi "in which all the lower organs are stopped and there is only the superconscious experience of the Brahman".

samadhi. ::: transcendental awareness; the quiet state of blissful awareness; oneness; union with Brahman; the goal of all yogic practice, which is attained when the yogi constantly sees the supreme Self in his Heart; a direct but temporary absorption in the Self in which there is only the feeling "I am" and no thoughts; the state of superconsciousness where Reality is experienced attended with all-knowledge and joy &

samadhi ::: Yogic trance (in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness); [in the Gita]: calm, desireless, griefless fixity of the buddhi in self-poise and self-knowledge. ::: samadhih [nominative]

samahita ::: concentrated in its own being; in samadhi. [Gita 6.7]

Samapatti (Sanskrit) Samāpatti [from sam-ā-pad to progress to perfect fulfillment from the verbal root pad to go, progress] In Buddhism, a subdivision of the fourth stage of abstract meditation (there being eight samapattis); “perfect concentration” in the raja yoga system of occult training, a state of intellectual, spiritual, and psychic unfolding in which meditation becomes vision, and there ensues perfect indifference to things of this world. Said to be the final degree of development, upon reaching which the possibility of entering into samadhi is attained.

Samprajnata-samadhi: Cognitive trance; state of superconsciousness, with the triad of meditator, meditation and the meditated; Savikalpa-samadhi.

samprajnata samadhi. ::: meditation with concepts; contemplation

Samyak-Samadhi (Sanskrit) Samyaksamādhi Perfect or complete meditation. As “Right Concentration,” one Path of the Holy Eightfold Path of Buddhism.

Samyama: Perfect restraint; an all-complete condition of balance and repose, concentration, meditation and Samadhi.

Sananda: With bliss (a kind of Samadhi).

Sasmita: With the feeling of individuality or the egoistic feeling of "I exist" (a kind of Samadhi).

savicara (savichara) ::: (samadhi) with judgment; having the nature of savicara savicara samadhi. savic savicara ara samadhi

savikalpa ::: admitting of variety or distinctions; (samadhi) with variety of experience on the mental plane; same as savikalpa samadhi.

savikalpa samadhi. ::: a state of consciousness in which the distinction between knower, knowledge and known is not lost; a state of samadhi in which one's consciousness temporarily dissolves into Reality; absorption in Reality where the consciousness of duality and multiplicity still remains

Savikalpa-samadhi: Samadhi with the triad of knower, knowledge and known.

savikalpa ::: (trance) with formation or movement of the consciousness. Cf. nirvikalpa samadhi.

Savitarka-samadhi: Samadhi with argumentation.

savitarka ::: (samadhi) with reasoning; having the nature of savitarka samadhi.

Sri Aurobindo: "Trance or samadhi is a way of escape — the body is made quiet, the physical mind is in a state of torpor, the inner consciousness is left free to go on with its experiences. The disadvantage is that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved; it remains imperfect.” Letters on Yoga

sthana ::: place; location on the body; stationary condition (of things sthana seen in samadhi).

Sthulasamadhi: The state of Samadhi which is of a Jada type in which there is no intuitive awareness.

subtle body ::: The mass-energy support (or “body”) for such states of consciousness as meditation with form, savikalpa samadhi, the chonyid bardo, and the dreaming state. The term “subtle” technically refers only to this mass-energy but is sometimes broadly used to refer to states of consciousness supported by the subtle body. See gross body and causal body.

supta caitanya (supta chaitanya) ::: the consciousness of one who is sleeping or absorbed in a deep state of samadhi.

supta ::: sleeping; absorbed in a deep state of samadhi.

Suryavarta (Sanskrit) Sūryāvarta Sun revolution; a degree or stage of samadhi.

sus.upta (sushupta) ::: fast asleep; immersed in sus.upti; deep sleep; the susupta state of sus.upta samadhi. sus susupta

sus.upti (sushupti) ::: deep sleep; an inert condition of the mind resusupti sembling deep sleep, where in the presence of "things quite beyond its scope", the mind "can no longer see truth even as in a dream, but passes into the blank incomprehension and non-reception of slumber"; the state of trance compared to dreamless sleep, same as sus.upta samadhi. sutuko dadasa

svapnamaya (swapnamaya) ::: having the nature of svapna (in the sense of dream or svapnasamadhi); dreamlike; pertaining to the planes of subliminal consciousness associated with the dream-state.

svapna-samadhi ::: dreamtrance.

svapnasiddhi (swapnasiddhi; swapna siddhi) ::: the perfection of dream, converting it into internal vision in svapnasamadhi. svapna-sus svapna-susupti

svapna (swapna) ::: dream, dreaming; the state of sleep in which dreams occur, in contrast to deep and dreamless sleep (sus.upti); internal vision in svapnasamadhi; short for svapnasamadhi; the middle depths of svapnasamadhi.

svapnavastha (swapnavastha) ::: the state of svapnasamadhi. svapnavastha

. t.aya (lipi chatusthaya) ::: lipi seen in the four states of samadhi: bahirdarsi jagrat, antardarsi jagrat, svapnasamadhi and sus.upti.

The kings and pontiffs of modern times are the feeble imitators of former king-initiates, whose insignia comprised the crown, representative of the glory or buddhic splendor, which actually encircled the head of the initiate as a nimbus, as it does in the case of the yogi in samadhi and of the buddha. The ceremony of coronation was performed in the Mysteries as the outward symbol of the completion of this attainment; and that ceremony is still perpetuated. The later Roman emperors adopted the Eastern royal fillet, which they called by the Greek name diadema; the Papal tiara goes back through it to the Persian royal headdress of that name. The American Indian wears feathers imitating the rays of light from the head.

There are several states leading to spiritual powers and perception. The eight stages of yoga usually enumerated are: 1) yama (restraint, forbearance); 2) niyama, religious observances such as fastings, prayer, penances; 3) asana, postures of various kinds; 4) pranayama, methods of regulating the breath; 5) pratyahara (withdrawal), withdrawal of the consciousness from external objects; 6) dharana (firmness, steadiness, resolution) mental concentration, holding the mind on an object of thought; 7) dhyana, abstract contemplation or meditation freed from exterior distractions; and 8) samadhi, complete collection of the consciousness and its faculties into union with the monadic essence.

:::the state of jivanmukta; natural samadhi

— the state of samadhi that arises "when the mind has lost its outward consciousness . . . and goes inside itself"; this state has some resemblance to ordinary svapna or dream-consciousness, but is characterised not by dreams but by internal visions which are accurate "records of true and actual experiences". The mind in svapnasamadhi "is at work liberated from the immixture of the physical mentality" and "is able to use either its ordinary will and intelligence with a concentrated power or else the higher will and intelligence of the more exalted planes of mind".

"The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake, — therefore it is called the kundalinî sakti, — in the lowest of the chakras, in the mûlâdhâra. When by Pranayama the division between the upper and lower prana currents in the body is dissolved, this Kundalini is struck and awakened, it uncoils itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the Shakti meets the Purusha in the brahmarandhra in a deep samadhi of union.” The Synthesis of Yoga

“The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake,—therefore it is called the kundalinî sakti,—in the lowest of the chakras, in the mûlâdhâra. When by Pranayama the division between the upper and lower prana currents in the body is dissolved, this Kundalini is struck and awakened, it uncoils itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the Shakti meets the Purusha in the brahmarandhra in a deep samadhi of union.” The Synthesis of Yoga

This condition of human consciousness differs from the devachanic state. As used above, akasic samadhi was applied to those individuals dying by accident who on earth had been of unusually pure character and life. It is a temporary condition, equivalent to an automatic reproduction in the victim’s consciousness of the beautiful and holy thoughts that the person had had during incarnated life; in fact, a sort of preliminary to the devachanic state. Such dream state immediately succeeds the first condition of absolute unconsciousness which the shock of death brings to all human beings, good, bad, or indifferent. In the above cases there is no conscious kama-lokic experience whatsoever, because the shock of death has brought about the paralysis of all the lower parts of the human constitution. Only adumbrations of the consciousness of the buddhi and atman, with the most spiritual portion of manas are then active (ML 131). In certain cases the condition of samadhi in the akasic portions of the human constitution may last until what would have been the natural life term on earth is completed; and then these individuals glide into the devachanic state.

To arrive at full possession of the powers of the dream-state, it is necessary first to exclude the attack of the sights, sounds etc. of the outer world upon the physical organs. It is quite possible indeed to be aware in the dream-trance of the outer physical world through the subtle senses which belong to the subtle body ; one may be aware of them just so far as one chooses and on a much wider scale than In the waking condition ; for the subtle senses have a far more powerful range than the gross physical organs, a range which may be made practically unlimited. But this awareness of the phj-sical world through the subtle senses is something quite different from our normal awareness of it through the physical organs ; the latter is incompatible with the settled state of trance, for the pressure of the physical senses breaks the Samadhi and calls back the mind to live in their normal field where alone they have power. But the subtle senses have power both upon their own planes and upon the physical world, though this is to them more remote than their own world of being. In Yoga various devices are used to seal up the doors of the physical sense, some of them physical devices ; but the one all-sufficient means is a force of concentration by which the mind is drawn inward to depths where the call of physical things can no longer easily attain to it. A second necessity is to get rid of the intervention of physical sleep. The ordinary habit of the mind when it goes in away from contact with physical things is to fall into the torpor of sleep or its dreams, and therefore when called in for the purposes of Samadhi, it gives or lends to give, at the first chance, by sheer force of habit, not the response demanded, but its usual response of ph)sical slumber. This habit of the mind has to be got rid of ; the mind has to Icam to be awake in the dream-stale, in possession of itself, not with the outgoing, but with an ingathered wakefulness in which, though immersed in itself, it exercises all its powers.

trailokyagati ::: the ability to move through the three worlds (trailokya) in samadhi. trailokyamayi trailokyamayi prakr prakrti

triple ideal supermind ::: (in 1920) the first three supra-intellectual . planes, called logistic, hermetic and seer ideality. Cf. intuitive higher mind, illumined higher mind and highest mind in the terminology of c. 1931. triple sam samadhi

Turiya-avastha, Turiya-samadhi. See TURIYA

Turiya (Sanskrit) Turīya The fourth; the state of consciousness which the Buddhas and Christs, and occasionally great but less evolved people, reach in their times of spiritual ecstasy — high samadhi. It is the fourth state of the famous Taraka-Raja-Yoga system in India, equivalent to a raising and temporary coalescence of the human consciousness with the atman, otherwise called nirvana. In this turiya state the divine self is perceived by the individual entitative self as its parent; and the atman thus is realized to be in its essence free of any mayavi distinction from its universal divine source. Turiya, the highest of all the states into which the consciousness may cast itself or be cast, “which is a practical annihilation of the ordinary human consciousness, is an attainment of union with atma-buddhi overshadowing or working through the higher manas. Actually, therefore, it is becoming at one with the monadic essence” (OG 72).

turiya &

. upta-svapna (sushupta-swapna; sushupta swapna) ::: deep svapnasamadhi bordering on sus.upta samadhi, in which "memory, reason, mental attention are all absent", but activity of vijñana can proceed and be inertly received by the mind. sus susupta

. upti (manasik sushupti) ::: a condition of the mind resembling deep sleep (sus.upti); the inertia and passivity of the intellect in the deepest states of samadhi.

. upti (swapna-sushupti) ::: sus.upta samadhi with dreamconsciousness.

visvagati ::: the power to travel through all the worlds (lokas) in visvagati samadhi; an alternative name for the last member of the vijñana . catus.t.aya.

Vitala (Sanskrit) Vitala Better place, i.e., better for matter, in that its substance is more material or differentiated than atala which precedes it; the second on the descending scale of the seven talas, corresponding to taparloka. Vitala is related on earth to the state of samadhi, and in one sense also to human buddhic consciousness. No adept, save one, can be higher than this in the tala side of his consciousness and continue living on earth. All the different talas and their corresponding lokas are connected both with states of consciousness and with varieties of vehicles on which these various consciousnesses work. Every tala with its respective loka forms a bipolar sphere containing its own hosts of conscious entities imbodied in vehicles appropriate to the loka-tala or tala-loka in which they are.

Yo$a of PatanjaU ::: A purely subjective method of Rajayoga, an internal discipline, limited, rigidly cut out, severely and scientifically graded, by which the mind is progressively stilled and taken up into Samadhi so that we may gain temporal and eternal results of this self-exceeding, the temporal in a great expansion of the soul’s knowledge and powers, the eternal in the divine union.

Yoga: Sanskrit for union. The development of the powers latent in man for achieving union with the Divine Spirit. It is defined as “the restraint of mental modifications.” Eight stages are enumerated, viz. moral restraint (yama), self-culture (niyama), posture (asana) breath-control (pranayama), control of the senses (pratyahara), concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana), and a state of superconsciousness (samadhi). The techniques of Yoga are recognized and applied by all schools of occultism.

Yoga(Sanskrit) ::: Literally "union," "conjunction," etc. In India it is the technical name for one of the sixDarsanas or schools of philosophy, and its foundation is ascribed to the sage Patanjali. The name Yogaitself describes the objective of this school, the attaining of union or at-one-ness with the divine-spiritualessence within a man. The yoga practices when properly understood through the instructions of genuineteachers -- who, by the way, never announce themselves as public lecturers or through books oradvertisements -- are supposed to induce certain ecstatic states leading to a clear perception of universaltruths, and the highest of these states is called samadhi.There are a number of minor forms of yoga practice and training such as the karma yoga, hatha yoga,bhakti yoga, raja yoga, jnana yoga, etc. Similar religious aspirations or practices likewise exist inOccidental countries, as, for instance, what is called salvation by works, somewhat equivalent to theHindu karma yoga or, again, salvation by faith -- or love, somewhat similar to the Hindu bhakti yoga;while both Orient and Occident have, each one, its various forms of ascetic practices which may begrouped under the term hatha yoga.No system of yoga should ever be practiced unless under the direct teaching of one who knows thedangers of meddling with the psychomental apparatus of the human constitution, for dangers lurk atevery step, and the meddler in these things is likely to bring disaster upon himself, both in matters ofhealth and as regards sane mental equilibrium. The higher branches of yoga, however, such as the rajayoga and jnana yoga, implying strict spiritual and intellectual discipline combined with a fervid love forall beings, are perfectly safe. It is, however, the ascetic practices, etc., and the teachings that go withthem, wherein lies the danger to the unwary, and they should be carefully avoided.

Yoga: (Skr. "yoking") Restraining of the mind (see Manas), or, in Patanjali's (q.v.) phrase: citta vrtti nirodha, disciplining the activity of consciousness. The object of this universally recommended practice in India is the gaining of peace of mind and a deeper insight into the nature of reality. On psycho-physical assumptions, several aids are outlined in all works on Yoga, including moral preparation, breath-control, posture, and general toning up of the system. Karma or kriya Yoga is the attainment of Yoga ends primarily by doing, bhakti Yoga by devotion, jnana Yoga by mental or spiritual means. The Yogasutras (q.v.) teach eight paths: Moral restraint (see yama), self-culture (see niyama), posture (see asana), breath-control (see prandyama), control of the senses (see pratyahara), concentration (see dharana), meditation or complete surrender to the object of meditation (see samadhi). See Hathayoga. -- K.F.L.



QUOTES [40 / 40 - 143 / 143]


KEYS (10k)

   23 Sri Ramakrishna
   6 Sri Aurobindo
   4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   2 Jetsun Milarepa
   1 Yajnavalkya
   1 WangAnShih
   1 Swami Vijnanananda
   1 The Mother
   1 Aleister Crowley

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   57 Frederick Lenz
   11 Rajneesh
   8 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   8 Paramahansa Yogananda
   6 Swami Vivekananda
   4 Sri Aurobindo
   4 B K S Iyengar
   3 Jetsun Milarepa
   2 Pramoedya Ananta Toer
   2 Miguel Serrano
   2 Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa
   2 Jack Kerouac
   2 Hakuin
   2 Amit Ray

1:Samadhi is one's natural state. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
2:The absolute Brahman is realized in samadhi. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
3:Samadhi is another name for ourselves, for our real state. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
4:How few are they who can attain samadhi and rid themselves of this aham, this self! ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
5:When the struggle is at last over and samadhi attained, then indeed the ego vanishes. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
6:By the Lord's grace the spirit must be quickened. Spiritual awakening is followed by Samadhi. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
7:Ordinary souls, after long practice and devotional exercises, go into samadhi and do not return. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
8:No one can say what formless samadhi is. It is the absolute transformation of one's own self into God's. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
9:After the attainment of samadhi, some retain the ego as the ego of the servant, or the ego of the worshiper. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
10:Should the divine mother grant your prayer, for she is omnipotent, you will realize Her impersonal Self in samadhi. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
11:In samadhi, the self is merged in the Universal Soul, never to come back -- this is the case with ordinary devotees. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
12:Whether you can meditate properly or not, never give up the practice. Japa leads one to a state of meditation and meditation results in samadhi. ~ Swami Vijnanananda,
13:At the end of samadhi, I must come down at least two notes below the highest note in the scale before I can utter another word. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
14:It is difficult to attain samadhi. The ego of ours is so persistent! For this reason alone, one has to be born again and again. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
15:My Divine Mother says that it is only when you have effaced all I-ness in you that the undifferentiated may be realized in samadhi. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
16:Samadhi forest has a host. The abbot, and I'm the guest. Host and guest, we each other have our own mind. But they're both quiet as the same mountain peak. ~ WangAnShih, 1021-1086,
17:To a Bhakta, the Lord manifests in various forms. To one who reaches Jnana (Samadhi), he is the formless Nirguna Brahman once more. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
18:In samadhi, usually a little ego remains. All outward consciousness disappears, but the Lord keeps a little ego to let me enjoy Him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
19:In samadhi, usually, a little ego remains. All outward consciousness disappears, but the Lord keeps a little ego to let me enjoy Him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
20:The heart is Jnana, discrimination between the real and the unreal, leading up to Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the total effacement of the self. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
21:The nearer you come to God the less are you disposed to question and reason. Then it is time for enjoyment which comes through Samadhi. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
22:In Samadhi one forgets one has a body, loses all attachment to things of this world, and likes no other words than those relating to God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
23:Let a Bhakti pray to God and it will be given to him to realize the impersonal God in samadhi and thus reach the goal of Jnana Yoga also. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
24:In Nirvakalpa Samadhi all self is effaced and there is no manifestation whatsoever, even of the divine forms, thus transcending all forms. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
25:Narada and a few others have come back several steps after the attainment of samadhi and, out of mercy and love, they have taught mankind. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
26:Some great souls have reached the seventh, highest plane of samadhi, and have thus become merged in God. They come down for man's benefit. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
27:You go to God and your personality becomes one with God, this is samadhi. Then you retrace your steps, back to your ego where you started. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
28:By Pranayama impurities of the body are thrown out; by Dharana the impurities of the mind; by Pratyahara the impurities of attachment; and by Samadhi is taken off everything that hides the lordship of the soul.
   ~ Yajnavalkya,
29:But in the Rajayogic Samadhi there are different grades of status, - that in which the mind, though lost to outward objects, still muses, thinks, perceives in the world of thought, that in which the mind is still capable of primary thought-formations and that in which, all out-darting of the mind even within itself having ceased, the soul rises beyond thought into the silence of the Incommunicable and Ineffable.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
30:Sadhana is the practice of Yoga.
Tapasya is the concentration of the will to get the results of sadhana and to conquer the lower nature.
Aradhana is worship of the Divine, love, self-surrender, aspiration to the Divine, calling the name, prayer.
Dhyana is inner concentration of the consciousness, meditation, going inside in Samadhi.
Dhyana, tapasya and aradhana are all parts of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 215 [sadhana is:],
31:The greatest value of the dream-state of Samadhi lies, however, not in these more outward things, but in its power to open up easily higher ranges and powers of thought, emotion, will by which the soul grows in height, range and self-mastery. Especially, withdrawing from the distraction of sensible things, it can, in a perfect power of concentrated self-seclusion, prepare itself by a free reasoning, thought, discrimination or more intimately, more finally, by an ever deeper vision and identification, for access to the Divine, the supreme Self, the transcendent Truth, both in its principles and powers and manifestations and in its highest original Being. Or it can by an absorbed inner joy and emotion, as in a sealed and secluded chamber of the soul, prepare itself for the delight of union with the divine Beloved, the Master of all bliss, rapture and Ananda.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 26, Samadhi, pg. 503,
32:This concentration proceeds by the Idea, using thought, form and name as keys which yield up to the concentrating mind the Truth that lies concealed behind all thought, form and name; for it is through the Idea that the mental being rises beyond all expression to that which is expressed, to that of which the Idea itself is only the instrument. By concentration upon the Idea the mental existence which at present we are breaks open the barrier of our mentality and arrives at the state of consciousness, the state of being, the state of power of conscious-being and bliss of conscious-being to which the Idea corresponds and of which it is the symbol, movement and rhythm. Concentration by the Idea is, then, only a means, a key to open to us the superconscient planes of our existence; a certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Integral Knowledge, Concentration [321],
33:Response To A Logician :::
I bow at the feet of my teacher Marpa.
And sing this song in response to you.
Listen, pay heed to what I say,
forget your critique for a while.

The best seeing is the way of "nonseeing"
the radiance of the mind itself.
The best prize is what cannot be looked for
the priceless treasure of the mind itself.

The most nourishing food is "noneating"
the transcendent food of samadhi.
The most thirst-quenching drink is "nondrinking"
the nectar of heartfelt compassion.

Oh, this self-realizing awareness
is beyond words and description!
The mind is not the world of children,
nor is it that of logicians.

Attaining the truth of "nonattainment,"
you receive the highest initiation.
Perceiving the void of high and low,
you reach the sublime stage.

Approaching the truth of "nonmovement,"
you follow the supreme path.
Knowing the end of birth and death,
the ultimate purpose is fulfilled.

Seeing the emptiness of reason,
supreme logic is perfected.
When you know that great and small are groundless,
you have entered the highest gateway.

Comprehending beyond good and evil
opens the way to perfect skill.
Experiencing the dissolution of duality,
you embrace the highest view.

Observing the truth of "nonobservation"
opens the way to meditating.
Comprehending beyond "ought" and "oughtn't"
opens the way to perfect action.

When you realize the truth of "noneffort,"
you are approaching the highest fruition.
Ignorant are those who lack this truth:
arrogant teachers inflated by learning,
scholars bewitched by mere words,
and yogis seduced by prejudice.
For though they yearn for freedom,
they find only enslavement. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,
34:The general characteristics and attributions of these Grades are indicated by their correspondences on the Tree of Life, as may be studied in detail in the Book 777.
   Student. -- His business is to acquire a general intellectual knowledge of all systems of attainment, as declared in the prescribed books. (See curriculum in Appendix I.) {231}
   Probationer. -- His principal business is to begin such practices as he my prefer, and to write a careful record of the same for one year.
   Neophyte. -- Has to acquire perfect control of the Astral Plane.
   Zelator. -- His main work is to achieve complete success in Asana and Pranayama. He also begins to study the formula of the Rosy Cross.
   Practicus. -- Is expected to complete his intellectual training, and in particular to study the Qabalah.
   Philosophus. -- Is expected to complete his moral training. He is tested in Devotion to the Order.
   Dominus Liminis. -- Is expected to show mastery of Pratyahara and Dharana.
   Adeptus (without). -- is expected to perform the Great Work and to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
   Adeptus (within). -- Is admitted to the practice of the formula of the Rosy Cross on entering the College of the Holy Ghost.
   Adeptus (Major). -- Obtains a general mastery of practical Magick, though without comprehension.
   Adeptus (Exemptus). -- Completes in perfection all these matters. He then either ("a") becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path or, ("b") is stripped of all his attainments and of himself as well, even of his Holy Guardian Angel, and becomes a babe of the Abyss, who, having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother. It then finds itself a
   Magister Templi. -- (Master of the Temple): whose functions are fully described in Liber 418, as is this whole initiation from Adeptus Exemptus. See also "Aha!". His principal business is to tend his "garden" of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. He is a Master of Samadhi. {232}
   Magus. -- Attains to wisdom, declares his law (See Liber I, vel Magi) and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense.
   Ipsissimus. -- Is beyond all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
35:34
D: What are the eight limbs of knowledge (jnana ashtanga)?
M: The eight limbs are those which have been already mentioned, viz., yama, niyama etc., but differently defined:
(1) Yama: This is controlling the aggregate of sense-organs, realizing the defects that are present in the world consisting of the body, etc.
(2) Niyama: This is maintaining a stream of mental modes that relate to the Self and rejecting the contrary modes. In other words, it means love that arises uninterruptedly for the Supreme Self.
(3) Asana: That with the help of which constant meditation on Brahman is made possible with ease is asana.
(4) Pranayama: Rechaka (exhalation) is removing the two unreal aspects of name and form from the objects constituting the world, the body etc., puraka (inhalation) is grasping the three real aspects, existence, consciousness and bliss, which are constant in those objects, and kumbhaka is retaining those aspects thus grasped.
(5) Pratyahara: This is preventing name and form which have been removed from re-entering the mind.
(6) Dharana: This is making the mind stay in the Heart, without straying outward, and realizing that one is the Self itself which is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.
(7) Dhyana: This is meditation of the form 'I am only pure consciousness'. That is, after leaving aside the body which consists of five sheaths, one enquires 'Who am I?', and as a result of that, one stays as 'I' which shines as the Self.
(8) Samadhi: When the 'I-manifestation' also ceases, there is (subtle) direct experience. This is samadhi.
For pranayama, etc., detailed here, the disciplines such as asana, etc., mentioned in connection with yoga are not necessary.
The limbs of knowledge may be practised at all places and at all times. Of yoga and knowledge, one may follow whichever is pleasing to one, or both, according to circumstances. The great teachers say that forgetfulness is the root of all evil, and is death for those who seek release,10 so one should rest the mind in one's Self and should never forget the Self: this is the aim. If the mind is controlled, all else can be controlled. The distinction between yoga with eight limbs and knowledge with eight limbs has been set forth elaborately in the sacred texts; so only the substance of this teaching has been given here. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Self-Enquiry, 34,
36:There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration, -for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world, -- so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a Mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised. There are supposed by those who systematise, to be three stages of the seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation. And by these, too, there comes when the accompanying feeling or the concentration is very intense, the Samadhi, the ecstatic trance in which the consciousness passes away from outer objects. But all this is really incidental; the one thing essential is the intense devotion of the thought in the mind to the object of adoration. Although it seems akin to the contemplation of the way of knowledge, it differs from that in its spirit. It is in its real nature not a still, but an ecstatic contemplation; it seeks not to pass into the being of the Divine, but to bring the Divine into ourselves and to lose ourselves in the deep ecstasy of his presence or of his possession; and its bliss is not the peace of unity, but the ecstasy of union. Here, too, there may be the separative self-consecration, which ends in the giving up of all other thought of life for the possession of this ecstasy, eternal afterwards in planes beyond, or the comprehensive consecration in which all the thoughts are full of the Divine and even in the occupations of life every thought remembers him. As in the other Yogas, so in this, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all ones inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported here by the primary force of the emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the spirit and its members.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Way of Devotion [T2],
37:The Song Of Food And Dwelling :::
I bow down at the feet of the wish-fulfilling Guru.
Pray vouchsafe me your grace in bestowing beneficial food,
Pray make me realize my own body as the house of Buddha,
Pray grant me this knowledge.

I built the house through fear,
The house of Sunyata, the void nature of being;
Now I have no fear of its collapsing.
I, the Yogi with the wish-fulfilling gem,
Feel happiness and joy where'er I stay.

Because of the fear of cold, I sought for clothes;
The clothing I found is the Ah Shea Vital Heat.
Now I have no fear of coldness.

Because of the fear of poverty, I sought for riches;
The riches I found are the inexhaustible Seven Holy Jewels.
Now I have no fear of poverty.

Because of the fear of hunger, I sought for food;
The food I found is the Samadhi of Suchness.
Now I have no fear of hunger.

Because of the fear of thirst, I sought for drink;
The heavenly drink I found is the wine of mindfulness.
Now I have no fear of thirst.

Because of the fear of loneliness, I searched for a friend;
The friend I found is the bliss of perpetual Sunyata.
Now I have no fear of loneliness.

Because of the fear of going astray,
I sought for the right path to follow.
The wide path I found is the Path of Two-in-One.
Now I do not fear to lose my way.

I am a yogi with all desirable possessions,
A man always happy where'er he stays.

Here at Yolmo Tagpu Senge Tson,
The tigress howling with a pathetic, trembling cry,
Reminds me that her helpless cubs are innocently playing.
I cannot help but feel a great compassion for them,
I cannot help but practice more diligently,
I cannot help but augment thus my Bodhi-Mind.

The touching cry of the monkey,
So impressive and so moving,
Cannot help but raise in me deep pity.
The little monkey's chattering is amusing and pathetic;
As I hear it, I cannot but think of it with compassion.

The voice of the cuckoo is so moving,
And so tuneful is the lark's sweet singing,
That when I hear them I cannot help but listen
When I listen to them,
I cannot help but shed tears.

The varied cries and cawings of the crow,
Are a good and helpful friend unto the yogi.
Even without a single friend,
To remain here is a pleasure.
With joy flowing from my heart, I sing this happy song;
May the dark shadow of all men's sorrows
Be dispelled by my joyful singing. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,
38:The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, clear state of mind and heart is established.
   This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalini, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
   By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga, 36,
39:Talk 26

...

D.: Taking the first part first, how is the mind to be eliminated or relative consciousness transcended?

M.: The mind is by nature restless. Begin liberating it from its restlessness; give it peace; make it free from distractions; train it to look inward; make this a habit. This is done by ignoring the external world and removing the obstacles to peace of mind.

D.: How is restlessness removed from the mind?

M.: External contacts - contacts with objects other than itself - make the mind restless. Loss of interest in non-Self, (vairagya) is the first step. Then the habits of introspection and concentration follow. They are characterised by control of external senses, internal faculties, etc. (sama, dama, etc.) ending in samadhi (undistracted mind).

Talk 27.

D.: How are they practised?

M.: An examination of the ephemeral nature of external phenomena leads to vairagya. Hence enquiry (vichara) is the first and foremost step to be taken. When vichara continues automatically, it results in a contempt for wealth, fame, ease, pleasure, etc. The 'I' thought becomes clearer for inspection. The source of 'I' is the Heart - the final goal. If, however, the aspirant is not temperamentally suited to Vichara Marga (to the introspective analytical method), he must develop bhakti (devotion) to an ideal - may be God, Guru, humanity in general, ethical laws, or even the idea of beauty. When one of these takes possession of the individual, other attachments grow weaker, i.e., dispassion (vairagya) develops. Attachment for the ideal simultaneously grows and finally holds the field. Thus ekagrata (concentration) grows simultaneously and imperceptibly - with or without visions and direct aids.

In the absence of enquiry and devotion, the natural sedative pranayama (breath regulation) may be tried. This is known as Yoga Marga. If life is imperilled the whole interest centres round the one point, the saving of life. If the breath is held the mind cannot afford to (and does not) jump at its pets - external objects. Thus there is rest for the mind so long as the breath is held. All attention being turned on breath or its regulation, other interests are lost. Again, passions are attended with irregular breathing, whereas calm and happiness are attended with slow and regular breathing. Paroxysm of joy is in fact as painful as one of pain, and both are accompanied by ruffled breaths. Real peace is happiness. Pleasures do not form happiness. The mind improves by practice and becomes finer just as the razor's edge is sharpened by stropping. The mind is then better able to tackle internal or external problems. If an aspirant be unsuited temperamentally for the first two methods and circumstantially (on account of age) for the third method, he must try the Karma Marga (doing good deeds, for example, social service). His nobler instincts become more evident and he derives impersonal pleasure. His smaller self is less assertive and has a chance of expanding its good side. The man becomes duly equipped for one of the three aforesaid paths. His intuition may also develop directly by this single method. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramanasramam,
40:To arrive then at this settled divine status must be the object of our concentration. The first step in concentration must be always to accustom the discursive mind to a settled unwavering pursuit of a single course of connected thought on a single subject and this it must do undistracted by all lures and alien calls on its attention. Such concentration is common enough in our ordinary life, but it becomes more difficult when we have to do it inwardly without any outward object or action on which to keep the mind; yet this inward concentration is what the seeker of knowledge must effect. Nor must it be merely the consecutive thought of the intellectual thinker, whose only object is to conceive and intellectually link together his conceptions. It is not, except perhaps at first, a process of reasoning that is wanted so much as a dwelling so far as possible on the fruitful essence of the idea which by the insistence of the soul's will upon it must yield up all the facets of its truth. Thus if it be the divine Love that is the subject of concentration, it is on the essence of the idea of God as Love that the mind should concentrate in such a way that the various manifestation of the divine Love should arise luminously, not only to the thought, but in the heart and being and vision of the Sadhaka. The thought may come first and the experience afterwards, but equally the experience may come first and the knowledge arise out of the experience. Afterwards the thing attained has to be dwelt on and more and more held till it becomes a constant experience and finally the Dharma or law of the being.
   This is the process of concentrated meditation; but a more strenuous method is the fixing of the whole mind in concentration on the essence of the idea only, so as to reach not the thought-knowledge or the psychological experience of the subject, but the very essence of the thing behind the idea. In this process thought ceases and passes into the absorbed or ecstatic contemplation of the object or by a merging into it m an inner Samadhi. If this be the process followed, then subsequently the state into which we rise must still be called down to take possession of the lower being, to shed its light, power and bliss on our ordinary consciousness. For otherwise we may possess it, as many do, in the elevated condition or in the inward Samadhi, but we shall lose our hold of it when we awake or descend into the contacts of the world; and this truncated possession is not the aim of an integral Yoga.
   A third process is neither at first to concentrate in a strenuous meditation on the one subject nor in a strenuous contemplation of the one object of thought-vision, but first to still the mind altogether. This may be done by various ways; one is to stand back from the mental action altogether not participating in but simply watching it until, tired of its unsanctioned leaping and running, it falls into an increasing and finally an absolute quiet. Another is to reject the thought-suggestions, to cast them away from the mind whenever they come and firmly hold to the peace of the being which really and always exists behind the trouble and riot of the mind. When this secret peace is unveiled, a great calm settles on the being and there comes usually with it the perception and experience of the all-pervading silent Brahman, everything else at first seeming to be mere form and eidolon. On the basis of this calm everything else may be built up in the knowledge and experience no longer of the external phenomena of things but of the deeper truth of the divine manifestation.
   Ordinarily, once this state is obtained, strenuous concentration will be found no longer necessary. A free concentration of will using thought merely for suggestion and the giving of light to the lower members will take its place. This Will will then insist on the physical being, the vital existence, the heart and the mind remoulding themselves in the forms of the Divine which reveal themselves out of the silent Brahman. By swifter or slower degrees according to the previous preparation and purification of the members, they will be obliged with more or less struggle to obey the law of the will and its thought-suggestion, so that eventually the knowledge of the Divine takes possession of our consciousness on all its planes and the image of the Divine is formed in our human existence even as it was done by the old Vedic Sadhakas. For the integral Yoga this is the most direct and powerful discipline.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Concentration,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:Samadhi doesn’t just come of itself; it takes practice. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove
2:Samadhi is the highest octave spiritual light. Not the best, but the highest octave. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
3:After this happens again and again, we reach a point were there is nothing but satori, which is what nirvikalpa samadhi is like. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
4:Salvakalpa samadhi is a tremendous acceptance and liberation, but it is not complete absorption in nirvana, in that consciousness. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
5:We all have auras. But it's much easier to see the aura of someone who is in a state of samadhi or other profound state of awareness. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
6:Eventually you will go into samadhi. Samadhi is a very advanced meditation. You dissolve into the clear light of eternity again and again. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
7:Samadhi is not going to take away your humanity. It will give it to you. You will become more cosmopolitan, more conscious, and more infinite. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
8:Nirvikalpa samadhi or sahaja samadhi is all the way up. You get above the cloud line to the land of eternal snows and it's ecstasy beyond ecstasy. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
9:Salvakalpa samadhi is like a sea of perfect light; nirvikalpa samadhi is no light, no darkness, no way to describe it. Absorption is complete, that's nirvana. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
10:The average individual spends many, many lifetimes meditating and seeking and chewing bubblegum and doing things like that to attain the experience of samadhi. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
11:Satori is a brief flash. Suddenly the light breaks through. For a short timeless time we experience eternity in its unmanifest form. It's comparable to salvikalpa samadhi. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
12:Nirvikalpa samadhi is another matter. I don't feel that's really up to us. That happens at a certain time when our being has gone through countless changes and refinements. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
13:The final entrance into Nirvikalpa Samadhi, into nirvana, God-realization, when you become the absolutely best friend of God, can only come when your love is completely pure. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
14:It's as if all your past is written on the blackboard, and if we could erase it, your past would no longer exist. The way you do that - the only way you do that - is in samadhi. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
15:The final battles are the samskaras of good karma. They prevent Samadhi. Naturally for a religious person the avoidance is intensive. They are so hung up on good karma and on method. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
16:The wisdom of samadhi is quite different. Higher level wisdom cannot be written down. It cannot be spoken. True wisdom is the knowledge of the universe that is beyond physical expression. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
17:When I enter into nirvikalpa samadhi, most can see this light, or feel it. This light creates very powerful, steady spiritual transformation. The reason you are here is to sit in this light. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
18:The light of the supra-conscious, of salvakalpa and nirvikalpa samadhi, is not connected to this world at all. It passes through this world but it is not part of this world, in a way of speaking. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
19:When I meditate, people see manifestations of light when I go into samadhi and through the samadhis. Sometimes the energy of enlightenment is so clear that people don't realize that their attention has been elevated. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
20:Salvakalpa samadhi is absorption in eternity to the point where there is no real concept of self but there's still a karmic chain. Nirvikalpa samadhi is absorption in nirvana; concepts of self and no-self go away completely. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
21:The advanced education in Tantra obviously has to do with the entrance into samadhi, the negation of the self. That is what the path of negation means, not the negation of life, but the negation of anything that is not enlightenment. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
22:They reach the point where they feel, "I can go into samadhi now. I can do everything on my own," and that's exactly where they stay, in the lower samadhis. There are many, many people on this earth who can go into salvakalpa samadhi. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
23:I first went into samadhi when I was 19. I was meditating in the mountains and had been meditating on a daily basis for several years. Suddenly there was no time or space or life or death or myself or the Universe. I was absorbed in light. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
24:Nirvikalpa Samadhi means that you've gone off the board; you've gone off the map. There is no way to describe it. You have attained liberation and are no longer bound by the cycle of existence. You just are, and yet you're not, at the same time. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
25:You can go to India and you can see gurus go into samadhi. But when they come out of samadhi, they're nasty. They're egocentric. They don't have a deep regard or understanding of what life is. It's just a little trick they can do, a one-trick pony. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
26:If a person sets out to practice meditation in this lifetime and they have a little bit of spiritual evolution behind them and they're quite dedicated, it really is not at all an impossible task to enter into salvakalpa samadhi in this particular lifetime. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
27:I began to go into samadhi, not just occasionally, but every day many times a day until I reached a point where I could no longer distinguish between ordinary and non-ordinary reality. For me it is all the same. I am in a state of continuous absorption in the Self. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
28:For years and years you enter into samadhi every day in order to attain liberation. Eternity fashions a new self which you find yourself with when you come out of samadhi. Each time you come out a little less, you might say, or your real self comes out a little more ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
29:Even to the sage who's doing Sahaja Samadhi, the great guru, I'd say: "Hey buddy, you know, I like the robes and everything, but remember, you're only touching infinity. And if you claim to be doing more, I think you're pretty much in the senses and the body and the mind because infinity is endless." ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
30:You must continue to go back to the beginning, to the foundation, and question the foundation. Even once you‘ve reached Samadhi you must go back so you can create it at will. Samadhi is the beginning of spiritual growth, not the end. You must always be questioning. Enlightenment comes as an accident at first, then you have to learn to recreate it. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove
31:If you are in the right state, whatever you see will put you into samadhi. After all, samadhi is nothing unusual. When the mind is intensely interested, it becomes one with the object of interest - the seer and the seen become one in seeing, the hearer and the heard become one in hearing, the lover and the loved become one in loving. Every experience can be the ground for samadhi. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove
32:Samadhi is the journey from individual to collective consciousness. The steps of Samadhi are the steps towards reaching the collective consciousness. In meditation, the more we radiate love, compassion, peace, harmony and tranquility, the more is our contribution towards the collective consciousness. The more we positively contribute towards the collective consciousness the more is our progress in Samadhi. ~ amit-ray, @wisdomtrove
33:Even after attaining samadhi, some retain the "servant ego," or the "devotee ego." The bhakta keeps this "I-consciousness." He says, "0 God, Thou art the Master and I am Thy servant; Thou art the Lord and I am Thy devotee," He feels that way even after the realization of God. His "I" -is not completely effaced. Again, by constantly practicing this kind of consciousness," one ultimately attains God... ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove
34:When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadbi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever -is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison house of name and form arid rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi, You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove
35:One cannot see God without purity of heart. Through attachment to "woman and gold" the mind has become stained -covered with dirt, as it were. A magnet cannot attract a needle if the needle is covered with mud. Wash away the mud and the magnet will draw it. Likewise, the dirt of the mind can be washed away with the tears of our eyes. This stain is removed if one sheds tears of repentence and says, "0 God, I shall never again do such a thing." Thereupon God, who is like the, magnet, draws to Himself the mind, which is like the needle. Then the devotee goes into samadhi and obtains the vision of God. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Samadhi is one’s natural state. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
2:Samadhi doesn’t just come of itself; it takes practice. ~ Jack Kornfield,
3:Samadhi is the actual awareness of what you really are. ~ Frederick Lenz,
4:Samadhi is another name for ourselves, for our real state. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
5:It is impossible to know who you are until you enter into Samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
6:One should be in spontaneous samadhi in the midst of every environment. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
7:Samadhi is the absorption of God. There's no sense of time, place or condition. ~ Frederick Lenz,
8:The path of knowledge is said to be difficult in that it is the path of Samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
9:Samadhi is the highest octave spiritual light. Not the best, but the highest octave. ~ Frederick Lenz,
10:The yoga of discrimination is only practiced once you have started to go into Samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
11:Real samadhi is off the game board, friends. It is not something you are even aware of. ~ Frederick Lenz,
12:Tanpa keberanian hidup adalah tanpa irama. Hidup tanpa irama adalah samadhi tanpa pusat. ~ Pramoedya Ananta Toer,
13:Tanpa keberanian hidup adalah tanpa irima. Hidup tanpa irama adalah samadhi tanpa pusat. ~ Pramoedya Ananta Toer,
14:Darshan Day Savitri Recitation ~ The Mother's Maha Samadhi Day November 17, 2018: youtu.be/p1f2YHo8k84?a via @YouTube,
15:In samadhi there is only the feeling `I AM' and no thoughts. The experience `I AM' is being still. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
16:Meditation, or samadhi, is connected with the idea of overcoming the constant search for entertainment. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa,
17:All this bringing of the mind into a higher state of vibration is included in one word in Yoga — Samadhi. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
18:Nirvikalpa samadhi is another matter. In order to enter into nirvikalpa samadhi, you must have a great deal of humility. ~ Frederick Lenz,
19:Practice of samadhi means to live each and every moment of one's life with this deep interest in who and what we are. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
20:After this happens again and again, we reach a point were there is nothing but satori, which is what nirvikalpa samadhi is like. ~ Frederick Lenz,
21:Salvakalpa samadhi is a tremendous acceptance and liberation, but it is not complete absorption in nirvana, in that consciousness. ~ Frederick Lenz,
22:In higher samadhi, in absence of any support, the consciousness is absorbed within itself in perfect awareness, clarity and peacefulness. ~ Amit Ray,
23:When you go into samadhi, either salvikalpa or nirvikalpa, what happens is you erase, you loosen, the aggregates. You simplify them. ~ Frederick Lenz,
24:We all have auras. But it's much easier to see the aura of someone who is in a state of samadhi or other profound state of awareness. ~ Frederick Lenz,
25:How do you know you were in samadhi? You know when your awareness returns to the plane of self and ideation that you have been beyond it. ~ Frederick Lenz,
26:Eventually you will go into samadhi. Samadhi is a very advanced meditation. You dissolve into the clear light of eternity again and again. ~ Frederick Lenz,
27:When you go into samadhi there is no breath at all. The kundalini is perfectly stabilized. Usually it stabilizes in the solar plexus area. ~ Frederick Lenz,
28:Samadhi is not going to take away your humanity. It will give it to you. You will become more cosmopolitan, more conscious, and more infinite. ~ Frederick Lenz,
29:Nirvikalpa samadhi or sahaja samadhi is all the way up. You get above the cloud line to the land of eternal snows and it's ecstasy beyond ecstasy. ~ Frederick Lenz,
30:Wisdom is the ability to do two things at once, to be in the world and enjoy it and at the same time, to be in the realms of light, to be in samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
31:It is only in Samadhi that you'll begin to get an inkling of who you are; and finally, it is only in nirvana that this perfect truth will become clear. ~ Frederick Lenz,
32:Samadhi is an opportunity to encounter our imperishable Self before the transient vehicle of body disappears, as in the cycle of nature, it surely must. ~ B K S Iyengar,
33:Even in intake, the one steadfast thought is said to be the natural state. Nirvikalpa Samadhi will result when the sensory objects are not present. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
34:Samadhi is perfect absorption to the point where there is no sense of being absorbed, not the consciousness of knowing that you are having an experience. ~ Frederick Lenz,
35:The higher octave light that comes from samadhi, the kundalini of samadhi, this you can absorb continuously. You can never overload. It can never hurt you. ~ Frederick Lenz,
36:Salvakalpa samadhi is like a sea of perfect light; nirvikalpa samadhi is no light, no darkness, no way to describe it. Absorption is complete, that's nirvana. ~ Frederick Lenz,
37:The average individual spends many, many lifetimes meditating and seeking and chewing bubblegum and doing things like that to attain the experience of samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
38:Nirvikalpa Samadhi means you are sitting in meditation and you go beyond the planes of light to nirvana. Then you come back and here you are "back in the saddle again". ~ Frederick Lenz,
39:In Samadhi, that very deep state of meditation, you are given energy and long-lasting bliss. It carries you higher and higher until your very presence radiates love ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar,
40:Satori is a brief flash. Suddenly the light breaks through. For a short timeless time we experience eternity in its unmanifest form. It's comparable to salvikalpa samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
41:When you eneter into samadhi and seek to make that magical walk between salvikalpa and nirvikalpa samadhi, it's necessary to focus your awareness not on being or nonbeing. ~ Frederick Lenz,
42:Nirvikalpa samadhi is another matter. I don't feel that's really up to us. That happens at a certain time when our being has gone through countless changes and refinements. ~ Frederick Lenz,
43:The final entrance into Nirvikalpa Samadhi, into nirvana, God-realization, when you become the absolutely best friend of God, can only come when your love is completely pure. ~ Frederick Lenz,
44:The role of the Buddhist teacher is to explain your options and to show you what creates karma. All our discussions are basically karmic until you're fully engaged in samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
45:It's as if all your past is written on the blackboard, and if we could erase it, your past would no longer exist. The way you do that - the only way you do that - is in samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
46:Not all teachers utilize both forms of light.In certain circles, those teachers who can manifest the light of samadhi but not the mystical light have put down the mystical light. ~ Frederick Lenz,
47:To be fixated on Sahaja Samadhi is to be fixated. To be fixated on the idea of being not fixated is fixation too. All these ideas and definitions about enlightenment become silly. ~ Frederick Lenz,
48:The final battles are the samskaras of good karma. They prevent Samadhi. Naturally for a religious person the avoidance is intensive. They are so hung up on good karma and on method. ~ Frederick Lenz,
49:If you had to pick between one or the other, I can't say which one is better; but I would certainly say, in my orientation, the light of samadhi is all-pervasive. Samadhi will free you. ~ Frederick Lenz,
50:The wisdom of samadhi is quite different. Higher level wisdom cannot be written down. It cannot be spoken. True wisdom is the knowledge of the universe that is beyond physical expression. ~ Frederick Lenz,
51:Nirvikalpa samadhi is a state of no mind, beyond the ten thousand states of mind, where there is nothing but perfection, where the self no longer exists...the ego dissolves into immortality. ~ Frederick Lenz,
52:When I enter into nirvikalpa samadhi, most can see this light, or feel it. This light creates very powerful, steady spiritual transformation. The reason you are here is to sit in this light. ~ Frederick Lenz,
53:Begin with dhyana, with meditation, and end in samadhi, in ecstasy, and you will know what God is. It is not a hypothesis, it is an experience. You have to LIVE it - that is the only way to know it. ~ Rajneesh,
54:To be aflame with silence, with joy, is wisdom. It is not through logic but through love. It is not through words but through a wordless state called meditation or a state of no-mind, satori, samadhi. ~ Rajneesh,
55:The light of the supra-conscious, of salvakalpa and nirvikalpa samadhi, is not connected to this world at all. It passes through this world but it is not part of this world, in a way of speaking. ~ Frederick Lenz,
56:Samadhi is an experience of such depth, such joy, such indifference and such love, that nothing else is really like it or worthwhile in comparison, yet it gives shape, color and meaning to everything. ~ Frederick Lenz,
57:You're composed of an aggregate of different forms and energies, the samskaras. These are lines within your own being. When you go into samadhi, these lines dissolve gradually so you become less formed. ~ Frederick Lenz,
58:Showing a photograph of a brain lit-up in a certain way, and claiming that this “explains” samadhi, is like showing a picture of a tree lit-up in a certain way, and claiming that this “explains” Christmas. ~ Lou Marinoff,
59:The whole art of ecstasy, meditation, samadhi, is: How to become one with the rhythm of the universe. When it exhales, you exhale. When it inhales, you inhale. You live in it, are not separate, are one with it. ~ Rajneesh,
60:Samadhi, which translates to 'neutral vision.' Sama means 'even' or 'neutral', and dhi means 'vision' or 'seeing.' Neutral vision means to see without judging. No appreciating nor condemning; simply looking. ~ Baron Baptiste,
61:By Pranayama impurities of the body are thrown out; by Dharana the impurities of the mind; by Pratyahara the impurities of attachment; and by Samadhi is taken off everything that hides the lordship of the soul.
   ~ Yajnavalkya,
62:The nearer you approach to God, the less you reason and argue. When you attain Him, then all sounds—all reasoning and disputing—come to an end. Then you go into samadhi—sleep—, into communion with God in silence. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
63:When I meditate, people see manifestations of light when I go into samadhi and through the samadhis. Sometimes the energy of enlightenment is so clear that people don't realize that their attention has been elevated. ~ Frederick Lenz,
64:Being a siddha master is indeed a great accomplishment, but it is not the same as being enlightened. People confuse siddha masters, who have the power to perform miracles, with enlightened masters who can enter into samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
65:Salvakalpa samadhi is absorption in eternity to the point where there is no real concept of self but there's still a karmic chain. Nirvikalpa samadhi is absorption in nirvana; concepts of self and no-self go away completely. ~ Frederick Lenz,
66:Samadhi is the word used by Patanjali in his classic work, the Yoga Sutras, to describe the final stage in meditation, in which the mind is completely concentrated and a superconscious mode of knowing comes into play. ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa,
67:Sahaja samadhi means that you have just gone back and forth so many times that there is no back and forth. All you see is enlightenment in this world and the other side. There is no other side anymore. It means that you are wakeful. ~ Frederick Lenz,
68:The advanced education in Tantra obviously has to do with the entrance into samadhi, the negation of the self. That is what the path of negation means, not the negation of life, but the negation of anything that is not enlightenment. ~ Frederick Lenz,
69:They reach the point where they feel, "I can go into samadhi now. I can do everything on my own," and that's exactly where they stay, in the lower samadhis. There are many, many people on this earth who can go into salvakalpa samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
70:The highest state of meditation is Samadhi, where there is no ego anymore, no doubts, no me, no you, no notion of time, no eating, no talking, no walking, no working and not doing anything at all, realizing that the Self is action-less. ~ Dharma Mittra,
71:Ramakrishna didn't suddenly become enlightened. We had years of him meditating, seeking, crying to Mother Kali, going in and out of samadhi; but after many years of this process, he was enlightened. He was no longer a finite individual. ~ Frederick Lenz,
72:I first went into samadhi when I was 19. I was meditating in the mountains and had been meditating on a daily basis for several years. Suddenly there was no time or space or life or death or myself or the Universe. I was absorbed in light. ~ Frederick Lenz,
73:Nirvikalpa Samadhi means that you've gone off the board; you've gone off the map. There is no way to describe it. You have attained liberation and are no longer bound by the cycle of existence. You just are, and yet you're not, at the same time. ~ Frederick Lenz,
74:Freedom, that is to say direct experience of samadhi, can be attained only by disciplined conduct and renunciation of sensual desires and appetites. This is brought about through adherence to the ‘twin pillars’ of yoga, abhyasa and vairagya. Abhyasa ~ B K S Iyengar,
75:You can go to India and you can see gurus go into samadhi. But when they come out of samadhi, they're nasty. They're egocentric. They don't have a deep regard or understanding of what life is. It's just a little trick they can do, a one-trick pony. ~ Frederick Lenz,
76:The fruition of this process is samadhi which yields release, which is the state of unsurpassed bliss. The revered Gurus also have said that release is to be gained only by devotion which is of the nature of reflection on the truth of the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
77:If a person sets out to practice meditation in this lifetime and they have a little bit of spiritual evolution behind them and they're quite dedicated, it really is not at all an impossible task to enter into salvakalpa samadhi in this particular lifetime. ~ Frederick Lenz,
78:Now, stopping thought is only the beginning. As Brahmananda, who was a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, once remarked: The inner life begins with samadhi. This is an awesome thought, I realize, for the average person who meditates, that it could begin with samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz,
79:I began to go into samadhi, not just occasionally, but every day many times a day until I reached a point where I could no longer distinguish between ordinary and non-ordinary reality. For me it is all the same. I am in a state of continuous absorption in the Self. ~ Frederick Lenz,
80:For years and years you enter into samadhi every day in order to attain liberation. Eternity fashions a new self which you find yourself with when you come out of samadhi. Each time you come out a little less, you might say, or your real self comes out a little more ~ Frederick Lenz,
81:If you are thinking of nything with dependence upon it, there is a motive of curiosity, or pleasure, or success, and though the thinking will help towards satisfaction you will still be in bondage. There is no harm in this, but the higher samadhi, without such motives, is best. ~ Ernest Wood,
82:Samadhi. Immersed in concentration and meditation, all thoughts and distractions far away. Your focus steady, you achieve samadhi. All that exists is the heart of the experience. There is no one meditating, no one concentrating, only awareness. There is no yogi, only the yoga. (3) ~ Alberto Villoldo,
83:Even to the sage who's doing Sahaja Samadhi, the great guru, I'd say: "Hey buddy, you know, I like the robes and everything, but remember, you're only touching infinity. And if you claim to be doing more, I think you're pretty much in the senses and the body and the mind because infinity is endless." ~ Frederick Lenz,
84:When our mind works freely without any hindrance, and is at liberty to 'come' or to 'go', we attain Samadhi of Prajna, or liberation. Such a state is called the function of 'thoughtlessness'. But to refrain from thinking of anything, so that all thoughts are suppressed, is to be Dharma-ridden, and this is an erroneous view. ~ Huineng,
85:When our mind works freely without any hindrance, and is at liberty to 'come' or to 'go', we attain Samadhi of Prajna, or liberation. Such a state is called the function of 'thoughtlessness'. But to refrain from thinking of anything, so that all thoughts are suppressed, is to be Dharma-ridden, and this is an erroneous view. ~ Hui Neng,
86:When your intellect, once perverted by listening to all manner of arguments, is totally absorbed in the contemplation of God, you will then attain yoga. When a person is firmly established in samadhi — samadhi means fixing the mind on God — he is filled with ecstatic love and, therefore, can be completely indifferent to this world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
87:You must continue to go back to the beginning, to the foundation, and question the foundation. Even once you‘ve reached Samadhi you must go back so you can create it at will. Samadhi is the beginning of spiritual growth, not the end. You must always be questioning. Enlightenment comes as an accident at first, then you have to learn to recreate it. ~ B K S Iyengar,
88:In samadhi, in the highest form of meditation, the same thing happens: the mind stops functioning... but you are conscious. That is the only difference, but the difference that makes the difference. One is fully alert, luminous. One is there witnessing, watching, but there is no cloud of thought. The sky is utterly empty: as far as you can see you cannot see any content. ~ Rajneesh,
89:The Ultimate Truth is called God. This one can realize in the state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi. A circle can have only one centre but it can have numerous radii. The centre can be compared to God and the radii to religions. So, no one sect, no one religion or book can make an absolute claim of It. He who works for It gets It. ~ Swami Narayanananda, Selected Articles 1933-86 (2002), p. 301,
90:Sometimes you have a flash of insight, but it's not strong enough to survive. Therefore in the practice of Buddhism, samadhi is the power to maintain insight alive in every moment, so that every speech, every word, every act will bear the nature of that insight. It is a question of cleaning. And you clean better if you are surrounded by those who are practicing exactly the same. ~ Nhat Hanh,
91:We experience many different joys and sorrows. When we do, we have a lot of thoughts. This produces a lot of afflictions, and many feelings arise. So we need to make sure that joy and sorrow do not harm us. If fact, we can even use them as a way to develop our experience, realization, and samadhi meditation. If we can take joy and sorrow as the path, this life will be peaceful and happy. ~ Khenchen Thrangu,
92:I would like you to drop the ego, to dissolve, to disappear, because only then is there fulfillment. The ego knows only emptiness; it is always unfulfilled. By the very nature, by its very intrinsic nature, it cannot attain to fulfillment. When you are not, fulfillment is. Call it God, or give it a name Patanjali would like - samadhi - the attainment of the ultimate, but it comes when you disappear. ~ Rajneesh,
93:A true yogi is able to pass into and maintain the superconscious state, regardless of multitudinous distractions never absent from this earth—the buzz of insects! the pervasive glare of daylight! In the first state of samadhi (sabikalpa), the devotee shuts off all sensory testimony of the outer world. He is rewarded then by sounds and scenes of inner realms fairer than the pristine Eden. 6 ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
94:Then it's goodbye, Sangsara for me Besides, girls aren't as good as they look And Samadhi is better than you think When it starts in hitting your head In with Buzz of glittergold Heaven's Angels, wailing, saying We've been waiting for you since morning, Jack Why were you so long dallying in the sooty room? This transcendental Brilliance Is the better part (of Nothingness I sing) Okay. Quit. Mad. Stop. ~ Jack Kerouac,
95:Samadhi is the journey from individual to collective consciousness. The steps of Samadhi are the steps towards reaching the collective consciousness. In meditation, the more we radiate love, compassion, peace, harmony and tranquility, the more is our contribution towards the collective consciousness. The more we positively contribute towards the collective consciousness the more is our progress in Samadhi. ~ Amit Ray,
96:The child is naturally meditative. He is a sort of samadhi; he's coming out of the womb of existence. His life river is yset absolutely fresh, just from the source. He knows the truth, but he does not know that he knows.... His knowledge is not yet aware. It is innocent. It is simply there, as a matter of fact. And he is not separate from his knowledge; he is his knowledge. He has not mind, he has simple being. ~ Rajneesh,
97:Then it's goodbye, Sangsara for me
Besides, girls aren't as good as they look
And Samadhi is better than you think
When it starts in hitting your head
In with Buzz of glittergold
Heaven's Angels, wailing, saying
We've been waiting for you since morning, Jack
Why were you so long dallying in the sooty room?
This transcendental Brilliance
Is the better part (of Nothingness
I sing) Okay. Quit. Mad. Stop. ~ Jack Kerouac,
98:But in the Rajayogic Samadhi there are different grades of status, - that in which the mind, though lost to outward objects, still muses, thinks, perceives in the world of thought, that in which the mind is still capable of primary thought-formations and that in which, all out-darting of the mind even within itself having ceased, the soul rises beyond thought into the silence of the Incommunicable and Ineffable.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
99:Sadhana is the practice of Yoga.
Tapasya is the concentration of the will to get the results of sadhana and to conquer the lower nature.
Aradhana is worship of the Divine, love, self-surrender, aspiration to the Divine, calling the name, prayer.
Dhyana is inner concentration of the consciousness, meditation, going inside in Samadhi.
Dhyana, tapasya and aradhana are all parts of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 215 [sadhana is:],
100:So let it be a criterion if you follow the path of awareness, let love be the criterion. When your awareness suddenly blooms into love, know perfectly well that awareness has happened, SAMADHI has been achieved. If you follow the path of love, then let awareness function as a criterion, as a touchstone. When suddenly, from nowhere, at the very center of your love. a flame of awareness starts arising, know perfectly well... rejoice! You have come home. ~ Rajneesh,
101:There are three stages in meditation. The first is what is called Dharana, concentrating the mind upon an object. I try to concentrate my mind upon this glass, excluding every other object from my mind except this glass. But the mind is wavering. When it has become strong and does not waver so much, it is called Dhyana, meditation. And then there is a still higher state when the differentiation between the glass and myself is lost — Samadhi or absorption ~ Swami Vivekananda,
102:When meditation becomes very deep, breathing becomes slow, steady, and even, and the windows of the senses close to all outward sensations. Next the faculties of the mind quiet down, resting from their usually frantic activity; even the primal emotions of desire, fear, and anger subside. When all these sensory and emotional tides have ceased to flow, then the spirit is free, mukta – at least for the time being. It has entered the state called samadhi. Samadhi ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa,
103:The postures are only the "skin" of yoga. Hidden behind them are the "flesh and blood" of breath control and mental techniques that are still more difficult to learn, as well as moral practices that require a lifetime of consistent application and that correspond to the skeletal structure of the body. The higher practices of concentration, meditation and unitive ecstasy(samadhi) are analogous to the circulatory and nervous system." Georg Feuerstein The Deeper Dimension of Yoga ~ Georg Feuerstein,
104:There are three key practices that can transform your suffering and allow you to truly make a home for yourself so that you have solidity and understanding to give your partner. They also lead you to great joy. They are the practices of mindfulness (smrti), concentration (samadhi), and insight (prajña). With mindfulness, concentration, and insight, we can purify our mind so that the afflictions will be lighter, we can connect more deeply with our loved ones, and we can be free. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,
105:You can call it tathata, suchness. 'Suchness' is a Buddhist way of expressing that there is something in you which always remains in its intrinsic nature, never changing. It always remains in its selfsame essence, eternally so. That is your real nature. That which changes is not you, that is mind. That which does not change in you is buddha-mind. You can call it no-mind, you can call it samadhi, satori. It depends upon you; you can give it whatsoever name you want. You can call it christ-consciousness. ~ Rajneesh,
106:Samadhi means when sushupti, dreamless sleep, becomes alert, awake. When you are asleep as far as the body is concerned, you are asleep as far as the mind is concerned, because there is no disturbance of any dream, there is no tension in the body - but beyond the mind, the no-mind is fully alert. He knows that the mind is without any dreams, he sees it, it is without any dreams, he sees it the body is absolutely relaxed. And this seeing, this alertness, continues twenty-four hours. Then sushupti becomes samadhi. ~ Rajneesh,
107:Brahmacharya is not against sex. If it is against sex then sex can never disappear. Brahmacharya is a transmutation of the energy: it is not being against sex, rather it is changing the whole energy from the sex center to the higher centers. When it reaches to the seventh center of man, the sahasrar, then brahmacharya happens. If it remains in the first center, muladhar, then sex; when it reaches to the seventh center, then samadhi. The same energy moves. It is not being against it; rather, it is an art how to use it. ~ Rajneesh,
108:When a man goes into deep sleep, he enters a plane beneath consciousness. He works the body all the time, he breathes, he moves the body, perhaps, in his sleep, without any accompanying feeling of ego; he is unconscious, and when he returns from his sleep, he is the same man who went into it. The sum total of the knowledge which he had before he went into the sleep remains the same; it does not increase at all. No enlightenment comes. But when a man goes into Samadhi, if he goes into it a fool, he comes out a sage. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
109:Consciousness is imbued with the three qualities (gunas) of luminosity (sattva), vibrancy (rajas) and inertia (tamas). The gunas also colour our actions: white (sattva), grey (rajas) and black (tamas). Through the discipline of yoga, both actions and intelligence go beyond these qualities and the seer comes to experience his own soul with crystal clarity, free from the relative attributes of nature and actions. This state of purity is samadhi. Yoga is thus both the means and the goal. Yoga is samadhi and samadhi is yoga. There ~ B K S Iyengar,
110:Buddhas can take you to the boundary line of meditation and samadhi. That is the only difference between meditation and samadhi. If your mind has become utterly quiet and silent, but only the master is there, then it is meditation. If your mind has become so quiet that even the master has disappeared, it is samadhi. The last barrier is going to be the master. He will take you out of the world, but one day you will have to leave him too. And the real master will always keep you alert that you have to leave him one day, at the final stage. ~ Rajneesh,
111:Numerous bewildered seekers in the West erroneously think that an eloquent speaker or writer on metaphysics must be a master. Proof that one is a master, however, is supplied only by the ability to enter at will the breathless state (sabikalpa samadhi) and by the attainment of immutable bliss (nirbikalpa samadhi). The rishis have pointed out that solely by these achievements may a human being demonstrate that he has mastered maya, the dualistic cosmic delusion. He alone may say from the depths of realization: “Ekam sat” (“Only One exists”). “When ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
112:remove the veil of maya is to uncover the secret of creation. He who thus denudes the universe is the only true monotheist. All others are worshipping heathen images. So long as man remains subject to the dualistic illusions of Nature, the Janus-faced Maya is his goddess; he cannot know the one true God. The world illusion, maya, manifests in men as avidya, literally, “not-knowledge,” ignorance, delusion. Maya or avidya can never be destroyed through intellectual conviction or analysis, but solely through attaining the interior state of nirbikalpa samadhi. The ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
113:It is clearly seen: There is not a single thing. Nor are there any people; nor are there any Buddhas. The great thousand worlds are bubbles in the sea. All the worthy Sages are like flashes of lightning. Even if an iron wheel were rolled over one's head, Samadhi and wisdom would be fully bright and never lost. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts

~ Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia, It is clearly seen (from The Song of Enlightenment)
,
114:In dense darkness, O Mother, Thy formless beauty sparkles; Therefore the yogis meditate in a dark mountain cave. In the lap of boundless dark, on Mahanirvana's waves unborn, Peace flows serene and inexhaustible. Taking the form of the Void, in the robe of darkness wrapped, Who art Thou, Mother, seated alone in the shrine of samadhi? From the Lotus of Thy fear-scattering Feet flash Thy love's lightnings; Thy Spirit-Face shines forth with laughter terrible and loud! [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding

~ Swami Vivekananda, In dense darkness, O Mother
,
115:When you understand that form is the form of the formless, Your coming-and-going takes place nowhere else but where you are. When you understand that thought is the thought of the thought-less. Your singing-and-dancing is no other than the voice of the Dharma. How boundless is the sky of Samadhi! How refreshingly bright is the moon of the Fourfold Wisdom! Being so is there anything you lack? As the Absolute presents itself before you The place where you stand is the Land of the Lotus, And your person -- the body of the Buddha. [2139.jpg] -- from Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

~ Hakuin, The Form of the Formless (from Hakuins Song of Zazen)
,
116:The moments of satisfaction you experience are not in a subject/‌object relationship where you can say “I am free, I am happy.” These moments without thought, dream or representation are our true nature, fullness, which cannot be projected. It is an experience encountered where there is neither somebody experiencing nor a thing experienced. Only this reality is spiritual. All other states, “highs,” whether brought about by techniques, experiences or drugs, even the so often exalted samadhi, are phenomena‌—‌and carry with them traces of objectivity. In other words, as what you are is not a state, it is a waste of time and energy chasing more and more experiences in the hope of coming closer to the non-experience. ~ Jean Klein,
117:When the mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power of flowing in an unbroken current, as it were, towards that point. This state is called Dhyana. When one has so intensified the power of Dhyana as to be able to reject the external part of perception and remain meditating only on the internal part, the meaning, that state is called Samadhi. The three — Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi — together, are called Samyama. That is, if the mind can first concentrate upon an object, and then is able to continue in that concentration for a length of time, and then, by continued concentration, to dwell only on the internal part of the perception of which the object was the effect, everything comes under the control of such a mind. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
118:THREE STAGES OF MEDITATION There are three stages in meditation. The first is what is called Dharana, concentrating the mind upon an object. I try to concentrate my mind upon this glass, excluding every other object from my mind except this glass. But the mind is wavering. When it has become strong and does not waver so much, it is called Dhyana, meditation. And then there is a still higher state when the differentiation between the glass and myself is lost — Samadhi or absorption. The mind and the glass are identical. I do not see any difference. All the senses stop and all powers that have been working through other channels of other senses are focused in the mind. Then this glass is under the power of the mind entirely. This is to be realised. It is a tremendous play played by the Yogis. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
119:The greatest value of the dream-state of Samadhi lies, however, not in these more outward things, but in its power to open up easily higher ranges and powers of thought, emotion, will by which the soul grows in height, range and self-mastery. Especially, withdrawing from the distraction of sensible things, it can, in a perfect power of concentrated self-seclusion, prepare itself by a free reasoning, thought, discrimination or more intimately, more finally, by an ever deeper vision and identification, for access to the Divine, the supreme Self, the transcendent Truth, both in its principles and powers and manifestations and in its highest original Being. Or it can by an absorbed inner joy and emotion, as in a sealed and secluded chamber of the soul, prepare itself for the delight of union with the divine Beloved, the Master of all bliss, rapture and Ananda.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 26, Samadhi, pg. 503,
120:It has been said that the man who loves God needs seven incarnations in order to enter Nirvana and liberate himself, and that the man who hates him needs only three. It is without God but his own 'fury' that Parsifal achieved the Grail and his individuation, his Self, his totality. This is the difference between the Liquid Road and the Dry Road. We do not know whether, as well as his 'fury', his Phobos, his fear of the Mother, Parsifal carried with him a 'memory of a beloved', as he was supposed to have advised his friend Gawaine to do. Parsifal, with his 'fury', or his hatred, was resisting a participation mystique. Samadhi, fusion with Adhi, the Primordial Being, doesn't await him at the end of his road. Because this would be the way of sainthood. What awaits him is Kaivalya, total separation, supreme Individuation, Absolute Personality, the ultimate solitude of the Superman. This is the way of the magician, the Siddha, the tantric hero of the Grail. The cosmic isolation of the risen Purusha. ~ Miguel Serrano,
121:The Yoga system of Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path.9 The first steps are (1) yama (moral conduct), and (2) niyama (religious observances). Yama is fulfilled by noninjury to others, truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, and noncovetousness. The niyama prescripts are purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances, self-discipline, self-study (contemplation), and devotion to God and guru. The next steps are (3) asana (right posture); the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation; (4) pranayama (control of prana, subtle life currents); and (5) pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects). The last steps are forms of yoga proper: (6) dharana (concentration), holding the mind to one thought; (7) dhyana (meditation); and (8) samadhi (superconscious experience). This Eightfold Path of Yoga leads to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), in which the yogi realizes the Truth beyond all intellectual apprehension. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
122:everyone and everything a fluid living sea
Universal Consciousness as both you and me
being in rapturous love with all life and every person
but this wasn't maintained and things were about to worsen
ego crept back in believing it was Enlightened
it turns out consciousness only temporarily heightened
a momentary samadhi can sometimes deceive
if untold by a Master because our mind is naïve
ask enlightenment teachers today about their ego death
don't even need to for their answer we can already guess
are they right this moment experiencing Allness?
the spiritual ego is crafty and teaches regardless
their words proceeding from the intellect, Power is lacking
a Divine Transference is required to send the ego packing
if inspiration hits by all means share
but state your current un-State or others you'll ensnare
True Teachings are on a whole different level
a powerful quieting effect, they silence the mental
make no bones about it—dying to God is involved
if not ready for this step then observe truths lesser evolved ~ Jarett Sabirsh,
123:This concentration proceeds by the Idea, using thought, form and name as keys which yield up to the concentrating mind the Truth that lies concealed behind all thought, form and name; for it is through the Idea that the mental being rises beyond all expression to that which is expressed, to that of which the Idea itself is only the instrument. By concentration upon the Idea the mental existence which at present we are breaks open the barrier of our mentality and arrives at the state of consciousness, the state of being, the state of power of conscious-being and bliss of conscious-being to which the Idea corresponds and of which it is the symbol, movement and rhythm. Concentration by the Idea is, then, only a means, a key to open to us the superconscient planes of our existence; a certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Integral Knowledge, Concentration [321],
124:7 “Chitta vritti nirodha” (Yoga Sutras I:2), which may also be translated as “cessation of the modifications of the mind-stuff.” Chitta is a comprehensive term for the thinking principle, which includes the pranic life forces, manas (mind or sense consciousness), ahamkara (egoity), and buddhi (intuitive intelligence). Vritti (literally “whirlpool”) refers to the waves of thought and emotion that ceaselessly arise and subside in man’s consciousness. Nirodha means neutralization, cessation, control. 8 The six orthodox (Vedas-based) systems are Sankhya, Yoga, Vedanta, Mimamsa, Nyaya, and Vaisesika. Readers of a scholarly bent will delight in the subtleties and broad scope of these ancient formulations as summarized in English in A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, by Prof. Surendranath Dasgupta (Cambridge Univ. Press). 9 Not to be confused with the “Noble Eightfold Path” of Buddhism, a guide to man’s conduct, as follows: (1) right ideals, (2) right motive, (3) right speech, (4) right action, (5) right means of livelihood, (6) right effort, (7) right remembrance (of the Self), and (8) right realization (samadhi). ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
125:The Yoga system of Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path. 9 The first steps are (1) yama (moral conduct), and (2) niyama (religious observances). Yama is fulfilled by noninjury to others, truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, and noncovetousness. The niyama prescripts are purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances, self-discipline, self-study (contemplation), and devotion to God and guru. The next steps are (3) asana (right posture); the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation; (4) pranayama (control of prana, subtle life currents); and (5) pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects). The last steps are forms of yoga proper: (6) dharana (concentration), holding the mind to one thought; (7) dhyana (meditation); and (8) samadhi (superconscious experience). This Eightfold Path of Yoga leads to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), in which the yogi realizes the Truth beyond all intellectual apprehension. “Which is greater,” one may ask, “a swami or a yogi?” If and when oneness with God is achieved, the distinctions of the various paths disappear. The Bhagavad Gita, however, has pointed out that the methods of yoga are all-embracing. Its techniques are not meant only for certain types and temperaments, such as those few persons who incline toward the monastic life; yoga requires no formal allegiance. Because the yogic science satisfies a universal need, it has a natural universal appeal. A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world; ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
126:The ancient rishi Patanjali6 defines yoga as “neutralization of the alternating waves in consciousness.”7 His short and masterly work, Yoga Sutras, forms one of the six systems of Hindu philosophy. In contradistinction to Western philosophies, all six Hindu systems8 embody not only theoretical teachings but practical ones also. After pursuing every conceivable ontological inquiry, the Hindu systems formulate six definite disciplines aimed at the permanent removal of suffering and the attainment of timeless bliss. The later Upanishads uphold the Yoga Sutras, among the six systems, as containing the most efficacious methods for achieving direct perception of truth. Through the practical techniques of yoga, man leaves behind forever the barren realms of speculation and cognizes in experience the veritable Essence. The Yoga system of Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path.9 The first steps are (1) yama (moral conduct), and (2) niyama (religious observances). Yama is fulfilled by noninjury to others, truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, and noncovetousness. The niyama prescripts are purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances, self-discipline, self-study (contemplation), and devotion to God and guru. The next steps are (3) asana (right posture); the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation; (4) pranayama (control of prana, subtle life currents); and (5) pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects). The last steps are forms of yoga proper: (6) dharana (concentration), holding the mind to one thought; (7) dhyana (meditation); and (8) samadhi (superconscious experience). This Eightfold Path of Yoga leads to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), in which the yogi realizes the Truth beyond all intellectual apprehension. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
127:Response To A Logician :::
I bow at the feet of my teacher Marpa.
And sing this song in response to you.
Listen, pay heed to what I say,
forget your critique for a while.

The best seeing is the way of "nonseeing"
the radiance of the mind itself.
The best prize is what cannot be looked for
the priceless treasure of the mind itself.

The most nourishing food is "noneating"
the transcendent food of samadhi.
The most thirst-quenching drink is "nondrinking"
the nectar of heartfelt compassion.

Oh, this self-realizing awareness
is beyond words and description!
The mind is not the world of children,
nor is it that of logicians.

Attaining the truth of "nonattainment,"
you receive the highest initiation.
Perceiving the void of high and low,
you reach the sublime stage.

Approaching the truth of "nonmovement,"
you follow the supreme path.
Knowing the end of birth and death,
the ultimate purpose is fulfilled.

Seeing the emptiness of reason,
supreme logic is perfected.
When you know that great and small are groundless,
you have entered the highest gateway.

Comprehending beyond good and evil
opens the way to perfect skill.
Experiencing the dissolution of duality,
you embrace the highest view.

Observing the truth of "nonobservation"
opens the way to meditating.
Comprehending beyond "ought" and "oughtn't"
opens the way to perfect action.

When you realize the truth of "noneffort,"
you are approaching the highest fruition.
Ignorant are those who lack this truth:
arrogant teachers inflated by learning,
scholars bewitched by mere words,
and yogis seduced by prejudice.
For though they yearn for freedom,
they find only enslavement. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,
128:English version by Thupten Jinpa & Jas Elsner
I bow at the feet of my teacher Marpa.
And sing this song in response to you.
Listen, pay heed to what I say,
forget your critique for a while.

The best seeing is the way of "nonseeing" --
the radiance of the mind itself.
The best prize is what cannot be looked for --
the priceless treasure of the mind itself.

The most nourishing food is "noneating" --
the transcendent food of samadhi.
The most thirst-quenching drink is "nondrinking" --
the nectar of heartfelt compassion.

Oh, this self-realizing awareness
is beyond words and description!
The mind is not the world of children,
nor is it that of logicians.

Attaining the truth of "nonattainment,"
you receive the highest initiation.
Perceiving the void of high and low,
you reach the sublime stage.

Approaching the truth of "nonmovement,"
you follow the supreme path.
Knowing the end of birth and death,
the ultimate purpose is fulfilled.

Seeing the emptiness of reason,
supreme logic is perfected.
When you know that great and small are groundless,
you have entered the highest gateway.

Comprehending beyond good and evil
opens the way to perfect skill.
Experiencing the dissolution of duality,
you embrace the highest view.

Observing the truth of "nonobservation"
opens the way to meditating.
Comprehending beyond "ought" and "oughtn't"
opens the way to perfect action.

When you realize the truth of "noneffort,"
you are approaching the highest fruition.
Ignorant are those who lack this truth:
arrogant teachers inflated by learning,
scholars bewitched by mere words,
and yogis seduced by prejudice.
For though they yearn for freedom,
they find only enslavement.
~ Jetsun Milarepa, Response to a Logician
,
129:I am a thin layer of all those beings on [samadhi level] 3, mingling, connected with one another in a spherical surface around the whole known universe. Our "backs" are to the void. We are creating energy, matter and life at the interface between the void and all known creation. We are facing into the known universe, creating it, filling it. I am one with them; spread in a thin layer around the sphere with a small, slightly greater concentration of me in one small zone. I feel the power of the galaxy pouring through me. I am following the programme, the conversion programme of void to space, to energy, to matter, to life, to consciousness, to us, the creators. From nothing on one side to the created everything on the other. I am the creation process itself, incredibly strong, incredibly powerful.

This time there is no flunking out, no withdrawal, no running away, no unconsciousness, no denial, no negation, no fighting against anything. I am "one of the boys in the engine room pumping creation from the void into the known universe; from the unknown to the known I am pumping".

I am coming down from level +3. There are a billion choices of where to descend back down. I am conscious down each one of the choices simultaneously. Finally I am in my own galaxy with millions of choices left, hundreds of thousands on my own solar system, tens of thousands on my own planet, hundreds in my own country and then suddenly I am down to two, one of which is this body. In this body I look back up, see the choice-tree above me that I came down.

Did I, this Essence, come all the way down to this solar system, this planet, this place, this body, or does it make any difference? May not this body be a vehicle for any Essence that came into it? Are not all Essences universal, equal, anonymous, and equally able? Instructions for this vehicle are in it for each Essence to read and absorb on entry. The new pilot-navigator reads his instructions in storage and takes over, competently operating this vehicle. ~ John C Lilly,
130:All beings are primarily Buddhas. It is like water and ice: There is no ice apart from water; There are no Buddhas apart from beings. Not knowing how close the truth is to them, Beings seek for it afar -- what a pity! They are like those who, being in the midst of water, Cry out for water, feeling thirst. They are like the son of the rich man, Who, wandering away from his father, Goes astray amongst the poor. It is all due to their ignorance That beings transmigrate in the darkness Of the Six Paths of existence. When they wander from darkness to darkness, How can they ever be free from birth-and-death? As for the Dhyana practice as taught in the Mahayana, No amount of praise can exhaust its merits. The Six Paramitas--beginning with the Giving, Observing the Precepts, And other good deeds, variously enumerated, Such as Nembutsu, Repentance, Moral Training, and so on -- All are finally reducible to the practice of Dhyana. The merit of Dhyana practice, even during a single sitting, Erases the countless sins accumulated in the past. Where then are the Evil Paths to misguide us? The Pure Land cannot be far away. Those who, for once, listening to the Dharma In all humility, Praise it and faithfully follow it, Will be endowed with innumerable merits. But how much more so when you turn your eyes within yourselves And have a glimpse into your self-nature! You find that the self-nature is no-nature - The truth permitting no idle sophistry. For you, then, open the gate leading to the oneness of cause and effect; Before you, then, lies a straight road of non-duality and non-trinity. When you understand that form is the form of the formless, Your coming-and-going takes place nowhere else but where you are. When you understand that thought is the thought of the thought-less. Your singing-and-dancing is no other than the voice of the Dharma. How boundless is the sky of Samadhi! How refreshingly bright is the moon of the Fourfold Wisdom! Being so is there anything you lack? As the Absolute presents itself before you The place where you stand is the Land of the Lotus, And your person -- the body of the Buddha. [2139.jpg] -- from Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

~ Hakuin, Hakuins Song of Zazen
,
131:The general characteristics and attributions of these Grades are indicated by their correspondences on the Tree of Life, as may be studied in detail in the Book 777.
   Student. -- His business is to acquire a general intellectual knowledge of all systems of attainment, as declared in the prescribed books. (See curriculum in Appendix I.) {231}
   Probationer. -- His principal business is to begin such practices as he my prefer, and to write a careful record of the same for one year.
   Neophyte. -- Has to acquire perfect control of the Astral Plane.
   Zelator. -- His main work is to achieve complete success in Asana and Pranayama. He also begins to study the formula of the Rosy Cross.
   Practicus. -- Is expected to complete his intellectual training, and in particular to study the Qabalah.
   Philosophus. -- Is expected to complete his moral training. He is tested in Devotion to the Order.
   Dominus Liminis. -- Is expected to show mastery of Pratyahara and Dharana.
   Adeptus (without). -- is expected to perform the Great Work and to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
   Adeptus (within). -- Is admitted to the practice of the formula of the Rosy Cross on entering the College of the Holy Ghost.
   Adeptus (Major). -- Obtains a general mastery of practical Magick, though without comprehension.
   Adeptus (Exemptus). -- Completes in perfection all these matters. He then either ("a") becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path or, ("b") is stripped of all his attainments and of himself as well, even of his Holy Guardian Angel, and becomes a babe of the Abyss, who, having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother. It then finds itself a
   Magister Templi. -- (Master of the Temple): whose functions are fully described in Liber 418, as is this whole initiation from Adeptus Exemptus. See also "Aha!". His principal business is to tend his "garden" of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. He is a Master of Samadhi. {232}
   Magus. -- Attains to wisdom, declares his law (See Liber I, vel Magi) and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense.
   Ipsissimus. -- Is beyond all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
132:34
D: What are the eight limbs of knowledge (jnana ashtanga)?
M: The eight limbs are those which have been already mentioned, viz., yama, niyama etc., but differently defined:
(1) Yama: This is controlling the aggregate of sense-organs, realizing the defects that are present in the world consisting of the body, etc.
(2) Niyama: This is maintaining a stream of mental modes that relate to the Self and rejecting the contrary modes. In other words, it means love that arises uninterruptedly for the Supreme Self.
(3) Asana: That with the help of which constant meditation on Brahman is made possible with ease is asana.
(4) Pranayama: Rechaka (exhalation) is removing the two unreal aspects of name and form from the objects constituting the world, the body etc., puraka (inhalation) is grasping the three real aspects, existence, consciousness and bliss, which are constant in those objects, and kumbhaka is retaining those aspects thus grasped.
(5) Pratyahara: This is preventing name and form which have been removed from re-entering the mind.
(6) Dharana: This is making the mind stay in the Heart, without straying outward, and realizing that one is the Self itself which is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.
(7) Dhyana: This is meditation of the form 'I am only pure consciousness'. That is, after leaving aside the body which consists of five sheaths, one enquires 'Who am I?', and as a result of that, one stays as 'I' which shines as the Self.
(8) Samadhi: When the 'I-manifestation' also ceases, there is (subtle) direct experience. This is samadhi.
For pranayama, etc., detailed here, the disciplines such as asana, etc., mentioned in connection with yoga are not necessary.
The limbs of knowledge may be practised at all places and at all times. Of yoga and knowledge, one may follow whichever is pleasing to one, or both, according to circumstances. The great teachers say that forgetfulness is the root of all evil, and is death for those who seek release,10 so one should rest the mind in one's Self and should never forget the Self: this is the aim. If the mind is controlled, all else can be controlled. The distinction between yoga with eight limbs and knowledge with eight limbs has been set forth elaborately in the sacred texts; so only the substance of this teaching has been given here. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Self-Enquiry, 34,
133:t is discovered an extraordinary similarity between Nietzsche and the Hindu-Aryan Rishi, visionary poets of the Vedas.

They also thought the ideas from outside to inside: they 'appeared' to them. Rishi means 'he who sees'. See an Idea, express it, or try to express it. The job of the Rishis has been fulfilled for millennia and the vision of the Vedas was revised, elaborated, in subsequent visions, in scholastics, in doctrinal buildings and sophisticated verifications, through centuries.

In any case, he, who preached not to subtract anything that life offers as Will of Power, as possession, increasing its power, lived chaste, like a yogi, always looking for the highest tensions of the soul, climbing always, more and more lonely, to be able to open up to that style of thinking, where the ideas could possess him as the most authentic expression of life, as his 'pulse', hitting him in the center of the personal being, or of the existence there accumulated, and that he called, long before Jung and any other psychologist, the Self, to differentiate it from the conscious and limited self, from the rational self.

Let's clarify, then. What Nietzsche called thinking is something else, Nietzsche did not think with his head (because 'synchronistically' it hurt) but with the Self, with all of life and, especially, 'with the feet'. 'I think with my feet,' he said, 'because I think walking, climbing.'

That is, when the effort and exhaustion caused the conscious mind to enter a kind of drowsiness or semi-sleep, there it took possession of the work of thinking that 'other thing', the Self, opening up to the dazzling penetration of the Idea, or that expression of the Original Power of Life, of Being, of the Will of Power, which crosses man from part to part, as in a yoga samadhi, or in a kaivalya, from an ancient rishi, or Tantric Siddha.

Also like those rays that pierced the Etruscan 'fulgurators', to change them, and that they were able to resist thanks to a purified technique of concentration and initiation preparation.

That this is a deep Aryan, Hyperborean, that is, Nordic-polar, Germanic style of origins ('let's face ourselves, we are Hyperborean'), and that he knew it, is proved in the name he gave his more beautiful, bigger work: 'Thus spoke Zarathustra'. Zarathustra is the Aryan Magician-reformer of ancient Persia. ~ Miguel Serrano,
134:Kada postoje ispravan napor, ispravna sabranost i ispravna koncentracija, tu je i
neustrašivost. Tu je neustrašivost zato što nema čega da se bojimo. Imamo snagu da
pogledamo stvari i ne protumačimo ih na pogrešan način; imamo mudrost da posmatramo
i promišljamo život; imamo sigurnost i pouzdanost sile, snagu svoje posvećenosti moralu
i odlučnosti da činimo dobro i uzdržimo se od lošeg počinjenog telom i govorom. Na taj
način, čitava stvar stoji zajedno kao put razvoja. To je savršen put, jer sve pomaže i
podstiče; telo, emocionalna priroda (osećanja) i intelekt. Oni su u savršenom skladu,
podupiru jedno drugo.
Bez tog sklada, naša instrinktivna priroda može prevladati. Ukoliko nemamo posvećenost
moralu, tada naši instinkti mogu preuzeti kontrolu. Na primer, ako samo sledimo
seksualne želje bez ikakve veze sa moralom, tada se upetljavamo u mnoge stvari koje
izazivaju odbojnost prema samom sebi. Tu su preljuba, promiskuitet i bolesti, kao i sva
ona uznemirenost i konfuzija koji dolaze kada našom instinktivnom prirodom ne vladaju
ograničenja morala.
Možemo svoju inteligenciju iskoristiti za prevaru i laganje, zar ne, ali kada imamo moral
kao temelj, tad nas vodi mudrost i samadhi; oni nas vode do emocionalne ravnoteže i
emocionalne snage. Ali mi ne koristimo mudrost za potiskivanje osećajnosti. Ne
gospodarimo svojim emocijama uz pomoć mišljenja i potiskujući našu emocionalnu
prirodu. A upravo to često radimo na Zapadu; upotrebili smo naše racionalne misli i
ideale da gospodarimo i potisnemo naše emocije, postajući tako neosetljivi na stvari, na
život, na same sebe. Meñutim, u praktikovanju sabranosti pažnje putem vipassana
meditacije um je potpuno prijemčiv i otvoren, tako da poseduje onu puninu i jedan
kvalitet sveobuhvatnosti. I zato što je otvoren, um je istovremeno kao ogledalo,
reflektivan, odražava stvari. Kada se koncentrišete na neku tačku, um vam više nije
refleksivan – zadubljen je u svojstva tog objekat. Refleksivna sposobnost uma dolazi kroz
pažnju, celovitost uma. Ne filtrirate niti ne birate bilo šta. Samo posmatrate kako sve što
nastane i nestane. Posmatrate da ako ste vezani za nešto što je nastalo, ono i nestaje.
Doživljavate da iako je privlačno dok nastaje, ono se i menja pre nego što nestane. Tada
se njena privlačnost smanjuje i moramo pronaći nešto drugo čime ćemo se zaokupiti. ~ Ajahn Sumedho,
135:English version by Garma C. C. Chang
I bow down at the feet of the wish-fulfilling Guru.
Pray vouchsafe me your grace in bestowing beneficial food,
Pray make me realize my own body as the house of Buddha,
Pray grant me this knowledge.

I built the house through fear,
The house of Sunyata, the void nature of being;
Now I have no fear of its collapsing.
I, the Yogi with the wish-fulfilling gem,
Feel happiness and joy where'er I stay.

Because of the fear of cold, I sought for clothes;
The clothing I found is the Ah Shea Vital Heat.
Now I have no fear of coldness.

Because of the fear of poverty, I sought for riches;
The riches I found are the inexhaustible Seven Holy Jewels.
Now I have no fear of poverty.

Because of the fear of hunger, I sought for food;
The food I found is the Samadhi of Suchness.
Now I have no fear of hunger.

Because of the fear of thirst, I sought for drink;
The heavenly drink I found is the wine of mindfulness.
Now I have no fear of thirst.

Because of the fear of loneliness, I searched for a friend;
The friend I found is the bliss of perpetual Sunyata.
Now I have no fear of loneliness.

Because of the fear of going astray,
I sought for the right path to follow.
The wide path I found is the Path of Two-in-One.
Now I do not fear to lose my way.

I am a yogi with all desirable possessions,
A man always happy where'er he stays.

Here at Yolmo Tagpu Senge Tson,
The tigress howling with a pathetic, trembling cry,
Reminds me that her helpless cubs are innocently playing.
I cannot help but feel a great compassion for them,
I cannot help but practice more diligently,
I cannot help but augment thus my Bodhi-Mind.

The touching cry of the monkey,
So impressive and so moving,
Cannot help but raise in me deep pity.
The little monkey's chattering is amusing and pathetic;
As I hear it, I cannot but think of it with compassion.

The voice of the cuckoo is so moving,
And so tuneful is the lark's sweet singing,
That when I hear them I cannot help but listen --
When I listen to them,
I cannot help but shed tears.

The varied cries and cawings of the crow,
Are a good and helpful friend unto the yogi.
Even without a single friend,
To remain here is a pleasure.
With joy flowing from my heart, I sing this happy song;
May the dark shadow of all men's sorrows
Be dispelled by my joyful singing.
~ Jetsun Milarepa, The Song of Food and Dwelling
,
136:There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration, -for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world, -- so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a Mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised. There are supposed by those who systematise, to be three stages of the seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation. And by these, too, there comes when the accompanying feeling or the concentration is very intense, the Samadhi, the ecstatic trance in which the consciousness passes away from outer objects. But all this is really incidental; the one thing essential is the intense devotion of the thought in the mind to the object of adoration. Although it seems akin to the contemplation of the way of knowledge, it differs from that in its spirit. It is in its real nature not a still, but an ecstatic contemplation; it seeks not to pass into the being of the Divine, but to bring the Divine into ourselves and to lose ourselves in the deep ecstasy of his presence or of his possession; and its bliss is not the peace of unity, but the ecstasy of union. Here, too, there may be the separative self-consecration, which ends in the giving up of all other thought of life for the possession of this ecstasy, eternal afterwards in planes beyond, or the comprehensive consecration in which all the thoughts are full of the Divine and even in the occupations of life every thought remembers him. As in the other Yogas, so in this, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all ones inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported here by the primary force of the emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the spirit and its members.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Way of Devotion [T2],
137:The Song Of Food And Dwelling :::
I bow down at the feet of the wish-fulfilling Guru.
Pray vouchsafe me your grace in bestowing beneficial food,
Pray make me realize my own body as the house of Buddha,
Pray grant me this knowledge.

I built the house through fear,
The house of Sunyata, the void nature of being;
Now I have no fear of its collapsing.
I, the Yogi with the wish-fulfilling gem,
Feel happiness and joy where'er I stay.

Because of the fear of cold, I sought for clothes;
The clothing I found is the Ah Shea Vital Heat.
Now I have no fear of coldness.

Because of the fear of poverty, I sought for riches;
The riches I found are the inexhaustible Seven Holy Jewels.
Now I have no fear of poverty.

Because of the fear of hunger, I sought for food;
The food I found is the Samadhi of Suchness.
Now I have no fear of hunger.

Because of the fear of thirst, I sought for drink;
The heavenly drink I found is the wine of mindfulness.
Now I have no fear of thirst.

Because of the fear of loneliness, I searched for a friend;
The friend I found is the bliss of perpetual Sunyata.
Now I have no fear of loneliness.

Because of the fear of going astray,
I sought for the right path to follow.
The wide path I found is the Path of Two-in-One.
Now I do not fear to lose my way.

I am a yogi with all desirable possessions,
A man always happy where'er he stays.

Here at Yolmo Tagpu Senge Tson,
The tigress howling with a pathetic, trembling cry,
Reminds me that her helpless cubs are innocently playing.
I cannot help but feel a great compassion for them,
I cannot help but practice more diligently,
I cannot help but augment thus my Bodhi-Mind.

The touching cry of the monkey,
So impressive and so moving,
Cannot help but raise in me deep pity.
The little monkey's chattering is amusing and pathetic;
As I hear it, I cannot but think of it with compassion.

The voice of the cuckoo is so moving,
And so tuneful is the lark's sweet singing,
That when I hear them I cannot help but listen
When I listen to them,
I cannot help but shed tears.

The varied cries and cawings of the crow,
Are a good and helpful friend unto the yogi.
Even without a single friend,
To remain here is a pleasure.
With joy flowing from my heart, I sing this happy song;
May the dark shadow of all men's sorrows
Be dispelled by my joyful singing. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,
138:The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, clear state of mind and heart is established.
   This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalini, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
   By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga, 36,
139:Talk 26

...

D.: Taking the first part first, how is the mind to be eliminated or relative consciousness transcended?

M.: The mind is by nature restless. Begin liberating it from its restlessness; give it peace; make it free from distractions; train it to look inward; make this a habit. This is done by ignoring the external world and removing the obstacles to peace of mind.

D.: How is restlessness removed from the mind?

M.: External contacts - contacts with objects other than itself - make the mind restless. Loss of interest in non-Self, (vairagya) is the first step. Then the habits of introspection and concentration follow. They are characterised by control of external senses, internal faculties, etc. (sama, dama, etc.) ending in samadhi (undistracted mind).

Talk 27.

D.: How are they practised?

M.: An examination of the ephemeral nature of external phenomena leads to vairagya. Hence enquiry (vichara) is the first and foremost step to be taken. When vichara continues automatically, it results in a contempt for wealth, fame, ease, pleasure, etc. The 'I' thought becomes clearer for inspection. The source of 'I' is the Heart - the final goal. If, however, the aspirant is not temperamentally suited to Vichara Marga (to the introspective analytical method), he must develop bhakti (devotion) to an ideal - may be God, Guru, humanity in general, ethical laws, or even the idea of beauty. When one of these takes possession of the individual, other attachments grow weaker, i.e., dispassion (vairagya) develops. Attachment for the ideal simultaneously grows and finally holds the field. Thus ekagrata (concentration) grows simultaneously and imperceptibly - with or without visions and direct aids.

In the absence of enquiry and devotion, the natural sedative pranayama (breath regulation) may be tried. This is known as Yoga Marga. If life is imperilled the whole interest centres round the one point, the saving of life. If the breath is held the mind cannot afford to (and does not) jump at its pets - external objects. Thus there is rest for the mind so long as the breath is held. All attention being turned on breath or its regulation, other interests are lost. Again, passions are attended with irregular breathing, whereas calm and happiness are attended with slow and regular breathing. Paroxysm of joy is in fact as painful as one of pain, and both are accompanied by ruffled breaths. Real peace is happiness. Pleasures do not form happiness. The mind improves by practice and becomes finer just as the razor's edge is sharpened by stropping. The mind is then better able to tackle internal or external problems. If an aspirant be unsuited temperamentally for the first two methods and circumstantially (on account of age) for the third method, he must try the Karma Marga (doing good deeds, for example, social service). His nobler instincts become more evident and he derives impersonal pleasure. His smaller self is less assertive and has a chance of expanding its good side. The man becomes duly equipped for one of the three aforesaid paths. His intuition may also develop directly by this single method. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramanasramam,
140:Assim como no regime da criação, Shakti é o criador e Shiva é o testemunho de todo o jogo, no tantra a mulher tem o estado do guru e o homem do discípulo. A tradição tântrica é atualmente passada da mulher para o homem, na prática tântrica, é a mulher quem inicia. É só por seu poder que o ato de maithuna acontece. Todas as preliminares são feitas por ela. Ela coloca a marca na testa do homem e fala pra ele meditar. Na relação ordinária, quem controla é o homem e a mulher participa. Mas no tantra eles trocam de papéis. A mulher torna-se a operadora e o homem o seu intermédio. Ela tem que ser capaz de despertá-lo. então, no momento certo, ela deve criar o bindu para que ele possa praticar vajroli. Se o homem perde seu bindu, significa que a mulher não conseguiu realizar suas funções adequadamente.
No tantra se diz que Shiva é incapaz sem Shakti. Shakti é a sacerdotisa. Portanto, quando Vama marga é praticado, o homem deve ter uma atitude absolutamente tântrica com a mulher. Ele não pode comportar-se com ela como os homens geralmente fazem com outras mulheres. Normalmente, quando um homem olha uma mulher, ele torna-se apaixonado, mas durante o maithuna ele não deve. Ele deve vê-la como a mãe divina, a Devi, e aproximar-se dela como uma atitude de devoção e entrega, não com luxúria.
De acordo com o conceito tântrico, as mulheres são mais dotadas de qualidades espirituais e seria uma coisa sábia se elas assumissem posições elevadas na área social. Então, haveria maior beleza, compaixão, amor e compreensão em todas as esferas da vida. O que estamos discutindo aqui não é sociedade patriarcal versus matriarcal, mas tantra.
No relacionamento entre marido e mulher, por exemplo, há dependência e posse, enquanto que no tantra cada parceiro é independente, um para si mesmo. Outra coisa difícil na sadhana tântrica é cultivar a atitude de impassionalidade. O homem tem de se tornar praticamente um bramacharya, a fim de libertar a mente as emoções dos pensamentos sexuais e da paixão, que normalmente surgem na presença de uma mulher.
Ambos os parceiros devem ser absolutamente purificados e controlados interna e externamente antes de praticar o maithuna. É difícil para a pessoa comum compreender isto porque para a maioria das pessoas a relação sexual é o resultado da paixão e da atração emocional ou física, tanto para a procriação quanto para o prazer. É somente quando você está purificado que estes instintos sexuais estarão ausentes. Isto acontece porque, de acordo com a tradição, o caminho do Dakshina marga deve ser seguido por muitos anos antes do caminho do Vama marga poder ser iniciado. Então, a interação do maithuna não acontece por uma gratificação física. O propósito é muito claro – o despertar de sushumna, o aumento da energia de Kundalini no mooladhara chakra e a explosão nas áreas inconscientes do cérebro.
Se isto não ficar claro, quando você praticar os kriyas e sushumna se tornar ativa, você não será capaz de confrontar o despertar. Sua cabeça vai ficar quente e você nãos será capaz de controlar a paixão e o excitamento, porque você não tranqüilizou seu cérebro.
Portanto, em minha opinião, somente aqueles que são adeptos no yoga estão qualificados para o Vama marga. Este caminho não é para ser usado indiscriminadamente como um pretexto para a auto-indulgência. Ele se destina para os sadhakas maduros e chefes de família sérios, que são evoluídos, que têm praticado sadhana para despertar o potencial energético e atingir o samadhi Eles devem utilizar este caminho como um veículo para o despertar, caso contrário torna-se um caminho de queda. ~ Satyananda Saraswati,
141:Quando Shiva e Shakti se unem no sahasrara, a pessoa experimenta o samadhi, a iluminação ocorre no cérebro e as áreas silenciosas começam a funcionar. Shiva e Shakti permanecem unidos por algum tempo, e durante este período há uma perda total da consciência, pertencente um a outro. Ao mesmo tempo um bindu desenvolve. Bindu significa um ponto, uma gota, e bindu é o substrato de todo o cosmos. Dentro do bindu está a sede da inteligência humana e a sede de toda a criação. Em seguida, bindu se divide em dois, e Shiva e Shakti manifestam-se novamente em dualidade. Quando a ascensão aconteceu, ela foi somente a subida de shakti, mas agora quando a descida acontece, Shiva e Shakti, ambos, descem para os planos grosseiros e há novamente o conhecimento da dualidade. Depois da união total há uma espécie de retorno pelo mesmo caminho da ascensão. A consciência bruta que se tornou refinada, novamente torna-se embrutecida. Este é o conceito da encarnação divina ou avatar.
Quando alguém atinge o mais elevado pináculo de samadhi, purusha e prakriti, ou Shiva e Shakti estão em total união e somente advaita existe, a experiência não dual. Ao mesmo temo, quando não há sujeito/objeto mais distinto, é muito difícil para alguém diferenciar. Se ele está falando com um homem ou com uma mulher, ele não sabe, ele não percebe a diferença. Ele pode até mesmo ser associado com pessoas espirituais ou divinas sem estar ciente disto, porque neste momento, sua consciência está reduzida ao nível da inocência de um bebê. Assim, no estado de samadhi, você é um bebê. Um bebê não pode falar da diferença entre um homem e uma mulher porque ele não tem distinção física ou sexual. Ele não pode distinguir um estudioso de um idiota, ele não pode nem mesmo ver qualquer a diferença entre uma serpente e uma corda. Ele pode segurar uma cobra como segura uma cobra. Isso só acontece quando a união está acontecendo.
Quando Shiva e Shakti descem para os planos grosseiros, que é o mooladhara chakra, eles se separam e vivem como duas entidades. Há dualidade no mooladhara chakra, há dualidade na mente e sentidos e no mundo de nomes e formas, mas não há dualidade no samadhi. Não há nenhuma vidência ou experiência no estado de samadhi. Não há ninguém para dizer como o samadhi porque ele é uma experiência não-dual.
É muito difícil entender por que Shiva e Shakti, ambos, descem para os planos brutos após terem atingindo a mais elevada união. Qual é o objetivo da destruição do mundo e a criação novamente? Qual é o objetivo de transcendência da consciência se você tem de voltar para ele novamente? Por que se preocupar em despertar Kundalini e uni-la com Shiva no sahasrara se você tem de voltar para o mooladhara novamente? Isto é algo muito misterioso e podemos perguntar, "Por despertar Kundalini absolutamente?" Por que construir uma mansão se você sabe que terá de pô-la abaixo quando ela estiver concluída? Na verdade, criamos um monte de coisas que serão destruídas. Então, porque fazê-lo absolutamente? Fazemos muita sadhana para transcender os chakras e ascender da terra para o céu. Então, quando chegamos ao paraíso e nos tornamos um com a grande realidade, de repente decidimos voltar para baixo. E não só, nós trazemos a grande unidade conosco. Seria mais fácil entender se Shakti voltasse sozinha e Shiva permanecesse no céu. Talvez, quando Shakti está prestes a sair, Shiva diga: "Espere, estou indo com você."
Quando Shiva e Shakti descem aos níveis mais grosseiros da consciência, há a dualidade novamente. Isso é porque o homem auto-realizado é capaz de compreender a dor e todos os assuntos da vida mundana. Ele compreende todo o drama da dualidade, multiplicidade e diversidade. Às vezes nós, simples mortais, estamos em um dilema para compreender como este homem, como a mais elevada realização, é capaz de lidar com as dualidades sem esperanças da vida. ~ Satyananda Saraswati,
142:To arrive then at this settled divine status must be the object of our concentration. The first step in concentration must be always to accustom the discursive mind to a settled unwavering pursuit of a single course of connected thought on a single subject and this it must do undistracted by all lures and alien calls on its attention. Such concentration is common enough in our ordinary life, but it becomes more difficult when we have to do it inwardly without any outward object or action on which to keep the mind; yet this inward concentration is what the seeker of knowledge must effect. Nor must it be merely the consecutive thought of the intellectual thinker, whose only object is to conceive and intellectually link together his conceptions. It is not, except perhaps at first, a process of reasoning that is wanted so much as a dwelling so far as possible on the fruitful essence of the idea which by the insistence of the soul's will upon it must yield up all the facets of its truth. Thus if it be the divine Love that is the subject of concentration, it is on the essence of the idea of God as Love that the mind should concentrate in such a way that the various manifestation of the divine Love should arise luminously, not only to the thought, but in the heart and being and vision of the Sadhaka. The thought may come first and the experience afterwards, but equally the experience may come first and the knowledge arise out of the experience. Afterwards the thing attained has to be dwelt on and more and more held till it becomes a constant experience and finally the Dharma or law of the being.
   This is the process of concentrated meditation; but a more strenuous method is the fixing of the whole mind in concentration on the essence of the idea only, so as to reach not the thought-knowledge or the psychological experience of the subject, but the very essence of the thing behind the idea. In this process thought ceases and passes into the absorbed or ecstatic contemplation of the object or by a merging into it m an inner Samadhi. If this be the process followed, then subsequently the state into which we rise must still be called down to take possession of the lower being, to shed its light, power and bliss on our ordinary consciousness. For otherwise we may possess it, as many do, in the elevated condition or in the inward Samadhi, but we shall lose our hold of it when we awake or descend into the contacts of the world; and this truncated possession is not the aim of an integral Yoga.
   A third process is neither at first to concentrate in a strenuous meditation on the one subject nor in a strenuous contemplation of the one object of thought-vision, but first to still the mind altogether. This may be done by various ways; one is to stand back from the mental action altogether not participating in but simply watching it until, tired of its unsanctioned leaping and running, it falls into an increasing and finally an absolute quiet. Another is to reject the thought-suggestions, to cast them away from the mind whenever they come and firmly hold to the peace of the being which really and always exists behind the trouble and riot of the mind. When this secret peace is unveiled, a great calm settles on the being and there comes usually with it the perception and experience of the all-pervading silent Brahman, everything else at first seeming to be mere form and eidolon. On the basis of this calm everything else may be built up in the knowledge and experience no longer of the external phenomena of things but of the deeper truth of the divine manifestation.
   Ordinarily, once this state is obtained, strenuous concentration will be found no longer necessary. A free concentration of will using thought merely for suggestion and the giving of light to the lower members will take its place. This Will will then insist on the physical being, the vital existence, the heart and the mind remoulding themselves in the forms of the Divine which reveal themselves out of the silent Brahman. By swifter or slower degrees according to the previous preparation and purification of the members, they will be obliged with more or less struggle to obey the law of the will and its thought-suggestion, so that eventually the knowledge of the Divine takes possession of our consciousness on all its planes and the image of the Divine is formed in our human existence even as it was done by the old Vedic Sadhakas. For the integral Yoga this is the most direct and powerful discipline.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Concentration, #concentration,
143:English version by Kunzang Tenzin HOMAGE TO ARYAMANJUSRI! Homage to the destroyer of demonic power! The wind lashes calm waters into rollers and breakers; The king makes multifarious forms out of unity, Seeing many faces of this one Archer, Saraha. The cross-eyed fool sees one lamp as two; The vision and the viewer are one, You broken, brittle mind! Many lamps are lit in the house, But the blind are still in darkness; Sahaja is all-pervasive But the fool cannot see what is under his nose. Just as many rivers are one in the ocean All half-truths are swallowed by the one truth; The effulgence of the sun illuminates all dark corners. Clouds draw water from the ocean to fall as rain on the earth And there is neither increase nor decrease; Just so, reality remains unaltered like the pure sky. Replete with the Buddha's perfections Sahaja is the one essential nature; Beings are born into it and pass into it, Yet there is neither existence nor non-existence in it. Forsaking bliss the fool roams abroad, Hoping for mundane pleasure; Your mouth is full of honey now, Swallow it while you may! Fools attempt to avoid their suffering, The wise enact their pain. Drink the cup of sky-nectar While others hunger for outward appearances. Flies eat filth, spurning the fragrance of sandalwood; Man lost to nirvana furthers his own confusion, Thirsting for the coarse and vulgar. The rain water filling an ox's hoof-print Evaporates when the sun shines; The imperfections of a perfect mind, All are dissolved in perfection. Salt sea water absorbed by clouds turns sweet; The venom of passionate reaction In a strong and selfless mind becomes elixir. The unutterable is free of pain; Non-meditation gives true pleasure. Though we fear the dragon's roar Rain falls from the clouds to ripen the harvest. The nature of beginning and end is here and now, And the first does not exist without the last; The rational fool conceptualising the inconceivable Separates emptiness from compassion. The bee knows from birth That flowers are the source of honey; How can the fool know That samsara and nirvana are one? Facing himself in a mirror The fool sees an alien form; The mind with truth forgotten Serves untruth's outward sham. Flowers' fragrance is intangible Yet its reality pervades the air, Just as mandala circles are informed By a formless presence. Still water stung by an icy wind Freezes hard in starched and jagged shapes; In an emotional mind agitated by critical concepts The unformed becomes hard and intractable. Mind immaculate by nature is untouched By samsara and nirvana's mud; But just like a jewel lost in a swamp Though it retains its lustre it does not shine. As mental sloth increases pure awareness diminishes; As mental sloth increases suffering also grows. Shoots sprout from the seed and leaves from the branches. Separating unity from multiplicity in the mind The light grows dim and we wander in the lower realms; Who is more deserving of pity than he Who walks into fire with his eyes wide open? Obsessed with the joys of sexual embrace The fool believes he knows ultimate truth; He is like someone who stands at his door And, flirting, talks about sex. The wind stirs in the House of Emptiness Exciting delusions of emotional pleasure; Fallen from celestial space, stung, The tormented yogin faints away. Like a brahmin taking rice and butter Offering sacrifice to the flame, He who visualises material things as celestial ambrosia Deludes himself that a dream is ultimate reality. Enlightening the House of Brahma in the fontanelle Stroking the uvala in wanton delight, Confused, believing binding pleasure to be spiritual release, The vain fools calls himself a yogin. Teaching that virtue is irrelevant to intrinsic awareness, He mistakes the lock for the key; Ignorant of the true nature of the gem The fool calls green glass emerald. His mind takes brass for gold, Momentary peak experience for reality accomplished; Clinging to the joy of ephemeral dreams He calls his short-thrift life Eternal Bliss. With a discursive understanding of the symbol EVAM, Creating four seals through an analysis of the moment, He labels his peak experience sahaja: He is clinging to a reflection mistaken for the mirror. Like befuddled deer leaping into a mirage of water Deluded fools in their ignorance cling to outer forms And with their thirst unslaked, bound and confined, They idealise their prison, pretending happiness. The relatively real is free of intellectual constructs, And ultimately real mind, active or quiescent, is no-mind, And this is the supreme,the highest of the high, immaculate; Friends, know this sacred high! In mind absorbed in samadhi that is concept-free, Passion is immaculately pure; Like a lotus rooted in the slime of a lake bottom, This sublime reality is untouched by the pollution of existence. Make solid your vision of all things as visionary dream And you attain transcendence, Instantaneous realisation and equanimity; A strong mind binding the demons of darkness Beyond thought your own spontaneous nature is accomplished. Appearances have never ceased to be their original radiance, And unformed, form never had a substantial nature to be grasped; It is a continuum of unique meditation, In an inactive, stainless, meditative mind that is no-mind. Thus the I is intellect, mind and mind-forms, I the world, all seemingly alien show, I the infinite variety of vision-viewer, I the desire, the anger, the mental sloth - And bodhicitta. Now there is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness Healing the splits riven by the intellect So that all mental defilements are erased. Who can define the nature of detachment? It cannot be denied nor yet affirmed, And ungraspable it is inconceivable. Through conceptualisation fools are bound, While concept-free there is immaculate sahaja. The concepts of unity and multiplicity do not bring integration; Only through awareness do sentient beings reach freedom. Cognition of radiance is strong meditation; Abide in a calm, quiescent mind. Reaching the joy swollen land Powers of seeing expand, And there is joy and laughter; Even chasing objects there is no separation. From joy, buds of pure pleasure emerge, Bursting into blooms of supreme pleasure, And so long as outflow is contained Unutterable bliss will surely mature. What, where and by whom are nothing, Yet the entire event is imperative. Whether love and attachment or desirelessness The form of the event is emptiness. Like pigs we wallow in this sensual mire But what can stain our pearly mind? Nothing can ever contaminate it, And by nothing can we ever be bound.

~ Saraha, The Royal Song of Saraha (Dohakosa)
,

IN CHAPTERS [300/715]



  587 Integral Yoga
   34 Yoga
   11 Occultism
   8 Hinduism
   7 Poetry
   3 Philosophy
   2 Psychology
   2 Buddhism
   1 Thelema


  589 Sri Aurobindo
   42 The Mother
   35 Satprem
   13 Swami Vivekananda
   10 Swami Krishnananda
   9 Aleister Crowley
   9 A B Purani
   8 Sri Ramakrishna
   7 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   5 Nolini Kanta Gupta
   4 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
   4 Patanjali
   3 Nirodbaran
   3 Aldous Huxley
   2 Mahendranath Gupta
   2 Jetsun Milarepa
   2 Hakuin
   2 Carl Jung


  511 Record of Yoga
   28 The Synthesis Of Yoga
   12 Talks
   10 The Study and Practice of Yoga
   9 Letters On Yoga II
   9 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
   8 Raja-Yoga
   7 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
   7 Liber ABA
   6 Agenda Vol 09
   6 Agenda Vol 02
   4 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
   4 Letters On Yoga III
   4 Amrita Gita
   4 Agenda Vol 01
   3 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
   3 The Secret Doctrine
   3 The Perennial Philosophy
   3 Magick Without Tears
   3 Essays On The Gita
   3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
   3 Agenda Vol 10
   3 Agenda Vol 03
   2 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
   2 Vedic and Philological Studies
   2 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
   2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
   2 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
   2 Milarepa - Poems
   2 Letters On Yoga IV
   2 Letters On Yoga I
   2 Isha Upanishad
   2 Agenda Vol 13
   2 Agenda Vol 11
   2 Agenda Vol 07
   2 Agenda Vol 06


0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
   It is said that Samadhi, or trance, no more than opens the portal of the spiritual realm. Sri Ramakrishna felt an unquenchable desire to enjoy God in various ways. For his meditation he built a place in the northern wooded section of the temple garden. With Hriday's help he planted there five sacred trees. The spot, known as the Panchavati, became the scene of many of his visions.
   As his spiritual mood deepened he more and more felt himself to be a child of the Divine Mother. He learnt to surrender himself completely to Her will and let Her direct him.
  --
   Mathur and Rani Rasmani began to ascribe the mental ailment of Sri Ramakrishna in part, at least, to his observance of rigid continence. Thinking that a natural life would relax the tension of his nerves, they engineered a plan with two women of ill fame. But as soon as the women entered his room, Sri Ramakrishna beheld in them the manifestation of the Divine Mother of the Universe and went into Samadhi uttering Her name.
   --- HALADHARI
  --
   Very soon a tender relationship sprang up between Sri Ramakrishna and the Brahmani, she looking upon him as the Baby Krishna, and he upon her as mother. Day after day she watched his ecstasy during the kirtan and meditation, his Samadhi, his mad yearning; and she recognized in him a power to transmit spirituality to others. She came to the conclusion that such things were not possible for an ordinary devotee, not even for a highly developed soul. Only an Incarnation of God was capable of such spiritual manifestations. She proclaimed openly that Sri Ramakrishna, like Sri Chaitanya, was an Incarnation of God.
   When Sri Ramakrishna told Mathur what the Brahmani had said about him, Mathur shook his head in doubt. He was reluctant to accept him as an Incarnation of God, an Avatar comparable to Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Chaitanya, though he admitted Sri Ramakrishna's extraordinary spirituality. Whereupon the Brahmani asked Mathur to arrange a conference of scholars who should discuss the matter with her. He agreed to the proposal and the meeting was arranged. It was to be held in the natmandir in front of the Kali temple.
  --
   Sri Ramakrishna set himself to the task of practising the disciplines of Tantra; and at the bidding of the Divine Mother Herself he accepted the Brahmani as his guru. He performed profound and delicate ceremonies in the Panchavati and under the bel-tree at the northern extremity of the temple compound. He practised all the disciplines of the sixty-four principal Tantra books, and it took him never more than three days to achieve the result promised in any one of them. After the observance of a few preliminary rites, he would be overwhelmed with a strange divine fervour and would go into Samadhi, where his mind would dwell in exaltation. Evil ceased to exist for him. The word "carnal" lost its meaning. The whole world and everything in it appeared as the lila, the sport, of Siva and Sakti. He beheld held everywhere manifest the power and beauty of the Mother; the whole world, animate and inanimate, appeared to him as pervaded with Chit, Consciousness, and with Ananda, Bliss.
   He saw in a vision the Ultimate Cause of the universe as a huge luminous triangle giving birth every moment to an infinite number of worlds. He heard the Anahata Sabda, the great sound Om, of which the innumerable sounds of the universe are only so many echoes. He acquired the eight supernatural powers of yoga, which make a man almost omnipotent, and these he spurned as of no value whatsoever to the Spirit. He had a vision of the divine Maya, the inscrutable Power of God, by which the universe is created and sustained, and into which it is finally absorbed. In this vision he saw a woman of exquisite beauty, about to become a mother, emerging from the Ganges and slowly approaching the Panchavati. Presently she gave birth to a child and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she assumed a terrible aspect, seized the child with her grim jaws, and crushed it. Swallowing it, she re-entered the waters of the Ganges.
   But the most remarkable experience during this period was the awakening of the Kundalini Sakti, the "Serpent Power". He actually saw the Power, at first lying asleep at the bottom of the spinal column, then waking up and ascending along the mystic Sushumna canal and through its six centres, or lotuses, to the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus in the top of the head. He further saw that as the Kundalini went upward the different lotuses bloomed. And this phenomenon was accompanied by visions and trances. Later on he described to his disciples and devotees the various movements of the Kundalini: the fishlike, birdlike, monkeylike, and so on. The awaken- ing of the Kundalini is the beginning of spiritual consciousness, and its union with Siva in the Sahasrara, ending in Samadhi, is the consummation of the Tantrik disciplines.
   About this time it was revealed to him that in a short while many devotees would seek his guidance.
  --
   The path of the Vedantic discipline is the path of negation, "neti", in which, by stern determination, all that is unreal is both negated and renounced. It is the path of jnana, knowledge, the direct method of realizing the Absolute. After the negation of everything relative, including the discriminating ego itself, the aspirant merges in the One without a Second, in the bliss of nirvikalpa Samadhi, where subject and object are alike dissolved. The soul goes beyond the realm of thought. The domain of duality is transcended. Maya is left behind with all its changes and modifications. The Real Man towers above the delusions of creation, preservation, and destruction. An avalanche of indescribable Bliss sweeps away all relative ideas of pain and pleasure, good and evil. There shines in the heart the glory of the Eternal Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Knower, knowledge, and known are dissolved in the Ocean of one eternal Consciousness; love, lover, and beloved merge in the unbounded Sea of supreme Felicity; birth, growth, and death vanish in infinite Existence. All doubts and misgivings are quelled for ever; the oscillations of the mind are stopped; the momentum of past actions is exhausted. Breaking down the ridge-pole of the tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages, stilling the body, calming the mind, drowning the ego, the sweet joy of Brahman wells up in that superconscious state. Space disappears into nothingness, time is swallowed in eternity, and causation becomes a dream of the past. Only Existence is. Ah! Who can describe what the soul then feels in its communion with the Self?
   Even when man descends from this dizzy height, he is devoid of ideas of "I" and "mine"; he looks on the body as a mere shadow, an outer sheath encasing the soul. He does not dwell on the past, takes no thought for the future, and looks with indifference on the present. He surveys everything in the world with an eye of equality; he is no longer touched by the infinite variety of phenomena; he no longer reacts to pleasure and pain. He remains unmoved whether he — that is to say, his body — is worshipped by the good or tormented by the wicked; for he realizes that it is the one Brahman that manifests Itself through everything. The impact of such an experience devastates the body and mind. Consciousness becomes blasted, as it were, with an excess of Light. In the Vedanta books it is said that after the experience of nirvikalpa Samadhi the body drops off like a dry leaf. Only those who are born with a special mission for the world can return
   from this height to the valleys of normal life. They live and move in the world for the welfare of mankind. They are invested with a supreme spiritual power. A divine glory shines through them.
  --
   "Brahman", he said, "is the only Reality, ever pure, ever illumined, ever free, beyond the limits of time, space, and causation. Though apparently divided by names and forms through the inscrutable power of maya, that enchantress who makes the impossible possible, Brahman is really One and undivided. When a seeker merges in the beatitude of Samadhi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison-house of name and form and rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through Samadhi. You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute." Quoting the Upanishad, Totapuri said: "That knowledge is shallow by which one sees or hears or knows another
  . What is shallow is worthless and can never give real felicity. But the Knowledge by which one does not see another or hear another or know another, which is beyond duality, is great, and through such Knowledge one attains the Infinite Bliss. How can the mind and senses grasp That which shines in the heart of all as the Eternal Subject?"
   Totapuri asked the disciple to withdraw his mind from all objects of the relative world, including the gods and goddesses, and to concentrate on the Absolute. But the task was not easy even for Sri Ramakrishna. He found it impossible to take his mind beyond Kali, the Divine Mother of the Universe. "After the initiation", Sri Ramakrishna once said, describing the event, "Nangta began to teach me the various conclusions of the Advaita Vedanta and asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive deep into the Atman. But in spite of all my attempts I could not altogether cross the realm of name and form and bring my mind to the unconditioned state. I had no difficulty in taking the mind from all the objects of the world. But the radiant and too familiar figure of the Blissful Mother, the Embodiment of the essence of Pure Consciousness, appeared before me as a living reality. Her bewitching smile prevented me from passing into the Great Beyond. Again and again I tried, but She stood in my way every time. In despair I said to Nangta: 'It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.' He grew excited and sharply said: 'What? You can't do it? But you have to.' He cast his eyes around. Finding a piece of glass he took it up and stuck it between my eyebrows. 'Concentrate the mind on this point!' he thundered. Then with stern determination I again sat to meditate. As soon as the gracious form of the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword and with it clove Her in two. The last barrier fell. My spirit at once soared beyond the relative plane and I lost myself in Samadhi."
   Sri Ramakrishna remained completely absorbed in Samadhi for three days. "Is it really true?" Totapuri cried out in astonishment. "Is it possible that he has attained in a single day what it took me forty years of strenuous practice to achieve? Great God! It is nothing short of a miracle!" With the help of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna's mind finally came down to the relative plane.
   Totapuri, a monk of the most orthodox type, never stayed at a place more than three days. But he remained at Dakshineswar eleven months. He too had something to learn.
  --
   Sri Ramakrishna, on the other hand, though fully aware, like his guru, that the world is an illusory appearance, instead of slighting maya, like an orthodox monist, acknowledged its power in the relative life. He was all love and reverence for maya, perceiving in it a mysterious and majestic expression of Divinity. To him maya itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman. What he had realized on the heights of the transcendental plane, he also found here below, everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms. And this garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Divine Immanence. Maya, the mighty weaver of the garb, is none other than Kali, the Divine Mother. She is the primordial Divine Energy, Sakti, and She can no more be distinguished from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from fire. She projects the world and again withdraws it. She spins it as the spider spins its web. She is the Mother of the Universe, identical with the Brahman of Vedanta, and with the Atman of Yoga. As eternal Lawgiver, She makes and unmakes laws; it is by Her imperious will that karma yields its fruit. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate and inanimate, dance by Her will. Even those who realize the Absolute in nirvikalpa Samadhi are under Her jurisdiction as long as they still live on the relative plane.
   Thus, after nirvikalpa Samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized maya in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that maya operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these "avidyamaya" and "vidyamaya". Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man's birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya the devotee rids himself of avidyamaya; he then becomes mayatita, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
   The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain, in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to keep himself at the "sixth centre" of Tantra, from which he could see not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across the dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.
  --
   The Knowledge of Brahman in nirvikalpa Samadhi had convinced Sri Ramakrishna that the gods of the different religions are but so many readings of the Absolute, and that the Ultimate Reality could never be expressed by human tongue. He understood that all religions lead their devotees by differing paths to one and the same goal. Now he became eager to explore some of the alien religions; for with him understanding meant actual experience.
   --- ISLAM
  --
   Eight years later, some time in November 1874, Sri Ramakrishna was seized with an irresistible desire to learn the truth of the Christian religion. He began to listen to readings from the Bible, by Sambhu Charan Mallick, a gentleman of Calcutta and a devotee of the Master. Sri Ramakrishna became fascinated by the life and teachings of Jesus. One day he was seated in the parlour of Jadu Mallick's garden house (This expression is used throughout to translate the Bengali word denoting a rich man's country house set in a garden.) at Dakshineswar, when his eyes became fixed on a painting of the Madonna and Child. Intently watching it, he became gradually overwhelmed with divine emotion. The figures in the picture took on life, and the rays of light emanating from them entered his soul. The effect of this experience was stronger than that of the vision of Mohammed. In dismay he cried out, "O Mother! What are You doing to me?" And, breaking through the barriers of creed and religion, he entered a new realm of ecstasy. Christ possessed his soul. For three days he did not set foot in the Kali temple. On the fourth day, in the afternoon, as he was walking in the Panchavati, he saw coming toward him a person with beautiful large eyes, serene countenance, and fair skin. As the two faced each other, a voice rang out in the depths of Sri Ramakrishna's soul: "Behold the Christ, who shed His heart's blood for the redemption of the world, who suffered a sea of anguish for love of men. It is He, the Master Yogi, who is in eternal union with God. It is Jesus, Love Incarnate." The Son of Man embraced the Son of the Divine Mother and merged in him. Sri Ramakrishna krishna realized his identity with Christ, as he had already realized his identity with Kali, Rama, Hanuman, Radha, Krishna, Brahman, and Mohammed. The Master went into Samadhi and communed with the Brahman with attributes. Thus he experienced the truth that Christianity, too, was a path leading to God-Consciousness. Till the last moment of his life he believed that Christ was an Incarnation of God. But Christ, for him, was not the only Incarnation; there were others — Buddha, for instance, and Krishna.
   --- ATTITUDE TOWARD DIFFERENT RELIGIONS
  --
   The Master took up the duty of instructing his young wife, and this included everything from housekeeping to the Knowledge of Brahman. He taught her how to trim a lamp, how to behave toward people according to their differing temperaments, and how to conduct herself before visitors. He instructed her in the mysteries of spiritual life — prayer, meditation, japa, deep contemplation, and Samadhi. The first lesson that Sarada Devi received was: "God is everybody's Beloved, just as the moon is dear to every child. Everyone has the same right to pray to Him. Out of His grace He reveals Himself to all who call upon Him. You too will see Him if you but pray to Him."
   Totapuri, coming to know of the Master's marriage, had once remarked: "What does it matter? He alone is firmly established in the Knowledge of Brahman who can adhere to his spirit of discrimination and renunciation even while living with his wife. He alone has attained the supreme illumination who can look on man and woman alike as Brahman. A man with the idea of sex may be a good aspirant, but he is still far from the goal." Sri Ramakrishna and his wife lived together at Dakshineswar, but their minds always soared above the worldly plane. A few months after Sarada Devi's arrival Sri Ramakrishna arranged, on an auspicious day, a special worship of Kali, the Divine Mother. Instead of an image of the Deity, he placed on the seat the living image, Sarada Devi herself. The worshipper and the worshipped went into deep Samadhi and in the transcendental plane their souls were united. After several hours Sri Ramakrishna came down again to the relative plane, sang a hymn to the Great Goddess, and surrendered, at the feet of the living image, himself, his rosary, and the fruit of his life-long sadhana. This is known in Tantra as the Shorasi Puja, the "Adoration of Woman". Sri Ramakrishna realized the significance of the great statement of the Upanishad: "O Lord, Thou art the woman. Thou art the man; Thou art the boy. Thou art the girl; Thou art the old, tottering on their crutches. Thou pervadest the universe in its multiple forms."
   By his marriage Sri Ramakrishna admitted the great value of marriage in man's spiritual evolution, and by adhering to his monastic vows he demonstrated the imperative necessity of self-control, purity, and continence, in the realization of God. By this unique spiritual relationship with his wife he proved that husband and wife can live together as spiritual companions. Thus his life is a synthesis of the ways of life of the householder and the monk.
  --
   In the nirvikalpa Samadhi Sri Ramakrishna had realized that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory. By keeping his mind six months on the plane of the non-dual Brahman, he had attained to the state of the vijnani, the knower of Truth in a special and very rich sense, who sees Brahman not only in himself and in the transcendental Absolute, but in everything of the world. In this state of vijnana, sometimes, bereft of body-consciousness, he would regard himself as one with Brahman; sometimes, conscious of the dual world, he would regard himself as God's devotee, servant, or child. In order to enable the Master to work for the welfare of humanity, the Divine Mother had kept in him a trace of ego, which he described — according to his mood — as the "ego of Knowledge", the "ego of Devotion", the "ego of a child", or the "ego of a servant". In any case this ego of the Master, consumed by the fire of the Knowledge of Brahman, was an appearance only, like a burnt string. He often referred to this ego as the "ripe ego" in contrast with the ego of the bound soul, which he described as the "unripe" or "green" ego. The ego of the bound soul identifies itself with the body, relatives, possessions, and the world; but the "ripe ego", illumined by Divine Knowledge, knows the body, relatives, possessions, and the world to be unreal and establishes a relationship of love with God alone. Through this "ripe ego" Sri Ramakrishna dealt with the world and his wife. One day, while stroking his feet, Sarada Devi asked the Master, "What do you think of me?" Quick came the answer: "The Mother who is worshipped in the temple is the mother who has given birth to my body and is now living in the nahabat, and it is She again who is stroking my feet at this moment. Indeed, I always look on you as the personification of the Blissful Mother Kali."
   Sarada Devi, in the company of her husband, had rare spiritual experiences. She said: "I have no words to describe my wonderful exaltation of spirit as I watched him in his different moods. Under the influence of divine emotion he would sometimes talk on abstruse subjects, sometimes laugh, sometimes weep, and sometimes become perfectly motionless in Samadhi. This would continue throughout the night. There was such an extraordinary divine presence in him that now and then I would shake with fear and wonder how the night would pass. Months went by in this way. Then one day he discovered that I had to keep awake the whole night lest, during my sleep, he should go into Samadhi — for it might happen at any moment —, and so he asked me to sleep in the nahabat."
   --- SUMMARY OF THE MASTER'S SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES
  --
   Second, the three great systems of thought known as Dualism, Qualified Non-dualism, and Absolute Non-dualism — Dvaita, Visishtadvaita, and Advaita — he perceived to represent three stages in man's progress toward the Ultimate Reality. They were not contradictory but complementary and suited to different temperaments. For the ordinary man with strong attachment to the senses, a dualistic form of religion, prescribing a certain amount of material support, such as music and other symbols, is useful. A man of God-realization transcends the idea of worldly duties, but the ordinary mortal must perform his duties, striving to be unattached and to surrender the results to God. The mind can comprehend and describe the range of thought and experience up to the Visishtadvaita, and no further. The Advaita, the last word in spiritual experience, is something to be felt in Samadhi. for it transcends mind and speech. From the highest standpoint, the Absolute and Its manifestation are equally real — the Lord's Name, His Abode, and the Lord Himself are of the same spiritual Essence. Everything is Spirit, the difference being only in form.
   Third, Sri Ramakrishna realized the wish of the Divine Mother that through him She should found a new Order, consisting of those who would uphold the universal doctrines illustrated in his life.
  --
   Sri Ramakrishna, dressed in a red-bordered dhoti, one end of which was carelessly thrown over his left shoulder, came to Jaygopal's garden house accompanied by Hriday. No one took notice of the unostentatious visitor. Finally the Master said to Keshab, "People tell me you have seen God; so I have come to hear from you about God." A magnificent conversation followed. The Master sang a thrilling song about Kali and forthwith went into Samadhi. When Hriday uttered the sacred "Om" in his ears, he gradually came back to consciousness of the world, his face still radiating a divine brilliance. Keshab and his followers were amazed. The contrast between Sri Ramakrishna and the Brahmo devotees was very interesting. There sat this small man, thin and extremely delicate. His eyes were illumined with an inner light. Good humour gleamed in his eyes and lurked in the corners of his mouth. His speech was Bengali of a homely kind with a slight, delightful stammer, and his words held men enthralled by their wealth of spiritual experience, their inexhaustible store of simile and metaphor, their power of observation, their bright and subtle humour, their wonderful catholicity, their ceaseless flow of wisdom. And around him now were the sophisticated men of Bengal, the best products of Western education, with Keshab, the idol of young Bengal, as their leader.
   Keshab's sincerity was enough for Sri Ramakrishna. Henceforth the two saw each other frequently, either at Dakshineswar or at the temple of the Brahmo Samaj. Whenever the Master was in the temple at the time of divine service, Keshab would request him to speak to the congregation. And Keshab would visit the saint, in his turn, with offerings of flowers and fruits.
  --
   Gradually other Brahmo leaders began to feel Sri Ramakrishna's influence. But they were by no means uncritical admirers of the Master. They particularly disapproved of his ascetic renunciation and condemnation of "woman and gold".1 They measured him according to their own ideals of the householder's life. Some could not understand his Samadhi and described it as a nervous malady. Yet they could not resist his magnetic personality.
   Among the Brahmo leaders who knew the Master closely were Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, Vijaykrishna Goswami, Trailokyanath Sannyal, and Shivanath Shastri.
   Shivanath, one day, was greatly impressed by the Master's utter simplicity and abhorrence of praise. He was seated with Sri Ramakrishna in the latter's room when several rich men of Calcutta arrived. The Master left the room for a few minutes. In the mean time Hriday, his nephew, began to describe his Samadhi to the visitors. The last few words caught the Master's ear as he entered the room. He said to Hriday: "What a mean-spirited fellow you must be to extol me thus before these rich men! You have seen their costly apparel and their gold watches and chains, and your object is to get from them as much money as you can. What do I care about what they think of me? (Turning to the gentlemen) No, my friends, what he has told you about me is not true. It was not love of God that made me absorbed in God and indifferent to external life. I became positively insane for some time. The sadhus who frequented this temple told me to practise many things. I tried to follow them, and the consequence was that my austerities drove me to insanity." This is a quotation from one of Shivanath's books. He took the Master's words literally and failed to see their real import.
   Shivanath vehemently criticized the Master for his other-worldly attitude toward his wife. He writes: "Ramakrishna was practically separated from his wife, who lived in her village home. One day when I was complaining to some friends about the virtual widowhood of his wife, he drew me to one side and whispered in my ear: 'Why do you complain? It is no longer possible; it is all dead and gone.' Another day as I was inveighing against this part of his teaching, and also declaring that our program of work in the Brahmo Samaj includes women, that ours is a social and domestic religion, and that we want to give education and social liberty to women, the saint became very much excited, as was his way when anything against his settled conviction was asserted — a trait we so much liked in him — and exclaimed, 'Go, thou fool, go and perish in the pit that your women will dig for you.' Then he glared at me and said: 'What does a gardener do with a young plant? Does he not surround it with a fence, to protect it from goats and cattle? And when the young plant has grown up into a tree and it can no longer be injured by cattle, does he not remove the fence and let the tree grow freely?' I replied, 'Yes, that is the custom with gardeners.' Then he remarked, 'Do the same in your spiritual life; become strong, be full-grown; then you may seek them.' To which I replied, 'I don't agree with you in thinking that women's work is like that of cattle, destructive; they are our associates and helpers in our spiritual struggles and social progress' — a view with which he could not agree, and he marked his dissent by shaking his head. Then referring to the lateness of the hour he jocularly remarked, 'It is time for you to depart; take care, do not be late; otherwise your woman will not admit you into her room.' This evoked hearty laughter."
  --
   In a state of mental conflict and torture of soul, Narendra came to Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar. He was then eighteen years of age and had been in college two years. He entered the Master's room accompanied by some light-hearted friends. At Sri Ramakrishna's request he sang a few songs, pouring his whole soul into them, and the Master went into Samadhi. A few minutes later Sri Ramakrishna suddenly left his seat, took Narendra by the hand, and led him to the screened verandah north of his room. They were alone. Addressing Narendra most tenderly, as if he were a friend of long acquaintance, the Master said: "Ah! You have come very late. Why have you been so unkind as to make me wait all these days? My ears are tired of hearing the futile words of worldly men. Oh, how I have longed to pour my spirit into the heart of someone fitted to receive my message!" He talked thus, sobbing all the time. Then, standing before Narendra with folded hands, he addressed him as Narayana, born on earth to remove the misery of humanity. Grasping Narendra's hand, he asked him to come again, alone, and very soon. Narendra was startled. "What is this I have come to see?" he said to himself. "He must be stark mad. Why, I am the son of Viswanath Dutta. How dare he speak this way to me?"
   When they returned to the room and Narendra heard the Master speaking to others, he was surprised to find in his words an inner logic, a striking sincerity, and a convincing proof of his spiritual nature. In answer to Narendra's question, "Sir, have you seen God?" the Master said: "Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you. I have talked to Him more intimately than I am talking to you." Continuing, the Master said: "But, my child, who wants to see God? People shed jugs of tears for money, wife, and children. But if they would weep for God for only one day they would surely see Him." Narendra was amazed. These words he could not doubt. This was the first time he had ever heard a man saying that he had seen God. But he could not reconcile these words of the Master with the scene that had taken place on the verandah only a few minutes before. He concluded that Sri Ramakrishna was a monomaniac, and returned home rather puzzled in mind.
  --
   Sri Ramakrishna was grateful to the Divine Mother for sending him one who doubted his own realizations. Often he asked Narendra to test him as the money-changers test their coins. He laughed at Narendra's biting criticism of his spiritual experiences and Samadhi. When at times Narendra's sharp words distressed him, the Divine Mother Herself would console him, saying: "Why do you listen to him? In a few days he will believe your every word." He could hardly bear Narendra's absences. Often he would weep bitterly for the sight of him. Sometimes Narendra would find the Master's love embarrassing; and one day he sharply scolded him, warning him that such infatuation would soon draw him down to the level of its object. The Master was distressed and prayed to the Divine Mother. Then he said to Narendra: "You rogue, I won't listen to you any more. Mother says that I love you because I see God in you, and the day I no longer see God in you I shall not be able to bear even the sight of you."
   The Master wanted to train Narendra in the teachings of the non-dualistic Vedanta philosophy. But Narendra, because of his Brahmo upbringing, considered it wholly blasphemous to look on man as one with his Creator. One day at the temple garden he laughingly said to a friend: "How silly! This jug is God! This cup is God! Whatever we see is God! And we too are God! Nothing could be more absurd." Sri Ramakrishna came out of his room and gently touched him. Spellbound, he immediately perceived that everything in the world was indeed God. A new universe opened around him. Returning home in a dazed state, he found there too that the food, the plate, the eater himself, the people around him, were all God. When he walked in the street, he saw that the cabs, the horses, the streams of people, the buildings, were all Brahman. He could hardly go about his day's business. His parents became anxious about him and thought him ill. And when the intensity of the experience abated a little, he saw the world as a dream. Walking in the public square, he would strike his head against the iron railings to know whether they were real. It took him a number of days to recover his normal self. He had a foretaste of the great experiences yet to come and realized that the words of the Vedanta were true.
  --
   Others destined to be monastic disciples of Sri Ramakrishna came to Dakshineswar. Taraknath Ghoshal had felt from his boyhood the noble desire to realize God. Keshab and the Brahmo Samaj had attracted him but proved inadequate. In 1882 he first met the Master at Ramchandra's house and was astonished to hear him talk about Samadhi, a subject which always fascinated his mind. And that evening he actually saw a manifestation of that superconscious state in the Master. Tarak became a frequent visitor at Dakshineswar and received the Master's grace in abundance. The young boy often felt ecstatic fervour in meditation. He also wept profusely while meditating on God. Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "God favours those who can weep for Him. Tears shed for God wash away the sins of former births."
   --- BABURAM
  --
   One early morning at three o'clock, about a year later, Gopal Ma was about to finish her daily devotions, when she was startled to find Sri Ramakrishna sitting on her left, with his right hand clenched, like the hand of the image of Gopala. She was amazed and caught hold of the hand, whereupon the figure vanished and in its place appeared the real Gopala, her Ideal Deity. She cried aloud with joy. Gopala begged her for butter. She pleaded her poverty and gave Him some dry coconut candies. Gopala, sat on her lap, snatched away her rosary, jumped on her shoulders, and moved all about the room. As soon as the day broke she hastened to Dakshineswar like an insane woman. Of course Gopala accompanied her, resting His head on her shoulder. She clearly saw His tiny ruddy feet hanging over her breast. She entered Sri Ramakrishna's room. The Master had fallen into Samadhi. Like a child, he sat on her lap, and she began to feed him with butter, cream, and other delicacies. After some time he regained consciousness and returned to his bed. But the mind of Gopala's Mother was still roaming in another plane. She was steeped in bliss. She saw Gopala frequently entering the Master's body and again coming out of it. When she returned to her hut, still in a dazed condition, Gopala accompanied her.
   She spent about two months in uninterrupted communion with God, the Baby Gopala never leaving her for a moment. Then the intensity of her vision was lessened; had it not been, her body would have perished. The Master spoke highly of her exalted spiritual condition and said that such vision of God was a rare thing for ordinary mortals. The fun-loving Master one day confronted the critical Narendranath with this simple-minded woman. No two could have presented a more striking contrast. The Master knew of Narendra's lofty contempt for all visions, and he asked the old lady to narrate her experiences to Narendra. With great hesitation she told him her story. Now and then she interrupted her maternal chatter to ask Narendra: "My son, I am a poor ignorant woman. I don't understand anything. You are so learned. Now tell me if these visions of Gopala are true." As Narendra listened to the story he was profoundly moved. He said, "Yes, mother, they are quite true." Behind his cynicism Narendra, too, possessed a heart full of love and tenderness.
  --
   In April 1885 the Master's throat became inflamed. Prolonged conversation or absorption in Samadhi, making the blood flow into the throat, would aggravate the pain. Yet when the annual Vaishnava festival was celebrated at Panihati, Sri Ramakrishna attended it against the doctor's advice. With a group of disciples he spent himself in music, dance, and ecstasy. The illness took a turn for the worse and was diagnosed as "clergyman's sore throat". The patient was cautioned against conversation and ecstasies. Though he followed the physician's directions regarding medicine and diet, he could neither control his trances nor withhold from seekers the solace of his advice. Sometimes, like a sulky child, he would complain to the Mother about the crowds, who gave him no rest day or night. He was overheard to say to Her; "Why do You bring here all these worthless people, who are like milk diluted with five times its own quantity of water? My eyes are almost destroyed with blowing the fire to dry up the water. My health is gone. It is beyond my strength. Do it Yourself, if You want it done. This (pointing to his own body) is but a perforated drum, and if you go on beating it day in and day out, how long will it last?"
   But his large heart never turned anyone away. He said, "Let me be condemned to be born over and over again, even in the form of a dog, if I can be of help to a single soul." And he bore the pain, singing cheerfully, "Let the body be preoccupied with illness, but, O mind, dwell for ever in God's Bliss!"
   One night he had a hemorrhage of the throat. The doctor now diagnosed the illness as cancer. Narendra was the first to break this heart-rending news to the disciples. Within three days the Master was removed to Calcutta for better treatment. At Balaram's house he remained a week until a suitable place could be found at Syampukur, in the northern section of Calcutta. During this week he dedicated himself practically without respite to the instruction of those beloved devotees who had been unable to visit him oftener at Dakshineswar. Discourses incessantly flowed from his tongue, and he often went into Samadhi. Dr. Mahendra Sarkar, the celebrated homeopath of Calcutta, was invited to undertake his treatment.
   --- SYAMPUKUR
  --
   Narendra, consumed with a terrific fever for realization, complained to the Master that all the others had attained peace and that he alone was dissatisfied. The Master asked what he wanted. Narendra begged for Samadhi, so that he might altogether forget the world for three or four days at a time. "You are a fool", the Master rebuked him. "There is a state even higher than that. Isn't it you who sing, 'All that exists art Thou'? First of all settle your family affairs and then come to me. You will experience a state even higher than Samadhi."
   The Master did not hide the fact that he wished to make Narendra his spiritual heir. Narendra was to continue the work after Sri Ramakrishna's passing. Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "I leave these young men in your charge. See that they develop their spirituality and do not return home." One day he asked the boys, in preparation for a monastic life, to beg their food from door to door without thought of caste. They hailed the Master's order and went out with begging-bowls. A few days later he gave the ochre cloth of the sannyasi to each of them, including Girish, who was now second to none in his spirit of renunciation. Thus the Master himself laid the foundation of the future Ramakrishna Order of monks.
  --
   One day when Narendra was on the ground floor, meditating, the Master was lying awake in his bed upstairs. In the depths of his meditation Narendra felt as though a lamp were burning at the back of his head. Suddenly he lost consciousness. It was the yearned-for, all-effacing experience of nirvikalpa Samadhi, when the embodied soul realizes its unity with the Absolute. After a very long time he regained partial consciousness but was unable to find his body. He could see only his head. "Where is my body?" he cried. The elder Gopal entered the room and said, "Why, it is here, Naren!" But Narendra could not find it. Gopal, frightened, ran upstairs to the Master. Sri Ramakrishna only said: "Let him stay that way for a time. He has worried me long enough."
   After another long period Narendra regained full consciousness. Bathed in peace, he went to the Master, who said: "Now the Mother has shown you everything. But this revelation will remain under lock and key, and I shall keep the key. When you have accomplished the Mother's work you will find the treasure again."
   Some days later, Narendra being alone with the Master, Sri Ramakrishna looked at him and went into Samadhi. Narendra felt the penetration of a subtle force and lost all outer consciousness. Regaining presently the normal mood, he found the Master weeping.
   Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "Today I have given you my all and I am now only a poor fakir, possessing nothing. By this power you will do immense good in the world, and not until it is accomplished will you return." Henceforth the Master lived in the disciple.
  --
   Sunday, August 15, 1886. The Master's pulse became irregular. The devotees stood by the bedside. Toward dusk Sri Ramakrishna had difficulty in breathing. A short time afterwards he complained of hunger. A little liquid food was put into his mouth; some of it he swallowed, and the rest ran over his chin. Two attendants began to fan him. All at once he went into Samadhi of a rather unusual type. The body became stiff. Sashi burst into tears. But after midnight the Master revived. He was now very hungry and helped himself to a bowl of porridge. He said he was strong again. He sat up against five or six pillows, which were supported by the body of Sashi, who was fanning him. Narendra took his feet on his lap and began to rub them. Again and again the Master repeated to him, "Take care of these boys." Then he asked to lie down. Three times in ringing tone's he cried the name of Kali, his life's Beloved, and lay back. At two minutes past one there was a low sound in his throat and he fell a little to one side. A thrill passed over his body. His hair stood on end. His eyes became fixed on the tip of his nose. His face was lighted with a smile. The final ecstasy began. It was maha Samadhi, total absorption, from which his mind never returned. Narendra, unable to bear it, ran downstairs.
   Dr. Sarkar arrived the following noon and pronounced that life had departed not more than half an hour before. At five o'clock the Masters body was brought downstairs, laid on a cot, dressed in ochre clothes, and decorated with sandal-paste and flowers. A procession was formed. The passers-by wept as the body was taken to the cremation ground at the Baranagore Ghat on the Ganges.

0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
    Master of the temple, also reaches Samadhi, as the
    way of Annihilation.
  --
    He thereupon enters into his Samadhi, and he piles
    contradiction upon contradiction, and thus a higher
  --
    the last paragraph a reference to the nature of Samadhi.
     As man loses his personality in physical love, so
  --
     The formula of Samadhi is the same, from the
    lowest to the highest. The Rosy-Cross is the Universal
  --
    practise Samadhi every day.
                   [43]
  --
     Samadhi is a favourite analogy with Frater P.,
    who frequently employs it in his holy discourse.
  --
     Samadhi is the shadow of the eclipse of Sol.
    The moon and the earth are the non-ego and the
  --
     Samadhi gets rid of the Soul Impersonal.
    Asana destroys the static body (Nama).
  --
     Samadhi destroys the consciousness (Vinnanam).
    Homard a la Thermidor destroys the digestion.
  --
    but {Aleph} is also a number of Samadhi and mysticism, and
    the doctrine is therefore that Magick, in that highest
  --
    in Samadhi are sorry for it afterwards.
     The last paragraph indicaed the precautions to be

0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pran.ayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kun.d.alin, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
  By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on
  The Systems of Yoga
  --
  But the weakness of the system lies in its excessive reliance on abnormal states of trance. This limitation leads first to a certain aloofness from the physical life which is our foundation and the sphere into which we have to bring our mental and spiritual gains. Especially is the spiritual life, in this system, too much associated with the state of Samadhi. Our object is to make the spiritual life and its experiences fully active and fully utilisable in the waking state and even in the normal use of the functions.
  But in Rajayoga it tends to withdraw into a subliminal plane at the back of our normal experiences instead of descending and possessing our whole existence.

0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  As the Jivanmukta, who is entirely free even without dissolution of the bodily life in a final Samadhi.
  The Synthesis of the Systems

01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   When we say one is conscious, we usually mean that one is conscious with the mental consciousness, with the rational intelligence, with the light of the brain. But this need not be always so. For one can be conscious with other forms of consciousness or in other planes of consciousness. In the average or normal man the consciousness is linked to or identified with the brain function, the rational intelligence and so we conclude that without this wakeful brain activity there can be no consciousness. But the fact is otherwise. The experiences of the mystic prove the point. The mystic is conscious on a level which we describe as higher than the mind and reason, he has what may be called the overhead consciousness. (Apart from the normal consciousness, which is named jagrat, waking, the Upanishad speaks of three other increasingly subtler states of consciousness, swapna, sushupti and turiya.)And then one can be quite unconscious, as in Samadhi that can be sushupti or turiyaorpartially consciousin swapna, for example, the external behaviour may be like that of a child or a lunatic or even a goblin. One can also remain normally conscious and still be in the superconscience. Not only so, the mystic the Yogican be conscious on infraconscious levels also; that is to say, he can enter into and identify with the consciousness involved in life and even in Matter; he can feel and realise his oneness with the animal world, the plant world and finally the world of dead earth, of "stocks and stones" too. For all these strands of existence have each its own type of consciousness and all different from the mode of mind which is normally known as consciousness. When St. Francis addresses himself to the brother Sun or the sister Moon, or when the Upanishad speaks of the tree silhouetted against the sky, as if stilled in trance, we feel there is something of this fusion and identification of consciousness with an infra-conscient existence.
   I said that the supreme artist is superconscious: his consciousness withdraws from the normal mental consciousness and becomes awake and alive in another order of consciousness. To that superior consciousness the artist's mentalityhis ideas and dispositions, his judgments and valuations and acquisitions, in other words, his normal psychological make-upserves as a channel, an instrument, a medium for transcription. Now, there are two stages, or rather two lines of activity in the processus, for they may be overlapping and practically simultaneous. First, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of consciousness and then its reappearance into expression. The consciousness retires into a secret or subtle worldWords-worth's "recollected in tranquillity"and comes back with the riches gathered or transmuted there. But the purity of the gold thus garnered and stalled in the artistry of words and sounds or lines and colours depends altogether upon the purity of the channel through which it has to pass. The mental vehicle receives and records and it can do so to perfection if it is perfectly in tune with what it has to receive and record; otherwise the transcription becomes mixed and blurred, a faint or confused echo, a poor show. The supreme creators are precisely those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording mentality, suffuses it with its own glow and puissance, indeed resolves it into its own substance, as it were. And the difference between the two, the secret norm and the recording form, determines the scale of the artist's creative value. It happens often that the obstruction of a too critically observant and self-conscious brain-mind successfully blocks up the flow of something supremely beautiful that wanted to come down and waited for an opportunity.

0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  lost the habit and I do not even go to the Samadhi very
  regularly. I do not understand the true value of these
  --
  One concentrates at the Samadhi to grow in devotion and
  to put oneself in contact with Sri Aurobindo in order to receive

0 1958 12 - Floor 1, young girl, we shall kill the young princess - black tent, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   Mother withdrew on December 9. In fact, She had been unwell for already more than a month before withdrawing. On November 26, the last 'Wednesday class' took place at the playground; on November 28 the last 'Friday class', on December 6, the last 'Translation class'; on December 1, the end of Mother's tennis and the last visit to the playground. On December 9, She again went down for the meditation around the Samadhi. From December 10, Mother remained in her room for one month. A great period had come to an end. Henceforth, She would only go out of the Ashram building on rare occasions.
   A disciple

0 1959-04-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   I come to renew before you the resolution that I took this morning at the Samadhi.1
   Henceforth I refuse to be an accomplice to this force. It is my enemy. Whatever form it may take, or whatever supports it may find in my nature, I will refuse to yield to it and will cling to you. You are the only reality: that is my mantra. Anything that seeks to make me doubt you is my enemy. You are the only Reality.

0 1960-05-24 - supramental flood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   And during all this time, approximately three hours, the consciousness was completely, completely different. It was here, however; it was not outside the earth, it was on earth, but it was completely differenteven the body consciousness was different. And what remained was very mechanical; it was a body, but it could just as well have been anything. All this power of consciousness that for more than seventy years Ive gradually pushed into each of the bodys cells so that each cell could become conscious (and it goes on constantly, constantly), all this seemed to have withdrawn there only remained one almost lifeless thing. However, I could raise myself up from my bed and even drink a glass of water, but it was all so bizarre. And when I went back to bed, it took nearly forty-five minutes for the body to regain its normal state. Only after I had entered into another type of Samadhi2 and again come out of it did my consciousness fully return. It is the first time I have had an experience of this kind.
   During those three hours, there was nothing but the Supreme manifesting through the eternal Mother.
  --
   After all that, towards the end of the night, at two in the morning, only a kind of faint suggestion was left: How can this statewhich I knew in trance, in Samadhi, and which necessitates lying downbecome constant in a physical body which moves about? There is something to discover there. And what form will it take? For in my consciousness, you see, it is constantly like that, this universal flood, but the problem is IN THE BODY: its the problem of the Force in its most material form.
   And during the time my experience lasted, I had no feeling of anything exceptional, but rather simply the fact that after all its preparation, the body consciousness was ready for a total identification with Thatin my consciousness its always the same, a perpetual, constant and eternal state in that it never leaves me. Its like that, and it never varies. What diminishes the immensity of the Vibration are the limitations of the material consciousness which can color it and even sometimes change it by giving it a personal appearance. Thus, when I see someone and speak to him, for example, when my eyes concentrate on the person, I have almost the sensation of this flood flowing from me towards the person or of it passing through me to go onto the person. There is an awareness of the eyes, the body. And it is this which limits or even changes a little the immensity of the thing But already this feeling has almost disappeared; this immensity seems to be acting almost constantly. There are moments when I am less interiorized, when I am more on the surface, and it feels like its passing through a bodymoments when the body consciousness comes back a little. And this is what diminishes the thing.
  --
   Samadhi: trance.
   The Ashwatha Tree

0 1960-12-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   I must say that downstairs on Darshan days people chat, look each other over, see how he or she is dressedits like a county fair around the Samadhi.
   Yes, its truewhos there, who isnt, how he looks, whos he with Oh!

0 1961-01-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Even the translation. You know, when I am tired and work on the translation I feel rested. But, oh, all these letters! Even the best of them are stupid. Anyway. When I came here just now there was someone waiting to see me I told him to come at 11: 00, and by then there will be 700 people waiting for me to come out. They are already gathered around the Samadhi.3
   Well, enough grumbling. Lets get to work.

0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I remained perfectly tranquil, there was nothing else to do; I knew it meant a battle. I was perfectly tranquil, but I could no longer eat, I could no longer rest, do japa2 or walk, and my head felt as though it would burst. I could only abandon myself (Mother opens her arms in a gesture of surrender), enter into a very, very deep trance, a very deep Samadhithis is something one can always do. But that was the only thing left to me. Ideas were just as clear as ever (all that is above and doesnt budge), but my body was in a very bad way. It was a fight, a fight at each second. The least thing, just to walk a step, was a struggle, an awful battle!
   Then last night I saw the symbol, the image of the thing. But what was it? It was an element in the most material Matter,3 because it was deep down below; yet despite it all, Mother Nature was in charge there: she was familiar with everything, knew everything and it was all at her disposalabsolutely the most material Nature. And she herself had no light, but was very, very she had a concealed power that was completely invisible.

0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Satprem had assumed that this state of consciousness was accessible only through a kind of trance or Samadhi and that when Mother said one had to be capable of 'maintaining this state,' she meant that one should be capable of bringing it back here, into the waking consciousness. However, Mother rectified: 'It is a state with no "here" or "there". I have had this experience in the waking consciousness and both perceptions (the true and the false) were simultaneous.'
   The Rishis distinguished between the 'straight' (almost in the optical sense: that which allows the ray to pass straight through) and the twisted or crooked consciousness.

0 1961-05-19, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I had already had the experience for the sense of smell the divine vibration, the vibration of Ananda in odors. Just under my window, you know, Nripendra has his kitchen, where every morning and afternoon food is prepared for the children2it all comes wafting up on gusts of air. And when the Samadhi tree is in flower, the scent wafts up to me on gusts of air; when people burn incense down below, it comes wafting up here on gusts of aireach and every fragrance (fragrancelets say odor). And generally it all comes while I am walking for my japaan Ananda of odors, each one with its meaning, its expression, its (how to say it?) its motivation and its goal. Marvelous! And there are no longer any good or bad odors that notion is gone completely. Each one has its meaningits meaning and its raison dtre. I have been experiencing this for a long time.
   But this experience of taste was completely new. It didnt last long, only a few minutes, because it amazed me so! It was as if I had a mouthful of the most marvelous foods one could imagine. And my hands were gathering it up in the atmosphere it was so funny!

0 1961-06-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But there are all sorts of cases. Take N.D., for example, a man who lived his whole life with the idea of serving Sri Aurobindohe died clasping my photo to his breast. This was a consecrated man, very conscious, with an unfailing dedication, and all the parts of his being well organized around the psychic.6 The day he was going to leave his body little M. was meditating next to the Samadhi when suddenly she had a vision: she saw all the flowers of the tree next to the Samadhi (those yellow flowers I have called Service) gathering themselves together to form a big bouquet, and rising, rising straight up. And in her vision these flowers were linked with the image of N.D. She ran quickly to their house andhe was dead.
   I only knew about this vision later, but on my side, when he left, I saw his whole being gathered together, well united, thoroughly homogenous, in a great aspiration, and rising, rising without dispersing, without deviating, straight up to the frontier of what Sri Aurobindo has called the higher hemisphere, there where Sri Aurobindo in his supramental action presides over earth. And he melted into that light.

0 1961-11-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But I myself have never had it in trance, and neither did Sri Aurobindonei ther of us ever had trances! I mean the kind of trance where contact with the body is lost. Thats what he always said, and one of the first things I told him when we met was, Well, everybody talks about trance and Samadhi and all those things, but I have never had them! I have never lost consciousness. Ah, he replied, its exactly the same for me!
   It depends upon the level of development, thats what Theon used to say: One goes into trance only when certain links are missing. He saw people as made up of innumerable small bridges, with intermediary zones. If you have an intermediary zone that is undeveloped, he said, a zone where you are not conscious because its not individualized, then you will be in trance when you cross it. Trance is the sign of non-individualization the consciousness is not awake and so your body goes into trance. But if your consciousness is wide awake you can sit, keeping full contact with things, and have the total experience. I could go out of my body with no need of trance, except when Theon wanted me to do a particular work. That was a different business the vital force (not the consciousness, the vital force) had to go out for that work, so the body had to go into trance. But even then. For instance, very often when I am called and go to do something in response, my body does become still, but its not in trance; I can be sitting and, even in the middle of a gesture, suddenly become immobile for a few seconds.7 But I was doing another type of work with Theondangerous work, at thatand it would last for an hour. Then all the bodys vital energy would go out, all of it, as it does when you die (in fact, thats how I came to experience death).
   But it isnt necessary to have all those experiences, not at allSri Aurobindo never did. (Theon didnt have experiences, either; he had only the knowledgehe made use of Madame Theons experiences.) Sri Aurobindo told me he had never really entered the unconsciousness of Samadhi for him, these domains were conscious; he would sit on his bed or in his armchair and have all the experiences.
   Naturally, its preferable to be in a comfortable position (its a question of security). If you venture to do these kinds of things standing up, for instance, as I have seen them done, its dangerous. But if one is quietly stretched out, there is no need for trance.

0 1962-07-07, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The Ashram began with two houses and so many peoplein America thats all they ever wanted to know from me. When I asked for money from America, thats what they asked about, and thats what I had to send them: on such and such a date we started off with two houses and then little by little, like this and like that, it became what it is today. And now we have so many houses (Mother laughs), there are so many people, so many visitors per year, and the Samadhi has become a place of pilgrimage, and. In short, newspaper stories thats what I wrote to America! I put together papers, documents, statistics they were quite satisfied. If I had told them even a quarter of what you say, they would have replied, Oh, for heavens sake, be practical!
   Being practical means understanding no more than they do.

0 1962-08-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I have often seen him in his supramental light; he has come very often (he used to come when I went to the balcony; sometimes he was above the Samadhi; he came very often). But that first of all, the proportions were enormoussitting down, I tell you, he extended beyond the compound; and he materialized in a way that could be PHYSICALLY felt. And there was such confidence, such joy, such certainty; everything was so sure, so altogether certain, as though all had been accomplished. There was none of that anguish, that tension for things to get done.
   It lasted about three quarters of an hour; afterwards things returned to normal.

0 1962-12-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The body always used to let itself be carried along. It was one in consciousness with Sri Aurobindos presence, and depended on it without the least worry; it felt that its life depended on it, its progress depended on it, its consciousness, its action, its power all depended on it. And no questionsit didnt question. For the body, it was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE that things could be otherwise. The very idea that Sri Aurobindo might leave his body, that that particular way of being might no longer exist for the body, was absolutely unthinkable. They had to put him in a box and put the box in the Samadhi for the body to be convinced that it had really happened.
   And thats when it had that experience.

0 1963-07-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But it means constant vigilanceconstant. Its infinitely more difficult than when one worked even in the vital; in the vital, its nothing, its childs play in comparison. But here, phew! Because, you see, in the mind or the vital, its all movements of organization, of action, of choice, of decisionits very easy to decide, to rule! But that cellular tension is there EVERY SECOND: its the activity inherent in material existence. Its only when you go into Samadhi that it stops. That is, when outwardly you are in trance. Then it stops.
   From time to timetwo, three times a day I am given a few minutes of it. Its a marvelous relaxation. But I always come out of it (I mean the BODY comes out of it) with an anxiety, in the sense that it says, Oh, Ive forgotten to live! Very odd. Only one second, but a second of anxiety: Oh, Ive forgotten to live!and the drama starts all over again.

0 1964-02-22, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   It was a compressiona mechanical compression and at the same time (both things at the same time), such an intensity of aspiration! There is in these cells an extraordinary intensity: The Truth, the Truth, the Truth1 Then, in the middle of all this, I went into a state of very deep trance, a sort of Samadhi, from which I emerged five hours laterit lasted from 10 at night to 3 in the morningfive hours later, beatific, and conscious that I had been conscious all the time, but of something inexpressible. And what a light! A light, a light a fantastic light.
   But this morning, the body is a bit (whats the word?) giddy.

0 1965-06-23, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   H. hopes so! (Mother laughs) I didnt say either yes or no to her, I told her, The Lord will decide. It depends on my health. Moving from hereno: I am here because of the Samadhi, I remain here, thats quite certain; but I can go there on a visit (its not so far away, it takes five minutes by car). Only, H. wants to be in peace, silence, far from the world, and its quite possible in her park with a road around it and someone to stop people from enteringone can be really in peace but if I am there, thats an end to it! There will be collective meditations and so on. So if I have signs (physical signs, first), then the inner comm and to go out, I will go there in a car and spend an hour in the afternoon I can do it from time to time. We still have time, because it will take years before everything is ready.
   You mean the disciples will remain here.
  --
   But thats H.s hope: she wants a house where she would be all alone, and next to it a house where I would be all alone the second part is a dream because for me to be all alone you just have to see what goes on! Its a fact, isnt it, so it doesnt go well with the all alone. Solitude must be found within, its the only way. But on the level of life, I will certainly not go and live there, because the Samadhi is here; but I can go there on a visit. For instance, I can go for an opening or certain ceremonieswell have to see, it wont be for years. Its going to take years to be realized.
   So, Auroville is meant more for the outside.

0 1965-09-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Thats what people in the past used to seek when they wanted to get out of life: they would go into a trance, leave their bodies still, and then they would enter that, and they would be perfectly happy. And for the Sannyasins who got themselves buried alive, it was the same thing; they said, Now my work is over (they would make beautiful sentences), it is over, and I am going into Samadhi. And they would have themselves buried alive; they would enter a room or whatever, then it would be closed, and it was all over. And thats what happened: they would go into a trance, and naturally after a time their bodies would dissolve, while they were in Peace.
   But Sri Aurobindo says this Silence is mighty.

0 1966-01-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   It was about those big shrimps that are called jumbo prawns here: they are as big as crayfish. Someone (a disciple here), who died rather a long time ago, came and brought me prawns; that is to say, I met him in the rooms downstairs There are rooms that are reproduced somewhere, in a sort of subconscient, in fact the subconscient that has to be transformed, organized and so on, and there exists a sort of reproduction of the rooms downstairs [below Mothers room], but not exactly the same (yet with the same layout), and a certain category of activities takes place there. Thats where we were together once, I told you: you were trying to clarify peoples ideas (!) Its the same place. Its not physical here, its in the subconscient. So then, there was that tall fellow who watched over the Samadhi for a long time, Haradhan; he was there. And when he saw me arrive, he told me, I have brought something for you. And in a sort of dark-blue cloth, he had wrapped two big prawns, which he gave me! There were already cooked, ready to be eaten. The cloth wasnt very much to my liking! So I thought, How can I make them a little cleaner before eating them? (Laughing) You know, its a farcea farce to make you understand your stupidity. I began by removing the (what is it called?), its not skin Oh, here too the word hasnt come, but on a tangent came cuirass! (Laughing) Cuirass and cartilage! Anyway I removed that, and as soon as I had removed it, I said to myself, You fool! Now its even more exposed than before! I looked for a way, and I ran to a corner (in the place of Pavitras laboratory), found a water tap and put my prawn under the tap. Immediately someone told me (not someone, the inner voice told me [laughing]), Your water is even dirtier than the cloth! So the consciousness came along with the light, and I was shown with such a clear vision the relativity of the measures we take, which are all preconceived ideas, based on no true knowledge. And finally he told me, Come on, eat, thats the best you can do! So I ate my prawn, and it was very good!
   You know, we could write a farce. And scenes of such buffoonery!

0 1966-05-14, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   A disciple's peacock had escaped and spent the whole day in the tree above the Samadhi and on the Ashram's terraces. (The peacock is the symbol of victory.)
   ***

0 1967-04-27, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its the first time that has happened to my body. It always used to remain conscious. Sri Aurobindo, too, told me the same thing, that he never, ever, had Samadhi in his body. Neither did I: I always, always, always used to remain conscious. While that only the Force remained, there was nothing left but the Force at work: there was a concentration here, a concentration on the whole country, and a concentration on the whole earth. And all that was conscious, like that (vast gesture above the head), at work. But something massive, as powerful as an elephantenough to crush you.
   I didnt say anything to anyone; I wanted to know (because when I speak, people try to find something, while I wanted to know the spontaneous reaction). The first thing I received was a letter from G. saying that he was at the Samadhi, and just before it began, a force came down on him so strongly that he fell (he was sitting, he fell forward). So he asked me what it was. I havent replied yet. Then there have been other people, other things.
   To me, that was unique, because its the first time it has happened to me. But it has had a result: all that still clings, within, to that old habit of disorder and disharmonywhich is the cause of, oh, everything, all mischief, all illnesses, everything that has been Yesterday afternoon, I saw there was something that needed to be eliminated, and it changed into a head cold. Its nothing.

0 1968-02-07, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mother unrolls a big parchment on her windowsill, facing the Samadhi. Perched on a low stool and armed with a huge black felt-pen that draws cuneiform-like letters, she starts copying Aurovilles Charter while commenting on it.)
   1) Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole.

0 1968-03-20, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   He is very good. He has something. He has experiences with Sri Aurobindo, he sees Sri Aurobindo. But there too, theres a problem. First, he needs your force: hes a man without much force vitally and physically. When he goes out of his body The other day, he saw Sri Aurobindo at the Samadhi, and at the same time his body was being devoured by wild beasts and thrown out of his bed. He is attacked, he needs to be protected. Vitally and physically, he is weak. So you understand, if he goes back to Rome, those people wont let him go without a battle. Hed like to ask you how he should proceed?
   Is he from [such and such a country]?

0 1968-04-27, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   When he saw Sri Aurobindo at the Samadhi, he fainted. Theres a great conflict within.
   When he saw Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo told him, Come, come and sit here, near me, stay here. So he stayed there quite happily, then all of a sudden he fled.

0 1968-07-17, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I feel all luminous, the Divine Grace is so powerful that at times I think my body is incapable of holding it; Mothers Presence is so real; the bliss is so serene, so tranquil. The little ADVENTURE begun at the Samadhi becomes so worthy of being lived, the CONSCIOUSNESS has widened so much. Darkness, fear, scruples, mortifications are so far away! A few weeks ago, I had a very painful dream: my body was being torn apart, the pain was excruciating; my feet, my hands, my head were being pulled apart. Today, when I read your letter, I understood the meaning: I had to grow. Just two words to inform you about my situation. As I told you, I found two currents in the Vatican, the first one quite raging against me; we thought that my assuming a new post would calm them down but a few days later, they managed to demand a Collegiate examination (by a neurologist, who, I believe, had been ordered to declare me ill, an endocrinologist, an expert in general medicine, and the Popes physician] hence the cry of the child running to his mother: my telegram asking for Mothers protection. On Sunday the 7th, I had a dream: Mother came into a sort of huge warehouse, where I was lying on the ground, and told me, Quick, get away and leave me your place. I flew away (without my body, which was still on the ground): it was my soul that went away, and, from on high, very high up, I saw Mother taking possession of my body, entering it, and staying put. Suddenly an army of doctors in white robes makes a beeline for my body (in which Mother is still hidden); no sooner have they surrounded and begun examining it than a terrible explosion sends them flying into the air.
   (Mother laughs)

0 1968-11-02, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its quite extraordinary. And this Msgr. Z will also be in it. P.L.s letter goes on: You may remember that I had been told about a promotion at the Vatican; that promotion, announced while I was in Pondicherry, gave rise to the basest intrigues, so that the nomination was stopped. And paradoxically, I have been given its duties without the title. They have decided to test me, and to do so for a period of at least four years. The struggle for power in this milieu is frightening. But I see all that from such a distance! I have the sensation that its all about someone else, not me, and that embarrasses those around me, for I do not react to injustice. (And what injustice!If they knew how indifferent I am to this little world.) There is the sad panorama. You will now realize why the Samadhis peace and sweetness are so dear to me and intimate to my soul. At times I feel like a feather blown here or there by the wind, and my whole effort is anchored in the light Sweet Mother has put into my psyche. Right from the first moment of the day my tenderness rises towards her, and then I see that what I do is not important, but the MANNER is.
   (long silence)

0 1968-11-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   V. has again seen something. Something unexpected. Every evening, he comes to meditate at the Samadhi, and there he has never seen anything in his whole life: for years there has just been Sri Aurobindo, thats all, never anything else. The other day he came, and all of a sudden he had a vision: he saw Kali coming out of the Samadhi from the spot where Sri Aurobindos head isan all-blue Kali, covered with gold ornaments.
   On which day?
  --
   She was coming out of the Samadhi?
   No, that doesnt surprise me.6

0 1969-03-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (A photo of the Samadhi, then another that has nothing to do in here.)
   Anyway, its for you.

0 1969-08-20, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I saw PL. There are two things, first a personal one, then a more general one. He said the last time he saw you, after leaving you he went to the Samadhi, and there he suddenly had an extremely sharp pain in the lower abdomen. But he said it was very strange because it didnt feel like an ordinary pain: it didnt stop him from walking about, but it remained centered therea sharp pain.
   As for me, I am afraid those people there may have cast a spell on him.
  --
   It was after seeing you, while he was at the Samadhi.
   I think those people are quite capable. of casting a spell.

0 1969-10-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   As for me, I understand very well how it takes place: theres a certain (I dont know if its a realization), but something that is there [gesture above], you catch hold of That, and you can catch it while prostrating yourself before a stone, while prostrating yourself at the Samadhi, while being in the street and everywhere, and its THE-SAME-THING.
   Yes, yes.

0 1970-07-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I go out in the evening around 5:30 for a bit of fresh air. First I go to the Samadhi they catch me at the Samadhi and go around with me; then they come up to the beach and stay with me until I come home. So I see all kinds. I see lots of them.
   Are some interesting?

0 1970-09-12, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its likely that its likely that I couldnt have borne this work, I would have left my body; it was too natural to (gesture of going out above). But (Mother brings her two fists down as if she were forcibly pushed down or held in Matter). But I didnt take the precaution of really pulling the Force into the body. I might say that my body had too much (probably the way of seeing and reacting to the material world), too much1 Extremely rarely in my lifeextremely rarely did I have Ananda in the physical body. Its only when I would see beautiful things (Mother lifts her eyes as if to look at the coconut tree near the Samadhi, which she can no longer see), that it, certain moments of contact with Nature then I had it but otherwise all my life there was never (how can I put it?) an occasion for Ananda, you understand.
   (Mother stops and tries to breathe)

0 1972-04-05, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Satprem:) I dont think anything will happen. If you must remain for a given number of days in a state of apparent Samadhi, well, you will be protected and everything will be all right, thats all.
   (Mother nods approvingly)
  --
   One thing She repeated to me often quite some time back, and to some other persons also. She said that all the work She was doing on Her body could be spoilt in two waysone, this force She was pulling down on Her could be so strong, so great, that the body would not be able to tolerate it and the body might fail.5 That was a possibility. The second thing was that if ever She went into a deep trance and it looked to us that She had left Her body, then if by mistake we put Her in the Samadhi [tomb], that would absolutely spoil Her work. And She gave instructions that we should give the body the necessary protection, we should watch, and only when we would be absolutely sure that She had left Her body we should put Her in the Samadhi. I think we have done as She had wanted.
   True, they did all that was necessary to be absolutely sure. Removing her from her room was in effect condemning her to a sure death.

0 1972-08-16, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Ten thousand people in a carnival atmosphere amidst incense sticks and stalls reminiscent of Lourdes. Not to mention the "embellishments" to the Samadhi, the "embellishments" to Sri Aurobindo's room, whose floorwhere he had walked so much that he had left on it the imprint of his footstepshas been covered with glue and blue linoleum.
   ***

02.06 - The Integral Yoga and Other Yogas, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  I found them out in my own experience. The reason is that the old Yogins when they went above the spiritual mind passed into Samadhi, which means that they did not attempt to be conscious in these higher planes - their aim being to pass away into the
  Superconscient and not to bring the Superconscient into the waking consciousness, which is that of my Yoga.

08.29 - Meditation and Wakefulness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   To have good meditation or contact with the inner world, if you are obliged to go into Samadhi, then your normal consciousness will remain always the same without changing. In other words, people who have a higher consciousness only in deep meditation, once they come out of it, are not worth more than what they were before. All their defects are there which they get back as soon as they get back their previous consciousness.1 Such people never progress; for they never establish a connection between their deeper consciousness, the truth of their being, and their external being. They take off their external being like a robe and put it aside in a corner telling it "keep quiet, my dear friend, you bother me" and they enter into contemplation, meditation, their deep experience or realisation; and when they return they put on their robe again which has not changed in the meanwhile, even might have become more dirty than ever. So they remain where they are or become worse, in their outward nature, in spite of their meditation. If you want to change your external being, you must remain conscious of it and while being conscious have other experiences: you must not lose contact with it if you wish to derive full benefit out of your experiences.
   There are many such people who meditate for long hours, some almost all the time; but if by chance they are disturbed in their meditation by someone calling them or making noise, they fly into a rage, shout and abuse the whole world; they become more nasty than they would have been had they remained ordinary men without trying meditation. The reason is, as I say, that they neglect to associate their outer life with their deeper consciousness: they cut themselves into two, there is one bit that is within making progress and another bit outside that goes from bad to worse, for it is left wholly uncared for.

10.01 - A Dream, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Again he placed his palm on Harimohons head. As soon as he felt the touch, Harimohon saw no longer the dwelling of Tinkari Sheel. On the beautiful, solitary and breezy summit of a hill an ascetic was seated, absorbed in meditation, with a huge tiger lying prone at his feet like a sentinel. Seeing the tiger Harimohons own feet would not proceed any further. But the boy forcibly dragged him near to the ascetic. Incapable of resisting the boys pull Harimohon had to go. The boy said, Look, Harimohon. Harimohon saw, stretched out in front of his eyes, the ascetics mind like a diary on every page of which the name of Sri Krishna was inscribed a thousand times. Beyond the gates of the Formless Samadhi the ascetic was playing with Sri Krishna in the sunlight.
  Harimohon saw again that the ascetic had been starving for many days, and for the last two his body had experienced extreme suffering because of hunger and thirst. Reproachingly Harimohon asked, Whats this, Keshta? Babaji loves you so much and still he has to suffer from hunger and thirst? Have you no common sense? Who shall feed him in this lonely forest home of tigers? The boy answered, I will feed him. But look here for another bit of fun. Harimohon saw the tiger go straight to an ant-hill which was close by and break it with a single stroke of the paw. Hundreds of ants scurried out and began stinging the ascetic angrily. The ascetic remained plunged in meditation, undisturbed, unmoved. Then the boy sweetly breathed in his ears, Beloved! The ascetic opened his eyes. At first he felt no pain from the stings; the all-enchanting flute-call which the whole world longs for, was still ringing in his earsas it had once rung in Radhas ears at Vrindavan. At last, the innumerable repeated stings made him conscious of his body. But he did not stir. Astonished, he began muttering to himself, How strange! I have never known such things! Obviously it is Sri Krishna who is playing with me. In the guise of these insignificant ants he is stinging me. Harimohon saw that the burning sensation no longer reached the ascetics mind. Rather every sting produced in him an intense ecstasy all over his body, and, drunk with that ecstasy, he began to dance, clapping his hands and singing the praise of Sri Krishna. The ants dropped down from his body and fled.

10.04 - Lord of Time, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Krishnakaya Jaganmata Samadhistha Bhabe 6
  Silence-honeycomb star sail

1.00 - Preliminary Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  As it will be seen later, the vision of God, or Union with God, or Samadhi, or whatever we may agree to call it, has many kinds and many degrees, although there is an impassible abyss between the least of them and the greatest of all the phenomena of normal consciousness.
  To sum up, we assert a secret source of energy which explains the phenomenon of Genius. 1 We do not believe in any supernatural explanations, but insist that this source may be reached by the following out of definite rules, the degree of success depending upon the capacity of the seeker, and not upon the favour of any Divine Being. We assert that the critical phenomenon which determines success is an occurrence in the brain characterized essentially be the uniting of subject and object. We propose to discuss this phenomenon, analyse its nature, determine accurately the physical, mental and moral conditions which are favourable to it, to ascertain its cause, and thus to produce it in ourselves, so that we may adequately study its effects.

1.01 - Hatha Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
  3. Hatha Yoga itself is not the goal. Meditation helps you to attain Samadhi or Superconscious State.
  4. The practice of Hatha Yoga awakens the Kundalini Sakti that lies dormant in the Muladhara Chakra.

1.01 - MASTER AND DISCIPLE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Sri Ramakrishna was standing still, surrounded by a few devotees, and Narendra was singing. M. had never heard anyone except the Master sing so sweetly. When he looked at Sri Ramakrishna he was struck with wonder; for the Master stood motionless, with eyes transfixed. He seemed not even to breathe. A devotee told M. that the Master was in Samadhi. M. had never before seen or heard of such a thing. Silent with wonder, he thought: "Is it possible for a man to be so oblivious of the outer world in the consciousness of God? How deep his faith and devotion must be to bring about such a state!"
  Narendra was singing:
  --
  The sight of the Samadhi, and the divine bliss he had witnessed, left an indelible impression on M.'s mind. He returned home deeply moved. Now and then he could hear within himself the echo of those soul-intoxicating lines: Immerse yourself for evermore, O mind,
  In Him who is Pure Knowledge and Pure Bliss.
  --
  As Sri Ramakrishna was singing the song he went into Samadhi. Again the half-closed eyes and motionless body that one sees in his photograph. Just a minute before, the devotees had been making merry in his company. Now all eyes were riveted on him.
  Thus for the second time M. saw the Master in Samadhi.
  After a long time the Master came back to ordinary consciousness. His face lighted up with a smile, and his body relaxed; his senses began to function in a normal way. He shed tears of joy as he repeated the holy name of Rma. M. wondered whether this very saint was the person who a few minutes earlier had been behaving like a child of five.

1.01 - SAMADHI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  object:1.01 - Samadhi PADA
  class:chapter
  --
  CHAPTER I - Samadhi PADA
  CONCENTRATION: ITS SPIRITUAL USES
  --
  Self. The next aphorism defines Samadhi, perfect
  concentration, which is the goal of the Yogi.
  --
  This Samadhi is divided into two varieties. One is called the
  Samprcijnata, and the other the Asamprajnata. The
  Samprajnata is of four varieites. In this Samadhi come all the
  powers of controlling nature. The first variety is called the
  --
  blissful Samadhi. In that Samadhi, when we are thinking of
  23
  --
  is called Asmita Samadhi, and the man who has attained to
  this has attained to what is called in the Vedas bereft of
  --
  There is another Samadhi which is attained by the
  constant practice of cessation of all mental activity, in
  --
  This is the perfect superconscious Asamprajnata Samadhi,
  the state which gives us freedom. The first state does not
  --
  Asamprajnata, super-consciousness, is reached, the Samadhi
  becomes seedless. What is meant by that? In that sort of
  --
  (This Samadhi, when not followed by extreme
  non-attachment) becomes the cause of the
  --
  To others (this Samadhi) comes through faith,
  energy, memory, concentration, and discrimination
  --
  mixed up, is (called Samadhi) with reasoning.
  45
  --
  The Samadhi called without reasoning (conies) when
  the memory is purified, or devoid of qualities,
  --
  ta eva sabijah Samadhih
  These concentrations are with seed.
  --
  The resulting impression from this Samadhi obstructs
  all other impressions.
  --
  of the mind, so this Samadhi which has just been given is the
  best to be practised, on account of its power of suppressing
  --
  tasyapi nirodhe sarvanirodhannirbijah Samadhih
  By the restraint of even this (impression, which
  --
  comes the seedless Samadhi.
  You remember that our goal is to perceive the Soul iself. We
  --
  when that is gone, this Samadhi of concentration is called
  seedless; it leaves nothing, and the Soul is manifested just as

1.02 - Prana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Think of the universe as an ocean of ether, consisting of layer after layer of varying degrees of vibration under the action of Prana; away from the centre the vibrations are less, nearer to it they become quicker and quicker; one order of vibration makes one plane. Then suppose these ranges of vibrations are cut into planes, so many millions of miles one set of vibration, and then so many millions of miles another still higher set of vibration, and so on. It is, therefore, probable, that those who live on the plane of a certain state of vibration will have the power of recognising one another, but will not recognise those above them. Yet, just as by the telescope and the microscope we can increase the scope of our vision, similarly we can by Yoga bring ourselves to the state of vibration of another plane, and thus enable ourselves to see what is going on there. Suppose this room is full of beings whom we do not see. They represent Prana in a certain state of vibration while we represent another. Suppose they represent a quick one, and we the opposite. Prana is the material of which they are composed, as well as we. All are parts of the same ocean of Prana, they differ only in their rate of vibration. If I can bring myself to the quick vibration, this plane will immediately change for me: I shall not see you any more; you vanish and they appear. Some of you, perhaps, know this to be true. All this bringing of the mind into a higher state of vibration is included in one word in Yoga Samadhi. All these states of higher vibration, superconscious vibrations of the mind, are grouped in that one word, Samadhi, and the lower states of Samadhi give us visions of these beings. The highest grade of Samadhi is when we see the real thing, when we see the material out of which the whole of these grades of beings are composed, and that one lump of clay being known, we know all the clay in the universe.
  Thus we see that Pranayama includes all that is true of spiritualism even. Similarly, you will find that wherever any sect or body of people is trying to search out anything occult and mystical, or hidden, what they are doing is really this Yoga, this attempt to control the Prana. You will find that wherever there is any extraordinary display of power, it is the manifestation of this Prana. Even the physical sciences can be included in Pranayama. What moves the steam engine? Prana, acting through the steam. What are all these phenomena of electricity and so forth but Prana? What is physical science? The science of Pranayama, by external means. Prana, manifesting itself as mental power, can only be controlled by mental means. That part of Pranayama which attempts to control the physical manifestations of the Prana by physical means is called physical science, and that part which tries to control the manifestations of the Prana as mental force by mental means is called Raja-Yoga.

1.02 - SADHANA PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  (They are for) the practice of Samadhi and
  minimising the pain-bearing obstructions.
  --
  Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi, are the limbs of Yoga.
  30. RTT: II II
  --
  By sacrificing all to Isvara comes Samadhi.
  By resignation to the Lord, Samadhi becomes perfect.
  46. II W II

1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  countless others, like so many stages of our effort. We won't discuss here the great value of these methods, or the remarkable intermediate results they can lead to; we will examine only their goal, their final destination. The truth is, this "poise above" seems to have no relation with real life whatsoever; first, because all these disciplines are extremely demanding, requiring hours and hours of work every day, if not complete solitude; secondly, because their ultimate result is a state of trance or yogic ecstasy, Samadhi, perfect equilibrium, ineffable bliss, in which one's awareness of the world is dissolved, annihilated.
  Brahman, the Spirit, appears therefore to have absolutely nothing to do with our regular waking consciousness; He is outside all that we know; He is not of this world. Others who were not Indians have said the same.

1.035 - The Recitation of Mantra, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  ' Samadhi' is the word used for the highest state of harmony achieved thereby. Adhi is a mental condition, and an equilibrated mental condition is Samadhi - equilibrated in the utmost manner, so that every component of thought is systematically harmonised with every other component, and not one setting itself against the other or distracting the other. So harmoniously are they knitted together that there is a uniform fabric of the mind, as it were, in respect of the object. A harmonious vibration creates a thrill in the system, which is the trick that the chanting of the mantra or pranava produces, and one can feel it when one chants pranava at least for a few minutes continuously. We will feel a subtle, creeping sensation in our system, as if ants are crawling through our nerves. We will feel a peculiar touching sensation, a titillating feeling in the beginning, which is an indication that our chanting is correct and the mind is getting concentrated.
  Simultaneously with this feeling of a subtle thrill in the system when the chanting of pranava is done properly, there is a feeling that a loss of body-consciousness is gradually taking place. We will not feel that we exist at all. We will be aware of a non-objective something, and it is this non-objective awareness, which is the effect of the chanting of pranava, which also creates the feeling of levitation. We are not actually getting lifted up physically, but we will feel as if we are lifted up from the earth and moving in the air, as it were. Though we are on the ground and not moving in the air physically, the mind will feel as if it is lifted up, and this is the astral body getting stirred because of the harmonious vibration that is being produced. Though the physical body is not moving in the air, the subtle body is trying to get up, and that is why we feel as if we are moving in the air. The feeling of levitation is generated by the effect produced upon the subtle body, by the chanting of the mantra. The subtle body is ordinarily so intimately connected with the physical body that we cannot isolate one from the other. When we are intensely conscious of the physical body, the subtle body gets impregnated with the notion of the physical body, and we cannot forget that we are anything but the body.

1.03 - The House Of The Lord, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  Many fantastic tales were abroad about his outer life, gaining ground and credit because of his living in seclusion. Some people believed that he neither ate nor slept, but remained absorbed in Samadhi. Others had heard that he could keep his body suspended in the air. Some there were who, like Arjuna, wanted genuinely to know how he spoke, how he sat and walked. The Mother had, at one time, discouraged us from dwelling upon these external aspects for fear that people's minds would be deflected from the Reality. After all it is not what a man appears to be which is most important. And we can affirm that all Sri Aurobindo's actions welled from the Divine Consciousness that he embodied: they were yukta karma. But how to demonstrate this? By having a practical knowledge of his day-to-day activity? Well, he who sees, sees!
  Let us then begin from the very break of day. The sun's rays came in by the eastern window; he was awake and the exercises started in bed, prescribed by Manilal. By 6.30 a.m. he sat up to receive the Mother who on her way to the Balcony Darshan visited him to have his darshan. Sri Aurobindo gave us definite instructions to wake him up before the Mother's arrival. On the other hand, the Mother wanted us not to disturb his sleep. So at times we found ourselves in a quandary. Champaklal's devotional nature would not interrupt his sweet nap after the exercises, while I, when alone, would try by all sorts of devices to wake him up. Sometimes he himself would wake up only to learn that the Mother had come and gone! Then she would come back after the darshan and begin her day with his blessings, just as we did after her darshan. This was followed by his reading The Hindu. Between 9.00 a.m. and 10.00 a.m. the Mother came to comb his hair, apply a lotion and plait it. Most often she finished some business during this period. When a sadhak translated the Mother's Prayers and Meditations into English and wanted her approval, she had it read out before Sri Aurobindo and both of them made the necessary changes. She sometimes talked of private matters, and when her voice sank low, we took the hint and withdrew discreetly. She believed more in subtle methods than in open expressions. The gesture, the look, the smile, the fugitive glance, the silence, a thousand are her ways of communication to the soul! After the Mother had left, there started the routine of washing the face and mouth. Here a small detail calls for mention by its unusualness. When he had finished using Neem paste for his teeth and the mouth-wash (Vademecum), he massaged his gums with a little bit of Oriental Balm.

1.03 - The Human Disciple, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Yoga with a mind in Samadhi, firmly fixed, that is to say, in the
  Divine alone. Arjuna is not satisfied: he wishes to know how the change to this state will affect the outward action of the man, what result it will have on his speech, his movements, his state, what difference it will make in this acting, living human being. Krishna persists merely in enlarging upon the ideas he has already brought forward, on the soul-state behind the action, not on the action itself. It is the fixed anchoring of the intelligence in a state of desireless equality that is the one thing needed.

1.03 - To Layman Ishii, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
  "There was a servant in ancient China who worked in the kitchen of a temple in the far western regions of the country. The temple was filled with monks engaged in the rigors of training. All the time the servant wasn't engaged in his main job preparing meals for the brotherhood, he spent doing zazen. One day, he suddenly entered a profound Samadhi, and since he showed no sign of coming out of it, the head priest of the temple directed the senior monk in charge of the training hall to keep an eye on him. When the servant finally got up from his zazen cushion three days later, he had penetrated the heart and marrow of the Dharma, and had attained an ability to clearly see the karma of his previous lives. He went to the head priest and began setting forth the realization he had attained, but before he had finished, the head priest suddenly put his hands over his ears. 'Stop! Stop!' he said.
  'The rest is something I have yet to experience. If you explain it to me, I'm afraid it might obstruct my own entrance into enlightenment.'

1.03 - YIBHOOTI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  meaning, it is Samadhi.
  That is, when in meditation all forms are given up. Suppose 1
  --
  form, that state of Dhyana is called Samadhi.
  4. II VII
  --
  Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi, one following the other,
  and making one. The form of the thing has vanished, and only
  --
  Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. Yet these latter even are
  external to the seedless Samadhi. When a man has attained to
  them he may attain to omniscience and omnipresence, but that
  --
  But even they are external to the seedless ( Samadhi ).
  Compared with that seedless Samadhi, therefore, even these
  are external. We have not yet reached the real Samadhi, the
  highest, but to a lower stage, in which this universe still exists
  --
  That is to say, in this first state of Samadhi, the modifications
  of the mind have been controlled, but not perfectly, because if
  --
  wave, so it will not be real Samadhi, when all the waves have
  101
  --
   Samadhi is very much nearer to the higher Samadhi than
  when the mind comes bubbling out.
  --
  cation called Samadhi.
  The mind is taking up various objects, running into all sorts of
  --
  takes up one object and excludes all others. Samadhi is the
  result of that.
  --
  These are obstacles to Samadhi; but they are powers
  in the worldly state.

1.04 - GOD IN THE WORLD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  The Sravaka (literally hearer, the name given by Mahayana Buddhists to contemplatives of the Hinayana school) fails to perceive that Mind, as it is in itself, has no stages, no causation. Disciplining himself in the cause, he has attained the result and abides in the Samadhi (contemplation) of Emptiness for ever so many aeons. However enlightened in this way, the Sravaka is not at all on the right track. From the point of view of the Bodhisattva, this is like suffering the torture of hell. The Sravaka has buried himself in Emptiness and does not know how to get out of his quiet contemplation, for he has no insight into the Buddha-nature itself.
  Mo Tsu

1.04 - KAI VALYA PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  Concentration. The concentration is Samadhi, and that is
  Yoga proper; that is the principle theme of this science, and it
  --
  and we cannot attain to the highest through them. Samadhi is
  the means through which we can gain anything and
  --
  that mind which has attained to Samadhi, perfect
  concentration, is the highest. A man who has attained certain
  --
  to Samadhi through concentration is alone free from all
  desires.
  --
  dharmameghah Samadhih
  Even when arriving at the right discriminating
  --
  discrimination, the Samadhi called the cloud of
  virtue.

1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  What is Mah or Mahas?The word means great, embracing, full, comprehensive. The Earth, also, because of its wideness & containing faculty is called mahi,just as it is called prithivi, dhara, medini, dharani, etc. In various forms, the root itself, mahi, mahitwam, maha, magha, etc, it recurs with remarkable profusion and persistence throughout the Veda. Evidently it expressed some leading thought of the Rishis, was some term of the highest importance in their system of psychology. Turning to the Purana we find the term mahat applied to some comprehensive principle which is supposed itself to be near to the unmanifest, avyaktam but to supply the material of all that is manifest and always to surround, embrace and uphold it. Mahat seems here to be an objective principle; but this need not trouble us; for in the old Hindu system all that is objective had something subjective corresponding to it and constituting its real nature. We find it explicitly declared in the Vishnu Purana that all things here are manifestations of vijnana, pure ideal knowledge, sarvani vijnanavijrimbhitaniideal knowledge vibrating out into intensity of various phenomenal existences each with its subjective reason for existence and objective case & form of existence. Is ideal knowledge then the subjective principle of mahat? If so, vijnanam and the Vedic mahas are likely to be terms identical in their philosophical content and psychological significance. We turn to the Upanishads and find mention made more than once of a certain subjective state of the soul, which is called Mahan Atma, a state into which the mind and senses have to be drawn up as we rise by Samadhi of the instruments of knowledge into the supreme state of Brahman and which is superior therefore to these instruments. The Mahan Atma is the state of the pure Brahman out of which the vijnana or ideal truth (sattwa or beness of things) emerges and it is higher than the vijnana but nearer us than the Unmanifest or Avyaktam (Katha: III.10, 11,13 & VI.7). If we understand by the Mahan Atma that status of soul existence (Purusha) which is the basis of the objective mahat or mahati prakriti and which develops the vijnanam or ideal knowledge as its subjective instrument, then we shall have farther light on the nature of Mahas in the ancient conceptions. We shall see that it is ideal knowledge, vijnanam, or is connected with ideal knowledge.
  But we have first one more step in our evidence to notice,the final & conclusive link. In the Taittiriya Upanishad we are told that there are three vyahritis, Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, but the Rishi Mahachamasya insisted on a fourth, Mahas. What is this fourth vyahriti? It is evidently some old Vedic idea and can hardly fail to be our maho arnas. I have already, in my introduction, outlined briefly the Vedic, Vedantic & Puranic system of the seven worlds and the five bodies. In this system the three vyahritis constitute the lower half of existence which is in bondage to Avidya. Bhurloka is the material world, our dwelling place, in which Annam predominates, in which everything is subject to or limited by the laws of matter & material consciousness. Bhuvar are the middle worlds, antariksha, between Swar & Bhur, vital worlds in which Prana, the vital principle predominates and everything is subject to or limited by the laws of vitality & vital consciousness. Swarloka is the supreme world of the triple system, the pure mental kingdom in which manasei ther in itself or, as one goes higher, uplifted & enlightened by buddhipredominates & by the laws of mind determines the life & movements of the existences which inhabit it. The three Puranic worlds Jana, Tapas, Satya,not unknown to the Vedaconstitute the Parardha; they are the higher ranges of existence in which Sat, Chit, Ananda, the three mighty elements of the divine nature predominate respectively, creative Ananda or divine bliss in Jana, the power of Chit (Chich-chhakti) or divine Energy in Tapas, the extension [of] Sat or divine being in Satya. But these worlds are hidden from us, avyaktalost for us in the sushupti to which only great Yogins easily attain & only with the Anandaloka have we by means of the anandakosha some difficult chance of direct access. We are too joyless to bear the surging waves of that divine bliss, too weak or limited to move in those higher ranges of divine strength & being. Between the upper hemisphere & the lower is Maharloka, the seat of ideal knowledge & pure Truth, which links the free spirits to the bound, the gods who deliver to the gods who are in chains, the wide & immutable realms to these petty provinces where all shifts, all passes, all changes. We see therefore that Mahas is still vijnanam and we can no longer hesitate to identify our subjective principle of mahas, source of truth & right thinking awakened by Saraswati through the perceptive intelligence, with the Vedantic principle of vijnana or pure buddhi, instrument of pure Truth & ideal knowledge.

1.04 - Wake-Up Sermon, #The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, #Bodhidharma, #Buddhism
  and reality are still, he's always in Samadhi.63
  When the mortal mind appears, buddhahood disappears.
  --
  speech and silence are in Samadhi. If you speak when you know,
  your speech is free. If you're silent when you don't know, your

1.05 - Pratyahara and Dharana, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  next chapter: 1.06 - Dhyana and Samadhi

1.06 - Dhyana and Samadhi, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  object:1.06 - Dhyana and Samadhi
  author class:Swami Vivekananda
  --
  DHYANA AND Samadhi
  We have taken a cursory view of the different steps in Rja-Yoga, except the finer ones, the training in concentration, which is the goal to which Raja-Yoga will lead us. We see, as human beings, that all our knowledge which is called rational is referred to consciousness. My consciousness of this table, and of your presence, makes me know that the table and you are here. At the same time, there is a very great part of my existence of which I am not conscious. All the different organs inside the body, the different parts of the brain nobody is conscious of these.
  --
  But it does not end here. There is a still higher plane upon which the mind can work. It can go beyond consciousness. Just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness, so there is another work which is above consciousness, and which also is not accompanied with the feeling of egoism. The feeling of egoism is only on the middle plane. When the mind is above or below that line, there is no feeling of "I", and yet the mind works. When the mind goes beyond this line of self-consciousness, it is called Samdhi or superconsciousness. How, for instance, do we know that a man in Samadhi has not gone below consciousness, has not degenerated instead of going higher? In both cases the works are unaccompanied with egoism. The answer is, by the effects, by the results of the work, we know that which is below, and that which is above. When a man goes into deep sleep, he enters a plane beneath consciousness. He works the body all the time, he breathes, he moves the body, perhaps, in his sleep, without any accompanying feeling of ego; he is unconscious, and when he returns from his sleep, he is the same man who went into it. The sum total of the knowledge which he had before he went into the sleep remains the same; it does not increase at all. No enlightenment comes. But when a man goes into Samadhi, if he goes into it a fool, he comes out a sage.
  What makes the difference? From one state a man comes out the very same man that he went in, and from another state the man comes out enlightened, a sage, a prophet, a saint, his whole character changed, his life changed, illumined. These are the two effects. Now the effects being different, the causes must be different. As this illumination with which a man comes back from Samadhi is much higher than can be got from unconsciousness, or much higher than can be got by reasoning in a conscious state, it must, therefore, be superconsciousness, and Samadhi is called the superconscious state.
  This, in short, is the idea of Samadhi. What is its application? The application is here. The field of reason, or of the conscious workings of the mind, is narrow and limited. There is a little circle within which human reason must move. It cannot go beyond. Every attempt to go beyond is impossible, yet it is beyond this circle of reason that there lies all that humanity holds most dear. All these questions, whether there is an immortal soul, whether there is a God, whether there is any supreme intelligence guiding this universe or not, are beyond the field of reason. Reason can never answer these questions. What does reason say? It says, "I am agnostic; I do not know either yea or nay." Yet these questions are so important to us. Without a proper answer to them, human life will be purposeless. All our ethical theories, all our moral attitudes, all that is good and great in human nature, have been moulded upon answers that have come from beyond the circle. It is very important, therefore, that we should have answers to these questions. If life is only a short play, if the universe is only a "fortuitous combination of atoms," then why should I do good to another? Why should there be mercy, justice, or fellow-feeling? The best thing for this world would be to make hay while the sun shines, each man for himself. If there is no hope, why should I love my brother, and not cut his throat? If there is nothing beyond, if there is no freedom, but only rigorous dead laws, I should only try to make myself happy here. You will find people saying nowadays that they have utilitarian grounds as the basis of morality. What is this basis? Procuring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number. Why should I do this? Why should I not produce the greatest unhappiness to the greatest number, if that serves my purpose? How will utilitarians answer this question? How do you know what is right, or what is wrong? I am impelled by my desire for happiness, and I fulfil it, and it is in my nature; I know nothing beyond. I have these desires, and must fulfil them; why should you complain? Whence come all these truths about human life, about morality, about the immortal soul, about God, about love and sympathy, about being good, and, above all, about being unselfish?
  All ethics, all human action and all human thought, hang upon this one idea of unselfishness. The whole idea of human life can be put into that one word, unselfishness. Why should we be unselfish? Where is the necessity, the force, the power, of my being unselfish? You call yourself a rational man, a utilitarian; but if you do not show me a reason for utility, I say you are irrational. Show me the reason why I should not be selfish. To ask one to be unselfish may be good as poetry, but poetry is not reason. Show me a reason. Why shall I be unselfish, and why be good? Because Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so say so does not weigh with me. Where is the utility of my being unselfish? My utility is to be selfish if utility means the greatest amount of happiness. What is the answer? The utilitarian can never give it. The answer is that this world is only one drop in an infinite ocean, one link in an infinite chain. Where did those that preached unselfishness, and taught it to the human race, get this idea? We know it is not instinctive; the animals, which have instinct, do not know it. Neither is it reason; reason does not know anything about these ideas. Whence then did they come?
  --
  All the different steps in Yoga are intended to bring us scientifically to the superconscious state, or Samadhi. Furthermore, this is a most vital point to understand, that inspiration is as much in every man's nature as it was in that of the ancient prophets. These prophets were not unique; they were men as you or I. They were great Yogis. They had gained this superconsciousness, and you and I can get the same. They were not peculiar people. The very fact that one man ever reached that state, proves that it is possible for every man to do so. Not only is it possible, but every man must, eventually, get to that state, and that is religion. Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth, until we experience it ourselves. You cannot hope to make a man a surgeon by simply giving him a few books. You cannot satisfy my curiosity to see a country by showing me a map; I must have actual experience. Maps can only create curiosity in us to get more perfect knowledge. Beyond that, they have no value whatever. Clinging to books only degenerates the human mind. Was there ever a more horrible blasphemy than the statement that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book! Millions of people have been killed because they did not believe what the books said, because they would not see all the knowledge of God within the covers of a book. Of course this killing and murdering has gone by, but the world is still tremendously bound up in a belief in books.
  In order to reach the superconscious state in a scientific manner it is necessary to pass through the various steps of Raja-Yoga I have been teaching. After Pratyhra and Dhran, we come to Dhyna, meditation. When the mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power of flowing in an unbroken current, as it were, towards that point. This state is called Dhyana. When one has so intensified the power of Dhyana as to be able to reject the external part of perception and remain meditating only on the internal part, the meaning, that state is called Samadhi. The three Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi together, are called Samyama. That is, if the mind can first concentrate upon an object, and then is able to continue in that concentration for a length of time, and then, by continued concentration, to dwell only on the internal part of the perception of which the object was the effect, everything comes under the control of such a mind.
  This meditative state is the highest state of existence. So long as there is desire, no real happiness can come. It is only the contemplative, witness-like study of objects that brings to us real enjoyment and happiness. The animal has its happiness in the senses, the man in his intellect, and the god in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful. To him who desires nothing, and does not mix himself up with them, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and sublimity.
  --
   Samadhi is the property of every human being nay, every animal. From the lowest animal to the highest angel, some time or other, each one will have to come to that state, and then, and then alone, will real religion begin for him. Until then we only struggle towards that stage. There is no difference now between us and those who have no religion, because we have no experience. What is concentration good for, save to bring us to this experience? Each one of the steps to attain Samadhi has been reasoned out, properly adjusted, scientifically organised, and, when faithfully practiced, will surely lead us to the desired end. Then will all sorrows cease, all miseries vanish; the seeds for actions will be burnt, and the soul will be free for ever.

1.06 - Dhyana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:THIS word has two quite distinct and mutually exclusive meanings. The first refers to the result itself. Dhyana is the same word as the Pali "Jhana." The Buddha counted eight Jhanas, which are evidently different degrees and kinds of trance. The Hindu also speaks of Dhyana as a lesser form of Samadhi. Others, however, treat it as if it were merely an intensification of Dharana. Patanjali says: "Dhrana is holding the mind on to some particular object. An unbroken flow of knowledge in that subject is Dhyana. When that, giving up all forms, reflects only the meaning, it is Samadhi." He combines these three into Samyama.
  2:We shall treat of Dhyana as a result rather than as a method. Up to this point ancient authorities have been fairly reliable guides, except with regard to their crabbed ethics; but when they get on the subject of results of meditation, they completely lose their heads.
  --
  9:It will have been understood that Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi form a continuous process, and exactly when the climax comes does not matter. It is of this climax that we must speak, for this is a matter of "experience," and a very striking one.
  10:In the course of our concentration we noticed that the contents of the mind at any moment consisted of two things, and no more: the Object, variable, and the Subject, invariable, or apparently so. By success in Dharana the object has been made as invariable as the subject.
  --
  47:We may, however, provisionally accept the view that Dhyana is real; more real and thus of more importance to ourselves than all other experience. This state has been described not only by the Hindus and Buddhists, but by Mohammedans and Christians. In Christian writings, however, the deeply-seated dogmatic bias has rendered their documents worthless to the average man. They ignore the essential conditions of Dhyana, and insist on the inessential, to a much greater extent than the best Indian writers. But to any one with experience and some knowledge of comparative religion the identity is certain. We may now proceed to Samadhi.

1.06 - Raja Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
  5. The eight limbs of Raja Yoga are: Yama (self-restraint), Niyama (religious observances), Asana (posture), Pranayama (regulation of breath), Pratyahara (abstraction of the senses), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation) and Samadhi (superconscious state).
  6. Yama consists of five parts, viz., Ahimsa (non-injury), Satyam (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacharya (celibacy), and Aparigraha (non-covetousness).
  --
  14. Real Raja Yoga starts from concentration. Concentration merges in meditation. Meditation ends in Samadhi.
  15. Retention of breath, Brahmacharya, Sattvic food, seclusion, silence, Satsanga, not mixing much with people are all aids to concentration.
  --
  24. By controlling the thoughts the Sadhaka attains great Siddhis. He becomes an adept. He attains Asamprajnata Samadhi or Kaivalya.
  25. Do not run after Siddhis. Siddhis are great temptations. They will bring about your downfall.
  26. A Raja Yogi practises Samyama or the combined practice of Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi at one and the same time and gets detailed knowledge of an object.
  27. Control the mind by Abhyasa (practice) and Vairagya (dispassion).
  --
  33. Meditation on OM with Bhava and its meaning removes obstacles in Sadhana and helps to attain Samadhi.
  34. Avidya (ignorance), Asmita (egoism), Raga-Dvesha (likes and dislikes), Abhinivesha (clinging to mundane life) are the five Kleshas or afflictions. Destroy these afflictions. You will attain Samadhi.
  35. Samadhi is of two kindsSavikalpa, Samprajnata or Sabija, and Nirvikalpa or Asamprajnata or Nirbija.
  36. In Savikalpa or Sabija, there is Triputi or the triad (knower, known and knowledge). The Samskaras are not burnt or fried.
  37. Savitarka, Nirvitarka, Savichara, Nirvichara, Sasmita and Saananda are the different forms of Savikalpa Samadhi.
  38. In Nirbija Samadhi or Asamprajnata Samadhi there is no triad. The impressions are fried in toto.
  39. A Bhakta gets Bhava- Samadhi, a Jnani gets Badha- Samadhi, a Raja Yogi gets Nirodha Samadhi.
  THUS ENDS RAJA YOGA

1.075 - Self-Control, Study and Devotion to God, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  Samdhisiddhi varapraidhnt (II.45): The mind gets inclined to Samadhi by the love of God. There is an inclination of our entire being to self-absorption, due to the daily adoration of God. Inasmuch as God is universal omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent a surrender of oneself to God, a daily adoration of God, a worship of God, and a daily thought and feeling and will directed to God will naturally compel the mind to adopt characters which are of the nature of this ideal. There will be, therefore, a mood generated in the mind to sink into itself, rather than move out of itself. Distractions will cease. The contemplation on the nature of the All-pervading Being is supposed to be the best form of meditation, inclusive of every other means. All objects of meditation are comprehended here, included here. This is the ocean of all things.
  If only we can direct the mind to All-Being, the supreme nature of the Almighty, there would be no need of searching for objects of meditation. Everything is here. The result that follows is a resting of the mind in itself, inasmuch as the omnipresence of God prevents the mind from going to objects of sense. That is the first stroke which the contemplation of universality deals to the cravings of sense. The deep feeling for God, Who is everywhere, is an antidote to the restlessness of the senses which ask for things outside. A daily hammering into the mind of the idea of all-existence, omnipresence, will not only withdraw the senses from their objects, energise them and bring joy to them, but will also turn the mind inward and make it visualise the cause of its activities, the purpose of its movements, and its ultimate intentions. Thus, the yoga sutra tells us that Isvara pranidhana, or surrender of oneself to God, is an ultimate method and, finally, it must be regarded as the best of all methods of concentration, meditation and Self-absorption.

1.078 - Kumbhaka and Concentration of Mind, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  These vrittis, or the processes of the movement of the prana, are measured across different parameters, as enumerated through the other terms in the sutra, dea kla sakhybhi (II.50), for calculating the retention of the breath. The prana can be stopped by way of retention after exhalation. This was referred to in an earlier sutra where a particular method of breathing was prescribed as a way of bringing about peace of mind when the mind is very much disturbed. That sutra is in the Samadhi Pada: pracchardana vidhrabhy v prasya (I.34). Pracchardana is expulsion; vidharana is retention. The expulsion and the retention of the breath are supposed to be one of the means of bringing about composure of mind.
  This is almost the same as one of the pranayamas mentioned here as bahya vritti. We brea the out, gradually and intensely, in a very spontaneous, flowing manner, and then do not brea the in; this is one pranayama. We can press the abdomen inward and then raise up the diaphragm. After the inhalation, generally the chest is forward at this time. The breath is then blown out not suddenly with a jerk, which should not be done but very calmly so that we will not even know that it is blowing out. Then, we do not brea the in immediately; we see how far we can maintain this position of expulsion without it being followed by inward breathing. This sort of retention of the breath, which means to say the cessation of breathing in after the breathing out, is called bahya vritti the pranayama, or the kumbhaka, which follows expulsion.

1.07 - A Song of Longing for Tara, the Infallible, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
  pretty outstanding. We have the potential to gain different Samadhis so that
  we can manifest various forms in order to benet countless beings. Sometimes we hear about the potential that we have and we dont believe it. It

1.07 - Note on the word Go, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The word Go in the Vedas appears to bear two ordinary meanings, first, cow, secondly, ray, light or lustre. In the hymns of Madhuchchhanda it occurs 6 times, in five hymns. It occurs twice in the fourth hymn addressed to Indra in the first three verses which are all of them important for the discovery of the proper sense of the word as it is used in this passage. In the third verse which is the key to the passage, we find the prayer Then may we know (of) thy ultimate good thoughts. Then may we know. When? as a consequence to what? Obviously as a consequence to the result of the second verse, which I translate Come to us, O bringer out of the nectar (savana), thou the Soma-drinker; drink of the ecstatic Soma wine, a giver of illumination, enraptured or in better English bringing out the sense & association of the words, Come to us, O thou who art a distiller of the nectar, thou, the Soma-drinker, drink of the impetuously ecstatic Soma wine & be in the rapture of its intoxication our giver of illuminating light. Then may we know thy ultimate perceptions of the intellect. Pass us not byO come! Id lays emphasis on goda as the capacity in which, the purpose for which Indra is to drink. Revato and madah give the conditions under which Indra becomes a giver of illumination, the rushing & impetuous ecstasy produced by the Soma wine. It is then that men know the ultimate perceptions of mind, the highest realisations that can be given by the intellect when Indra, lord of mental force & power, is full of the ecstasy of the immortalising juice. This clear & easy sense being fixed for these two verses, we can return to the first & discover its connection with what follows. From sky to sky, its Rishi says to Indra, thou callest forth for uti, (for favour or kindness, as the ordinary interpretation would have it or for manifestation, expansion in being, as I suggest), the maker of beautiful forms, (who, being compared with a cow, must be some goddess), who is like one that gives milk freely to the milker of the cows, or, as I suggest, who milks freely to the milker of the rays. Undoubtedly, sudugham goduhe may be translated, a good milch cow to the milker of the cows; undoubtedly the poet had this idea in his mind when he wrote. The goddess is in the simile a milch cow, Indra is the milker. In each of the skies (the lower, middle & higher) he calls to her & makes her bring out the beautiful forms which she reveals to the drinker of the Soma. But it is impossible, when we take the connection with the two following verses, to avoid seeing that he is taking advantage of the double sense of go, and that while in the simile Indra is goduh the cow-milker, in the subject of the comparison he is goduh, the bringer out of the illumination, the flashes of higher light which produce the beautiful forms by the power of the goddess. The goddess herself must be one who is habitually associated with illumination, either Ila or Mahi. To anyone acquainted with the processes of Yoga, the whole passage at once becomes perfectly clear & true. The forms are those beautiful & myriad images of things in all the three worlds, the three akashas, dyavi dyavi, which appear to the eye of the Yogin when mental force in the Yoga is at its height, the impetuous & joyous activity (revato madah) of the mingled Ananda and Mahas fills the brain with Ojas and the highest intellectual perceptions, those akin to the supra-rational revelation, become not only possible, but easy, common & multitudinous. The passage describes the condition in which the mind, whether by drinking the material wine, the Karanajal of the Tantrics, or, as I hold, by feeding on the internal amrita, is raised to its highest exalted condition, before it is taken up into mahas or karanam, (whether in the state of Samadhi or in the waking state of the man who has realised his mahan atma, his ideal self), a state in which it is full of revealing thoughts & revealing visions which descend to it from the supra-rational level of the mahat, luminous & unerring, sunrita gomati mahi, where all is Truth & Light. Uti is the state of manifestation in Sat, in being, when that conscious existence which we are is stimulated into intensity & produces easily to the waking consciousness states of existence, movements of knowledge, outpourings of bliss which ordinarily it holds guha, in the secret parts of being.
  The next passage to which I shall turn is the eighth verse of the eighth hymn, also to Indra, in which occurs the expression , a passage which when taken in the plain and ordinary sense of the epithets sheds a great light on the nature of Mahi. Sunrita means really true and is opposed to anrita, false for in the early Aryan speech su and s would equally signify, well, good, very; and the euphonic n is of a very ancient type of sandhioriginally, it was probably no more than a strong anuswartraces of which can still be found in Tamil; in the case of su this n euphonic seems to have been dropped after the movement of the literary Aryan tongue towards the modern principle of Sandhi,a movement the imperfect progress of which we see in the Vedas; but by that time the form an, composed of privative a and the euphonic n, had become a recognised alternative form to a and the omission of the n would have left the meaning of words very ambiguous; therefore n was preserved in the negative form, omitted from the affirmative where its omission caused no inconvenience,for to write gni instead of anagni would be confusing, but to write svagni instead of sunagni would create no confusion. In the pair sunrita and anrita it is probable that the usage had become so confirmed, so much of an almost technical phraseology, that confirmed habit prevailed over new rule. The second meaning of the word is auspicious, derived from the idea good or beneficent in its regular action. The Vedic scholars give a third sense, quick, active; but this is probably due to confusion with an originally distinct word derived from the root , to move on rapidly, to be strong, swift, active from which we have to dance, & strong and a number of other derivatives, for although ri means to go, it does not appear that rita was used in the sense of motion or swiftness. In any case our choice (apart from unnecessary ingenuities) lies here between auspicious and true. If we take Mahi in the sense of earth, the first is its simplest & most natural significance.We shall have then to translate the earth auspicious (or might it mean true in the sense observing the law of the seasons), wide-watered, full of cows becomes like a ripe branch to the giver. This gives a clear connected sense, although gross and pedestrian and open to the objection that it has no natural and inevitable connection with the preceding verses. My objection is that sunrita and gomati seem to me to have in the Veda a different and deeper sense and that the whole passage becomes not only ennobled in sense, but clearer & more connected in sense if we give them that deeper significance. Gomatir ushasah in Kutsas hymn to the Dawn is certainly the luminous dawns; Saraswati in the third hymn who as chodayitri sunritanam chetanti sumatinam shines pervading all the actions of the understanding, certainly does so because she is the impeller to high truths, the awakener to right thoughts, clear perceptions and not because she is the impeller of things auspiciousa phrase which would have no sense or appropriateness to the context. Mahi is one of the three goddesses Ila, Saraswati and Mahi who are described as tisro devir mayobhuvah, the three goddesses born of delight or Ananda, and her companions being goddesses of knowledge, children of Mahas, she also must be a goddess of knowledge, not the earth; the word mahi also bears the sense of knowledge, intellect, and Mahas undoubtedly refers in many passages to the vijnana or supra-rational level of consciousness, the fourth Vyahriti of the Taittiriya Upanishad. What then prevents us from taking Mahi, here as there, in the sense of the goddess of suprarational knowledge or, if taken objectively, the world of Mahat? Nothing, except a tradition born in classical times when mahi was the earth and the new Nature-worship theory. In this sense I shall take it. I translate the line For thus Mahi the true, manifest in action, luminous becomes like a ripe branch to the giveror, again in better English, For thus Mahi the perfect in truth, manifesting herself in action, full of illumination, becomes as a ripe branch to the giver. For the Yogin again the sense is clear. All things are contained in the Mahat, derived from the Mahat, depend on theMahat, but we here in the movement of the alpam, have not our desire, are blinded & confined, enjoy an imperfect, erroneous & usually baffled & futile activity. It is only when we regain the movement of the Mahat, the large & uncontracted consciousness that comes from rising to the infinite,it is only then that we escape from this limitation. She is perfect in truth, full of illumination; error and ignorance disappear; she manifests herself virapshi in a wide & various activity; our activities are enlarged, our desires are fulfilled. The connection with the preceding stanzas becomes clear. The Vritras, the great obstructors & upholders of limitation, are slain by the help of Indra, by the result of the yajnartham karma, by alliance with the armed gods in mighty internal battle; Indra, the god within our mental force, manifests himself as supreme and full of the nature of ideal truth from which his greatness weaponed with the vajra, vidyut or electric principle, derives (mahitwam astu vajrine). The mind, instinct with amrita, is then full of equality, samata; it drinks in the flood of activity of all kinds as the sea takes in the rivers. For the condition then results in which the ideal consciousness Mahi is like a ripe branch to the giver, when all powers & expansions of being at once (without obstacle as the Vritras are slain) become active in consciousness as masterful and effective knowledge or awareness (chit). This is the process prayed for by the poet. The whole hymn becomes a consecutive & intelligible whole, a single thought worked out logically & coherently and relating with perfect accuracy of ensemble & detail to one of the commonest experiences of Yogic fulfilment. In both these passages the faithful adherence to the intimations of language, Vedantic idea & Yogic experience have shed a flood of light, illuminating the obscurity of the Vedas, bringing coherence into the incoherence of the naturalistic explanation, close & strict logic, great depth of meaning with great simplicity of expression, and, as I shall show when I take up the final interpretation of the separate hymns, a rational meaning & reason of existence in that particular place for each word & phrase and a faultless & inevitable connection with what goes before & with what goes after. It is worth noticing that by the naturalistic interpretation one can indeed generally make out a meaning, often a clear or fluent sense for the separate verses of the Veda, but the ensemble of the hymn has almost always about it an air bizarre, artificial, incoherent, almost purposeless, frequently illogical and self-contradictoryas in Max Mullers translation of the 39th hymn, Kanwas to the Maruts,never straightforward, self-assured & easy. One would expect in these primitive writers,if they are primitive,crudeness of belief perhaps, but still plainness of expression and a simple development of thought. One finds instead everything tortuous, rugged, gnarled, obscure, great emptiness with great pretentiousness of mind, a labour of diction & development which seems to be striving towards great things & effecting a nullity. The Vedic singers, in the modern version, have nothing to say and do not know how to say it. I sacrifice, you drink, you are fine fellows, dont hurt me or let others hurt me, hurt my enemies, make me safe & comfortablethis is practically all that the ten Mandalas have to say to the gods & it is astonishing that they should be utterly at a loss how to say it intelligibly. A system which yields such results must have at its root some radical falsity, some cardinal error.

1.07 - Raja-Yoga in Brief, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  We have spoken about Yama and Niyama. The next is Asana (posture). The only thing to understand about it is leaving the body free, holding the chest, shoulders, and head straight. Then comes Pranayama. Prana means the vital forces in one's own body, yma means controlling them. There are three sorts of Pranayama, the very simple, the middle, and the very high. Pranayama is divided into three parts: filling, restraining, and emptying. When you begin with twelve seconds it is the lowest Pranayama; when you begin with twenty-four seconds it is the middle Pranayama; that Pranayama is the best which begins with thirty-six seconds. In the lowest kind of Pranayama there is perspiration, in the medium kind, quivering of the body, and in the highest Pranayama levitation of the body and influx of great bliss. There is a Mantra called the Gyatri. It is a very holy verse of the Vedas. "We meditate on the glory of that Being who has produced this universe; may He enlighten our minds." Om is joined to it at the beginning and the end. In one Pranayama repeat three Gayatris. In all books they speak of Pranayama being divided into Rechaka (rejecting or exhaling), Puraka (inhaling), and Kurnbhaka (restraining, stationary). The Indriyas, the organs of the senses, are acting outwards and coming in contact with external objects. Bringing them under the control of the will is what is called Pratyahara or gathering towards oneself. Fixing the mind on the lotus of the heart, or on the centre of the head, is what is called Dharana. Limited to one spot, making that spot the base, a particular kind of mental waves rises; these are not swallowed up by other kinds of waves, but by degrees become prominent, while all the others recede and finally disappear. Next the multiplicity of these waves gives place to unity and one wave only is left in the mind. This is Dhyana, meditation. When no basis is necessary, when the whole of the mind has become one wave, one-formedness, it is called Samadhi. Bereft of all help from places and centres, only the meaning of the thought is present. If the mind can be fixed on the centre for twelve seconds it will be a Dharana, twelve such Dharanas will be a Dhyana, and twelve such Dhyanas will be a Samadhi.
  Where there is fire, or in water or on ground which is strewn with dry leaves, where there are many ant-hills, where there are wild animals, or danger, where four streets meet, where there is too much noise, where there are many wicked persons, Yoga must not be practiced. This applies more particularly to India. Do not practice when the body feels very lazy or ill, or when the mind is very miserable and sorrowful. Go to a place which is well hidden, and where people do not come to disturb you. Do not choose dirty places. Rather choose beautiful scenery, or a room in your own house which is beautiful. When you practice, first salute all the ancient Yogis, and your own Guru, and God, and then begin.

1.07 - Samadhi, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  object:1.07 - Samadhi
  class:chapter
  CHAPTER VII ::: Samadhi
  1:MORE rubbish has been written about Samadhi than enough; we must endeavour to avoid adding to the heap. Even Patanjali, who is extraordinarily clear and practical in most things, begins to rave when he talks of it. Even if what he said were true he should not have mentioned it; because it does not sound true, and we should make no statement that is priori improbable without being prepared to back it up with the fullest proofs. But it is more than likely that his commentators have misunderstood him.
  2:The most reasonable statement, of any acknowledged authority, is that of Vajna Valkya, who says: "By Pranayama impurities of the body are thrown out; by Dharana the impurities of the mind; by Pratyahara the impurities of attachment; and by Samadhi is taken off everything that hides the lordship of the soul." There is a modest statement in good literary form. If we can only do as well as that!
  3:In the first place, what is the meaning of the term? Etymologically, "Sam" is the Greek {in Greek alphabet: sigma-upsilon-nu-} the English prefix "syn-" meaning "together with." "Adhi" means "Lord," and a reasonable translation of the whole word would be "Union with God," the exact term used by Christian mystics to describe their attainment.
  4:Now there is great confusion, because the Buddhists use the word Samadhi to mean something entirely different, the mere faculty of attention. Thus, with them, to think of a cat is to "make Samadhi" on that cat. They use the word Jhana to describe mystic states. This is excessively misleading, for as we saw in the last section, Dhyana is a preliminary of Samadhi, and of course Jhana is merely the wretched plebeian Pali corruption of it. footnote: The vulgarism and provincialism of the Buddhist cannon is infinitely repulsive to all nice minds; and the attempt to use the terms of an ego-centric philosophy to explain the details of a psychology whose principal doctrine is the denial of the ego, was the work of a mischievous idiot. Let us unhesitatingly reject these abominations, these nastinesses of the beggars dressed in rags that they have snatched from corpses, and follow the etymological signification of the word as given above!
  5:There are many kinds of Samadhi. footnote: Apparently. That is, the obvious results are different. Possibly the cause is only one, refracted through diverse media. "Some authors consider Atmadarshana, the Universe as a single phenomenon without conditions, to be the first real Samadhi." If we accept this, we must relegate many less exalted states to the class of Dhyana. Patanjali enumerates a number of these states: to perform these on different things gives different magical powers; or so he says. These need not be debated here. Any one who wants magic powers can get them in dozens of different ways.
  6:Power grows faster than desire. The boy who wants money to buy lead soldiers sets to work to obtain it, and by the time he has got it wants something else instead - in all probability something just beyond his means.
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  8:We shall therefore not trouble at all about what any Samadhi may or may not bring as far as its results in our lives are concerned. We began this book, it will be remembered, with considerations of death. Death has now lost all meaning. The idea of death depends on those of the ego, and of time; these ideas have been destroyed; and so "Death is swallowed up in victory." We shall now only be interested in what Samadhi is in itself, and in the conditions which cause it.
  9:Let us try a final definition. Dhyana resembles Samadhi in many respects. There is a union of the ego and the non-ego, and a loss of the senses of time and space and causality. Duality in any form is abolished. The idea of time involves that of two consecutive things, that of space two non-coincident things, that of causality two connected things.
  10:These Dhyanic conditions contradict those of normal thought; but in Samadhi they are very much more marked than in Dhyana. And while in the latter it seems like a simple union of two things, in the former it appears as if all things rushed together and united. One might say that in Dhyana there was still this quality latent, that the One existing was opposed to the Many non-existing; in Samadhi the Many and the One are united in a union of Existence with non-Existence. This definition is not made from reflection, but from memory.
  11:Further, it is easy to master the "trick" or "knack" of Dhyana. After a while one can get into that state without preliminary practice; and, looking at it from this point, one seems able to reconcile the two meanings of the word which we debated in the last section. From below Dhyana seems like a trance, an experience so tremendous that one cannot think of anything bigger, while from above it seems merely a state of mind as natural as any other. Frater P., before he had Samadhi, wrote of Dhyana: "Perhaps as a result of the intense control a nervous storm breaks: this we call Dhyana. Samadhi is but an expansion of this, so far as I can see."
  12:Five years later he would not take this view. He would say perhaps that Dhyana was "a flowing of the mind in one unbroken current from the ego to the non-ego without consciousness of either, accompanied by a crescent wonder and bliss." He can understand how that is the natural result of Dhyana, but he cannot call Dhyana in the same way the precursor of Samadhi. Perhaps he does not really know the conditions which induce Samadhi. He can produce Dhyana at will in the course of a few minutes' work; and it often happens with apparent spontaneity: with Samadhi this is unfortunately not the case. He probably can get it at will, but could not say exactly how, or tell how long it might take him; and he could not be "sure" of getting it at all.
  13:One feels "sure" that one can walk a mile along a level road. One knows the conditions, and it would have to be a very extraordinary set of circumstances that would stop one. But though it would be equally fair to say: "I have climbed the Matterhorn and I know I can climb it again," yet there are all sorts of more or less probable circumstances any one of which would prevent success.
  14:Now we do know this, that if thought is kept single and steady, Dhyana results. We do not know whether an intensification of this is sufficient to cause Samadhi, or whether some other circumstances are required. One is science, the other empiricism.
  15:One author says (unless memory deceives) that twelve seconds' steadiness is Dharana, a hundred and fortyfour Dhyana, and seventeen hundred and twenty-eight Samadhi. And Vivekananda, commenting on Patanjali, makes Dhyana a mere prolongation of Dharana; but says further: "Suppose I were meditating on a book, and I gradually succeeded in concentrating the mind on it , and perceiving only the internal sensation, the meaning unexpressed in any form, that state of Dhyana is called Samadhi."
  16:Other authors are inclined to suggest that Samadhi results from meditating on subjects that are in themselves worthy. For example, Vivekananda says: "Think of any holy subject\:" and explains this as follows: "This does not mean any wicked subject."(!)
  17:Frater P. would not like to say definitely whether he ever got Dhyana from common objects. He gave up the practice after a few months, and meditated on the Cakkras, etc. Also his Dhyana became so common that he gave up recording it. But if he wished to do it this minute he would choose something to excite his "godly fear," or "holy awe," or "wonderment." footnote: It is rather a breach of the scepticism which is the basis of our system to admit that anything can be in any way better than another. Do it thus: "A., is a thing that B. thinks 'holy.' It is natural therefore for B. to meditate on it." Get rid of the ego, observe all your actions as if they were another's, and you will avoid ninety-nine percent. of the troubles that await you. There is no apparent reason why Dhyana should not occur when thinking of any common object of the seashore, such as a blue pig; but Frater P.'s constant reference to this as the usual object of his meditation need not be taken "au pied de la lettre." His records of meditation contain no reference to this remarkable animal.
  18:It will be a good thing when organized research has determined the conditions of Samadhi; but in the meantime there seems no particular objection to our following tradition, and using the same objects of meditation as our predecessors, with the single exception which we shall note in due course.
  19:The first class of objects for serious meditation (as opposed to preliminary practice, in which one should keep to simple recognizable objects, whose definiteness is easy to maintain) is "various parts of the body." The Hindus have an elaborate system of anatomy and physiology which has apparently no reference to the facts of the dissecting-room. Prominent in this class are the seven Cakkras, which will be described in Part II. There are also various "nerves", equally mythical. WEH footnote: Not quite correct. Western anatomical knowledge has advanced since Crowley wrote this!
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  24:The Hindus assert that the nature of the object determines the Samadhi; that is, the nature of those lower Samadhis which confer so-called "magic powers." For example, there are the Yogapravritti. Meditating on the tip of the nose, one obtains what may be called the "ideal smell"; that is, a smell which is not any particular smell, but is the archetypal smell, of which all actual smells are modifications. It is "the smell which is "not" a smell." This is the only reasonable description; for the experience being contrary to reason, it is only reasonable that the words describing it should be contrary to reason too. footnote: Hence the Athanasian Creed. Compare the precise parallel in the Zohar: "The Head which is above all heads; the Head which is "not" a Head.'
  25:Similarly, concentration on the tip of the tongue gives the "ideal taste"; on the dorsum of the tongue, "ideal contact." "Every atom of the body comes into contact with every atom in the Universe all at once," is the description Bhikku Ananda Metteya gives of it. The root of the tongue gives the "ideal sound"; and the pharynx the "ideal sight." footnote: Similarly Patanjali tells us that by making Samyama on the strength of an elephant or a tiger, the student acquires that strength. Conquer "the nerve Udana," and you can walk on the water; "Samana," and you begin to flash with light; the "elements" fire, air, earth, and water, and you can do whatever in natural life they prevent you from doing. For instance, by conquering earth, one could take a short cut to Australia; or by conquering water, one can live at the bottom of the Ganges. They say there is a holy man at Benares who does this, coming up only once a year to comfort and instruct his disciples. But nobody need believe this unless he wants to; and you are even advised to conquer that desire should it arise. It will be interesting when science really determines the variables and constants of these equations.
  26:The Samadhi "par excellence," however, is Atmadarshana, which for some, and those not the least instructed, is the first real Samadhi; for even the visions of "God" and of the "Self" are tainted by form. In Atmadarshana the All is manifested as the One: it is the Universe freed from its conditions. Not only are all forms and ideas destroyed, but also those conceptions which are implicit in our ideas of those ideas. footnote: This is so complete that not only "Black is White," but "The Whiteness of Black is the essential of its Blackness." "Naught = One = Infinity"; but this is only true "because" of this threefold arrangement, a trinity or "triangle of contradictories." Each part of the Universe has become the whole, and phenomena and noumena are no longer opposed.
  27:But it is quite impossible to describe this state of mind. One can only specify some of the characteristics, and that in language which forms no image in mind. It is impossible for anyone who experiences it to bring back any adequate memory, nor can we conceive a state transcending this.

1.081 - The Application of Pratyahara, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  With this, the Samadhi Pada of the Yoga Sutras concludes. From the Vibhuti Pada onwards, we are given a passport to enter into the inner realm of yoga, which is concentration, meditation, and communion with the noble, great object of meditation. The Vibhuti Pada begins with dharana, or concentration of mind. Dea bandha cittasya dhra (III.1): The fixing of the attention of the mind on the given object wholeheartedly, spontaneously and entirely is called concentration.

1.089 - The Levels of Concentration, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  To refresh our memory, we can go back to one or two definitions of Patanjali given in the Samadhi Pada, which we studied long ago. The gross form of the object is a compound of several factors, says Patanjali: tatra abda artha jna vikalpai sa
  kr savitark sampatti (I.42). This was told to us in the Samadhi Pada. When we look at an object, we have three ideas jumbled together the object as such, the name that we have given to it, and the idea that we have about it. These three go together. Our idea about the object is reinforced by the name that we have given to it. The idea and the name jointly prevent our proper evaluation of the nature of the object as it is. It is my daughter. This idea, my daughter, my son, prevents us from knowing the nature of that person independently. We know very well what is the difference between our son and somebody elses son. There is a tremendous difference, though the substances behind these two persons are identical in every respect. The object that is the base of this concept called son is of the same nature in either case, but a tremendous gulf is created by the mind in its definitions. The definitions have so much meaning.
  What is a definition? It is nothing but a characterisation of an object in terms of our notion about that object. The moment we say, It is my son, there is so much meaning implied in that statement. If it is somebody elses son, that is another thing altogether. Why has such a meaning been foisted upon the object? It is because the idea is connected with the object, and the name is also there, together with it. We distinguish one of our sons from another of our sons by a name that we give. He is Rama. That is Gopal. They are only two words empty sounds that we have uttered. They themselves have no meaning, but they assume a meaning on account of their getting identified with the object, so that the word Rama, or Krishna, or Gopala etc., which are the names of our children, evoke in our minds certain feelings. The name generates or stirs certain ideas in the mind, and this name which stirs ideas in the mind will not allow us to have a correct concept of the object as it is. Our son is the most beautiful of all people. He is beautiful because he is our son.
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  That is what we are trying to achieve by samyama. Tasya bhmiu viniyoga (III.6). The bhumis, or the levels of concentration, which are suggested in this sutra are the levels mentioned in the Samadhi Pada where the various levels of Samadhis, or samapattis, are described. The grossest form of the object as it is visible to the ordinary, conceptual mind is the first stage of concentration. We take the object as it is, in the manner we are able to conceive it, think of it, etc. Then, we try to free it from the associations that we have created in respect of it by thinking of it as lovable or not loveable, pleasurable or otherwise, liked or not liked, tall or short, etc. An object is neither tall nor short this also is a very important thing to remember. Tallness and shortness, thickness and thinness, etc., are relative terms. If I bring before you a shirt and ask you, Is it a big shirt or a small shirt? you cannot say it is big or small because it depends upon the person. If it is a small child, he will say it is too big; if it is for a big man, he will say it is too small. We cannot say anything about any object unless we compare it with something else. This comparison should be removed. We must take it as it is; and nothing can be more difficult than this task.
  We cannot take anything as it is. We cannot take our own selves as we really are. Even we are invested with certain false values. We are really something different from what we appear. Everyone knows that. Likewise, everything else is different from what we think about it, so that there is a complete confusion in every kind of perception of the world. This is why we call it a world of relativities, where every characteristic hangs on something else. Independently, nothing is known. Hence the stages, or the bhumis, or the levels of the practice of samyama are the gradual characterisations of the object, going deeper and deeper, freeing it more and more from external association.

1.08 - Adhyatma Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
  34. Be firm in the vow of Brahmacharya. Control the senses and the mind. Abandon greed. Cultivate dispassion. Make the mind one-pointed. Sit steadily on Padma, Siddha or Sukha or Svastika Asanas. Now meditate and practise Yoga. You will attain Samadhi or the superconscious state.
  35. Now you will behold the One Atman in all beings and all beings in the Atman.

1.08 - Summary, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
    Fourthly, we suppress all other thoughts by a direct concentration upon a single thought. This process, which leads to the highest results, consists of three parts, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi, grouped under the single term Samyama.
  Q.

1.08 - The Depths of the Divine, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
  As one pursues this "self-inquiry" into the source of thoughts, into the source of "I" and the "world," one enters a state of pure empty awareness, free of all objects whatsoever-precisely Eckhart's "completely unaware of all things"-which in Vedanta is known as nirvikalpa Samadhi (nirvikalpa means "without any qualities or objects"). In awareness, there is perfect clarity, perfect consciousness, but the entire manifest world (up to and including the subtle) simply ceases to arise, and one is directly introduced to what Eckhart called "the naked existence of Godhead." Sri Ramana:
  If you hold to the Self [remain as Witness in all circumstances], there is no second. When you see the world you have lost hold of the Self. On the contrary, hold the Self and the world will not appear.
  By unswerving vigilant constancy in the Self, ceaseless like the unbroken flow of water, is generated the natural or changeless state of nirvikalpa Samadhi, which readily and spontaneously yields that direct, immediate, unobstructed and universal perception of Brahman, which transcends all time and space.56
  For Ramana and Eckhart (and not them alone), the causal is a type of ultimate omega point (but it is not, as we will see, the end of the story). As the Source of all manifestation, it the Goal of all development. Ramana: "This is SelfRealization; and thereby is cut asunder the Knot of the Heart [the separate-self sense]; this is the limitless bliss of liberation, beyond doubt and duality. To realize this state of freedom from duality is the summum bonum of life: and he alone that has won it is a jivanmukta (the liberated one while yet alive), and not he who has merely a theoretical understanding of the Self or the desired end and aim of all human behavior. The disciple is then enjoined to remain in the beatitude of Aham-Brahman-'I-I' is the Absolute."57
  --
  This move from causal unmanifest to nondual embrace, Ramana refers to as the development from nirvikalpa to sahaj Samadhi, which means "unbroken and spontaneously so," a "state" in which "the whole cosmos [Kosmos] is contained in the Heart, with perfect equality of all, for grace is all-pervading and there is nothing that is not the Self.
  All this world is Brahman."58

1.094 - Understanding the Structure of Things, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  Now we come to the point of practice of yoga, which is the intention in this sutra: etena bhtendriyeu dharma lakaa avasth parim vykhyt (III.13). Just as there are the parinamas, or transformations, of the mind known as nirodha parinama, Samadhi parinama and ekagrata parinama, there are the dharma, laksana and avastha parinamas of everything. In fact, dharma, laksana and avastha are only other names for these three parinamas mentioned already namely, nirodha, Samadhi and ekagrata.
  Hence, we have to establish a connection between the mind and the object by means of understanding these laksanas, avasthas, etc., which are the powers operating behind the form. It was also said that these properties inhere in the substance, prakriti, and because of the inherence of these properties which are dharmas, they are called dharmi. What is dharma and what is dharmi? It is mentioned in the next sutra: nta udita avyapadeya dharma anupt dharm (III.14). A dharmi is a substance in which dharmas inhere, exist. How do they exist? They exist in three ways: as the past, as the present and as the future. Santa, udita and avyapadesa, the three terms used in this sutra, mean respectively, the past, the present and the future. A particular character of an object that is cognisable or perceptible is the present condition of that object; it is not the whole condition.

1.096 - Powers that Accrue in the Practice, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  As I mentioned previously, these powers are of three kinds, or categories: the objective, the subjective and the Absolute, or we may call it the Universal. Powers that one gains in respect of the objective world are of one kind; those pertaining to the subjective faculties are of a different kind; and those that are intended to bring about the salvation of the spirit, ultimately, are of a third kind altogether. The secret of this practice, or rather the technique behind this samyama in respect of any chosen object, is given in a sutra in the Samadhi Pada itself, which we studied long ago.
  How is it that we come to acquire power at all? What is the secret behind it? Why is it that we do not simply have any power now, at this present moment? Why has this power come now? Where was it hidden up to this time? This has been made clear in a sutra in the Samadhi Pada which goes as follows: kavtte abhijtasya iva mae graht grahaa grhyeu tatstha tadajanat sampatti (I.41). This requires the meditating mind to become consubstantial with the object the subject united with the object so that it gains insight into the nature of the object. Then it is that the gulf separating the mind from the object is bridged by the practice of samyama, and the powers inherent in the object flow into the subject. That is the secret. Whatever is your power becomes my power when I become one with you. This is to state the whole method in simple terms. That which is outside our capacity comes within our capacity when that in which this capacity is inherent comes under our control. And this control is not an ordinary type of authority that we exercise over an object, as a master exercises authority over a servant. It is not like that. It is a complete mastery where that which is to be controlled does not stand outside the subject controlling it. It has become one, organically. This is the meaning of this sutra which has been given to us in the Samadhi Pada.
  Now, applying this technique, Patanjali tells us that we can control anything, whether it is visible or invisible, material or otherwise. The objective side, which is known as grahaya samapatti in the language of yoga, is intended to control the elements. The five elements which constitute this vast world, or rather the entire universe of physical nature, are supposed to be under ones control, provided samyama is practised on them. Earth, water, fire, air and ether these are the elements, and no one can have any control over them. They are the masters, as is well known. But they can be controlled, says the sutra, provided we establish a harmony with them and we become one with the law which operates them in the universe. This is called bhutajaya control of the elements.

1.097 - Sublimation of Object-Consciousness, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  In about four sutras we are given the final touches of the practice of samyama for the liberation of the spirit. They are very concisely treated inasmuch as many of the details have already been furnished in the Samadhi Pada itself, and there is no need to reiterate all those various aspects that have been touched upon in the relevant sutras in the first pada.
  The particular type of meditation that is directly responsible for the liberation of the soul is meditation on the purusha, as the sutra tells us. Sattva puruayo atyantsamkrayo pratyaya aviea bhoga parr thatvt svrthasayamt puruajnam (III.36), says the sutra. The knowledge of the purusha is the knowledge of the Absolute. This comes by meditation on the purusha as the Ultimate Principle. No other kind of meditation can lead to liberation, though it can lead to various experiences, or powers. Also, it is the most difficult type of meditation because it requires qualifications not merely of the will or the thought, but also of the moral consciousness and the emotions. All these are known to us, as they have been described earlier.
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  This sort of bhoga, or pleasurable experience, is the opposite of the requisite of spiritual salvation. Hence, yoga becomes difficult. The most difficult thing to undergo, and even conceive in the mind, is the abolition of all possible joys in this world. The mind is used to the joy of contact with objects, which is called bhoga. But, the sutra tells us that is an error, that it is a great mistake which has been committed due to an imaginary experience of happiness. It is not happiness at all. It is a kind of stirring of the organism by certain reactionary processes brought about by the contact a fact which the mind cannot understand. It is a trick of nature by which it keeps the mind tied to ordinary experience. This pratyaya avishesa is bhoga. An absence of the consciousness of the distinction between the character of the mind and the nature of the purusha is called world experience. This has to be cut at the root by the methods of meditation mentioned in the Samadhi Pada.
  Svrthasayamt puruajnam (III.36). Here is the secret of yoga, or true meditation, from the spiritual point of view. Purusha jnana, or knowledge of the purusha, arises by svartha samyama samyama on svartha, meditation on ones own essential nature, or the purpose of the spirit. This is the meditation prescribed. The purpose of the spirit, the character of the spirit, is the object of meditation. We cannot once again go into all the details of this subject, inasmuch as we have covered it in the Samadhi Pada. But suffice it to say that the contemplation of the nature of the spirit, or its purpose, is equivalent to a precondition of a grasp of the nature of the spirit by viveka shakti, or analytic understanding. It is enough for the mind to understand and appreciate that the purusha is consciousness in nature. And consciousness has to be indivisible, by the very nature of it, which means that it is infinite, unconditioned by objects, space and time. Therefore, any experience in terms of space and time or objects is contrary to the nature of the purusha. Hence, there should be an effort exercised upon the mind to sublimate object awareness into spiritual awareness.
  Spiritual contemplation is a process of sublimation of objectivity into universality. This kind of meditation is what is introduced in this sutra, and when this is practised, purusha jnana arises knowledge of the purusha comes. But this is a hard task because the conception of the purusha is not provided to the mind usually, in ordinary world experience. The nature of the purusha does not mean the nature of the individual self. It is the nature of the Universal Self. Purusha is a name that we give to the Absolute itself that which comprehends all things. Therefore, there is the need for the practice of those conditions mentioned in the Samadhi Pada, meaning the conditions which are designated as vairagya and abhyasa.
  Da nuravika viaya vitasya vakrasaj vairgyam (I.15). A complete absence of taste for things which are seen as well as unseen has been described as vairagya. This meditation cannot come to a person who has a taste for things which are outside. It is not merely an absence of sense-contact; it is an absence of taste itself. Vitrishnasya is the term used. A dislike arisen on account of the non-cognition of value in things which are external this is called vairagya. And a persistent practice of this condition, the maintenance of this awareness, called vashikara samjna that is called abhyasa. All these we have studied in the Samadhi Pada. This is the technique.
  Patanjali mentions this to us once again, in the Vibhuti Pada, for the purpose of acquisition of the knowledge of the purusha. Sattva purua anyat khytimtrasya sarvabhva adhihttva sarvajttva ca (III.50). When there is an acquisition of this understanding and an establishment of oneself in this status of meditation, some extraordinary results follow, and they are mentioned as sarva bhava adhis thatritva and sarva jnatritva. One becomes the substratum of everything as a result of this meditation that is sarva bhava adhis thatritva. As the substratum of all things, there is no need for this consciousness to move towards objects, because it is the substratum of even the object. As the result of this, again, there is sarva jnatritva knowledge of everything. The substance of everything is also endowed with the knowledge of everything. It follows, because everything is a modification of the substance. One who has become the substance itself, as the substratum of all things, naturally gets endowed with this knowledge. This knowledge is called taraka that which takes one across the ocean of sorrow.
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  It has to be taken for granted that the conditions which are stated in earlier sutras as necessary for this practice are already acquired to an appreciable degree. In fact, everything that is of importance in the practice of yoga has been mentioned in the Samadhi Pada itself. That one pada is sufficient it is a complete statement of the entire process of yoga practice. The other sections are like an elaborate commentary on those instructions which are given in the Samadhi Pada. We have to recall to our minds, once again, what are these conditions. One of the main things mentioned in the Samadhi Pada were vairagya and abhyasa, and tivra samvegatva intense ardour of the aspiring spirit is required in order that success may become imminent.
  The ardour of the soul was stated to be a very essential condition for quick success. What is the ardour; what is the fervour; what is the aspiring spirit; what is its intensity? That will be the factor which will judge the quickness of the success. Of course, the other things that were mentioned in the Samadhi Pada are the different methods of practice. How the mind can be fixed on different objects initially so that later on it can be fixed on any object, for the matter of that, for the purpose of samyama, was mentioned in the Samadhi Pada. The world of objects becomes, finally, the object of meditation. The methods of Patanjali are really those stated to be what he calls savitarka, savichara, sananda and sasmita Samadhis. These are the secrets of Patanjalis yoga, and everything else is an explanation thereof. We have studied this what savitarka means, etc.
  These stages are the gradual sublimations of world-consciousness, or object-consciousness, by diminishing the distance between the subject and the object of meditation, which takes place automatically and for which there is no need for any special effort. The distance that separates the experiencing consciousness from its object becomes less and less as one advances more and more, so that what is called samyama in the Vibhuti Pada is the abolition of this distance itself. There is a complete transcendence of spatial awareness in samyama.
  Thus, there is a very scientific methodology provided to us in these sutras, which have to be studied gradually, stage by stage, in their successive intensity and applicability. Many authors think that the sutras of Patanjali in respect of yoga are concluded with the Vibhuti Pada because in it he mentions that kaivalya is attained. What else is there to say, afterwards? Some people are of the opinion that there are only three sections of Patanjali, not four sections, but there are others who think that there should be four sections, not three, because each section is called a pada Samadhi Pada, Sadhana Pada, Vibhuti Pada and Kaivalya Pada. A pada is a quarter, and we cannot have three quarters; quarters are always four. So, inasmuch as the word pada is used in respect of each section, it is the opinion of many that four sections must be there, not three. And the fourth section has a meaning of its own. Though it is not directly connected with practice, it furnishes certain details. Just as there are people who think that the Bhagavadgita ends with the eleventh chapter and the successive chapters are additions, as a kind of commentary, there are others who think that they are not simply additions; they have an organic connection with what has preceded.
  So is the case with these sutras. The Kaivalya Pada is a metaphysical disquisition of Patanjali, where we find his philosophical peculiarities as distinct from other schools of thought, which of course have great relevance to the practice which he has described in the earlier sutras.

1.099 - The Entry of the Eternal into the Individual, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  We are now at the Kaivalya Pada, which deals with various subjects as a sort of explanation of some of the themes dealt with already in the earlier sections. The Vibhuti Pada concluded with an enunciation of the perfection which one attains through the practice of yoga. This subject is continued in the first sutra of the Kaivalya Pada where it is stated that perfections, though not absolute, can come by other means, and they remain only relative. There are various ways of disciplining oneself, and even a little discipline can bring a corresponding perfection. In the first sutra of the Kaivalya Pada it is said that there are five ways by which perfection can be attained. Though the supreme method is yoga Samadhi itself, known as samyama, there are other methods which are of a simpler character and whose results are temporal.
  Janma auadhi mantra tapa samdhij siddhaya (IV.1). Siddhis are perfections or attainments achievements of powers. It is seen that certain created beings are born with certain perfections. This accompaniment of a perfection, or a siddhi, with ones birth is due to previous practice. Many a time it so happens that the result of even a protracted practice cannot be seen or visualised in ones life due to various obstacles in the form of impeding prarabdhas. This has been the case with many seekers. But, when they give up their body without apparently having achieved any perfection or having had no achievement at all, they are reborn with the manifestation of the results of their earlier practice.
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  But the most prominent of all these is samyama, which is the subject of the Vibhuti Pada. That is also referred to here by the term Samadhi. The communion of the individual with the object releases the total energy of the objects, and then it is that the meditating subject is invested with an enormous power which would have otherwise been completely isolated from it. The power of the world is outside us, and we seem to be little inhabitants of the world who cannot participate in the powers of nature. But by samyama, the powers of nature can be absorbed into our system.
  How this happens is mentioned in the next sutra: jtyantara parima praktyprt (IV.2). The powers of nature are permanently there in a uniform state. There is neither an increase nor a decrease in the powers of nature. As scientists tell us, there is what is known as the system or the principle of conservation of energy, which states that the energy the total power or force of nature is constant. It does not increase or decrease day by day by external factors. Factors outside nature do not exist. And so, what appears to be an increase of power or capacity is only an entry of certain forces of nature into the system of a human individual. Any kind of transformation in a positive degree is the flowing of the powers of nature into ones system. Prakriti-apuratis the term used in the sutra. The filling up by prakriti is what is known as prakriti-apurat.

1.09 - Concentration - Its Spiritual Uses, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  It is the highest manifestation of the power of Vairagya when it takes away even our attraction towards the qualities. We have first to understand what the Purusha, the Self, is and what the qualities are. According to Yoga philosophy, the whole of nature consists of three qualities or forces; one is called Tamas, another Rajas, and the third Sattva. These three qualities manifest themselves in the physical world as darkness or inactivity, attraction or repulsion, and equilibrium of the two. Everything that is in nature, all manifestations, are combinations and recombinations of these three forces. Nature has been divided into various categories by the Snkhyas; the Self of man is beyond all these, beyond nature. It is effulgent, pure, and perfect. Whatever of intelligence we see in nature is but the reflection of this Self upon nature. Nature itself is insentient. You must remember that the word nature also includes the mind; mind is in nature; thought is in nature; from thought, down to the grossest form of matter, everything is in nature, the manifestation of nature. This nature has covered the Self of man, and when nature takes away the covering, the self appears in Its own glory. The non-attachment, as described in aphorism 15 (as being control of objects or nature) is the greatest help towards manifesting the Self. The next aphorism defines Samadhi, perfect concentration which is the goal of the Yogi.
  
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   Samadhi is divided into two varieties. One is called the Samprajnta, and the other the Asamprajnta. In the Samprajnata Samadhi come all the powers of controlling nature. It is of four varieties. The first variety is called the Savitarka, when the mind meditates upon an object again and again, by isolating it from other objects. There are two sorts of objects for meditation in the twenty-five categories of the Sankhyas, (1) the twenty-four insentient categories of Nature, and (2) the one sentient Purusha. This part of Yoga is based entirely on Sankhya philosophy, about which I have already told you. As you will remember, egoism and will and mind have a common basis, the Chitta or the mind-stuff, out of which they are all manufactured. The mind-stuff takes in the forces of nature, and projects them as thought. There must be something, again, where both force and matter are one. This is called Avyakta, the unmanifested state of nature before creation, and to which, after the end of a cycle, the whole of nature returns, to come out again after another period. Beyond that is the Purusha, the essence of intelligence. Knowledge is power, and as soon as we begin to know a thing, we get power over it; so also when the mind begins to meditate on the different elements, it gains power over them. That sort of meditation where the external gross elements are the objects is called Savitarka. Vitarka means question; Savitarka, with question, questioning the elements, as it were, that they may give their truths and their powers to the man who meditates upon them. There is no liberation in getting powers. It is a worldly search after enjoyments, and there is no enjoyment in this life; all search for enjoyment is vain; this is the old, old lesson which man finds so hard to learn. When he does learn it, he gets out of the universe and becomes free. The possession of what are called occult powers is only intensifying the world, and in the end, intensifying suffering. Though as a scientist Patanjali is bound to point out the possibilities of this science, he never misses an opportunity to warn us against these powers.
  Again, in the very same meditation, when one struggles to take the elements out of time and space, and think of them as they are, it is called Nirvitarka, without question. When the meditation goes a step higher, and takes the Tanmatras as its object, and thinks of them as in time and space, it is called Savichra, with discrimination; and when in the same meditation one eliminates time and space, and thinks of the fine elements as they are, it is called Nirvichra, without discrimination. The next step is when the elements are given up, both gross and fine, and the object of meditation is the interior organ, the thinking organ. When the thinking organ is thought of as bereft of the qualities of activity and dullness, it is then called Snanda, the blissful Samadhi. When the mind itself is the object of meditation, when meditation becomes very ripe and concentrated, when all ideas of the gross and fine materials are given up, when the Sattva state only of the Ego remains, but differentiated from all other objects, it is called Ssmita Samadhi. The man who has attained to this has attained to what is called in the Vedas "bereft of body". He can think of himself as without his gross body; but he will have to think of himself as with a fine body. Those that in this state get merged in nature without attaining the goal are called Prakritilayas, but those who do not stop even there reach the goal, which is freedom.
  
  18. There is another Samadhi which is attained by the constant practice of cessation of all mental activity, in which the Chitta retains only the unmanifested impressions.
  This is the perfect superconscious Asamprajnata Samadhi, the state which gives us freedom. The first state does not give us freedom, does not liberate the soul. A man may attain to all powers, and yet fall again. There is no safeguard until the soul goes beyond nature. It is very difficult to do so, although the method seems easy. The method is to meditate on the mind itself, and whenever thought comes, to strike it down, allowing no thought to come into the mind, thus making it an entire vacuum. When we can really do this, that very moment we shall attain liberation. When persons without training and preparation try to make their minds vacant, they are likely to succeed only in covering themselves with Tamas, the material of ignorance, which makes the mind dull and stupid, and leads them to think that they are making a vacuum of the mind. To be able to really do that is to manifest the greatest strength, the highest control. When this state, Asamprajnata, superconsciousness, is reached, the Samadhi becomes seedless. What is meant by that? In a concentration where there is consciousness, where the mind succeeds only in quelling the waves in the Chitta and holding them down, the waves remain in the form of tendencies. These tendencies (or seeds) become waves again, when the time comes. But when you have destroyed all these tendencies, almost destroyed the mind, then the Samadhi becomes seedless; there are no more seeds in the mind out of which to manufacture again and again this plant of life, this ceaseless round of birth and death.
  You may ask, what state would that be in which there is no mind, there is no knowledge? What we call knowledge is a lower state than the one beyond knowledge. You must always bear in mind that the extremes look very much alike. If a very low vibration of ether is taken as darkness, an intermediate state as light, very high vibration will be darkness again. Similarly, ignorance is the lowest state, knowledge is the middle state, and beyond knowledge is the highest state, the two extremes of which seem the same. Knowledge itself is a manufactured something, a combination; it is not reality.
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  19. (This Samadhi when not followed by extreme non-attachment) becomes the cause of the re-manifestation of the gods and of those that become merged in nature.
  The gods in the Indian systems of philosophy represent certain high offices which are filled successively by various souls. But none of them is perfect.
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  20. To others (this Samadhi) comes through faith, energy, memory, concentration, and discrimination of the real.
  These are they who do not want the position of gods or even that of rulers of cycles. They attain to liberation.
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  42. Sound, meaning, and resulting knowledge, being mixed up, is (called) Samadhi with question.
  Sound here means vibration, meaning the nerve currents which conduct it; and knowledge, reaction. All the various meditations we have had so far, Patanjali calls Savitarka (meditation with question). Later on he gives us higher and higher Dhynas. In these that are called "with question," we keep the duality of subject and object, which results from the mixture of word, meaning, and knowledge. There is first the external vibration, the word. This, carried inward by the sense currents, is the meaning. After that there comes a reactionary wave in the Chitta, which is knowledge, but the mixture of these three makes up what we call knowledge. In all the meditations up to this we get this mixture as objects of meditation. The next Samadhi is higher.
  
  43. The Samadhi called "without question" (comes) when the memory is purified, or devoid of qualities, expressing only the meaning (of the meditated object).
  It is by the practice of meditation of these three that we come to the state where these three do not mix. We can get rid of them. We will first try to understand what these three are. Here is the Chitta; you will always remember the simile of the mind-stuff to a lake, and the vibration, the word, the sound, like a pulsation coming over it. You have that calm lake in you, and I pronounce a word, "Cow". As soon as it enters through your ears there is a wave produced in your Chitta along with it. So that wave represents the idea of the cow, the form or the meaning as we call it. The apparent cow that you know is really the wave in the mind-stuff that comes as a reaction to the internal and external sound vibrations. With the sound, the wave dies away; it can never exist without a word. You may ask how it is, when we only think of the cow, and do not hear a sound. You make that sound yourself. You are saying "cow" faintly in your mind, and with that comes a wave. There cannot be any wave without this impulse of sound; and when it is not from outside, it is from inside, and when the sound dies, the wave dies. What remains? The result of the reaction, and that is knowledge. These three are so closely combined in our mind that we cannot separate them. When the sound comes, the senses vibrate, and the wave rises in reaction; they follow so closely upon one another that there is no discerning one from the other. When this meditation has been practiced for a long time, memory, the receptacle of all impressions, becomes purified, and we are able clearly to distinguish them from one another. This is called Nirvitarka, concentration without question.
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  49. The knowledge that is gained from testimony and inference is about common objects. That from the Samadhi just mentioned is of a much higher order, being able to penetrate where inference and testimony cannot go.
  The idea is that we have to get our knowledge of ordinary objects by direct perception, and by inference therefrom, and from testimony of people who are competent. By "people who are competent," the Yogis always mean the Rishis, or the Seers of the thoughts recorded in the scriptures the Vedas. According to them, the only proof of the scriptures is that they were the testimony of competent persons, yet they say the scriptures cannot take us to realisation. We can read all the Vedas, and yet will not realise anything, but when we practise their teachings, then we attain to that state which realises what the scriptures say, which penetrates where neither reason nor perception nor inference can go, and where the testimony of others cannot avail. This is what is meant by the aphorism.
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  50. The resulting impression from this Samadhi obstructs all other impressions.
  We have seen in the foregoing aphorism that the only way of attaining to that superconsciousness is by concentration, and we have also seen that what hinder the mind from concentration are the past Samskaras, impressions. All of you have observed that, when you are trying to concentrate your mind, your thoughts wander. When you are trying to think of God, that is the very time these Samskaras appear. At other times they are not so active; but when you want them not, they are sure to be there, trying their best to crowd in your mind. Why should that be so? Why should they be much more potent at the time of concentration? It is because you are repressing them, and they react with all their force. At other times they do not react. How countless these old past impressions must be, all lodged somewhere in the Chitta, ready, waiting like tigers, to jump up! These have to be suppressed that the one idea which we want may arise, to the exclusion of the others. Instead they are all struggling to come up at the same time. These are the various powers of the Samskaras in hindering concentration of the mind. So this Samadhi which has just been given is the best to be practised, on account of its power of suppressing the Samskaras. The Samskara which will be raised by this sort of concentration will be so powerful that it will hinder the action of the others, and hold them in check.
    
  51. By the restraint of even this (impression, which obstructs all other impressions), all being restrained, comes the "seedless" Samadhi.
  You remember that our goal is to perceive the Soul itself. We cannot perceive the Soul, because it has got mingled up with nature, with the mind, with the body. The ignorant man thinks his body is the Soul. The learned man thinks his mind is the Soul. But both of them are mistaken. What makes the Soul get mingled up with all this? Different waves in the Chitta rise and cover the Soul; we only see a little reflection of the Soul through these waves; so, if the wave is one of anger, we see the Soul as angry; "I am angry," one says. If it is one of love, we see ourselves reflected in that wave, and say we are loving. If that wave is one of weakness, and the Soul is reflected in it, we think we are weak. These various ideas come from these impressions, these Samskaras covering the Soul. The real nature of the Soul is not perceived as long as there is one single wave in the lake of the Chitta; this real nature will never be perceived until all the waves have subsided. So, first, Patanjali teaches us the meaning of these waves; secondly, the best way to repress them; and thirdly, how to make one wave so strong as to suppress all other waves, fire eating fire as it were. When only one remains, it will be easy to suppress that also, and when that is gone, this Samadhi or concentration is called seedless. It leaves nothing, and the Soul is manifested just as It is, in Its own glory. Then alone we know that the Soul is not a compound; It is the only eternal simple in the universe, and as such, It cannot be born, It cannot die; It is immortal, indestructible, the ever-living essence of intelligence.

1.09 - Kundalini Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
  17. He who has firm faith in the scriptures, who has Sadachara (right conduct), who constantly engages himself in the service of his Guru, who is free from lust, anger, delusion, greed, vanity, hatred and egoism can awaken Kundalini, attain perfection and enter into Samadhi quickly.
  18. The first step in Kundalini Yoga is the purification of Nadis.
  --
  35. Eventually the Yogi attains Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the state of superconsciousness. He gets intuition. Real knowledge flashes in him.
  36. These are the signs that indicate that Kundalini has been awakenedviz., dispassion, fearlessness, joy, ecstasy, peace, unruffled state of mind, Siddhis or powers, contentment.

1.1.02 - The Aim of the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Life. Your object, on the other hand, can only be gained by entering into Samadhi and ceasing in it from all connection with world-existence.
  The way of Yoga followed here has a different purpose from others, - for its aim is not only to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.

1.107 - The Bestowal of a Divine Gift, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  When everything is done, and we are in the hall of the divine Absolute, then the glory dawns, which is the experience designated in the sutra of Patanjali as dharma-megha Samadhi. This is a grand experience, very majestic. Once we reach that state, there is no fear. We are real masters. Prasakhyne api akusdasya sarvath vivekakhyte dharmamegha samdhi (IV.29). We do not know why he has given this name to it. It is a peculiar novelty of Patanjali. Many people interpret it in many ways. What is dharma, and what is megha? If we look at the dictionary, we will see that a very simple meaning is given. Dharma is virtue, righteousness; megha is cloud. So what does dharma-megha the cloud of righteousness, the cloud of virtue mean?
  The meaning of this epithet in respect of this spiritual experience seems to be that there will be a shower of virtue not a virtue that we deliberately practise as a sadhana, but a spontaneous rain of divine grace which will come like a flood of showers from all sides. The virtues which we practise as a sadhana are different from the virtues which automatically proceed as a spontaneous character of ones enlightened being. In the beginning they are efforts, but in the later stages they become our own nature. We need not put on a switch to have the light; the light is there, as is the case with the self-luminous sun. The dharma-megha is, therefore, an indication that we are in the vicinity of the great goal. Though it has not been reached yet, we have inklings of its presence. There are indications that we are approaching it. Prasakhyne api akusdasya sarvath vivekakhyte dharmamegha samdhi (IV.29) is the condition that precedes this experience of dharma-megha.
  --
  There are no physical obstacles in the higher realms. The obstacle in the physical world is the physical body. That is the object and, therefore, we cannot enjoy it properly. The presence of the physical body obstructs the union that we seek with the object, which is the reason for this search for enjoyment through the senses. But there are no physical bodies in the higher realms; therefore, the temptations are more powerful, and it is a greater difficulty there than here on earth. It is possible that one can get stuck in the higher realms more easily than on earth. All these have to be watched with great care, and the sutra tells us: What to talk of these enjoyments; you have to be free even from the desire to have omniscience, and you should ask for pure Being-consciousness only. Sarvatha vivekakhyateh it is not knowledge of things that we are asking for; it is knowledge as such, which is knowledge of being alone. This is the purusha. Then comes dharma-megha Samadhi. At that time, what happens?
  Nobody can say what happens. No one can go there and see what happens. Dharma-megha Samadhi is only a term which is defined in various ways, but it is said to be a divine gift which is bestowed upon the seeker by the powers that be the divine forces that guard the cosmos. Rapturous descriptions of this condition can be found in such scriptures as the Yoga Vasishtha where we are told that even the divine beings, the guardians of the cosmos, become our servants. The guardians of the cosmos become the servants of this man. Such things are told in the Yoga Vasishtha and other scriptures of that kind.
  We will become the master. There is the shadowy persistence of the ego which has taken a cosmic form, a kind of vritti which sometimes is called, in the language of the Vedanta, as brahmakara-vritti. It is only a theoretical description of the forms that the mind has taken, and is really not a vritti at all. Merely because it has to subside afterwards, we also call it a vritti. It is a vritti which the mind puts on with a single object in front of it that is called brahmakara-vritti. The other vrittis, which are called vishayakara-vrittis,are those which have many objects in front of them the usual vrittis of the mind which are in respect of various objects of sense, as is the case with people like us at present.
  We have many things in front of us. The mind thinks of many objects; that is vishayakara-vritti. But in the brahmakara-vritti, there is only one object in front of the mind, and that is the Cosmic Being. It has no other vritti. There is a total awakening of the mind into the content of the whole universe, and the total universe becomes its object. There is no multitude or variety of content in the vritti. It is a single universal content. When the mind assumes that form, it is called the brahmakara-vritti. Such sort of experience is perhaps comparable with what the sutra calls dharma-megha Samadhi.

1.10 - Concentration - Its Practice, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  2. (It is for) the practice of Samadhi and minimising the pain-bearing obstructions.
  Most of us make our minds like spoilt children, allowing them to do whatever they want. Therefore it is necessary that Kriya-yoga should be constantly practised, in order to gain control of the mind, and bring it into subjection. The obstructions to Yoga arise from lack of control, and cause us pain. They can only be removed by denying the mind, and holding it in check, through the means of Kriya-yoga.
  --
  45. By sacrificing all to Ishvara comes Samadhi.
  By resignation to the Lord, Samadhi becomes perfect.
  46. Posture is that which is firm and pleasant.

1.10 - The Yoga of the Intelligent Will, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The sign of the man in Samadhi is not that he loses consciousness of objects and surroundings and of his mental and physical self and cannot be recalled to it even by burning or torture of the body, - the ordinary idea of the matter; trance
  102
  --
   is a particular intensity, not the essential sign. The test is the expulsion of all desires, their inability to get at the mind, and it is the inner state from which this freedom arises, the delight of the soul gathered within itself with the mind equal and still and highpoised above the attractions and repulsions, the alternations of sunshine and storm and stress of the external life. It is drawn inward even when acting outwardly; it is concentrated in self even when gazing out upon things; it is directed wholly to the Divine even when to the outward vision of others busy and preoccupied with the affairs of the world. Arjuna, voicing the average human mind, asks for some outward, physical, practically discernible sign of this great Samadhi; how does such a man speak, how sit, how walk? No such signs can be given, nor does the Teacher attempt to supply them; for the only possible test of its possession is inward and that there are plenty of hostile psychological forces to apply. Equality is the great stamp of the liberated soul and of that equality even the most discernible signs are still subjective. "A man with mind untroubled by sorrows, who has done with desire for pleasures, from whom liking and wrath and fear have passed away, such is the sage whose understanding has become founded in stability." He is "without the triple action of the qualities of Prakriti, without the dualities, ever based in his true being, without getting or having, possessed of his self."
  For what gettings and havings has the free soul? Once we are possessed of the Self, we are in possession of all things.

1.11 - Powers, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  That comes when in meditation the form or the external part is given up. Suppose I were meditating on a book, and that I have gradually succeeded in concentrating the mind on it, and perceiving only the internal sensations, the meaning, unexpressed in any form that state of Dhyana is called Samadhi.
  
  --
  When a man can direct his mind to any particular object and fix it there, and then keep it there for a long time, separating the object from the internal part, this is Samyama; or Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi, one following the other, and making one. The form of the thing has vanished, and only its meaning remains in the mind.
  
  --
  Before these we had the Pratyhra, the Prnyma, the sana, the Yama and Niyama; they are external parts of the three Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. When a man has attained to them, he may attain to omniscience and omnipotence, but that would not be salvation. These three would; not make the mind Nirvikalpa, changeless, but would leave the seeds for getting bodies again. Only when the seeds are, as the Yogi says, "fried", do they lose the possibility of producing further plants. These powers cannot fry the seed.
  
  --
  Compared with that seedless Samadhi, therefore, even these are external. We have not yet reached the real Samadhi, the highest, but a lower stage, in which this universe still exists as we see it, and in which are all these powers.
  -- -
  --
  That is to say, in this first state of Samadhi the modifications of the mind have been controlled, but not perfectly, because if they were, there would be no modifications. If there is a modification which impels the mind to rush out through the senses, and the Yogi tries to control it, that very control itself will be a modification. One wave will be checked by another wave, so it will not be real Samadhi in which all the waves subside, as control itself will be a wave. Yet this lower Samadhi is very much nearer to the higher Samadhi than when the mind comes bubbling out.
  
  --
  11. Taking in all sorts of objects, and concentrating upon one object, these two powers being destroyed and manifested respectively, the Chitta gets the modification called Samadhi.
  The mind takes up various objects, runs into all sorts of things. That is the lower state. There is a higher state of the mind, when it takes up one object and excludes all others, of which Samadhi is the result.
   -
  --
  38. These are obstacles to Samadhi; but they are powers in the worldly state.
  To the Yogi knowledge of the enjoyments of the world comes by the junction of the Purusha and the mind. If he wants to make Samyama on the knowledge that they are two different things, nature and soul, he gets knowledge of the Purusha. From that arises discrimination. When he has got that discrimination, he gets the Pratibha, the light of supreme genius. These powers, however, are obstructions to the attainment of the highest goal, the knowledge of the pure Self, and freedom. These are, as it were, to be met in the way; and if the Yogi rejects them, he attains the highest. If he is tempted to acquire these, his further progress is barred.

1.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER: "Now and then Hazra comes forward to teach me. He says to me, 'Why do you think so much about the youngsters?' One day, as I was going to Balarm's house in a carriage, I felt greatly troubled about it. I said to the Divine Mother: 'Mother, Hazra admonishes me for worrying about Narendra and the other young boys. He asks me why I forget God and think about these youngsters.' No sooner did this thought arise in my mind than the Divine Mother revealed to me in a flash that it is She Herself who has become man. But She manifests Herself most clearly through a. pure soul. At this vision I went into Samadhi. Afterwards I felt angry with Hazra. I said to myself, 'That rascal made me miserable.' Then I thought: 'But why should I blame the poor man? How is he to know?'
  His yearning for Narendra
  --
  Why should I feel so restless for him?' Bholanath said: 'You will find the explanation in the Mahabharata. On coming down to the plane of ordinary consciousness, a man established in Samadhi enjoys himself in the company of sattvic people. He feels peace of mind at the sight of such men.' When I heard this my mind was set at ease. Now and then I would sit alone and weep for the sight of Narendra.
  Reminiscences of his God-intoxicated state
  --
  But she instantly kindled in me the vision of Sita. I forgot the woman. I saw that it was Sita herself on her way to meet Rma after her rescue from Ravana in Ceylon. For a long time I remained in Samadhi, unconscious of the outer world.
  "Another day I had gone to the Maidan in Calcutta for fresh air. A great crowd had assembled there to watch a balloon ascension. Suddenly I saw an English boy leaning against a tree. As he stood there his body was bent in three places. The vision of Krishna came before me in a flash. I went into Samadhi.
  "Once, at Sihore, I fed the cowherd boys. I put sweetmeats into their hands. I saw that these boys were actually the cowherd boys of Vrindavan, and I partook of the sweetmeats from their hands.
  --
  HAZRA: "But it is very difficult to understand that. Take the case of the sadhu of Bhukailas. How people tortured him and; in a way, killed him! They had found him in Samadhi. First they buried him, then they put him under water, and then they branded him with a hot iron. Thus they brought him back to consciousness of the world. But in the end the sadhu died as a result of these tortures. He undoubtedly suffered at the hands of men, though, as you say, he died by the will of God."
  MASTER: "Man must reap the fruit of his own karma. But as far as the death of that holy man is concerned, it was brought about by the will of God. The kavirajs prepare makaradhvaja in a bottle. The bottle is covered with clay and heated in the fire. The gold inside the bottle melts and combines with the other ingredients, and the medicine is made. Then the physicians break the bottle carefully and take out the medicine. When the medicine is made, what difference does it make whether the bottle is preserved or broken? So people think that the holy man was killed. But perhaps his inner stuff had been made. After the realization of God, what difference does it make whether the body lives or dies?
  Different kinds of Samadhi
  "The sadhu of Bhukailas was in Samadhi. There are many kinds of Samadhi. My own spiritual experiences tally with the words I heard from a sadhu of Hrishikesh.
  Sometimes I feel the rising of the spiritual current inside me, as though it were the creeping of an ant. Sometimes it feels like the movement of a monkey jumping from one branch to another. Again, sometimes it feels like a fish swimming in water. Only he who experiences it knows what it is like. In Samadhi one forgets the world. When the mind comes down a little, I say to the Divine Mother: 'Mother, please cure me of this. I want to talk to people.'
  "None but the Isvarakotis can return to the plane of relative consciousness after attaining Samadhi. Some ordinary men attain Samadhi through spiritual discipline; but they do not come back. But when God Himself is born as a man, as an Incarnation, holding in His hand the key to others' liberation, then for the welfare of humanity the Incarnation returns from Samadhi to consciousness of the world."
  M. (to himself): "Does the Master hold in his hand the key to man's liberation?"
  --
  Returning to his room, the Master sat on the floor in an ecstatic mood, with his legs stretched before him. Ram and Kedar decorated his feet with flowers and garlands. The Master was in Samadhi.
  Master's exhortation to a devotee to go forward Kedar believed in certain queer practices of a religious sect to which he had once belonged. He held the Master's big toe in his hand, believing that in this way the Master's spiritual power would be transmitted to him. As Sri Ramakrishna regained partial consciousness, he said, "Mother, what can he do to me by holding my toe?" Kedar sat humbly with folded hands. Still in an ecstatic mood, the Master said to Kedar: "Your mind is still attracted by 'woman and gold'. What is the use of saying you don't care for it? Go forward. Beyond the forest of sandalwood there are many more things: mines of silver, gold, diamonds, and other precious stones. Having a glimpse of spirituality, don't think you have attained everything." The Master was again in an ecstatic mood. He said to the Divine Mother, "Mother, take him away." At these words Kedar's throat dried up.
  --
  "After passing the six centres the aspirant arrives at the seventh plane. Reaching it, the mind merges in Brahman. The individual soul and the Supreme Soul become one. The aspirant goes into Samadhi. His consciousness of the body disappears. He loses the knowledge of the outer world. He does not see the manifold any more. His reasoning comes to a stop.
  "Trailanga Swami once said that because a man reasons he is conscious of multiplicity, of variety. Attaining Samadhi, one gives up the body in twenty-one days. Spiritual consciousness is not possible without the awakening of the Kundalini.
  "A man who has realized God shows certain characteristics. He becomes like a child or a madman, or an inert thing or a ghoul. Further, he is firmly convinced that he is the machine and God is its Operator, that God alone is the Doer and all others are His instruments. As some Sikh devotees once said to me, even the leaf moves because of God's will. One should be aware that everything happens by the will of Rma. The weaver said: 'The price of the cloth, by the will of Rma, is one rupee six annas. By the will of Rma the robbery was committed. By the will of Rma the robbers were arrested. By the will of Rma I too was arrested by the police. And at last, by the will of Rma, I was released.' "

1.12 - God Departs, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  Immersed in silent, incommunicable grief we sat by his immobile body. From that stupor, Sanyal woke me up and said, "A lot of things to do; get up." Yes, the body had to be prepared for public view. News had already gone abroad. The Ashram photographers who had no chance to take photos of the Living would now take them of the Maha Samadhi. "In the morning twilight of the gods," the sadhaks came one by one and saw the Marvel and the Mystery, the body of the Golden Purusha in eternal sleep. And with tears of joy and grief they offered their prayer to the One who had sacrificed all for them.
  I also saw, to my utter wonder and delight, that the entire body was suffused with a golden crimson hue, so fresh, so magnificent. It seemed to have lifted my pall of gloom and I felt light and happy without knowing why. When the Mother came, I asked naively, "Mother, won't he come back?" "No!" she replied, "If he wanted to come back, he would not have left the body." Pointing to the Light she said, "If this Supramental Light remains we shall keep the body in a glass case." Alas, it did not remain and on the fifth day, on the 9th of December in the evening, the body was laid in a vault.
  --
  On 9th December, the Light faded and signs of discoloration here and there were visible. Then, according to the Mother's direction, the body was put into a specially prepared rosewood casket lined with silver sheet and satin and the bottom made comfortable with cushions. Sri Aurobindo's body was wrapped in a gold-embroidered cloth. At 5 p.m. the body was carried by the sadhaks to the Ashram courtyard under the Service tree where a cement vault had been under construction from 5th December. Udar climbed down into the vault to receive the casket and put it in its proper position. As the box was lowered a friend of mine said that a prayer sprang spontaneously from his heart: "Now that you have gone physically, assure us that your work will be done." Something made him look up at the Service tree and suddenly he saw against it Sri Aurobindo; his undraped upper body was of a golden colour. He said firmly with great energy and power in Bengali, "Habe, habe, habe" "It will be done, it will be done, it will be done." Then, as wished by the Mother, Champaklal came first to place a potful of earth upon the slate of the vault, followed by Moni, Nolini and other sadhaks. The ceremony was quiet and solemn. The Mother watched it from the terrace above Dyuman's room. Hundreds of sadhaks stood in the courtyard in silent prayer and consecration. The most blessed Service tree amply fulfils its name by offering the Samadhi day and night, a cool shade and sweet-scented flowers.
  Thus came to a close the physical life of the One who, without the world knowing it, worked unceasingly for the world and will continue doing so, careless of human reward of any kind and accepting the success of his mission as the only recompense. Of the latter he was absolutely sure, but were it to end in failure, he said that he would still go on unperturbed, because "I would still have done to the best of my power the work that I had to do, and what is so done counts always in the economy of the universe." Was it the sacrifice that he called, "paying here God's debt to earth and man"? Never has there been recorded in earth-history a phenomenon where a person of Sri Aurobindo's supreme eminence has lived secluded from the world-gaze and quietly and unobtrusively passed away. Such a complete self-effacement can be thought of only of one who is a god or has become a god. It is certain that one day the world will wake up to realise who he was and what it owes to him as it becomes more and more enlightened in its consciousness. Already, some faint glimmerings of that recognition are visible in the Eastern sky, "a long lone line of hesitating hue". His Birth Centenary is knocking at our door. Rabindranath's salutation to him in his political days will turn into a salutation of the whole of humanity as its lover and saviour. The long lone hue will be transformed into a full blaze of the living Sun.
  I need not add that the Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo is not just a conventional place of pilgrimage. Every part of it is vibrant with the Consciousness-Force that the Master embodied during his unparalleled lifelong sadhana. From the oldest to the youngest, devotees see his glorious face, hear his ethereal voice, receive his answer to their prayers and become filled with something that cannot be mathematically proved, but subjectively apprehended. Yogis, saints and sadhus through the ages have done miracles; the Samadhi does the same in a different way; it is a Presence that radiates a constant stream of Peace, Light, Force, and responds to all our soul-needs when we approach it with faith and devotion.
  [1]Savitri, The Book of Fate, Canto II.

1.12 - Independence, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  Concentration. Concentration is Samdhi, and that is Yoga proper; that is the principal theme of this science, and it is the highest means. The preceding ones are only secondary, and we cannot attain to the highest through them. Samadhi is the means through which we can gain anything and everything, mental, moral, or spiritual.
  
  --
  6. Among the various Chittas, that which is attained by Samadhi is desireless.
  Among all the various minds that we see in various men, only that mind which has attained to Samadhi, perfect concentration, is the highest. A man who has attained certain powers through medicines, or through words, or through mortifications, still has desires, but that man who has attained to Samadhi through concentration is alone free from all desires.
  
  --
  If the perception of an object were the only criterion of its existence, then when the mind is absorbed in anything or is in Samadhi, it would not be perceived by anybody and might as well be said to be non-existent. This is an undesirable conclusion. Ed.)
  
  --
  28. Even when arriving at the right discriminating knowledge of the essences, he who gives up the fruits, unto him comes, as the result of perfect domination, the Samadhi called the cloud of virtue.
  When the Yogi has attained to this discrimination, all the powers mentioned in the last chapter come to him, but the true Yogi rejects them all. Unto him comes a peculiar knowledge, a particular light, called the Dharma-megha, the cloud of virtue. All the great prophets of the world whom history has recorded had this. They had found the whole foundation of knowledge within themselves. Truth to them had become real. Peace and calmness, and perfect purity became their own nature, after they had given up the vanities of powers.

1.12 - The Significance of Sacrifice, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Brahman is that which is to be attained by Samadhi in Brahmanaction." This then is the knowledge in which the liberated man has to do works of sacrifice. It is the knowledge declared of old in the great Vedantic utterances, "I am He", "All this verily is the Brahman, Brahman is this Self." It is the knowledge of the entire unity; it is the One manifest as the doer and the deed and the object of works, knower and knowledge and the object of knowledge. The universal energy into which the action is poured is the Divine; the consecrated energy of the giving is the Divine; whatever is offered is only some form of the Divine; the giver of the offering is the Divine himself in man; the action, the work, the sacrifice is itself the Divine in movement, in activity; the goal to be reached by sacrifice is the Divine. For the man who has this knowledge and lives and acts in it, there can be no binding works, no personal and egoistically appropriated action; there is only the divine Purusha acting by the divine Prakriti in His own being, offering everything into the fire of His self-conscious cosmic energy, while the knowledge and the possession of His divine existence and consciousness by the soul unified with Him is the goal of all this God-directed movement and activity. To know that and to live and act in this unifying consciousness is to be free.
  The Significance of Sacrifice

1.12 - The Superconscient, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Once this breakthrough has been achieved, we must proceed slowly and systematically. Indeed, the first impulse of the consciousness is to soar straight up, as if drawn upward, giving a rocket-like feeling of infinite ascent, which culminates in a sort of luminous nirvana. The blissfulness that accompanies this blossoming on "top" (or what appears to us to be the top), or this dissolving, is so irresistible that it would seem utterly incongruous to wish to descend to intermediate levels and seek anything else; it would seem like a fall; all we want is to remain as still as possible so as not to disturb that magnificent Peace. In fact, we do not even notice any intermediate levels between the exit at the top of the head and the merging "all the way on top"; somewhat dazzled, like a newborn baby opening his eyes for the first time, the seeker cannot recognize anything in that undifferentiated whiteness, or bluish whiteness, and soon loses his footing, i.e., falls into a trance or state of "ecstasy," as they say in the West, or Samadhi, as they say in India. When he returns from that state, however, he finds himself exactly as before. In his haste to arrive . . . [the seeker] assumes that there is nothing between the thinking mind and the Highest, and, shutting his eyes in Samadhi, tries to rush through all that actually intervenes without even seeing these great and luminous kingdoms of the Spirit. Perhaps he arrives at his object, but only to fall asleep in the Infinite.178
  Naturally, upon his return, the seeker will say that this is a marvelous, indescribable, supreme state. And he is right, but, as the Mother remarked, You can say anything you like about it, since you do not remember anything. . . . As you go out of your conscious being and enter a part of yourself that is completely unconscious or, rather, a zone with which you have no conscious connection, you enter into Samadhi. . . . You are in an impersonal state, that is, a state in which you are unconscious; and naturally, this is why you don't remember anything, because you have not been conscious of anything. Sri Aurobindo used to say that ecstasy is simply a higher form of unconsciousness. It may turn out that what we call Transcendent, Absolute, or Supreme is not what has often been described as an ecstatic extinction, but only the limit of our present consciousness. It seems absurd to say: "Here is where the world ends and the Transcendent begins," as if there were a gap between the two. (For a pigmy, for instance, the Transcendent might begin at the rudimentary c-a-t=cat of reason and the world might vanish no higher than the intellect.) There really is no gap, except in our consciousness. Perhaps evolving means precisely to explore farther and farther reaches of consciousness within an inexhaustible Transcendent, which is not really "above" or elsewhere outside this world but everywhere here, gradually unveiling itself before our eyes. For, if the prehistorical Transcendent was once located right above the protoplasm, then above the amphibian, then the chimpanzee, and then man, this does not mean it left the world of protoplasm to recede higher and higher, in a sort of constant race to exclude itself; it is we who have left the primitive unconsciousness to live farther ahead in an omnipresent Transcendent.179
  Therefore, instead of swooning on top (or what he feels as the top), and assuming his ecstasy to be a sign of progress, the seeker must understand that it is a sign of unconsciousness and strive to uncover the actual life hidden beneath his bedazzlement: Strive to develop your inner individuality, said the Mother, and you will become able to enter those same regions fully conscious, to have the joy of communion with the highest regions without losing consciousness and returning with a zero instead of an experience. 180 And Sri Aurobindo insisted: It is in the waking state that this realization must come and endure in order to be a reality of life. . . . Experience and trance have their utility for opening the being and preparing it, but it is only when the realization is constant in the waking state that it is truly possessed.181 The goal we are seeking is a state of integral mastery, not that of spiritual escapism, and that mastery is possible only in a continuity of consciousness. When we fall into ecstasy, we lose the "someone" who could be the bridge between the powers above and the powerlessness below.

1.13 - Conclusion - He is here, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  Those of us who grieved over the tremendous loss received a sharp reprimand from the Mother, "To grieve is an insult to Sri Aurobindo who is here with us, conscious and alive." And "The lack of receptivity of the earth and men is mostly responsible for the decision Sri Aurobindo has taken regarding his body. But one thing is certain: what has happened on the physical plane affects in no way the truth of his teaching. All that he has said is perfectly true and remains so. Time and the course of events will prove it abundantly." And how much he worked for us, for the world, can be gauged by the inscription in English and French on the Samadhi as an offering of the Mother's gratitude:
  "To Thee who hast been the material envelope of our Master, to Thee our infinite gratitude. Before Thee who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before Thee who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us, before Thee we bow down and implore that we may never forget, even for a moment, all we owe to Thee."

1.1.3 - Mental Difficulties and the Need of Quietude, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Then for the tumultuous activity of the mind which prevents your concentration. But that or else a more tiresome obstinate grinding mechanical activity is always the difficulty when one tries to concentrate and it takes a long time to get the better of it. That or the habit of sleep which prevents either the waking concentration or the conscious Samadhi or the absorbed and all-excluding trance which are the three forms that Yogic concentration takes. But it is surely ignorance of Yoga, its processes and its difficulties that makes you feel desperate and pronounce yourself unfit for ever because of this quite ordinary obstacle. The insistence of the ordinary mind and its wrong reasonings, sentiments and judgments, the random activity of the thinking mind in concentration or its mechanical activity, the slowness of response to the veiled or the initial touch are the ordinary obstacles the mind imposes just as pride, ambition, vanity, sex, greed, grasping of things for ones own ego are the difficulties and obstacles offered by the vital. As the vital difficulties can be fought down and conquered, so can the mental. Only one has to see that these are the inevitable obstacles and neither cling to them nor be terrified or overwhelmed because they are there. One has to persevere till one can stand back from the mind as from the vital and feel the deeper and larger mental and vital Purushas within one which are capable of silence, capable of a straight receptivity of the true Word and Force as of the true silence. If the nature takes the way of fighting down the difficulties first, then the first half of the way is long and tedious and the complaint of the want of the response of the Divine arises. But really the Divine is there all the time, working behind the veil as well as waiting for the recognition of his response and for the response to the response to be possible.
  ***

1.13 - SALVATION, DELIVERANCE, ENLIGHTENMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  The false or at best imperfect salvations described in the Chandogya Upanishad are of three kinds. There is first the pseudo-salvation associated with the belief that matter is the ultimate Reality. Virochana, the demonic being who is the apotheosis of power-loving, extraverted somatotonia, finds it perfectly natural to identify himself with his body, and he goes back to the other Titans to seek a purely material salvation. Incarnated in the present century, Virochana would have been an ardent Communist, Fascist or nationalist. Indra sees through material salvationism and is then offered dreamsalvation, deliverance out of bodily existence into the intermediate world between matter and spirit that fascinatingly odd and exciting psychic universe, out of which miracles and foreknowledge, spirit communications and extra-sensory perceptions make their startling irruptions into ordinary life. But this freer kind of individualized existence is still all too personal and ego-centric to satisfy a soul conscious of its own incompleteness and eager to be made whole. Indra accordingly goes further and is tempted to accept the undifferentiated consciousness of deep sleep, of false Samadhi and quietistic trance, as the final deliverance. But he refuses, in Brahmanandas words, to mistake tamas for sattvas, sloth and sub-consciousness for poise and super-consciousness. And so, by discrimination, he comes to the realization of the Self, which is the enlightenment of the darkness that is ignorance and the deliverance from the mortal consequences of that ignorance.
  The illusory salvations, against which we are warned in the other extracts, are of a different kind. The emphasis here is upon idolatry and superstitionabove all the idolatrous worship of the analytical reason and its notions, and the superstitious belief in rites, dogmas and confessions of faith as being somehow magically efficacious in themselves. Many Christians, as Law implies, have been guilty of these idolatries and superstitions. For them, complete deliverance into union with the divine Ground is impossible, either in this world or posthumously. The best they can hope for is a meritorious but still egocentric life in the body and some sort of happy posthumous longevity, as the Chinese call it, some form of survival, paradisal perhaps, but still involved in time, separateness and multiplicity.
  --
  The allegory is fairly clear. The ships that bear the individual voyagers across the sea of life are sects and churches, collections of dogmas and religious organizations. The planks which also sink at last are all good works falling short of total selfsurrender and all faith less absolute than the unitive knowledge of God. Liberation into eternity is the result of throwing oneself into the sea"; in the language of the Gospels, one must lose ones life in order to save it. But throwing oneself into the sea is a risky business not so risky, of course, as travelling in a vast Queen Mary, fitted up with the very latest in dogmatic conveniences and liturgical decorations, and bound either for Davy Joness locker or at best, the wrong port, but still quite dangerous enough. For the surface of the sea the divine Ground as it is manifested in the world of time and multiplicitygleams with a reflected radiance that can no more be seized than the image of beauty in a mirror; while the bottom, the Ground as it is eternally in itself seems merely darkness to the analytic mind, as it peers down into the depdis; and when the analytic mind decides to join the will in the final necessary plunge into self-naughting it must run the gantlet, as it sinks down, of those devouring pseudosalvations described in the Chandogya Upanishaddreamsalvation into that fascinating psychic world, where the ego still survives, but with a happier and more untrammelled kind of life, or else the sleep-salvation of false Samadhi, of unity in sub-consciousness instead of unity in super-consciousness.
  Niffaris estimate of any individuals chances of achieving mans final end does not err on the side of excessive optimism. But then no saint or founder of a religion, no exponent of the Perennial Philosophy, has ever been optimistic. Many are called, but few are chosen. Those who do not choose to be chosen cannot hope for anything better than some form of partial salvation under conditions that will permit them to advance towards complete deliverance.

1.19 - Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  16:What happens when the conscious becomes subconscious in the body or the subconscious becomes conscious? The real difference lies in the absorption of the conscious energy in part of its work, its more or less exclusive concentration. In certain forms of concentration, what we call the mentality, that is to say, the Prajnana or apprehensive consciousness almost or quite ceases to act consciously, yet the work of the body and the nerves and the sense-mind goes on unnoticed but constant and perfect; it has all become subconscious and only in one activity or chain of activities is the mind luminously active. While I write, the physical act of writing is largely or sometimes entirely done by the subconscious mind; the body makes, unconsciously as we say, certain nervous movements; the mind is awake only to the thought with which it is occupied. The whole man indeed may sink into the subconscious, yet habitual movements implying the action of mind may continue, as in many phenomena of sleep; or he may rise into the superconscient and yet be active with the subliminal mind in the body, as in certain phenomena of Samadhi or Yoga trance. It is evident, then, that the difference between plant sensation and our sensation is simply that in the plant the conscious Force manifesting itself in the universe has not yet fully emerged from the sleep of Matter, from the absorption which entirely divides the worker Force from its source of work in the superconscient knowledge, and therefore does subconsciously what it will do consciously when it emerges in man from its absorption and begins to wake, though still indirectly, to its knowledge-self. It does exactly the same things, but in a different way and with a different value in terms of consciousness.
  17:It is becoming possible now to conceive that in the very atom there is something that becomes in us a will and a desire, there is an attraction and repulsion which, though phenomenally other, are essentially the same thing as liking and disliking in ourselves, but are, as we say, inconscient or subconscient. This essence of will and desire are evident everywhere in Nature and, though this is not yet sufficiently envisaged, they are associated with and indeed the expression of a subconscient or, if you will, inconscient or quite involved sense and intelligence which are equally pervasive. Present in every atom of Matter all this is necessarily present in every thing which is formed by the aggregation of those atoms; and they are present in the atom because they are present in the Force which builds up and constitutes the atom. That Force is fundamentally the Chit-Tapas or Chit-Shakti of the Vedanta, consciousness-force, inherent conscious force of conscious-being, which manifests itself as nervous energy full of submental sensation in the plant, as desire-sense and desire-will in the primary animal forms, as self-conscious sense and force in the developing animal, as mental will and knowledge topping all the rest in man. Life is a scale of the universal Energy in which the transition from inconscience to consciousness is managed; it is an intermediary power of it latent or submerged in Matter, delivered by its own force into submental being, delivered finally by the emergence of Mind into the full possibility of its dynamis.

1.200-1.224 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  As for nirvikalpa Samadhi i.e., Samadhi, of non-differentiation
  (undifferentiated, supreme, beatific repose), it consists of pure consciousness, which is capable of illumining knowledge or ignorance; it is also beyond light or darkness. That it is not darkness is certain; can it be however said to be not light? At present objects are perceived only in light. Is it wrong to say that realisation of ones

1.240 - 1.300 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  There arose a doubt if 'I-I' consciousness be the same as nirvikalpa Samadhi or anything anterior to it.
  Sri Bhagavan said that the tiny hole in the Heart remains always closed, but it is opened by vichara with the result that 'I-I' consciousness shines forth. It is the same as Samadhi.
  209
  --
  All these things accomplished, the obstacles are at an end and Samadhi results, that is, Peace reigns.
  Some say that one should never cease to engage in hearing, reflection and one-pointedness. These are not fulfilled by reading books, but only by continued practice to keep the mind withdrawn.
  The aspirant may be kritopasaka or akritopasaka. The former is fit to realise the Self, even with the slightest stimulus: only some little doubt stands in his way, it is easily removed if he hears the truth once from the Master. Immediately he gains the Samadhi state. It is presumed that he had already completed sravana, reflection, etc. in previous births, they are no more necessary for him.
  For the other all these aids are necessary; for him doubts crop up even after repeated hearing; therefore he must not give up aids until he gains the Samadhi state.
  Sravana removes the illusion of the Self being one with the body, etc. Reflection makes it clear that Knowledge is Self. Onepointedness reveals the Self as being Infinite and Blissful.
  --
  Bhagavan speaks? Will practice of that lead to a deeper Samadhi, and so ultimately to a full vision of the Real?
  M.: Again, there is happiness at agreeable sights, etc. It is the happiness inherent in the Self. That happiness is not alien and after. You are diving into the Pure Self on occasions which you consider pleasurable. That diving reveals the Self-existent Bliss.
  --
  There is no difference in the Samadhi state or the jnana of the jnanis.
  The classification is only from the standpoint of the observer.
  --
  D.: Does the path to Self-Realisation go through Samadhi?
  M.: They are synonymous.
  --
  There is no real going into or coming from it. Becoming aware of that is Samadhi. An ignorant man cannot remain long in sushupti because he is forced by nature to emerge from it. His ego is not dead and it will rise up again. But the wise man attempts to crush it in its source. It rises up again and again for him too impelled by nature, i.e., prarabdha. That is, both in Jnani and ajnani, ego is sprouting forth, but with this difference, namely the ajnani's ego when it rises up is quite ignorant of its source, or he is not aware of his sushupti in the dream and jagrat states; whereas a Jnani when his ego rises up enjoys his transcendental experience with this ego keeping his lakshya (aim) always on its source. This ego is not dangerous: it is like the skeleton of a burnt rope: in this form it is ineffective. By constantly keeping our aim on our source, our ego is dissolved in its source. like a doll of salt in the ocean.
  D.: Sri Ramakrishna says that nirvikalpa Samadhi cannot last longer than twenty-one days. If persisted in, the person dies. Is it so?
  M.: When the prarabdha is exhausted the ego is completely dissolved without leaving any trace behind. This is final liberation. Unless prarabdha is completely exhausted the ego will be rising up in its pure form even in jivanmuktas. I still doubt the statement of the maximum duration of twenty-one days. It is said that people cannot live if they fast thirty or forty days. But there are those who have fasted longer, say a hundred days. It means that there is still prarabdha for them.

1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  There arose a doubt if I-I consciousness be the same as nirvikalpa Samadhi or anything anterior to it.
  Sri Bhagavan said that the tiny hole in the Heart remains always closed, but it is opened by vichara with the result that I-I consciousness shines forth. It is the same as Samadhi.
  D.: What is the difference between fainting and sleep?
  --
  All these things accomplished, the obstacles are at an end and Samadhi results, that is, Peace reigns.
  Some say that one should never cease to engage in hearing, reflection and one-pointedness. These are not fulfilled by reading books, but only by continued practice to keep the mind withdrawn.
  The aspirant may be kritopasaka or akritopasaka. The former is fit to realise the Self, even with the slightest stimulus: only some little doubt stands in his way, it is easily removed if he hears the truth once from the Master. Immediately he gains the Samadhi state. It is presumed that he had already completed sravana, reflection, etc. in previous births, they are no more necessary for him.
  For the other all these aids are necessary; for him doubts crop up even after repeated hearing; therefore he must not give up aids until he gains the Samadhi state.
  Sravana removes the illusion of the Self being one with the body, etc. Reflection makes it clear that Knowledge is Self. Onepointedness reveals the Self as being Infinite and Blissful.
  --
  Bhagavan speaks? Will practice of that lead to a deeper Samadhi, and so ultimately to a full vision of the Real?
  M.: Again, there is happiness at agreeable sights, etc. It is the happiness inherent in the Self. That happiness is not alien and after. You are diving into the Pure Self on occasions which you consider pleasurable. That diving reveals the Self-existent Bliss.
  --
  There is no difference in the Samadhi state or the jnana of the jnanis.
  The classification is only from the standpoint of the observer.
  --
  D.: Does the path to Self-Realisation go through Samadhi?
  M.: They are synonymous.
  --
  There is no real going into or coming from it. Becoming aware of that is Samadhi. An ignorant man cannot remain long in sushupti because he is forced by nature to emerge from it. His ego is not dead and it will rise up again. But the wise man attempts to crush it in its source. It rises up again and again for him too impelled by nature, i.e., prarabdha. That is, both in Jnani and ajnani, ego is sprouting forth, but with this difference, namely the ajnanis ego when it rises up is quite ignorant of its source, or he is not aware of his sushupti in the dream and jagrat states; whereas a Jnani when his ego rises up enjoys his transcendental experience with this ego keeping his lakshya (aim) always on its source. This ego is not dangerous: it is like the skeleton of a burnt rope: in this form it is ineffective. By constantly keeping our aim on our source, our ego is dissolved in its source. like a doll of salt in the ocean.
  D.: Sri Ramakrishna says that nirvikalpa Samadhi cannot last longer than twenty-one days. If persisted in, the person dies. Is it so?
  M.: When the prarabdha is exhausted the ego is completely dissolved without leaving any trace behind. This is final liberation. Unless prarabdha is completely exhausted the ego will be rising up in its pure form even in jivanmuktas. I still doubt the statement of the maximum duration of twenty-one days. It is said that people cannot live if they fast thirty or forty days. But there are those who have fasted longer, say a hundred days. It means that there is still prarabdha for them.
  --
  Similarly with the Self of the person. He is asleep in the body. His waking state is the movement of the bulls, his Samadhi is their standing still
  (because Samadhi = jagrat sushupti) i.e., to say, he is aware of but not attached to actions. So the bulls are in harness but do not move. His sleep is the unyoking of the bulls, for there is complete suspension of activities corresponding to the release of the bulls from the yoke.
  Still another example: Scenes are projected on the screen in a cinema show. But the moving pictures do not affect or alter the screen. The seer pays attention to the pictures and ignores the screen. They cannot remain apart from the screen. Still its existence is ignored. So also the Self is the screen on which the pictures, namely activities, are going on. The man is aware of the latter, ignoring the former. All the same he is not apart from the Self.
  --
  Jnani in whom pass the states of waking, Samadhi, deep sleep and dream, like the bulls moving, standing or being unyoked when the passenger is asleep as aforesaid. These questions are from the point of view of the ajnani; otherwise these questions do not arise.
  D.: Of course they cannot arise for the Self. Who would be there to ask? But unfortunately I have not yet realised the Self.
  --
  M.: Trance is only temporary in its effects. There is happiness so long as it lasts. After rising from it the old vasanas return. Unless the vasanas are destroyed in sahaja Samadhi (effortless Samadhi), there is no good of trance.
  D.: But trance must precede sahaja Samadhi?
  M.: Trance is the natural state. Although there are activities and phenomena, yet they do not affect the trance. If they are realised to be not apart from the Self, the Self is realised. Where is the use of trance, unless it brings about enduring peace of mind? Know that even now you are in trance whatever happens. That is all.
  --
  Just as a rope-snake cannot be seen in broad daylight, nor rope itself in thick darkness, so also the world appears neither in the Samadhi state of Self-shining pure Being or in deep sleep, swoon, etc. Only in Reflected Light (Light mixed with Darkness or knowledge soiled by Ignorance) can the world, not independent of its Source, seem to rise up, flourish and be resolved. Its diversity too cannot be exclusive of the Reality, the original Source. Here a play is going on in which the One Single Being becomes manifold is objectified and then
  Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi withdrawn. There must be a Sakti (Power) to do it, and wonderful too! She cannot also be independent of Her origin. In the Self-shining
  --
  When Prahlada was in Samadhi, Vishnu thought within Himself:
  This asura being in Samadhi, all the asuras are in peace. There is no fight, no trial of strength, no search for power, nor the means for gaining power. In the absence of such means for power - yaga, yajna, etc., i.e., the gods are not thriving; there is no new creation; nor even is any existence justified. So I will wake him up; then the asuras will rise up; their original nature will manifest itself; the gods will challenge them: the asuras and others will then seek strength and adopt the means for its acquisition.
  Yajnas, etc., will flourish; the gods will thrive; there will be more and more of creation, more of fight and I shall have enough to do.
  --
  Self-luminosity. The world divya shows it. The full word means the Self. Who is to bestow a divine eye? And who is to see? Again, people read in the books, hearing, reflection and one-pointedness are necessary. They think that they must pass through savikalpa Samadhi and nirvikalpa Samadhi before attaining Realisation.
  Hence all these questions. Why should they wander in that maze?
  --
  Atmanusandhana has been likened to churning the curd to draw forth butter, the mind being compared to the churning rod, the heart to the curd and the practice of constancy in the Self to the process of churning. Just as by churning the curd butter is extracted and by friction fire is kindled, even so, by unswerving vigilant constancy in the Self, ceaseless like the unbroken filamentary flow of oil, is generated the natural or changeless trance or nirvikalpa Samadhi, which readily and spontaneously yields that direct, immediate, unobstructed and universal perception of Brahman, which is at once Knowledge and Experience and which transcends time and space.
  LIMITLESS BLISS: This is Self-Realisation; and thereby is cut asunder the hridaya-granthi or the Knot of the Heart. The false delusions of ignorance, the vicious and age-long tendencies of the mind, which constitute this knot, are destroyed. All doubts are dispelled and the bondage of Karma is severed.
  --
  Discrimination, Samadhi or trance transcendent, which is the limitless bliss of liberation, beyond doubt and duality, and has at the same time indicated the means for its attainments. To realise this state of freedom from duality is the summum bonum of life: and he alone that has won it is a jivanmukta (the liberated one while yet alive), and not he who has merely a theoretical understanding of what constitutes purushartha or the desired end and aim of human endeavour.
  FINAL FREEDOM: Thus defining a jivanmukta, he is declared to be free from the bonds of threefold Karmas (sanchita, agami and prarabdha).
  --
  M.: Pranayama is an aid for the control of mind. Only you should not stop with pranayama. You must proceed further to pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and Samadhi. Full results are reaped finally.
  Another of the group asked: How are lust, anger, acquisitiveness, confusion, pride and jealousy overcome?
  --
  Atma Vidya Vilasa and other works. Are these found in Samadhi, or before, or after?
  M.: All these are the symptoms of exceedingly subtle modes of mind
  (vrittis). Without duality they cannot remain. Samadhi is Perfect
  Peace where these cannot find place. After emerging from Samadhi the remembrance of the state gives rise to these symptoms.
  In bhakti marga (path of devotion) these are the precursors to Samadhi.
  D.: Are they not so in the path of jnana?
  --
  D.: Sleep state is said to be the experience of Bliss, yet, on recollecting it the hairs do not stand on end. Why should they do so, if the Samadhi state is recollected?
  M.: Samadhi means sleep in waking state (jagrat sushupti). Bliss is overpowering and the experience is very clear, whereas it is different in sleep.
  D.: Can we put it that in sleep there is no unhappiness, nor happiness, i.e., the experience is negative not positive.
  --
  M.: The Bliss of Samadhi is a perfectly clear experience and its recollection also is similar. But the experience of sleep is otherwise.
  28th February, 1937
  --
  The same sannyasi visitor, Swami Lokesananda, asked about Samadhi.
  M.: (1) Holding on to Reality is Samadhi.
  (2) Holding on to Reality with effort is savikalpa Samadhi.
  (3) Merging in Reality and remaining unaware of the world is nirvikalpa Samadhi.1
  (4) Merging in Ignorance and remaining unaware of the world is sleep. (Head bends but not in Samadhi).
  (5) Remaining in the primal, pure natural state without effort is sahaja nirvikalpa Samadhi.
  D.: It is said that one remaining in nirvikalpa Samadhi for 21 days must necessarily give up the physical body.
  M.: Samadhi means passing beyond dehatma buddhi (I-am-the-body idea) and non-identification of the body with the Self is a foregone conclusion.
  There are said to be persons who have been immersed in nirvikalpa Samadhi for a thousand years or more.
  1. See table on next page
  --
  All these four kinds of savikalpa Samadhi are attended with effort
  There are all manner of thoughts which rise up from the Reality within and manifest themselves.
  --
  When these kinds of nirvikalpa Samadhi are not attended with effort and it is realised that the waveless ocean of external Samadhi and the steady flame of internal Samadhi are identical, the state is said to be
  This state is compared This state is compared to the waveless ocean to a flame unagitated by whose waters are still and currents of air, but burning quite steady
  --
  NIRVIKALPA Samadhi
  (Bahya)
  --
  SAVIKALPA Samadhi
  They can be further subdivided thus:
  --
  Then, asked about the difference between external and internal nirvikalpa Samadhis, referring to article 391 above, the Master said:
  External Samadhi is holding on to the Reality while witnessing the world, without reacting to it from within. There is the stillness of a waveless ocean. The internal Samadhi involves loss of bodyconsciousness.
  D.: Is loss of body-consciousness a perquisite to the attainment of sahaja Samadhi?
  M.: What is body-consciousness? Analyse it. There must be a body and consciousness limited to it which together make up bodyconsciousness. These must lie in another Consciousness which is absolute and unaffected. Hold it. That is Samadhi.
  It exists when there is no body-consciousness because it transcends the latter, it also exists when there is the body-consciousness. So it is always there.
  --
  When lost it is internal Samadhi: when retained, it is external Samadhi. That is all.
  A person must remain in any of the six Samadhis so that sahaja Samadhi may be easy for him.
  D.: The mind does not sink into that state even for a second.
  --
  D.: I want to know exactly what it is, so that it may be distinguished from Samadhi.
  M.: How can you know sleep when you are awake? The answer is to go to sleep and find out what it is.
  --
  The sleep, dream, Samadhi, etc., are all states of the ajnanis.
  The Self is free from all these. Here is the answer for the former question also.
  --
  D.: Sleep is the state of nescience and so it is said of Samadhi also.
  M.: Jnana is beyond knowledge and nescience. There can be no question about that state. It is the Self.
  --
  D.: Have you experienced nirvikalpa Samadhi?
  He was asked to finish his questions.
  D.: Can you enter into nirvikalpa Samadhi at will? Is it not necessary that sages should influence their surroundings?
  Another man asked: Can Sri Bhagavan help us to realise the Truth?

1.25 - Fascinations, Invisibility, Levitation, Transmutations, Kinks in Time, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Note that this has nothing at all to do with any Pranayama. It seems a matter of ecstatic concentration, which chose this mode of expression instead of bringing on Samadhi though that, too, occurred in some of the cases.
  By the way, there is a fairly full account of the whole business; I have just remembered it is in my Autohagiography.

1.25 - SPIRITUAL EXERCISES, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  What is this Way of Wisdom designed to accomplish? There are three classes of conditions that hinder one from advancing along the path to Enlightenment. First, there are the allurements arising from the senses, from external conditions and from the discriminating mind. Second, there are the internal conditions of the mind, its thoughts, desires and mood. All these the earlier practices (ethical and mortificatory) are designed to eliminate. In the third class of impediments are placed the individuals instinctive and fundamental (and therefore most insidious and persistent) urges the will to live and to enjoy, the will to cherish ones personality, the will to propagate, which give rise to greed and lust, fear and anger, infatuation, pride and egotism. The practice of the Wisdom Paramita is designed to control and eliminate these fundamental and instinctive hindrances. By means of it the mind gradually grows clearer, more luminous, more peaceful. Insight becomes more penetrating, faith deepens and broadens, until they merge into the inconceivable Samadhi of the Minds Pure Essence. As one continues the practice of the Way of Wisdom, one yields less and less to thoughts of comfort or desolation; faith becomes surer, more pervasive, beneficent and joyous; and fear of retrogression vanishes. But do not think that the consummation is to be attained easily or quickly; many rebirths may be necessary, many aeons may have to elapse. So long as doubt, unbelief, slanders, evil conduct, hindrances of karma, weakness of faith, pride, sloth and mental agitation persist, so long as even their shadows linger, there can be no attainment of the Samadhi of the Buddhas. But he who has attained to the radiance of highest Samadhi, or unitive Knowledge, will be able to realize, with all the Buddhas, the perfect unity of all sentient beings with Buddhahoods Dharmakaya. In the pure Dharmakaya there is no dualism, neither shadow of differentiation. All sentient beings, if only they were able to realize it, are already in Nirvana. The Minds pure Essence is Highest Samadhi, is Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, is Prajna Paramita, is Highest Perfect Wisdom.
  Ashvoghosha

1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Similarly with the Self of the person. He is asleep in the body. His waking state is the movement of the bulls, his Samadhi is their standing still
  (because Samadhi = jagrat sushupti) i.e., to say, he is aware of but not attached to actions. So the bulls are in harness but do not move. His sleep is the unyoking of the bulls, for there is complete suspension of activities corresponding to the release of the bulls from the yoke.
  Still another example: Scenes are projected on the screen in a cinema show. But the moving pictures do not affect or alter the screen. The seer pays attention to the pictures and ignores the screen. They cannot remain apart from the screen. Still its existence is ignored. So also the Self is the screen on which the pictures, namely activities, are going on. The man is aware of the latter, ignoring the former. All the same he is not apart from the Self.
  --
  Jnani in whom pass the states of waking, Samadhi, deep sleep and dream, like the bulls moving, standing or being unyoked when the passenger is asleep as aforesaid. These questions are from the point of view of the ajnani; otherwise these questions do not arise.
  D.: Of course they cannot arise for the Self. Who would be there to ask? But unfortunately I have not yet realised the Self.
  --
  M.: Trance is only temporary in its effects. There is happiness so long as it lasts. After rising from it the old vasanas return. Unless the vasanas are destroyed in sahaja Samadhi (effortless Samadhi), there is no good of trance.
  D.: But trance must precede sahaja Samadhi?
  M.: Trance is the natural state. Although there are activities and phenomena, yet they do not affect the trance. If they are realised to be not apart from the Self, the Self is realised. Where is the use of trance, unless it brings about enduring peace of mind? Know that even now you are in trance whatever happens. That is all.
  --
  Just as a rope-snake cannot be seen in broad daylight, nor rope itself in thick darkness, so also the world appears neither in the Samadhi state of Self-shining pure Being or in deep sleep, swoon, etc. Only in Reflected Light (Light mixed with Darkness or knowledge soiled by Ignorance) can the world, not independent of its Source, seem to rise up, flourish and be resolved. Its diversity too cannot be exclusive of the Reality, the original Source. Here a play is going on in which the One Single Being becomes manifold is objectified and then
  299
  --
  When Prahlada was in Samadhi, Vishnu thought within Himself:
  "This asura being in Samadhi, all the asuras are in peace. There is no fight, no trial of strength, no search for power, nor the means for gaining power. In the absence of such means for power - yaga, yajna, etc., i.e., the gods are not thriving; there is no new creation; nor even is any existence justified. So I will wake him up; then the asuras will rise up; their original nature will manifest itself; the gods will challenge them: the asuras and others will then seek strength and adopt the means for its acquisition.
  Yajnas, etc., will flourish; the gods will thrive; there will be more and more of creation, more of fight and I shall have enough to do".
  --
  Self-luminosity. The world divya shows it. The full word means the Self. Who is to bestow a divine eye? And who is to see? Again, people read in the books, "hearing, reflection and one-pointedness are necessary". They think that they must pass through savikalpa Samadhi and nirvikalpa Samadhi before attaining Realisation.
  Hence all these questions. Why should they wander in that maze?
  --
  Atmanusandhana has been likened to churning the curd to draw forth butter, the mind being compared to the churning rod, the heart to the curd and the practice of constancy in the Self to the process of churning. Just as by churning the curd butter is extracted and by friction fire is kindled, even so, by unswerving vigilant constancy in the Self, ceaseless like the unbroken filamentary flow of oil, is generated the natural or changeless trance or nirvikalpa Samadhi, which readily and spontaneously yields that direct, immediate, unobstructed and universal perception of Brahman, which is at once Knowledge and Experience and which transcends time and space.
  329
  --
  Discrimination," Samadhi or trance transcendent, which is the limitless bliss of liberation, beyond doubt and duality, and has at the same time indicated the means for its attainments. To realise this state of freedom from duality is the summum bonum of life: and he alone that has won it is a jivanmukta (the liberated one while yet alive), and not he who has merely a theoretical understanding of what constitutes purushartha or the desired end and aim of human endeavour.
  FINAL FREEDOM: Thus defining a jivanmukta, he is declared to be free from the bonds of threefold Karmas (sanchita, agami and prarabdha).
  --
  M.: Pranayama is an aid for the control of mind. Only you should not stop with pranayama. You must proceed further to pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and Samadhi. Full results are reaped finally.
  Another of the group asked: How are lust, anger, acquisitiveness, confusion, pride and jealousy overcome?
  --
  Atma Vidya Vilasa and other works. Are these found in Samadhi, or before, or after?
  M.: All these are the symptoms of exceedingly subtle modes of mind
  (vrittis). Without duality they cannot remain. Samadhi is Perfect
  Peace where these cannot find place. After emerging from Samadhi the remembrance of the state gives rise to these symptoms.
  In bhakti marga (path of devotion) these are the precursors to Samadhi.
  D.: Are they not so in the path of jnana?
  --
  D.: Sleep state is said to be the experience of Bliss, yet, on recollecting it the hairs do not stand on end. Why should they do so, if the Samadhi state is recollected?
  M.: Samadhi means sleep in waking state (jagrat sushupti). Bliss is overpowering and the experience is very clear, whereas it is different in sleep.
  D.: Can we put it that in sleep there is no unhappiness, nor happiness, i.e., the experience is negative not positive.
  --
  M.: The Bliss of Samadhi is a perfectly clear experience and its recollection also is similar. But the experience of sleep is otherwise.
  28th February, 1937
  --
  The same sannyasi visitor, Swami Lokesananda, asked about Samadhi.
  M.: (1) Holding on to Reality is Samadhi.
  (2) Holding on to Reality with effort is savikalpa Samadhi.
  (3) Merging in Reality and remaining unaware of the world is nirvikalpa Samadhi.1
  (4) Merging in Ignorance and remaining unaware of the world is sleep. (Head bends but not in Samadhi).
  (5) Remaining in the primal, pure natural state without effort is sahaja nirvikalpa Samadhi.
  D.: It is said that one remaining in nirvikalpa Samadhi for 21 days must necessarily give up the physical body.
  M.: Samadhi means passing beyond dehatma buddhi (I-am-the-body idea) and non-identification of the body with the Self is a foregone conclusion.
  There are said to be persons who have been immersed in nirvikalpa Samadhi for a thousand years or more.
  1. See table on next page
  --
  All these four kinds of savikalpa Samadhi are attended with effort
  There are all manner of thoughts which rise up from the Reality within and manifest themselves.
  --
  When these kinds of nirvikalpa Samadhi are not attended with effort and it is realised that the waveless ocean of external Samadhi and the steady flame of internal Samadhi are identical, the state is said to be
  This state is compared This state is compared to the waveless ocean to a flame unagitated by whose waters are still and currents of air, but burning quite steady
  --
  NIRVIKALPA Samadhi
  (Bahya)
  --
  SAVIKALPA Samadhi
  They can be further subdivided thus:

1.400 - 1.450 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Then, asked about the difference between external and internal nirvikalpa Samadhis, referring to article 391 above, the Master said:
  External Samadhi is holding on to the Reality while witnessing the world, without reacting to it from within. There is the stillness of a waveless ocean. The internal Samadhi involves loss of bodyconsciousness.
  396
  --
  D.: Is loss of body-consciousness a perquisite to the attainment of sahaja Samadhi?
  M.: What is body-consciousness? Analyse it. There must be a body and consciousness limited to it which together make up bodyconsciousness. These must lie in another Consciousness which is absolute and unaffected. Hold it. That is Samadhi.
  It exists when there is no body-consciousness because it transcends the latter, it also exists when there is the body-consciousness. So it is always there.
  --
  When lost it is internal Samadhi: when retained, it is external Samadhi. That is all.
  A person must remain in any of the six Samadhis so that sahaja Samadhi may be easy for him.
  D.: The mind does not sink into that state even for a second.
  --
  D.: I want to know exactly what it is, so that it may be distinguished from Samadhi.
  M.: How can you know sleep when you are awake? The answer is to go to sleep and find out what it is.
  --
  The sleep, dream, Samadhi, etc., are all states of the ajnanis.
  The Self is free from all these. Here is the answer for the former question also.
  --
  D.: Sleep is the state of nescience and so it is said of Samadhi also.
  M.: Jnana is beyond knowledge and nescience. There can be no question about that state. It is the Self.
  --
  D.: Have you experienced nirvikalpa Samadhi?
  He was asked to finish his questions.
  D.: Can you enter into nirvikalpa Samadhi at will? Is it not necessary that sages should influence their surroundings?
  Another man asked: Can Sri Bhagavan help us to realise the Truth?

1.4.03 - The Guru, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  It is not a fact that an experience gained in Samadhi cannot be prolonged into the waking state.
  Ramakrishna had the siddhi himself before he began giving to others - so had Buddha. I don't know about the others

1.42 - This Self Introversion, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Invocations of even the most positive Gods are dangerous, unless care can be taken to keep the personality of the god distinct from one's own. Athene is a superb deity; but one does not want to be nothing but Athene, except in that supreme moment of Samadhi with Her which is the climax of the invocation.
  Do you remember one of Barbey d'Aurevilly's Contes Cruels about a Spanish nobleman who anticipated one of the privileges of marriage instead of waiting for ecclesiastical licence? The Inquisitor simply had him tied to his betrothed for 48 hours.

1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Sri Bhagavan explained to a retired Judge of the High Court some points in the Upadesa Saram as follows:(1) Meditation should remain unbroken as a current. If unbroken it is called Samadhi or Kundalini sakti.
  (2) The mind may be latent and merge in the Self; it must necessarily rise up again; after it rises up one finds oneself only as ever before.
  --
  Even though the man sees the world after he has been in the Samadhi state, the world will be taken only at its worth, that is to say it is the phenomenon of the One Reality. The True Being can be realised only in Samadhi; what was then is also now. Otherwise it cannot be Reality or Ever-present Being. What was in Samadhi is here and now too.
  Hold it and it is your natural condition of Being. Samadhi practice must lead to it. Otherwise how can nirvikalpa Samadhi be of any use in which a man remains as a log of wood? He must necessarily rise up from it sometime or other and face the world. But in sahaja Samadhi he remains unaffected by the world.
  So many pictures pass over the cinema screen: fire burns away everything; water drenches all; but the screen remains unaffected.
  --
  Even these are not the goals. Samadhi must be gained; it must be continuously practised until sahaja Samadhi results. Then there remains nothing more to do.
  Talk 466.
  --
   Samadhi is present even in vyavaharadasa (practical life). Our activities (vyavahara) have no existence apart from Samadhi. The screen is there when the pictures move past on it and also when they are not projected. Similarly, the Self is always there in vyavahara
  (activity) or in shanti (peace).
  --
  D.: Can the bliss of Samadhi be gained thus?
  M.: The japa becomes mental and finally reveals itself as the Self.
  That is Samadhi.
  D.: Please show Grace to me and streng then me in my efforts!
  --
  He practise yoga? He went into Samadhi as He sat; He was in Perfect
  Repose. Silence prevailed. They saw Him. The effect was immediate.
  They fell into Samadhi and their doubts were at an end.
  Silence is the true upadesa. It is the perfect upadesa. It is suited only for the most advanced seeker. The others are unable to draw full inspiration from it. Therefore they require words to explain the Truth.
  --
  The mind remaining still is Samadhi, no matter whether the world is perceived or not.
  Environment, time and objects are all in me. How can they be independent of me? They may change, but I remain unchanging, always the same. The objects can be differentiated by means of their names and forms, whereas each ones name is only one and that is I. Ask anyone, he says I and speaks of himself as I, even if He is Isvara. His name too is I only.
  --
  Peace is I. This is Samadhi, this is I.
  Talk 583.
  --
  Neither in Samadhi nor in deep sleep does the world remain. There cannot be illusion either in bright light or in total darkness. Only in dim light a rope seems a snake. Similarly Pure Consciousness remains light only; it is pure knowledge. The mind rising from it is deluded that the objects remain apart.
  D.: So then the mind is the mirror.
  --
  M.: The mind or the mouth cannot act without the Self. Tukaram, the great Maharashtra Saint, used to remain in Samadhi in the day and sing and dance at night with large crowds of people. He always used to utter the name of Sri Rama.
  Once he was answering calls of nature and also saying Ram,
  --
  D.: Can Samadhi come and go?
  M.: What is Samadhi? Samadhi is ones essential nature. How then
  can it come or go?
  --
  D.: But Mr. Brunton says that he had one hours Samadhi. Therefore
  I asked the question.
  --
  The effortless Samadhi is the true one and the perfect state. It is
  permanent. The efforts are spasmodic and so also their results.
  --
  life. The Samadhi reached after efforts looks like abstraction from
  the external activities. A person might be so abstracted or live
  --
  of Samadhi ensues. The vasanas, that is the latencies, are not however
  destroyed. The yogi is therefore bound to wake up from the Samadhi,
  because release from bondage has not yet been accomplished. He
  --
  inherent in him may not disturb the peace of his Samadhi. So he
  passes down from the sahasrara to the heart through what is called
  --
  the heart. When the yogi has reached the heart, the Samadhi becomes
  permanent. Thus we see that the heart is the final centre.
  --
  Him. Falling into trance denotes the transitoriness of the Samadhi.
  You are always in Samadhi; that is what should be realised.
  D.: God-vision is glorious.
  --
  When this becomes natural, it is Samadhi. The enquiry Who
  am I? is the sravana. The ascertainment of the true import of
  --
  nididhyasana. Being as I is Samadhi.
  D.: Although we have heard it so often and so constantly yet we are

1.450 - 1.500 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Sri Bhagavan explained to a retired Judge of the High Court some points in the Upadesa Saram as follows:(1) Meditation should remain unbroken as a current. If unbroken it is called Samadhi or Kundalini sakti.
  (2) The mind may be latent and merge in the Self; it must necessarily rise up again; after it rises up one finds oneself only as ever before.
  --
  Even though the man sees the world after he has been in the Samadhi state, the world will be taken only at its worth, that is to say it is the phenomenon of the One Reality. The True Being can be realised only in Samadhi; what was then is also now. Otherwise it cannot be Reality or Ever-present Being. What was in Samadhi is here and now too.
  Hold it and it is your natural condition of Being. Samadhi practice must lead to it. Otherwise how can nirvikalpa Samadhi be of any use in which a man remains as a log of wood? He must necessarily rise up from it sometime or other and face the world. But in sahaja Samadhi he remains unaffected by the world.
  So many pictures pass over the cinema screen: fire burns away everything; water drenches all; but the screen remains unaffected.
  --
  Even these are not the goals. Samadhi must be gained; it must be continuously practised until sahaja Samadhi results. Then there remains nothing more to do.
  455
  --
   Samadhi is present even in vyavaharadasa (practical life). Our activities (vyavahara) have no existence apart from Samadhi. The screen is there when the pictures move past on it and also when they are not projected. Similarly, the Self is always there in vyavahara
  (activity) or in shanti (peace).

1.550 - 1.600 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  He practise yoga? He went into Samadhi as He sat; He was in Perfect
  Repose. Silence prevailed. They saw Him. The effect was immediate.
  They fell into Samadhi and their doubts were at an end.
  Silence is the true upadesa. It is the perfect upadesa. It is suited only for the most advanced seeker. The others are unable to draw full inspiration from it. Therefore they require words to explain the Truth.
  --
  The mind remaining still is Samadhi, no matter whether the world is perceived or not.
  Environment, time and objects are all in me. How can they be independent of me? They may change, but I remain unchanging, always the same. The objects can be differentiated by means of their names and forms, whereas each one's name is only one and that is 'I'. Ask anyone, he says 'I' and speaks of himself as 'I', even if He is Isvara. His name too is 'I' only.
  --
  Peace is 'I'. This is Samadhi, this is 'I'.
  Talk 583.
  --
  Neither in Samadhi nor in deep sleep does the world remain. There cannot be illusion either in bright light or in total darkness. Only in dim light a rope seems a snake. Similarly Pure Consciousness remains light only; it is pure knowledge. The mind rising from it is deluded that the objects remain apart.
  D.: So then the mind is the mirror.
  --
  M.: The mind or the mouth cannot act without the Self. Tukaram, the great Maharashtra Saint, used to remain in Samadhi in the day and sing and dance at night with large crowds of people. He always used to utter the name of Sri Rama.
  Once he was answering calls of nature and also saying "Ram,
  --
  D.: Can Samadhi come and go?
  M.: What is Samadhi? Samadhi is one's essential nature. How then can it come or go?
  If you do not realise your essential nature, your sight remains obstructed. What is the obstruction? Find it and remove it. So one's efforts are meant only for the removal of obstructions which hide the true vision. The real nature remains the same. When once it is realised it is permanent.
  D.: But Mr. Brunton says that he had one hour's Samadhi. Therefore
  I asked the question.
  --
  The effortless Samadhi is the true one and the perfect state. It is permanent. The efforts are spasmodic and so also their results.
  When the real, effortless, permanent, happy nature is realised it will be found to be not inconsistent with the ordinary activities of life. The Samadhi reached after efforts looks like abstraction from the external activities. A person might be so abstracted or live freely among people without detriment to his Peace and Happiness because that is his true nature or the Self.
  21st December, 1938

1.63 - Fear, a Bad Astral Vision, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  One moment, though, about the fear of death. The radical cure is the gaining of the magical memory. (See also AL I, 58) The more previous incarnations one can remember, the less important appears the moment when the curve of life dips below the horizon. (One verycurious point: when one looks back at the moment of one of one's deaths, one exclaims: "By Jove! that was a narrow escape, and no mistake!" Escape from what? Me no savvy; but such is the fact.) How to acquire that Memory? The development of the Magical Record is by far the most important of one's weapons. How to use the Record is not easy to explain; but there is a sort of knack which comes to one suddenly. And there are certain types of Samadhi during the exercise of which these memories appear spontaneously, without warning of any kind.
  There is comfort in the thought that the persistent practice of seeking out one's fears, analysing them and their causes, then deliberately evoking them to "come out, you cad, and fight!" (W.S. Gilbert), presently sets up a habit of mind which is a strong fortress against all fear's modes of assault; one springs automatically to action when a patrol sneaks up within range of one's guns.
  --
  Incidentally, one may draw a quite close parallel between these four stages and those accompanying Samadhi (probably listed in Mrs. Rhys David's book on Buddhist Psychology, or in Warren's bran-tub of translations from the Tripitaka, or Three baskets of the Dhamma. I haven't seen either book for forty years or more, don't remember the exact titles; scholars would help us to dig them out, but it isn't worth while. I recall the quintessence accurately enough.
  Stage 1 is Ananda, usually translated "Bliss". This is an intensity of enjoyment altogether indescribable. This is due to the temporary destruction of the pain-bearing Ahamkara, or Ego-making faculty.

1951-01-27 - Sleep - desires - repression - the subconscient. Dreams - the super-conscient - solving problems. Ladder of being - samadhi. Phases of sleep - silence, true rest. Vital body and illness., #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  object:1951-01-27 - Sleep - desires - repression - the subconscient. Dreams - the super-conscient - solving problems. Ladder of being - Samadhi. Phases of sleep - silence, true rest. Vital body and illness.
  class:chapter

1951-04-21 - Sri Aurobindos letter on conditions for doing yoga - Aspiration, tapasya, surrender - The lower vital - old habits - obsession - Sri Aurobindo on choice and the double life - The old fiasco - inner realisation and outer change, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Not necessarily. They help only if one wants it; otherwise, on the contrary, one detaches oneself more and more from the outer nature. This is what happens to all those who seek mukti, liberation; they reject their outer nature with its character and habits as something altogether contemptible with which one should not busy oneself; they withdraw all their energies, all forces of consciousness towards the heights, and if they do it with sufficient perfection, generally they leave their body once for all. But in the immense majority of instances, they do it only partially and, when they come out of their meditation, their contemplation, their trance or their Samadhi, they are generally worse than others because they have left their outer nature aside without working on it at all. Even ordinary people, when their defects are a little too glaring, try to correct them or control them a little so as not to have too much trouble in life, while these people who think that the right attitude is to leave ones body and ones outer consciousness completely and withdraw entirely to the spiritual heights, treat that like an old coat one throws aside and does not mend and when one takes it back it is full of holes and stains.
   That does not help. It helps only if one has the sincere will to change; if one sincerely has the will to change, it is a powerful help because it gives you the force to make the change, the fulcrum to make the change. But one must sincerely want to change.

1953-06-17, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Have you ever seen a tree growing, a palm tree? There is one in the Ashram courtyard, in the Samadhi courtyard, quite close to the door by which you come up every day, have you never seen how it grows? This tree, you know, is some forty, forty-five or fifty years old perhaps. You see how small it is. These trees can become even much taller than the building. They can live several hundred years, easily, in their natural state, if there is no accident. Have you never seen what it does? I see it from above. It is quite pretty. It happens once a year. At first, you see a kind of small brown ball. Then this small brown ball begins to grow and becomes slightly lighter in colour, less deep. Little by little, you see that it is made of a mass of somewhat complex small lines, with their tips bent inward, as though turned back upon themselves; and that begins to grow, it comes out, becomes more and more limpid, until it begins to turn green, a little pale yellowish green and it takes the form of the bishops cross. Then you see it multiplying and separating; it is yet a little brown, a little queer (almost like you), something like a caterpillar. And suddenly, it is as though it sprang out, it leaps forth. It is pale green; it is frail. It has a delightful colour. It leng thens out. This lasts for a day or two; and then on the following day there are leaves. These leaves I have never counted, I do not know how many they are. Every time there is a new range of leaves. They remain very pale; they are exquisite. They are like a little child, with that something tender, pretty and graceful a child has. And you have still the feeling that it is fragile; and indeed, if it receives a blow, it is spoilt for life. It is very frail, but it is delightfully tender. It has its charm and you say: But why does not Nature remain like that? The following morning pluff! they are separated, they are bright green, they look wonderful with all the strength and force of youth, a magnificent brilliant green. It should stop therenot at all. It continues. Then comes the dust, the deterioration from people who pass by. So it begins to fall, to become yellowish, another kind of yellow, the yellow of dryness until it is completely withered and falls away. It is replaced by the trunk. Every year the trunk increases a little. And it will take several hundred years to reach the end. But every year, it repeats the same thing, passes through all the stages of beauty, charm, attractiveness and you say: But why does it not stop there? And the next minute, it is something else. You cannot say it is better, but it is different. And so it passes from one thing to another through all the stages of flowering. Then the accidents begin; with the accidents comes deterioration, and with deterioration there is death.
   It is like that. But accidents are not indispensable. And even what looks like death helps in the growth of the tree. One sheds off something, but its in order to grow again and have something more. One must be able to keep the harmony and the beauty till the end. There is no reason why one should have a body which has no longer any purpose in being, in existing; because it would no longer be good for anything. To be no longer good for anything, that is exactly what makes it disappear. One could have a body that grows from perfection to perfection. There are many things in the body that make you say: Ah, if it were like that! Ah, I would like it to be thus! (I am not speaking of your character, for there are so many things that need changing; I am speaking only of your physical appearance). You see some disharmony somewhere and you say: If this disharmony disappeared, how much better would it be! But why dont you think that it could be done? If you look at yourself in quite an objective waynot with that sort of attachment one has for ones little person, but quite objectively, you look at yourself as you would look at another person and tell yourself: But this thing is not altogether in harmony with that, and if you look yet more closely, it becomes very interesting: you discover that this disharmony is the expression of a defect in your character. It is because in your character there is something a bit twisted, not quite harmonious, and in your body this is reproduced somewhere. You try to arrange it in your body and you find out that to get back to the source of this physical disharmony, you have to find out the defect in your inner being. And then you begin to work and the result is obtained.

1954-12-15 - Many witnesses inside oneself - Children in the Ashram - Trance and the waking consciousness - Ascetic methods - Education, spontaneous effort - Spiritual experience, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  I don't understand this: "The disadvantage [of trance or Samadhi] is that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved; it remain imperfect." "Waking consciousness is not solved"?
  And naturally! Because if in order to have a meditation or a relation with the inner world, you are obliged to enter into Samadhi, your waking consciousness always remain what it is, without ever changing. That's what I said in other words, you see, when I said that people have a higher consciousness only in very deep meditation. When they come out of their meditation they are no better than they were before. All their defects are there which come back as soon as they come back into their waking consciousness; and they never make any progress because they do not establish a relation between their deeper consciousness, the truth of their being, and their outer being. You see, they take off their outer being as though they were taking off a cloak, and they put it in a corner: "Come now, don't trouble me, keep quiet. You are a nuisance." And then they enter into contemplation, their meditation, into their deep experience; and then they come back, put on the cloak which of course has not changed-which perhaps is dirtier still than before-and they remain exactly as they were without any meditation.
  If you want the outer being to change, it is while remaining conscious of it that you should have the other experiences; and you must not lose contact with your ordinary outer consciousness if you want it to profit by the experience. There are many people... I knew people like that, who used to meditate for hours, almost all the time... they spent their time meditating, and then if by chance... if someone disturbed them in their meditation, if they had to do something, they flew into a rage, a fury, they abused everybody, they became more intolerable than if they had never meditated, than any ordinary person. This happened because they neglected making their outer being participate in their deeper life. They cut themselves into two, so there is a portion inside which progresses and a portion outside which becomes worse and worse, because it is completely neglected.

1956-08-22 - The heaven of the liberated mind - Trance or samadhi - Occult discipline for leaving consecutive bodies - To be greater than ones experience - Total self-giving to the Grace - The truth of the being - Unique relation with the Supreme, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  object:1956-08-22 - The heaven of the liberated mind - Trance or Samadhi - Occult discipline for leaving consecutive bodies - To be greater than ones experience - Total self-giving to the Grace - The truth of the being - Unique relation with the Supreme
  author class:The Mother
  --
  Somebody has asked me a question about trancewhat in India is called Samadhi, that is to say, when one passes or enters into a state of which no conscious memory remains when one wakes up:
  Is the state of trance or Samadhi a sign of progress?
  In ancient times it was considered a very high condition. It was even thought to be the sign of a great realisation, and people who wanted to do yoga or sadhana always tried to enter into a state of this kind. All sorts of marvellous things have been said about this stateyou may say all you like about it, since, precisely, you dont remember anything! And those who have entered it are unable to say what happened to them. So, one can say anything one likes.
  I could incidentally tell you that in all kinds of so-called spiritual literature I had always read marvellous things about this state of trance or Samadhi, and it so happened that I had never experienced it. So I did not know whether this was a sign of inferiority. And when I came here, one of my first questions to Sri Aurobindo was: What do you think of Samadhi, that state of trance one does not remember? One enters into a condition which seems blissful, but when one comes out of it, one does not know at all what has happened. Then he looked at me, saw what I meant and told me, It is unconsciousness. I asked him for an explanation, I said, What? He told me, Yes, you enter into what is called Samadhi when you go out of your conscious being and enter a part of your being which is completely unconscious, or rather a domain where you have no corresponding consciousness you go beyond the field of your consciousness and enter a region where you are no longer conscious. You are in the impersonal state, that is to say, a state in which you are unconscious; and that is why, naturally, you remember nothing, because you were not conscious of anything.1 So this reassured me and I said, Well, this has never happened to me. He replied, Nor to me! (Laughter)
  And since then, when people speak to me about Samadhi, I tell them, Well, try to develop your inner individuality and you will be able to enter these very regions in full consciousness and have the joy of communion with the highest regions, but without losing all consciousness and returning with a zero instead of an experience.
  So that is my reply to the person who has asked if Samadhi or trance is a sign of progress. The sign of progress is when there is no longer any unconsciousness, when one can go up into the same regions without entering into trance.
  But there is a confusion in the words.
  When you leave a part of your being for example, when you enter quite consciously the vital worldyour body can enter into a trance, but this is not Samadhi. It is rather what might be called a lethargic or cataleptic state. When extreme, it is a cataleptic state because the part of the being which animates the body has gone out of it, so the body is half dead; that is, its life is so far diminished and its functions almost suspended: the heart slows down and can hardly be felt and the breathing is hardly perceptible. This is the real trance. But you, during all this time, you are fully conscious in the vital world. And even, with a certain discipline which, moreover, is neither easy nor without danger, you may so contrive that the minimum of force you leave in your body allows it to be independently conscious. With trainingas I said, it is not easyquite a methodical training, one can manage to make the body keep its autonomy of movement, even when one is almost totally exteriorised. And this is how in an almost complete state of trance, one can speak and relate what the exteriorised part of the being is seeing and doing. For that, one must be fairly advanced on the path.
  There are spontaneous and involuntary instances of a state which is not quite the same as this, but very similar: they are states of somnambulism, that is to say, when you are fast asleep and the vital has gone out of your body, the body automatically obeys the will and action of the part which has gone out, the vital part. Only, as this is not the effect of a willed action and a regulated, progressive education, this state is not desirable, for it may produce disorders in the being. But it is an illustration of what I have just said, of a body which while three-quarters asleep can obey the part of the being which has gone out and is itself fully awake and quite conscious. This is the real trance.

1957-01-02 - Can one go out of time and space? - Not a crucified but a glorified body - Individual effort and the new force, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  One must pass beyond all forms, even the most subtle forms of consciousness, far beyond the forms of thought, the forms of consciousness, to be able to have this impression of being outside space and time. This is what generally happens to people who enter into Samadhi the true Samadhi and when they come back to their normal consciousness, they dont remember anything, for, in fact, there was nothing they could remember. This is what Sri Aurobindo says here: If Brahman were only an impersonal abstraction, the one reasonable end would be annihilation. For it is obvious that if one goes out of time and space, all separate existence automatically ceases.
  There, now. So one can, without much result!

1958-08-13 - Profit by staying in the Ashram - What Sri Aurobindo has come to tell us - Finding the Divine, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  You go to the Samadhi, look at Sri Aurobindos picture, you come to receive a flower from me, sit down to a lesson; you do everything you do but with one question within you: Why?
  And then, if you ask the question, you receive the answer.

1965 09 25, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   This is what people used to seek in the past when they wanted to escape from life. They would go into a trance, they would leave their body quite still and they would go within and they were perfectly happy. And with the Sannyasis who had them-selves buried alive it was like that. They said, Now, I have finished my worktheir language was very impressive I have finished, I am entering into Samadhi and they had themselves buried alive. They went into a room or something, and then it was closed and that was the end of it. And that is what happened: they went into a trance, and after some time, naturally, their body was dissolved and they were in peace.
   But Sri Aurobindo says that this silence is powerful.

1.hcyc - It is clearly seen (from The Song of Enlightenment), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts Original Language Chinese It is clearly seen: There is not a single thing. Nor are there any people; nor are there any Buddhas. The great thousand worlds are bubbles in the sea. All the worthy Sages are like flashes of lightning. Even if an iron wheel were rolled over one's head, Samadhi and wisdom would be fully bright and never lost. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts <
1.he - Hakuins Song of Zazen, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki Original Language Japanese All beings are primarily Buddhas. It is like water and ice: There is no ice apart from water; There are no Buddhas apart from beings. Not knowing how close the truth is to them, Beings seek for it afar -- what a pity! They are like those who, being in the midst of water, Cry out for water, feeling thirst. They are like the son of the rich man, Who, wandering away from his father, Goes astray amongst the poor. It is all due to their ignorance That beings transmigrate in the darkness Of the Six Paths of existence. When they wander from darkness to darkness, How can they ever be free from birth-and-death? As for the Dhyana practice as taught in the Mahayana, No amount of praise can exhaust its merits. The Six Paramitas--beginning with the Giving, Observing the Precepts, And other good deeds, variously enumerated, Such as Nembutsu, Repentance, Moral Training, and so on -- All are finally reducible to the practice of Dhyana. The merit of Dhyana practice, even during a single sitting, Erases the countless sins accumulated in the past. Where then are the Evil Paths to misguide us? The Pure Land cannot be far away. Those who, for once, listening to the Dharma In all humility, Praise it and faithfully follow it, Will be endowed with innumerable merits. But how much more so when you turn your eyes within yourselves And have a glimpse into your self-nature! You find that the self-nature is no-nature - The truth permitting no idle sophistry. For you, then, open the gate leading to the oneness of cause and effect; Before you, then, lies a straight road of non-duality and non-trinity. When you understand that form is the form of the formless, Your coming-and-going takes place nowhere else but where you are. When you understand that thought is the thought of the thought-less. Your singing-and-dancing is no other than the voice of the Dharma. How boundless is the sky of Samadhi! How refreshingly bright is the moon of the Fourfold Wisdom! Being so is there anything you lack? As the Absolute presents itself before you The place where you stand is the Land of the Lotus, And your person -- the body of the Buddha. [2139.jpg] -- from Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

1.he - The Form of the Formless (from Hakuins Song of Zazen), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki Original Language Japanese When you understand that form is the form of the formless, Your coming-and-going takes place nowhere else but where you are. When you understand that thought is the thought of the thought-less. Your singing-and-dancing is no other than the voice of the Dharma. How boundless is the sky of Samadhi! How refreshingly bright is the moon of the Fourfold Wisdom! Being so is there anything you lack? As the Absolute presents itself before you The place where you stand is the Land of the Lotus, And your person -- the body of the Buddha. [2139.jpg] -- from Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki <
1.jm - Response to a Logician, #Milarepa - Poems, #Jetsun Milarepa, #Buddhism
  the transcendent food of Samadhi.
  The most thirst-quenching drink is "nondrinking" --

1.jm - The Song of Food and Dwelling, #Milarepa - Poems, #Jetsun Milarepa, #Buddhism
  The food I found is the Samadhi of Suchness.
  Now I have no fear of hunger.

1.srh - The Royal Song of Saraha (Dohakosa), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Kunzang Tenzin HOMAGE TO ARYAMANJUSRI! Homage to the destroyer of demonic power! The wind lashes calm waters into rollers and breakers; The king makes multifarious forms out of unity, Seeing many faces of this one Archer, Saraha. The cross-eyed fool sees one lamp as two; The vision and the viewer are one, You broken, brittle mind! Many lamps are lit in the house, But the blind are still in darkness; Sahaja is all-pervasive But the fool cannot see what is under his nose. Just as many rivers are one in the ocean All half-truths are swallowed by the one truth; The effulgence of the sun illuminates all dark corners. Clouds draw water from the ocean to fall as rain on the earth And there is neither increase nor decrease; Just so, reality remains unaltered like the pure sky. Replete with the Buddha's perfections Sahaja is the one essential nature; Beings are born into it and pass into it, Yet there is neither existence nor non-existence in it. Forsaking bliss the fool roams abroad, Hoping for mundane pleasure; Your mouth is full of honey now, Swallow it while you may! Fools attempt to avoid their suffering, The wise enact their pain. Drink the cup of sky-nectar While others hunger for outward appearances. Flies eat filth, spurning the fragrance of sandalwood; Man lost to nirvana furthers his own confusion, Thirsting for the coarse and vulgar. The rain water filling an ox's hoof-print Evaporates when the sun shines; The imperfections of a perfect mind, All are dissolved in perfection. Salt sea water absorbed by clouds turns sweet; The venom of passionate reaction In a strong and selfless mind becomes elixir. The unutterable is free of pain; Non-meditation gives true pleasure. Though we fear the dragon's roar Rain falls from the clouds to ripen the harvest. The nature of beginning and end is here and now, And the first does not exist without the last; The rational fool conceptualising the inconceivable Separates emptiness from compassion. The bee knows from birth That flowers are the source of honey; How can the fool know That samsara and nirvana are one? Facing himself in a mirror The fool sees an alien form; The mind with truth forgotten Serves untruth's outward sham. Flowers' fragrance is intangible Yet its reality pervades the air, Just as mandala circles are informed By a formless presence. Still water stung by an icy wind Freezes hard in starched and jagged shapes; In an emotional mind agitated by critical concepts The unformed becomes hard and intractable. Mind immaculate by nature is untouched By samsara and nirvana's mud; But just like a jewel lost in a swamp Though it retains its lustre it does not shine. As mental sloth increases pure awareness diminishes; As mental sloth increases suffering also grows. Shoots sprout from the seed and leaves from the branches. Separating unity from multiplicity in the mind The light grows dim and we wander in the lower realms; Who is more deserving of pity than he Who walks into fire with his eyes wide open? Obsessed with the joys of sexual embrace The fool believes he knows ultimate truth; He is like someone who stands at his door And, flirting, talks about sex. The wind stirs in the House of Emptiness Exciting delusions of emotional pleasure; Fallen from celestial space, stung, The tormented yogin faints away. Like a brahmin taking rice and butter Offering sacrifice to the flame, He who visualises material things as celestial ambrosia Deludes himself that a dream is ultimate reality. Enlightening the House of Brahma in the fontanelle Stroking the uvala in wanton delight, Confused, believing binding pleasure to be spiritual release, The vain fools calls himself a yogin. Teaching that virtue is irrelevant to intrinsic awareness, He mistakes the lock for the key; Ignorant of the true nature of the gem The fool calls green glass emerald. His mind takes brass for gold, Momentary peak experience for reality accomplished; Clinging to the joy of ephemeral dreams He calls his short-thrift life Eternal Bliss. With a discursive understanding of the symbol EVAM, Creating four seals through an analysis of the moment, He labels his peak experience sahaja: He is clinging to a reflection mistaken for the mirror. Like befuddled deer leaping into a mirage of water Deluded fools in their ignorance cling to outer forms And with their thirst unslaked, bound and confined, They idealise their prison, pretending happiness. The relatively real is free of intellectual constructs, And ultimately real mind, active or quiescent, is no-mind, And this is the supreme,the highest of the high, immaculate; Friends, know this sacred high! In mind absorbed in Samadhi that is concept-free, Passion is immaculately pure; Like a lotus rooted in the slime of a lake bottom, This sublime reality is untouched by the pollution of existence. Make solid your vision of all things as visionary dream And you attain transcendence, Instantaneous realisation and equanimity; A strong mind binding the demons of darkness Beyond thought your own spontaneous nature is accomplished. Appearances have never ceased to be their original radiance, And unformed, form never had a substantial nature to be grasped; It is a continuum of unique meditation, In an inactive, stainless, meditative mind that is no-mind. Thus the I is intellect, mind and mind-forms, I the world, all seemingly alien show, I the infinite variety of vision-viewer, I the desire, the anger, the mental sloth - And bodhicitta. Now there is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness Healing the splits riven by the intellect So that all mental defilements are erased. Who can define the nature of detachment? It cannot be denied nor yet affirmed, And ungraspable it is inconceivable. Through conceptualisation fools are bound, While concept-free there is immaculate sahaja. The concepts of unity and multiplicity do not bring integration; Only through awareness do sentient beings reach freedom. Cognition of radiance is strong meditation; Abide in a calm, quiescent mind. Reaching the joy swollen land Powers of seeing expand, And there is joy and laughter; Even chasing objects there is no separation. From joy, buds of pure pleasure emerge, Bursting into blooms of supreme pleasure, And so long as outflow is contained Unutterable bliss will surely mature. What, where and by whom are nothing, Yet the entire event is imperative. Whether love and attachment or desirelessness The form of the event is emptiness. Like pigs we wallow in this sensual mire But what can stain our pearly mind? Nothing can ever contaminate it, And by nothing can we ever be bound.

1.sv - In dense darkness, O Mother, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   In dense darkness, O Mother, Thy formless beauty sparkles; Therefore the yogis meditate in a dark mountain cave. In the lap of boundless dark, on Mahanirvana's waves unborn, Peace flows serene and inexhaustible. Taking the form of the Void, in the robe of darkness wrapped, Who art Thou, Mother, seated alone in the shrine of Samadhi? From the Lotus of Thy fear-scattering Feet flash Thy love's lightnings; Thy Spirit-Face shines forth with laughter terrible and loud! [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding

2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Even though the Gita gave currency to quite a different idea of Yoga and even of Samadhi, the popular mind in India has believed that Yoga means Raja Yoga, in most cases at least. It is apparent that Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is quite different from the Raja Yoga of Patanjali. It does not take the mental consciousness and its condition as the constant point of reference; for, its aim is not to secure a mental state which might reflect the Infinite but to rise above the mind. Besides, it adds the process of descent of the Supramental Consciousness into human nature which necessitates a complete transformation of the ignorant human nature into the divine: it transforms the apar prakti into the par prakti.
   Sri Aurobindo: The aim of Patanjali was to rise to a higher consciousness. He proposed to do it by replacing the general Rajasic movements of nature by the Sattwic. There was no idea of practising morality in it, or of ethics. Besides, Yama and Niyama were never the aim of his efforts; the aim was to rise above the ordinary consciousness and even his idea of Samyama and Nigraha was not dictated by morality. He wanted to gather power for a spiritual purpose and so he discouraged the spending away of forces in the ordinary way.

2.01 - The Object of Knowledge, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  11:And yet Mind also, our mentality, our thinking, understanding part, is not our Self, is not That, not the end or the beginning; it is a half-light thrown from the Infinite. The experience of Mind as the creator of forms and things and of these forms and things existing in the Mind only, the thin subtle basis of idealism, is also a delusion, a half-view taken for the whole, a pale refracted light idealised as the burning body of the sun and its splendour. This idealist vision also does not arrive at the essence of being, does not even touch it but only an inferior mode of Nature. Mind is the dubious outer penumbra of a conscious existence which is not limited by mentality but exceeds it. The method of the traditional way of knowledge, eliminating all these things arrives at the conception and realisation of a pure conscious existence, selfaware, self-blissful, unconditioned by mind and life and body, and to its ultimate positive experience that is Atman, the Self, the original and essential nature of our existence. Here at last there is something centrally true, but in its haste to arrive at it this knowledge assumes that there is nothing between the thinking mind and the Highest, buddheh paratastm sah, and, shutting its eyes in Samadhi, tries to rush through all that actually intervenes without even seeing these great and luminous kingdoms of the Spirit. Perhaps it arrives at its object, but only to fall asleep in the Infinite. Or, if it remains awake, it is in the highest experience of the Supreme into which the self-annulling Mind can enter but not in the supreme of the Supreme, Paratpara. The Mind can only be aware of the Self in a mentalised spiritual thinness, only of the mind-reflected Sachchidananda. The highest truth, the integral self-knowledge is not to be gained by this self-blinded leap into the Absolute but by a patient transit beyond the mind into the Truth-Consciousness where the Infinite can be known, felt, seen, experienced in all the fullness of its unending riches. And there we discover this Self that we are to be not only a static tenuous vacant Atman but a great dynamic Spirit individual, universal and transcendent. That Self and Spirit cannot be expressed by the mind's abstract generalisations; all the inspired descriptions of the seers and mystics cannot exhaust its contents and its splendours.
  12:In relation to the universe the Supreme is Brahman, the one Reality which is not only the spiritual, material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and forms of the universe, but their origin, support and possessor, the cosmic and supracosmic Spirit. All the last terms to which we can reduce the universe, Force and Matter, Name and Form, Purusha and prakriti, are still not entirely that which the universe really is either in itself or its nature. As all that we are is the play and form, the mental, psychic, vital and physical expression of a supreme Self unconditioned by mind and life and body, the universe too is the play and form and cosmic soul-expression and nature-expression of a supreme existence which is unconditioned by force and matter, unconditioned by idea and name and form, unconditioned by the fundamental distinction of Purusha and prakriti. Our supreme Self and the supreme Existence which has become the universe are one spirit, one self and one existence. The individual is in nature one expression of the universal Being, in spirit an emanation of the Transcendence. For if he finds his self, he finds too that his own true self is not this natural personality, this created individuality, but is a universal being in its relations with others and with Nature and in its upward term a portion or the living front of a supreme transcendental Spirit.

2.02 - On Letters, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Jada, Unmana, and Chaitanya Samadhi.
   Cosmic emotion.
  --
   ( Sri Aurobindo then took up the question of Samadhi)
   There are many ways of classification and there are no hard and fast rules. In the old way, they always classified Samadhi with regard to the Mind, calling it Savikalpa and Nirvikalpa, or Sakalpa and Nirkalpa. All that is with reference to the Mind.
   If he wants to know the meaning which Ramakrishna gave to those terms then he must find it out himself.
  --
   He speaks of Raja Yoga, but in Raja Yoga also a certain purification of nature is required which is done by Yama and Niyama before the aspirant can succeed in meditation and attain Samadhi.
   In this Yoga also something similar is to be done, though in a different manner. He has, first, to try to understand his own nature and get rid of egoistic motives from his actions and of desires from the vital being. He must try to acquire Samata and Sattwic balance. That is to say, he should reject lower motives and learn to act from higher motives and with a Sattwic temperament. All our actions proceed from a certain inner attitude and he has to see whether he can change the motive of desire for a higher one.

2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
  solitude and Samadhi not as a dram to drown their sorrow and
  still unsated longing, but to realise their divine strength and use

2.03 - Karmayogin A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
  himself in Samadhi; it is the Eternal in His aspect as Ruler of the
  Universe, He who keeps the wheel of phenomena turning and
  --
  because It is Parabrahman, but this is in the state of Samadhi
  and from the state of Samadhi the human understanding can
  bring back no record intelligible to the reason or explicable
  --
  of Samadhi, the Refuge of the outcast & of those who have no
  refuge; Brahma, the Creator, who puts forth life and stays not his
  --
  Shiva, the Master of utter Samadhi; to the Bhakta He appears
  in whatever form appeals most to the spiritual emotions of His
  --
  actionless Brahman with whom he became one in Samadhi. The
  Karmamargin must pass through the condition of Vairagya, but
  --
  Jivanmukta can at will withdraw himself in Samadhi into the
  208
  --
  last moments; for suicide is not the passionless & divine departure at his appointed time of the Yogin centred in Samadhi,
  but a passionate and disgustful departure; and where there is
  --
  state of Samadhi, rise into the unrevealed & imperishable bliss
  of which the Lord has said, "That is my highest seat of all."

2.03 - On Medicine, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   There was a discussion between two disciples one of them was a doctor. The doctors idea was that in Samadhi the physical mind is still, and if we look only to the physical body, then it seems that the venous blood collects in the brain and brings about a sort of anaesthesia of the brain. When the brain is thus completely quieted down then the mind the mental consciousness is released from the entanglement of the body. It can then experience more freely the other levels of consciousness.
   Disciple: What is the venous blood?
  --
   Disciple: So the brain becomes full of carbon dioxide in Samadhi, does it?
   (In between, a letter was read from a sadhak complaining about the bad condition of his Sadhana and asking permission to come to Pondicherry.)
  --
   (After a pause) I was thinking of the carbon dioxide explanation of Samadhi. It may be perfectly true so far as a particular kind of Samadhi is concerned. For example, there is a state in which a complete withdrawal into a certain aspect of the Infinite takes place. It is attained by stilling the mind even the physical mind altogether. But there are other kinds of concentrations where that explanation would not apply at all. In such concentrations the mind is quite clear, in fact, the mind can be very active and there is no carbon dioxide in the brain.
   Disciple: What part does Pranayama play in bringing down the Higher Consciousness?
  --
   As I said about Samadhi, so also about dreams, it is very difficult to say what happens exactly on the physical plane. All things on the physical plane are merely devices they are a system of notations just like the wireless or telegraphic notations, convenient for sending messages; but often we get too busy with the device and mistake it for the thing that is behind the device.
   And this applies to all scientific discoveries. For instance, when you say "Hydrogen and oxygen in certain proportions form water," the statement does not explain anything. It only states a fact. You do not know what water is. It only means there is something behind which manifests itself as water under those conditions.
  --
   As an instance of the change of device I told you about Agamya Guru Paramahamsa. He could stop his heart-beats and go on talking and working like other men. Now, ordinarily, when the heart stops the man dies, or gets into a cataleptic Samadhi. But in his case it was not so.
   Disciple: How many hours do you sleep?
  --
   Sri Aurobindo: Yes. If you know Hatha Yoga you can keep the body safe against disease. You can also reduce the slow process of ageing by supplying the vital force. The difficulty is you can't be always in Samadhi.
   Disciple: Tibbati Baba says that man can conquer death by taking a certain medicine.
  --
   Disciple: Some Yogis go into Samadhi as a release from bodily pain and suffering. But there are those who don't do that and bear the pain.
   Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Yogis can go into Samadhi and put an end to the sensations. But it is not necessary to have a disease in order to go into Samadhi. Besides, when one decides to bear it, it seems to me a way of accepting the disease. But I don't understand the utility of going into Samadhi to escape from pain.
   Ramakrishna once said to Keshav Chandra Sen, when the former was seriously ill, that his body was breaking up under the stress of his spiritual development. But there is no necessity of having a disease for the sake of spiritual development.

2.04 - Concentration, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  3:This use of concentration implies like every other a previous purification; it implies also in the end a renunciation, a cessation and lastly an ascent into the absolute and transcendent state of Samadhi from which if it culminates, if it endures, there is, except perhaps for one soul out of many thousands, no return. For by that we go to the "supreme state of the Eternal whence souls revert not" into the cyclic action of Nature305a; and it is into this Samadhi that the Yogin who aims at release from the world seeks to pass away at the time of leaving his body. We see this succession in the discipline of the Rajayoga. For first the Rajayogin must arrive at a certain moral and spiritual purity; he must get rid of the lower or downward activities of his mind, but afterwards he must stop all its activities and concentrate himself in the one idea that leads from activity to the quiescence of status. The Rajayogic concentration has several stages, that in which the object is seized, that in which it is held, that in which the mind is lost in the status which the object represents or to which the concentration leads, and only the last is termed Samadhi in the Rajayoga although the word is capable, as in the Gita, of a much wider sense. But in the Rajayogic Samadhi there are different grades of status, -- that in which the mind, though lost to outward objects, still muses, thinks, perceives in the world of thought, that in which the mind is still capable of primary thought-formations and that in which, all out-darting of the mind even within itself having ceased, the soul rises beyond thought into the silence of the Incommunicable and Ineffable. Ill all Yoga there are indeed many preparatory objects of thought-concentration, forms, verbal formulas of thought, significant names, all of which are supports305b to the mind ill this movement, all of which have to be used and transcended; the highest support according to the Upanishads is the mystic syllable AUM, whose three letters represent the Brahman or Supreme Self in its three degrees of status, the Waking Soul, the Dream Soul and the Sleep Soul, and the whole potent sound rises towards that which is beyond status as beyond activity305c. For of all Yoga of knowledge the final goal is the Transcendent.
  4:We have, however, conceived as the aim of an integral Yoga something more complex and less exclusive-less exclusively positive of the highest condition of the soul, less exclusively negative of its divine radiations. We must aim indeed at the Highest, the Source of all, the Transcendent but not to the exclusion of that which it transcends, rather as the source of an established experience and supreme state of the soul which shall transform all other states and remould our consciousness of the world into the form of its secret Truth. We do not seek to excise from our being all consciousness of the universe, but to realise God, Truth and Self in the universe as well as transcendent of it. We shall seek therefore not only the Ineffable, but also His manifestation as infinite being, consciousness and bliss embracing the universe and at play in it. For that triune infinity is His supreme manifestation and that we shall aspire to know, to share in and to become; and since we seek to realise this Trinity not only in itself but in its cosmic play, we shall aspire also to knowledge of and participation in the universal divine Truth, Knowledge, Will, Love which are His secondary manifestation. His divine becoming. With this too we shall aspire to identify ourselves, towards this too we shall strive to rise and, when the period of effort is passed, allow it by our renunciation of all egoism to draw us up into itself in our being and to descend into us and embrace us in all our becoming. This not only as a means of approach and passage to His supreme transcendence, but as the condition, even when we possess and are possessed by the Transcendent, of a divine life in the manifestation of the cosmos.
  5:In order that we may do this, the terms concentration and Samadhi must assume for us a richer and profound meaning. All our concentration is merely an image of the divine Tapas by which the Self dwells gathered in itself, by which it manifests within itself, by which it maintains and possesses its manifestations by which it draws back from all manifestation into its supreme oneness. Being dwelling in consciousness upon itself for bliss, this is the divine Tapas; and a Knowledge-Will dwelling in force of consciousness on itself and its manifestations is the essence of the divine concentration, the Yoga of the Lord of Yoga. Given the self-differentiation of the Divine in which we dwell, concentration is the means by which the individual soul identifies itself with and enters into any form, state or psychological self-manifestation (bhava) of the Self. To use this means for unification with the Divine is the condition for the attainment of divine knowledge and the principle of all Yoga of knowledge.
  6:This concentration proceeds by the Idea, using thought, form and name as keys which yield up to the concentrating mind ale Truth that lies concealed behind all thought, form and name; for it is through the Idea that the mental being rises beyond all expression to that which is expressed, to that of which the Idea Itself is only the instrument. By concentration upon the Idea the mental existence which at present we are breaks open the barrier of our mentality and arrives at the state of consciousness, the state of being, the state of power of conscious-being and bliss of conscious-being to which the Idea corresponds and of which it is the symbol, movement and rhythm. Concentration by the Idea is, then, only a means, a key to open to us the superconscient planes of our existence; a certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity arid infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi. Not merely a state withdrawn from Ill consciousness of the outward, withdrawn even from all consciousness of the inward into that which exists beyond both whether as seed of both or transcendent even of their seed-state; but a settled existence in the One and Infinite, united and identified with it, and this status to remain whether we abide in the waking condition in which we are conscious of tile forms of things or we withdraw into the inward activity which dwells in the play of the principles of things, the play of their names and typal forms or we soar to the condition of static inwardness where we arrive at the principles themselves and at the principle of all principles, the seed of name and form.307 For the soul that has arrived at the essential Samadhi and is settled in it ( Samadhistha) in the sense the Gita attaches to the word, has that which is fundamental to all experience and cannot fall from it by any experience however distracting to one who has not yet ascended the summit. It can embrace all in the scope of its being without being bound by any or deluded or limited.
  7:When we arrive at this state, all our being and consciousness being concentrated, the necessity of concentration in the Idea ceases. For there in that supramental state the whole position of things is reversed. The mind is a thing that dwells in diffusion, in succession; it can only concentrate on one thing at a time and when not concentrated runs from one thing to another very much at random. Therefore it has to concentrate on a single idea, a single subject of meditation, a single object of contemplation, a single object of will in order to possess or master it, arid this it must do to at least the temporary exclusion of all others. But that which is beyond the mind and into which we seek to rise is superior to the running process of the thought, superior to the division of ideas. The Divine is centred in itself and when it throws out ideas and activities does not divide itself or imprison itself in them, but holds them and their movement in its infinity; undivided, its whole self is behind each Idea and each movement arid at the same time behind all of them together. Held by it, each spontaneously works itself out, not through a separate act of will, but by the general force of consciousness behind it; if to us there seems to be a concentration of divine Will and Knowledge in each, it is a multiple arid equal and not an exclusive concentration, and the reality of it is rather a free and spontaneous working in a self-gathered unity and infinity. The soul which has risen to the divine Samadhi participates in the measure of its attainment in this reversed condition of things, -the true condition, for that which is the reverse of our mentality is the truth. It is for this reason that, as is said in the ancient books, the man who has arrived at Self-possession attains spontaneously without the need of concentration in thought and effort the knowledge or the result which the Idea or the Will in him moves out to embrace.
  8:To arrive then at this settled divine status must be the object of our concentration. The first step in concentration must be always to accustom the discursive mind to a settled unwavering pursuit of a single course of connected thought on a single subject and this it must do undistracted by all lures and alien calls on its attention. Such concentration is common enough in our ordinary life, but it becomes more difficult when we have to do it inwardly without any outward object or action on which to keep the mind; yet this inward concentration is what the seeker of knowledge must effect309. Nor must it be merely the consecutive thought of the intellectual thinker, whose only object is to conceive and intellectually link together his conceptions. It is not, except perhaps at first, a process of reasoning that is wanted so much as a dwelling so far as possible on the fruitful essence of the idea which by the insistence of the soul's will upon it must yield up all the facets of its truth. Thus if it be the divine Love that is the subject of concentration, it is on the essence of the idea of God as Love that the mind should concentrate in such a way that the various manifestation of the divine Love should arise luminously, not only to the thought, but in the heart and being and vision of the Sadhaka. The thought may come first and the experience afterwards, but equally the experience may come first and the knowledge arise out of the experience. Afterwards the thing attained has to be dwelt on and more and more held till it becomes a constant experience and finally the Dharma or law of the being.
  9:This is the process of concentrated meditation; but a more strenuous method is the fixing of the whole mind in concentration on the essence of the idea only, so as to reach not the thought-knowledge or the psychological experience of the subject, but the very essence of the thing behind the idea. In this process thought ceases and passes into the absorbed or ecstatic contemplation of the object or by a merging into it m an inner Samadhi. If this be the process followed, then subsequently the state into which we rise must still be called down to take possession of the lower being, to shed its light, power and bliss on our ordinary consciousness. For otherwise we may possess it, as many do, in the elevated condition or in the inward Samadhi, but we shall lose our hold of it when we awake or descend into the contacts of the world; and this truncated possession is not the aim of an integral Yoga.
  9:A third process is neither at first to concentrate in a strenuous meditation on the one subject nor in a strenuous contemplation of the one object of thought-vision, but first to still the mind altogether. This may be done by various ways; one is to stand back from the mental action altogether not participating in but simply watching it until, tired of its unsanctioned leaping and running, it falls into an increasing and finally an absolute quiet. Another is to reject the thought-suggestions, to cast them away from the mind whenever they come and firmly hold to the peace of the being which really and always exists behind the trouble and riot of the mind. When this secret peace is unveiled, a great calm settles on the being and there comes usually with it the perception and experience of the all-pervading silent Brahman, everything else at first seeming to be mere form and eidolon. On the basis of this calm everything else may be built up in the knowledge and experience no longer of the external phenomena of things but of the deeper truth of the divine manifestation.

2.06 - The Synthesis of the Disciplines of Knowledge, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The Self is an eternal utter Being and pure existence of which all these things are becomings. From this knowledge we have to proceed; this knowledge we have to realise and make it the foundation of the inner and the outer life of the individual. The Yoga of Knowledge, starting from this primary truth, has conceived a negative and positive method of discipline by which we shall get rid of these false identifications and recoil back from them into true self-knowledge. The negative method is to say always "I am not the body" so as to contradict and root out the false idea "I am the body," to concentrate on this knowledge and by renunciation of the attachment of the soul to the physical, get rid of the body-sense. We say again "I am not the life" and by concentration on this knowledge and renunciation of attachment to the vital movements and desires, get rid of the life-sense. We say, finally, "I am not the mind, the motion, the sense, the thought" and by concentration on this knowledge and renunciation of the mental activities, get rid of the mind-sense. When we thus constantly create a gulf between ourselves and the things with which we identified ourselves, their veils progressively fall away from us and the Self begins to be visible to our experience. Of that then we say "I am That, the pure, the eternal, the self-blissful" and by concentrating our thought and being upon it we become That and are able finally to renounce the individual existence and the Cosmos. Another positive method belonging rather to the Rajayoga is to concentrate on the thought of the Brahman and shut out from us all other ideas, so that this dynamo of mind shall cease to work upon our external or varied internal existence; by mental cessation the vital and physical play also shall fall to rest in an eternal Samadhi, some inexpressible deepest trance of the being in which we shall pass into the absolute Existence.
  This discipline is evidently a self-centred and exclusive inner movement which gets rid of the world by denying it in thought and shutting the eyes of the soul to it in vision. But the universe is there as a truth in God even though the individual soul may have shut its eyes to it and the Self is there in the universe really and not falsely, supporting all that we have rejected, truly immanent in all things, really embracing the individual in the universal as well as embracing the universe in that which exceeds and transcends it. What shall we do with this eternal Self in this persistent universe which we see encompassing us every time we come out of the trance of inner meditation ? The ascetic Path of Knowledge has its solution and its discipline for the soul that looks out on the universe. It is to regard the immanent and all-encompassing and all-constituting Self in the image of the ether in which all forms are, which is in all forms, of which all forms are made. In that ether cosmic Life and Mind move as the Breath of things, an atmospheric sea in the ethereal, and constitute from it all these forms; but what they constitute are merely name and form and not realities; the form of the pot we see is a form of earth only and goes back into the earth, earth a form resolvable into the cosmic Life, the cosmic Life a movement that falls to rest in that silent immutable Ether. Concentrating on this knowledge, rejecting all phenomenon and appearance, we come to see the whole as an illusion of name and form in the ether that is Brahman; it becomes unreal to us; and the universe becoming unreal the immanence becomes unreal and there is only the Self upon which our mind has falsely imposed the name and form of the universe. Thus are we justified in the withdrawal of the individual self into the Absolute.

2.06 - The Wand, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  97:Consciousness itself is only destroyed by Samadhi.
  98:One can now see the logical process which begins in refusing to think of a foot, and ends by destroying the sense of individuality.

2.08 - The Sword, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  The phrase "together with the Lord," is then literally identical with the word Samadhi, which is the Sanskrit name of the phenomenon described by Saint Paul, this union of the ego and the non-ego, subject and object, this chymical marriage, and thus identical with the symbolism of the Rosy Cross, under a slightly different aspect.
  And since marriage can only take place between one and one, it is evident that no idea can thus be united, unless it is simple.
  --
  And this hatred is the thought which inhibits the love whose apotheosis is Samadhi.
  But it is too much to expect of the young Magician to practise attachment to the distasteful; let him first become indifferent. Let him endeavour to see facts as facts, as simply as he would see them if they were historical. Let him avoid the imaginative interpretation of any facts. Let him not put himself in the place of the people of whom the facts are related, or if he does so, let it be done only for the purpose of comprehension. Sympathy,1 indignation, praise and blame, are out of place in the observer.

2.09 - On Sadhana, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Disciple: Those sadhaks who drink, or take narcotics, do they get some help thereby in obtaining Samadhi?
   Sri Aurobindo: All that depends upon what you call ' Samadhi'. My own experience in the matter is that wine and narcotics generally inhibit the action of the most Tamasic centres in the physical brain, and the other centres in the brain get stimulated. This helps one to escape from the limitations of the physical consciousness and one may get into other planes of consciousness.
  --
   Disciple: I only want to know if they really get into Samadhi.
   Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by ' Samadhi'? If you mean an inward-drawn condition, certainly it may help one to get into it.
  --
   Sri Aurobindo: That is a kind of unconscious Samadhi. (Laughter)
   It may help one to concentrate. But what one does with that concentration depends upon the man. My own idea is that of all these people, who resort to these external stimulants, ninety percent never go beyond the vital consciousness. They get into it and then the vital is a great builder: it constructs any number of things, worlds, states, etc. It can give you an idea that you are in the Highest. There are any number of Siddhis on the vital plane and if you have proper knowledge you can get them by using these things. And even if one gets into the Brahmic consciousness it is not that one has got the Highest Truth, because the Brahmic consciousness can be had on any plane. You can have that consciousness on the mental or the vital plane.
  --
   Disciple: They speak of Samadhi in which one enters into Turiya the fourth state.
   Disciple: I find it very difficut to enter into Turiya. Immediately I try, I go to sleep! (Laughter)

2.09 - The Pantacle, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  39:This great task of separating the self from the impressions or "vrittis" is one of the many meanings of the aphorism "solv," corresponding to the "coagula" implied in Samadhi, and this Pantacle therefore represents all that we are, the resultant of all that we had a tendency to be.
  40:In the Dhammapada we read:

2.09 - The Release from the Ego, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  When there is an insufficient purity in the mental being, the release appears at first to be partial and temporary; the Jiva seems to descend again into the egoistic life and the higher consciousness to be withdrawn from him. In reality, what happens is that a cloud or veil intervenes between the lower nature and the higher consciousness and the prakriti resumes for a time its old habit of working under the pressure but not always with a knowledge or present memory of that high experience. What works in it then is a ghost of the old ego supporting a mechanical repetition of the old habits upon the remnants of confusion and impurity still left in the system. The cloud intervenes and disappears, the rhythm of ascent and descent renews itself until the impurity has been worked out. This period of alternations may easily be long in the integral Yoga; for there an entire perfection of the system is required; it must be capable at all times and in all conditions and all circumstances, whether of action or inaction, of admitting and then living in the consciousness of the supreme Truth. Nor is it enough for the Sadhaka to have the utter realisation only in the trance of Samadhi or in a motionless quietude, but he must in trance or in waking, in passive reflection or energy of action be able to remain in the constant Samadhi of the firmly founded Brahmic consciousness349a. But if or when our conscious being has become sufficiently pure and clear, then there is a firm station in the higher consciousness. The impersonalised Jiva, one with the universal or possessed by the Transcendent, lives high-seated above349b and looks down undisturbed at whatever remnants of the old working of Nature may revisit the system. He cannot be moved by the workings of the three modes of prakriti in his lower being, nor can he be shaken from his station by the attacks even of grief and suffering. And finally, there being no veil between, the higher peace overpowers the lower disturbance and mobility. There is a settled silence in which the soul can take sovereign possession of itself above and below and altogether.
  Such possession is not indeed the aim of the traditional Yoga of knowledge whose object is rather to get away from the above and the below and the all into the indefinable Absolute. But whatever the aim, the path of knowledge must lead to one first result, an absolute quietude; for unless the old action of Nature in us be entirely quieted, it is difficult if not impossible to found either any true soul-status or any divine activity. Our nature acts on a basis of confusion and restless compulsion to action, the Divine acts freely out of a fathomless calm. Into that abyss of tranquillity we must plunge and become that, if we are to annul the hold of this lower nature upon the soul. Therefore the universalised Jiva first ascends into the Silence; it becomes vast, tranquil, actionless. What action takes place, whether of body and these organs or any working whatever, the Jiva sees but does not take part in, authorise or in any way associate itself with it. There is action, but no personal actor, no bondage, no responsibility. If personal action is needed, then the Jiva has to keep or recover what has been called the form of the ego, a sort of mental image of an "I" that is the knower, devotee, servant or instrument, but an image only and not a reality. If even that is not there, still action can continue by the mere continued force of prakriti, without any personal actor, without indeed there being any sense of an actor at all; for the Self into which the Jiva has cast its being is the actionless, the fathomless still. The path of works leads to the realisation of the Lord, but here even the Lord is not known; there is only the silent Self and prakriti doing her works, even, as it seems at first, riot with truly living entities but with names and forms existing in the Self but which the Self does not admit as real. The soul may go even beyond this realisation; it may either rise to the Brahman on the other side of all idea of Self as a Void of everything that is here, a Void of unnameable peace and extinction of all, even of the Sat, even of that Existent which is the impersonal basis of individual or universal personality; or else it may unite with it as an ineffable "That" of which nothing can be said; for the universe and all that is does not even exist in That, but appears to the mind as a dream more unsubstantial than any dream ever seen or imagined, so that even the word dream seems too positive a thing to express its entire unreality. These experiences are the foundation of that lofty illusionism which takes such firm hold of the human mind in its highest overleapings of itself.

2.1.01 - The Central Process of the Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Sadhana is the practice of Yoga. Tapasya is the concentration of the will to get the results of sadhana and to conquer the lower nature. Aradhana is worship of the Divine, love, self-surrender, aspiration to the Divine, calling the name, prayer. Dhyana is inner concentration of the consciousness, meditation, going inside in Samadhi. Dhyana, tapasya and aradhana are all parts of sadhana.
  ***

2.1.02 - Classification of the Parts of the Being, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  So one of the Upanishads speaks of the Ishwara consciousness as sus.upta, deep Sleep, because it is only in Samadhi that man usually enters into it, so long as he does not try to turn his waking consciousness into a higher state.
  There are in fact two systems simultaneously active in the organisation of the being and its parts; - one is concentric, a series of rings or sheaths with the psychic at the centre; another is vertical, an ascension and descent, like a flight of steps, a series of superimposed planes with the Supermind-Overmind as the crucial nodus of the transition beyond the human into the

2.1.02 - Nature The World-Manifestation, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The Supreme is not manifest to our minds encased in matter; numberless superphysical planes separate our terrestrial consciousness from all direct touch of our Source, and there can be no question of an unveiled immediate intimate presence and guidance of that Ineffable. And yet the Divine Consciousness and Force, the everlasting Chitshakti, the original Power, the transcendent and eternal Mother, because she holds the Supreme concealed in her, can put us into some kind of touch with that inexpressible Glory and communicate to us a highest Will and its consequence. This cannot be done through the mind; for the thinking mind can only form some inadequate and quite abstract conception of an Absolute or a supreme Person or an impersonal Principle or Presence. And even the higher mind that experiences returns only a pale reflection of Sachchidananda which it takes for that Ineffable or a vague sense of the Eternal or the Infinite. It cannot lay hold upon That and it cannot enter, for if it tries, either that vanishes from it or itself it disappears in a featureless trance, extinction, annihilation, void or dissolution, nirvikalpa Samadhi, nirvana, vinasha, shunya, laya. But what the mind cannot do, the soul and a great secret Overmind
  [can.]
  --
   conscious mentality, no possibility of knowing it; the universe can only be allowed to exist by a consciousness admitting its existence, supporting it by its assent. If by any chance, law or process our consciousness can cease finally to be aware of the universe, then so far as we are concerned, the universe no longer exists; it is annulled to us, it was an illusion from which we are released, as when a dream or hallucination ceases. Any such final upshot proves that originally also the universe was non-existent, for otherwise, if it had existed for us eternally without beginning, it would also continue for us eternally without end. But even if it ceases for us, it still continues in existence, is capable of being observed and lived in by others. How is that? We must suppose, that since it exists cosmically, its existence must be admitted and supported by the assent of a universal consciousness by which and for which it is or rather seems to be. Well, if by any chance, law or process this universal consciousness ceases finally to be aware of the universe, then the universe no longer exists for anybody or anything at all; it is proved to be an utter illusion, existent phenomenally only so long as the universal consciousness admitted it, but capable of coming to an end and therefore shown to be non-existent in its beginning and in its end nonexistent. Now our ultimate experience is that there is a last and highest state of consciousness in which the universe does thus cease for the individual to be. What is that state? It is Samadhi, a trance of consciousness in which the sole experience is thus expressed, "I am in bliss" and the sole memory brought back is
  "I was in bliss." In this state the universe has for the individual no existence; he is released from it. Therefore this highest state of experience is one of which only three things can be affirmed, existence, consciousness of existence, bliss of the consciousness of existence; but it is a pure existence without other feature or any relation. But how is this proved to be the ultimate state of our conscious being? Well, it is the knowledge of the sages who have entered into it that it is the ultimate state, it is the knowledge left behind them that they have finally passed away into it not to return to consciousness of the phenomenal world, and it is confirmed by the authority of the Veda. Reason tells
  --
  Brahman and it ceases to be individual mind, although in an individual body it still seems to be individually released. Really, it is Brahman expelling Maya from the consciousness, then the mind is taken up into Samadhi, extinguished in Samadhi, and this is the [?prefatory] sign. Fix your mind upon that, look at things practically, and do not ask inconsistent questions, as to how there can be individual salvation when there is no individual self to be saved. These questions do not arise once the release is made, they arise in Maya which is a practical fact and can receive only a practical solution.
  Well that is a kind of answer. But how am I to know that it is not an evasion of the difficulty? What if I say that really the unmodifiable Brahman is not the highest truth? that the

2.12 - On Miracles, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   The subject was miracles or acts that appear extraordinary in the lives of great spiritual persons. Ramana Maharshi, the great Yogi of Tiruvannamalai, was once beaten severely by robbers. They thought that he had a lot of money hidden somewhere but as they failed to locate it they caught him and beat him. At last they found only utensils, which they started taking. Ramana Maharshi told them, "But why don't you take some food which is ready, and then take the utensils?" They did not listen to him and beat him. He fell into Samadhi and his limbs were swollen with the beating. The police caught the burglars and brought them before Ramana Maharshi for identification, but he refused to identify them.
   Disciple: There is a story about Tailanga Swami, that once he was beaten by robbers and the marks of the beating were found on the body of the son of a robber.

2.13 - The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Somehow this chasm has to be bridged. And here there are two possibilities for the mental being. One possibility is for it to rise by a great, prolonged, concentrated, all-forgetting effort out of itself into the Supreme. But in this effort the mind has to leave its own consciousness, to disappear into another and temporarily or permanently lose itself, if not quite abolish. It has to go into the trance of Samadhi. For this reason the Raja and other systems of Yoga give a supreme importance to the state of Samadhi or Yogic trance in which the mind withdraws not only from its ordinary interests and preoccupations, but first from all consciousness of outward act and sense and being and then from all consciousness of inward mental activities. In this its inward-gathered state the mental being may have different kinds of realisation of the Supreme in itself or in various aspects or on various levels, but the ideal is to get rid of mind altogether and, going beyond mental realisation, to enter into the absolute trance in which all sign of mind or lower existence ceases. But this is a state of consciousness to which few can attain and from which not all can return.
  It is obvious, since mind-consciousness is the sole waking state possessed by mental being, that it cannot ordinarily quite enter into another without leaving behind completely both all our waking existence and all our inward mind. This is the necessity of the Yogic trance. But one cannot continually remain in this trance; or, even if one could persist in it for an indefinitely long period, it is always likely to be broken in upon by any strong or persistent call on the bodily life. And when one returns to the mental consciousness, one is back again in the lower being. Therefore it has been said that complete liberation from the human birth, complete ascension from the life of the mental being is impossible until the body and the bodily life are finally cast off. The ideal upheld before the Yogin who follows this method is to renounce all desire and every least velleity of the human life, of the mental existence, to detach himself utterly from the world and, entering more and more frequently and more and more deeply into the most concentrated state of Samadhi, finally to leave the body while in that utter in-gathering of tile being so that it may depart into the supreme Existence. It is also by reason of this apparent incompatibility of mind and Spirit that so many religions and systems are led to condemn the world and look forward only to a heaven beyond or else a void Nirvana or supreme featureless self-existence in the Supreme.
  But what under these circumstances is the human mind which seeks the divine to do with its waking moments? For if these are subject to all the disabilities of mortal mentality, if they are open to the attacks of grief, fear, anger, passion, hunger, greed, desire, it is irrational to suppose that by the mere concentration of the mental being in the Yogic trance at the moment of putting off the body, the soul call pass away without return into the supreme existence. For man's normal consciousness is still subject to what the Buddbists call the chain or the stream of Karma; it is still creating energies which must continue and have their effect in a continued life of the mental being which is creating them. Or, to take another point of view, consciousness being the determining fact and not the bodily existence which is only a result, the man still belongs normally to the status of human, or at least mental activity and this cannot be abrogated by the fact of passing out of the physical body; to get rid of mortal body is not to get rid of mortal mind. Nor is it sufficient to have a dominant disgust of the world or an anti-vital indifference or aversion to the material existence; for this too belongs to the lower mental status and activity. The highest teaching is that even the desire for liberation with all its mental concomitants must be surpassed before the soul can be entirely free. Therefore not only must the mind be able to rise in abnormal states out of itself into a higher consciousness, but its waking mentality also must be entirely spiritualised.
  This brings into the field the second possibility open to the mental being; for if its first possibility is to rise out of itself into a divine supramental plane of being, the other is to call down the divine into itself so that its mentality shall be changed into an image of the divine, shall be divinised or spiritualised. This may be done and primarily must be done by the mind's power of refleeting that which it knows, relates to its own consciousness, contemplates. For the mind is really a reflector and a medium and none of its activities originate in themselves, none exist per se. Ordinarily, the mind reflects the status of mortal nature and the activities of the Force which works under the conditions of the material universe. But if it becomes clear, passive, pure, by the renunciation of these activities and of the characteristic ideas and outlook of mental nature, then as in a clear mirror or like the sky in clear water which is without ripple and unruffled by winds, the divine is reflected. The mind still does not entirely possess the divine or become divine, but is possessed by it or by a luminous reflection of it so long as it remains in this pure passivity. If it becomes active, it falls back into the disturbance of the mortal nature and reflects that and no longer the divine. For this reason an absolute quietism and a cessation first of all outer action and then of all inner movement is the ideal ordinarily proposed; here too, for the follower of the path of knowledge, there must be a sort of waking Samadhi. Whatever action is unavoidable, must be a purely superficial working of the organs of perception and motor action in which the quiescent mind takes eventually no part and from which it seeks no result or profit.
  But this is insufficient for the integral Yoga. There must be a positive transformation and not merely a negative quiescence of the waking mentality. The transformation is possible because, although the divine planes are above the mental consciousness and to enter actually into them we have ordinarily to lose the mental in Samadhi, yet there are in the mental being divine planes superior to our normal mentality which reproduce the conditions of the divine plane proper, although modified by the conditions, dominant here, of mentality. All that belongs to the experience of the divine plane can there be seized, but in the mental way and m a mental form. To these planes of divine mentality it is possible for the developed human being to arise in the waking state; or it is possible for him to derive from them a stream of influences and experiences which shall eventually open to them and transform into their nature his whole waking existence. These higher mental states are the immediate sources, the large actual instruments, the inner stations382 of his perfection.
  But in arriving to these planes or deriving from them the limitations of our mentality pursue us. In the first place the mind is an inveterate divider of the indivisible and its whole nature is to dwell on one thing at a time to the exclusion of others or to stress it to the subordination of others. Thus in approaching Sachchidananda it will dwell on its aspect of the pure existence, Sat, and consciousness and bliss are compelled then to lose themselves or remain quiescent in the experience of pure, infinite being which leads to the realisation of the quietistic Monist. Or it will dwell on the aspect of consciousness, Chit, and existence and bliss become then dependent on the experience of an infinite transcendent Power and Conscious-Force, which leads to the realisation of the Tantric worshipper of Energy. Or it will dwell on the aspect of delight, Ananda, and existence and consciousness then seem to disappear into a bliss without basis of self-possessing awareness or constituent being, which leads to. the realisation of the Buddhistic seeker of Nirvana. Or it will dwell on some aspect of Sachchidananda which comes to the mind from the supramental Knowledge, Will or Love, and then the infinite impersonal aspect of Sachchidananda is almost or quite lost in the experience of the Deity which leads to the realisations of the various religions and to the possession of some supernal world or divine status of the human soul in relation to God. And for those whose object is to depart anywhi ther from cosmic existence, this is enough, since they are able by the mind's immergence into or seizure upon any one of these principles or aspects to effect through status in the divine planes of their mentality or the possession by them of their waking state this desired transit.

2.17 - December 1938, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Sri Aurobindo: Then why do you call it sleep? It may be the psychic being, or the inner being watching what is happening. Sometimes one goes into a deeper state and remembers nothing in his outer consciousness, though many things may be going on within. What is called dreamless sleep is really a sleep in which dreams are passing on, only one does not know. Sometimes one discusses problems in such a condition, gets the ecstasy of union, etc. One may also go into other worlds with one part of his being and meet other forms, etc. This is of course the first condition and a kind of a beginning of Samadhi. From what you describe it may be the inner beings experience and not the psychic's. Even then, there is no doubt that your face is beaming with Ananda, seeing which I thought you went within.
   Disciple: Can one get the diagnoses of diseases in such states?

2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Sri Aurobindo: They used to brand the body with a hot iron to see if the man was in trance or not! They thought perhaps that it might be only deep trance and not Nirvikalpa Samadhi! (Laughter)
   Disciple: Can it be that the man would not feel anything?

2.19 - The Planes of Our Existence, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  11:These highest worlds are therefore supramental; they belong to the principle of supermind, the free, spiritual or divine intelligences436 or gnosis and to the triple spiritual principle of Sachchidananda. From them the lower worlds derive by a sort of fall of the Purusha into certain specific or narrow conditions of the play of the soul with its nature. But these also are divided from us by no unbridgeable gulf; they affect us through what are called the knowledge-sheath and the bliss-sheath, through the causal or spiritual body, and less directly through the mental body, nor are their secret powers absent from the workings of the vital and material existence. Our conscious spiritual being and our intuitive mind awaken in us as a result of the pressure of these highest worlds on the mental being in life and body. But this causal body is, as we say, little developed in the majority of men and to live in it or to ascend to the supramental planes, as distinguished from corresponding sub-planes in the mental being, or still more to dwell consciously upon them is the most difficult thing of all for the human being. It can be done in the trance of Samadhi, but otherwise only by a new evolution of the capacities of the individual Purusha of which few are even willing to conceive. Yet is that the condition of the perfect self-consciousness by which alone the Purusha can possess the full conscious control of prakriti; for there not even the mind determines, but the Spirit freely uses the lower differentiating principles as minor terms of its existence governed by the higher and reaching by them their own perfect capacity. That alone would be the perfect evolution of the involved and development of the undeveloped for which the Purusha has sought in the material universe, as if in a wager with itself, the conditions of the greatest difficulty.

2.2.02 - Becoming Conscious in Work, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  It is probably because at the time of the work the tendency of the consciousness to externalise itself is greater (that is always the case), so the pressure grows stronger in order to produce a contrary inward tendency. This produces some tendency to go inside in the way of a complete internalisation (going into a sort of Samadhi); but what should happen during work is a going inside in a wakeful condition and becoming aware of the psychic within as you used to do under the pressure while the outer mind does the work. This is the condition that must eventually come.
  ***

2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there are several hymns in which various Gods like Agni, Indra, etc., are spoken of as creators. But it is not the same thing as what I call the "Supermind as a creator". The word in the old philosophy which can convey the idea of the Supermind as a creator is praj, the Knower. He creates out of himself. Prajna is spoken of as superconscient because it is above the ordinary mental consciousness and ordinarily one enters it in Samadhi, unless one brings it down into the ordinary consciousness. The Supermind also is superconscient but that is because it has not yet been attained. Hiranyagarbha is equivalent to Taijas, while Prajna is prior to that. I remember that in jail we used to call one fellow who had a strong imagination Hiranyagarbha, that is to say, man of strong dreams.
   ( Then P showed Sri Aurobindo two references from Smaveda: the second hymn of Mandala III, in which Hiranyagarbha is derived from Rudra, and the fourth hymn of Mandala II in which Kapila is said to be Hiranyagarbha.)

2.22 - THE MASTER AT COSSIPORE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  On the morning of December 23 Sri Ramakrishna gave unrestrained expression to his love for the devotees. He said to Niranjan, "You are my father: I shall sit on your lap." Touching Kalipada's chest, he said, "May your inner spirit be awakened!" He stroked Kalipada's chin affectionately and said, "Whoever has sincerely called on God or performed his daily religious devotions will certainly come here." In the morning two ladies received his special blessing. In a state of Samadhi he touched their hearts with his feet. They shed tears of joy. One of them said to him, weeping, "You are so kind!" His love this day really broke all bounds. He wanted to bless Gopal of Sinthi and said to a devotee, "Bring Gopal here."
  It was evening. Sri Ramakrishna was absorbed in contemplation of the Mother of the Universe. After a while he began to talk very softly with some of the devotees. Kali, Chunilal, M., Navagopal, Sashi, Niranjan, and a few others were present.
  --
  MASTER: "Oh, that! I am relieved. Can you explain one thing? How is it that in spite of all these visions, all this ecstasy and Samadhi, I am so ill?"
  M: "Your suffering is no doubt great; but it has a deep meaning."
  --
  As Sri Ramakrishna listened to these words he became abstracted. He was silent a few moments. Presently he went into Samadhi.
  Regaining consciousness of the outer world, he said to M.: "I saw everything passing from form to formlessness. I want to tell you all the things I saw, but I cannot. Well, this tendency of mine toward the formless is only a sign of my nearing dissolution. Isn't that so?"
  --
  NARENDRA: "He said: 'Why don't you settle your family affairs first and then come to me? You will get everything. What do you want?' I replied, 'It is my desire to remain absorbed in Samadhi continually for three or four days, only once in a while coming down to the sense plane to eat a little food,' Thereupon he said to me: 'You are a very small-minded person. There is a State higher even than that. "All that exists art Thou" — it is you who sing that song.'"
  M: "Yes, he always says that after coming down from Samadhi one sees that it is God Himself who has become the universe, the living beings, and all that exists. The Isvarakotis alone can attain that state. An ordinary man can at the most attain Samadhi; but he cannot come down from that state."
  NARENDRA: "He [the Master] said: 'Settle your family affairs and then come to me. You will attain a state higher than Samadhi.' I went home this morning. My people scolded me, saying: 'Why do you wander about like a vagabond? Your law examination is near at hand and you are not paying any attention to your studies. You wander about aimlessly.'"
  M: "Did your mother say anything?"
  --
  "Even after attaining jnana, the jnani can live in the world, retaining vidyamaya, that is to say, bhakti, compassion, renunciation, and such virtues. This serves him two purposes: first, the teaching of men, and second, the enjoyment of divine bliss. If a jnani remains silent, merged in Samadhi, then men's hearts will not be illumined. Therefore Sankaracharya kept the 'ego of Knowledge'. And further, a jnani lives as a devotee, in the company of bhaktas, in order to enjoy and drink deep of the Bliss of God.
  "The 'ego of Knowledge' and the 'ego of Devotion' can do no harm; it is the 'wicked I' that is harmful. After realizing God a man becomes like a child. There is no harm in the 'ego of a child'. It is like the reflection of a face in a mirror: the reflection cannot call names. Or it is like a burnt rope, which appears to be a rope but disappears at the slightest puff. The ego that has been burnt in the fire of Knowledge cannot injure anybody. It is an ego only in name.
  --
  Immediately Sri Ramakrishna goes into Samadhi. He completely forgets his body and the outer world. The devotees are bewildered. Not knowing what to do, they sit still.
  Presently the Master regains partial consciousness of the world and says: "Now I have no pain at all. I am my old self again."

2.23 - THE MASTER AND BUDDHA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Narendra's visit to Bodh-Gaya — Buddha's doctrines — The meaning of Buddha — Narendra's enthusiasm about Buddha — Master about himself — Master's vision of God — Different kinds of Samadhi — Power of God's name — Surendra's faith — Master's love for Girish — Nature of the mind — Monks and householders — About Rakhal — Radha's love for Krishna — The crazy woman — Good use of money — Master's anxiety about M.'s wife.
  Friday, April 9, 1886
  --
  NARENDRA: "They show that he is in Samadhi."
  Sri Ramakrishna again became silent. Narendra and the other devotees looked at him intently. Suddenly a smile lighted his face and he began to talk with Narendra. M. was fanning him.
  --
  "Once a sadhu from Hrishikesh came to Dakshineswar. He said to me: 'How amazing! I find five kinds of Samadhi manifested in you.'
  "Just as a monkey climbs a tree, jumping from one branch to another, so also does the Mahavayu, the Great Energy, rise in the body, jumping from one centre to another, and one goes into Samadhi. One feels the rising of the Great Energy, as though it were the movement of a monkey.
  "Just as a fish darts about in the water and roams in great happiness, so also does the Mahavayu move upward in the body, and one goes into Samadhi. One feels the rising of the Great Energy, as though it were the movement of a fish.
  "Like a bird hopping from one branch to another, the Mahavayu goes up in the tree of the body, now to this branch and now to that. One feels the rising of the Great Energy, as though it were the movement of a bird.
  "Like the slow creeping of an ant, the Mahavayu rises from centre to centre. When it reaches the Sahasrara one goes into Samadhi. One feels the rising of the Great Energy, as though it were the movement of an ant.
  "Like the wriggling of a snake, the Mahavayu rises in a zigzag way along the spinal column till it reaches the Sahasrara, and one goes into Samadhi. One feels the rising of the Great Energy, as though it were the movement of a snake."
  RAKHAL (to the other devotees): "Let us stop here. He has already talked a great deal. It will aggravate his illness."

2.25 - AFTER THE PASSING AWAY, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Narendra now began to joke like a child. He was imitating Sri Ramakrishna. He put a sweet into his mouth and stood still, as if in Samadhi. His eyes remained unwinking. A devotee stepped forward and pretended to hold him up by the hand lest he should drop to the ground. Narendra closed his eyes. A few minutes later, with the sweetmeat still in his mouth, he opened his eyes and drawled out, "I — am — all — right." All laughed loudly.
  Refreshments were now given to everyone. M. looked on at this wonderful mart of happiness. The devotees shouted joyfully, "Jai Gurumaharaj!" (Victory to the Guru.)
  --
  M: "Yes, we have heard that. Many a time he repeated the same thing to us, too. Once you came to know about your true Self in nirvikalpa Samadhi at the Cossipore garden house. Isn't that true?"
  NARENDRA: "Yes. In that experience I felt that I had no body. I could see only my face. The Master was in the upstairs room. I had that experience downstairs. I was weeping. I said, 'What has happened to me?' The elder Gopal went to the Master's room and said, 'Narendra is crying.'
  --
  NARENDRA: "He went into Samadhi. He said to Ram Babu: "Who is this boy? How well he sings!' He asked me to come again."
  M: "Where did you see him next?"
  NARENDRA: "At Rajmohan's house. The third visit was at Dakshineswar again. During that visit he went into Samadhi and began to praise me as if I were God. He said to me, 'O Narayana, you have assumed this body for my sake.' But please don't tell this to anybody else."
  M: "What else did he say?"
  --
  M: "Didn't he say it when you were in nirvikalpa Samadhi?"
  NARENDRA: "Yes. At the time it seemed to me I had no body. I felt only my face.
  --
  NARENDRA : "Yes. Like an insane person I ran out of our house. He asked me, 'What do you want?' I replied, 'I want to remain immersed in Samadhi.' He said: 'What a small mind you have! Go beyond Samadhi! Samadhi is a very trifling thing.'"
  M: "Yes, he used to say that vijnana is the stage after jnana. It is like going up and down the stairs after reaching the roof."
  --
  Nor have I, in Samadhi, meditated on Sankara, who dwells in every form as the Inner Guide.
  Therefore, O Siva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions.

2.25 - List of Topics in Each Talk, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   | 10-07-24 | Samadhi, Sushupti, in Upanishads; Sri Aurobindo's jail experiences |
   | 25-11-24 | Yoga and marriage, sex, psychic union, wife as Shakti |
  --
   | 19-09-25 | Samadhi, science, Yoga; Dr. Kobayashi, Cou; Pranic currents, brain, sleep, dreams |
   | 20-09-25 | Tuberculosis, depression; curing by Sri Aurobindo's force |
  --
   | 09-04-26 | Drinking, narcotics, Samadhi; Sri Aurobindo's experiences |
   | 18-05-26 | Having a Shakti; speed of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga; 'external' work, 'isms' |

2.26 - Samadhi, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  object:2.26 - Samadhi
  Intimately connected with the aim of the Yoga of Knowledge which must always be the growth, the ascent or the withdrawal into a higher or a divine consciousness not now normal to us, is the importance attached to the phenomenon of Yogic trance, to Samadhi. It is supposed that there are states of being which can only be gained in trance; that especially is to be desired in which all action of awareness is abolished and there is no consciousness at all except the pure supramental immersion in immobile, timeless and infinite being. By passing away in this trance the soul departs into the silence of the highest Nirvana without possibility of return into any illusory or inferior state of existence. Samadhi is not so all-important in the Yoga of devotion, but it still has its place there as the swoon of being into which the ecstasy of divine love casts the soul. To enter into it is the supreme step of the ladder of Yogic practice in Rajayoga and Hathayoga. What then is the nature of Samadhi or the utility of its trance in an integral Yoga? It is evident that where our objective includes the possession of the Divine in life, a state of cessation of life cannot be the last consummating step or the highest desirable condition: Yogic trance cannot be an aim, as in so many Yogic systems, but only a means, and a means not of escape from the waking existence, but to enlarge and raise the whole seeing, living and active consciousness.
  The importance of Samadhi rests upon the truth which modern knowledge is rediscovering, but which has never been lost in Indian psychology, that only a small part whether of world-being or of our own being comes into our ken or into our action. The rest is hidden behind in subliminal reaches of being which descend into the profoundest depths of the subconscient and rise to highest peaks of superconscience, or which surround the little field of our waking self with a wide circumconscient existence of which our mind and sense catch only a few indications. The old Indian psychology expressed this fact by dividing consciousness into three provinces, waking state, dream-state, sleep-state, jagrat, svarna, susupti; and it supposed in the human being a waking self, a dream-self, a sleep-self, with the supreme or absolute self of being, the fourth or Turiya, beyond, of which all these are derivations for the enjoyment of relative experience in the world.
  If we examine the phraseology of the old books, we shall find that the waking state is the consciousness of the material universe which we normally possess in this embodied existence dominated by the physical mind. The dream state is a consciousness corresponding to the subtler life-plane and mind-plane behind, which to us, even when we get intimations of them, have not the same concrete reality as the things of the physical existence. The sleep-state is a consciousness corresponding to the supramental plane proper to the gnosis, which is beyond our experience because our causal body or envelope of gnosis is not developed in us, its faculties not active, and therefore we are in relation to that plane in a condition of dreamless sleep. The Turiya beyond is the consciousness of our pure self-existence or our absolute being with which we have no direct relations at all, whatever mental reflections we may receive in our dream or our waking or even, irrecoverably, in our sleep consciousness. This fourfold scale corresponds to the degrees of the ladder of being by which we climb back towards the absolute Divine. Normally therefore we cannot get back from the physical mind to the higher planes or degrees of consciousness without receding from the waking state, without going in and away from it and losing touch with the material world. Hence to those who desire to have the experience of these higher degrees, trance becomes a desirable thing, a means of escape from the limitations of the physical mind and nature.
   Samadhi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths according as it draws farther and farther away from the normal or waking state and enters Into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or call back the soul that has receded into them; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the system owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance ill which the soul persisting for too long a time cannot return; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had inhabited it. Finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary phenomena of death, by an act of will,500 or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current (udana), opening for it a way through the mystic brahmaradhra in the head. By departure from life in the state of Samadhi he attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
  In the dream-state itself there are an infinite series of depths, from the lighter recall is easy and the world of the physical senses is at the doors, though for the moment shut out; in the deeper it becomes remote and less able to break in upon the inner absorption, the mind has entered into secure depths of trance. There is a complete difference between Samadhi and normal sleep, between the dream-state of Yoga and the physical state of dream. The latter belongs to the physical mind; in the former the mind proper and subtle is at work liberated from the immixture of the physical mentality. The dreams of the physical mind are an incoherent jumble made up partly of responses to vague touches from the physical world round which the lower mind-faculties disconnected from the will and reason, the buddhi, weave a web of wandering phantasy, partly of disordered associations from the brain-memory, partly of reflections from the soul travelling on the mental plane, reflections which are, ordinarily, received without intelligence or coordination, wildly distorted in the reception and mixed up confusedly with the other dream elements, with brain-memories and fantastic responses to any sensory touch from the physical world. In the Yogic dream-state, on the other hand, the mind is in clear possession of itself, though not of the physical world, works coherently and is able to use either its ordinary will and intelligence with a concentrated power or else the higher will and intelligence of the more exalted planes of mind. It withdraws from experience of the outer world, it puts its seals upon the physical senses and their doors of communication with material things; but everything that is proper to itself, thought, reasoning, reflection, vision, it can continue to execute with an increased purity and power of sovereign concentration free from the distractions and unsteadiness of the waking mind. It can use too its will and produce upon itself or upon its environment mental, moral and even physical effects which may continue and have their after-consequences on the waking state subsequent to the cessation of the trance.
  To arrive at full possession of the powers of the dream-state, it is necessary first to exclude the attack of the sights, sounds, etc, of the outer world upon the physical organs. It is quite possible indeed to be aware in the dream-trance of the outer physical world through the subtle senses which belong to the subtle body; one may be aware of them just so far as one chooses and on a much wider scale than in the waking condition: for the subtle senses have a far more powerful range than the gross physical organs, a range which may be made practically unlimited. But this awareness of the physical world through the subtle senses is something quite different from our normal awareness of it through the physical organs; the latter is incompatible with the settled state of trance, for the pressure of the physical senses breaks the Samadhi and calls back the mind to live in their normal field where alone they have power. But the subtle senses have power both upon their own planes and upon the physical world, though this is to them more remote than their own world of being. In Yoga various devices are used to seal up the doors of the physical sense, some of them physical devices; but the one all-sufficient means is a force of concentration by which the mind is drawn inward to depths where the call of physical things can no longer easily attain to it. A second necessity is to get rid of the intervention of physical sleep. The ordinary habit of the mind when it goes in away from contact with physical things is to fall into the torpor of sleep or its dreams, and therefore when called in for the purposes of Samadhi, it gives or tends to give, at the first chance, by sheer force of habit, not the response demanded, but its usual response of physical slumber. This habit of the mind has to be got rid of; the mind has to learn to be awake in the dream-state, in possession of itself, not with the outgoing, but with an ingathered wakefulness in which, though immersed in itself, it exercises all its powers.
  The experiences of the dream-state are infinitely various. For not only has it sovereign possession of the usual mental powers, reasoning, discrimination, will, imagination, and can use them in whatever way, on whatever subject, for whatever purpose it pleases, but it is able to establish connection with all the worlds to which it has natural access or to which it chooses to acquire access, from the physical to the higher mental worlds. This it does by various means open to the subtlety, flexibility and comprehensive movement of this internalised mind liberated from the narrow limitations of the physical outward-going senses. It is able first to take cognizance of all things whether in the material world or upon other planes by aid of perceptible images, not only images of things visible, but of sounds, touch smell, taste, movement, action, of all that makes itself sensible to the mind and its organs. For the mind in Samadhi has access to the inner space called sometimes the cidakasa, to depths of more and more subtle ether which are heavily curtained from the physical sense by the grosser ether of the material universe, and all things sensible, whether in the material world or any other, create reconstituting vibrations, sensible echoes, reproductions, recurrent images of themselves which that subtler ether receives and retains.
  It is this which explains many of the phenomena of clairvoyance. clair-audience, etc; for these phenomena are only the exceptional admission of the waking mentality into a limited sensitiveness to what might be called the image memory of the subtle ether, by which not only the signs of all things past and present, but even those of things future can be seized; for things future are already accomplished to knowledge and vision on higher planes of mind and their images can be reflected upon mind in the present. But these things which are exceptional to the waking mentality, difficult and to be perceived only by the possession of a special power or else after assiduous training, are natural to the dream-state of trance consciousness in which the subliminal mind is free. And that mind can also take cognizance of things on various planes not only by these sensible images, but by a species of thought perception or of thought reception and impression analogous to that phenomenon of consciousness which in modern psychical science has been given the name of telepathy. But the powers of the dream-state do not end here. It can by a sort of projection of ourselves, in a subtle form of the mental or vital body, actually enter into other planes and worlds or into distant places and scenes of this world, move among them with a sort of bodily presence and bring back the direct experience of their scenes and truths and occurrences. It may even project actually the mental or vital body for the same purpose and travel in it, leaving the physical body in a profoundest trance without sign of life until its return.
  The greatest value of the dream-state of Samadhi lies, however, not in these more outward things, but in its power to open up easily higher ranges and powers of thought, emotion, will by which the soul grows in height, range and self-mastery. Especially, withdrawing from the distraction of sensible things, it can, in a perfect power of concentrated self-seclusion, prepare itself by a free reasoning, thought, discrimination or more intimately, more finally, by an ever deeper vision and identification, for access to the Divine, the supreme Self, the transcendent Truth, both in its principles and powers and manifestations and in its highest original Being. Or it can by an absorbed inner joy and emotion, as in a sealed and secluded chamber of the soul, prepare itself for the delight of union with the divine Beloved, the Master of all bliss, rapture and Ananda.
  For the integral Yoga this method of Samadhi may seem to have the disadvantage that when it ceases, the thread is broken and the soul returns into the distraction and imperfection of the outward life, with only such an elevating effect upon that outer life as the general memory of these deeper experiences may produce. But this gulf, this break is not inevitable. In the first place, it is only in the untrained psychic being that the experiences of the trance are a blank to the waking mind; as it becomes the master of its Samadhi, it is able to pass without any gulf of oblivion from the inner to the outer waking. Secondly, when this has been once done, what is attained in the inner state, becomes easier to acquire by the waking consciousness and to turn into the normal experience, powers, mental status of the waking life. The subtle mind which is normally eclipsed by the insistence of the physical being, becomes powerful even in the waking state, until even there the enlarging man is able to live in his several subtle bodies as well as in his physical body, to be aware of them and in them, to use their senses, faculties, powers, to dwell in possession .of supra-physical truth, consciousness and experience.
  The sleep-state ascends to a higher power of being, beyond thought into pure consciousness, beyond emotion into pure bliss, beyond will into pure mastery; it is the gate of union with the supreme state of Sachchidananda out of which all the activities of the world are born. But here we must take care to avoid the pitfalls of symbolic language. The use of the words dream and sleep for these higher states is nothing but an image drawn from the experience of the normal physical mind with regard to planes in which it is not at home. It is not the truth that the Self in the third status called perfect sleep, susupti, is in a state of slumber. The sleep self is on the contrary described as Prajna, the Master of Wisdom and Knowledge, Self of the Gnosis, and as Ishwara, the Lord of being. To the physical mind a sleep, it is to our wider and subtler consciousness a greater waking. To the normal mind all that exceeds its normal experience but still comes into its scope, seems a dream; but at the point where it borders on things quite beyond its scope, it can no longer see truth even as in a dream, but passes into the blank incomprehension and non-reception of slumber. This border-line varies with the power of the individual consciousness, with the degree and height of its enlightenment and awakening. The line may be pushed up higher and higher until it may pass even beyond the mind. Normally indeed the human mind cannot be awake even with the inner waking of trance, on the supramental levels; but this disability can be overcome. Awake on these levels the soul becomes master of the ranges of gnostic thought, gnostic will, gnostic delight, and if it can do this in Samadhi, it may carry its memory of experience and its power of experience over into the waking state. Even on the yet higher level open to us, that of the Ananda, the awakened soul may become similarly possessed of the Bliss-Self both in its concentration and in its cosmic comprehension. But still there may be ranges above from which it can bring back no memory except that which says, "somehow, indescribably, I was in bliss," the bliss of an unconditioned existence beyond all potentiality of expression by thought or description by image or feature. Even the sense of being may disappear in an experience in which the world-existence loses its sense and the Buddhistic symbol of Nirvana seems alone and sovereignly justified. However high the power of awakening goes, there seems to be a beyond in which the image of sleep, of susupti, will still find its application.
  Such is the principle of the Yogic trance, Samadhi, -- into its complex phenomena we need not now enter. It is sufficient to note its double utility in the integral Yoga. It is true that up to a point difficult to define or delimit almost all that Samadhi can give, can be acquired without recourse to Samadhi. But still there are certain heights of spiritual and psychic experience of which the direct as opposed to a reflecting experience can only be acquired deeply and in its fullness by means of the Yogic trance. And even for that which can be otherwise acquired, it offers a ready means, a facility which becomes more helpful, if not indispensable, the higher and more difficult of access become the planes on which the heightened spiritual experience is sought. Once attained there, it has to be brought as much as possible into the waking consciousness. For in a Yoga which embraces all life completely and without reserve, the full use of Samadhi comes only when its gains can be made the normal possession and experience for an integral waking of the embodied soul in the human being.
  author class:Sri Aurobindo

2.27 - Hathayoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  There are almost as many ways of arriving at Samadhi as there are different paths of Yoga. Indeed so great is the importance attached to it, not only as a supreme means of arriving at the highest consciousness, but as the very condition and status of that highest consciousness itself, in which alone it can be completely possessed and enjoyed while we are in the body, that certain disciplines of Yoga look as if they were only ways of arriving at Samadhi. All Yoga is in its nature an attempt and an arriving at unity with the Supreme, -- unity with the being of the Supreme, unity with the consciousness of the Supreme, unity with the bliss of the Supreme, -- or, if we repudiate the idea of absolute unity, at least at some kind of union, even If it be only for the soul to live in one status and periphery of being with the Divine, salokya, or in a sort of indivisible proximity, samipya. This can only be gained by rising to a higher level and intensity of consciousness than our ordinary mentality possesses. Samadhi, as we have seen, offers itself as the natural status of such a higher level and greater intensity. It assumes naturally a great importance in the Yoga of knowledge, because there it is the very principle of its method and its object to raise the mental consciousness into a clarity and concentrated power by which it can become entirely aware of, lost in, identified with true being. But there are two great disciplines in which it becomes of an even greater importance. To these two systems, to Rajayoga and Hathayoga, we may as well now turn; for in spite of the wide difference of their methods from that of the path of knowledge, they have this same principle as their final justification. At the same time, it will not be necessary for us to do more than regard the spirit of their gradations in passing; for in a synthetic and integral Yoga they take a secondary importance; their aims have indeed to be included, but their methods can either altogether be dispensed with or Hathayoga is a powerful, but difficult and onerous system whose whole principle of action is founded on an intimate connection between the body and the soul. The body is the key, the body the secret both of bondage and of release, of animal weakness and of divine power, of the obscuration of the mind and soul and of their illumination, of subjection to pain and limitation and of self-mastery, of death and of immortality. The body is not to the Hathayogin a mere mass of living matter, but a mystic bridge between the spiritual and the physical being; one has even seen an ingenious exegete of the Hathayogic discipline explain the Vedantic symbol OM as a figure of this mystic human body. Although, however, he speaks always of the physical body and makes that the basis of his practices, he does not view it with the eye of the anatomist or physiologist, but describes and explains it in language which always looks back to the subtle body behind the physical system. In fact the whole aim of the Hathayogin may be summarised from our point of view, though he would not himself put it in that language, as an attempt by fixed scientific processes to give to the soul in the physical body the power, the light, the purity, the freedom, the ascending scales of spiritual experience which would naturally be open to it, if it dwelt here in the subtle and the developed causal vehicle.
  To speak of the processes of Hathayoga as scientific may seem strange to those who associate the idea of science only with the superficial phenomena of the physical universe apart from all that is behind them; but they are equally based on definite experience of laws and their workings and give, when rightly practised, their well-tested results. In fact, Hathayoga is, in its own way, a system of knowledge; but while the proper Yoga of knowledge is a philosophy of being put into spiritual practice, a psychological system, this is a science of being, a psycho-physical system. Both produce physical, psychic and spiritual results; but because they stand at different poles of the same truth, to one the psycho-physical results are of small importance, the pure psychic and spiritual alone matter, and even the pure psychic are only accessories of the spiritual which absorb all the attention; m the other the physical is of Immense importance, the psychical a considerable fruit, the spiritual the highest and consummating result, but it seems for a long time a thing postponed and remote, so great arid absorbing is the attention which the body demands. It must not be forgotten, however, that both do arrive at the same end. Hathayoga, also, is a path, though by a long, difficult and meticulous movement, dunhkam aptume, to the Supreme.

2.28 - Rajayoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  This arrangement of the psychic body is reproduced in the physical with the spinal column as a rod and the ganglionic centres as the Chakras which rise up from the bottom of the column, where the lowest is attached, to the brain and find their summit in the brahmarandhra at the top of the skull. These Chakras or lotuses, however, are in physical man closed or only partly open, with the consequence that only such powers and only so much of them are active in him as are sufficient for his ordinary physical life, and so much mind and soul only is at play as will accord with its needs. This is the real reason, looked at from the mechanical point of view, why the embodied soul seems so dependent on the bodily and nervous life, -- though the dependence is neither so complete nor so real as it seems. The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake, -- therefore it is called the kundalini sakti, -- in the lowest of the Chakras, in the muladhara. When by Pranayama the division between the upper and lower Prana currents in the body is dissolved, this Kundalini is struck and awakened, it uncoils itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the shakti meets Put less symbolically, in more philosophical though perhaps less profound language, this means that the real energy of our being is lying asleep and inconscient in the depths of our vital system, and is awakened by the practice of Pranayama. In its expansion it opens up all the centres of our psychological being in which reside the powers and the consciousness of what would now be called perhaps our subliminal self; therefore as each centre of power and consciousness is opened up, we get access to successive psychological planes and are able to put ourselves in communication with the worlds or cosmic states of being which correspond to them; all the psychic powers abnormal to physical man, but natural to the soul develop in us. Finally, at the summit of the ascension, this arising and expanding' energy meets with the superconscient self which sits concealed behind and above our physical and mental existence; this meeting leads to a profound Samadhi of union in which our waking consciousness loses itself in the superconscient. Thus by the thorough and unremitting practice of Pranayama the Hathayogin attains in his own way the psychic and spiritual results which are pursued through more directly psychical and spiritual methods in other Yogas. The one mental aid which he conjoins with it, is the use of the Mantra, sacred syllable, name or mystic formula which is of so much importance in the Indian systems of Yoga and common to them all. This secret of the power of the Mantra, the six Chakras and the Kundalini shakti is one of the central truths of all that complex psycho-physical science and practice of which the Tantric philosophy claims to give us a rationale and the most complete compendium of methods. All religions and disciplines in India which use largely the psycho-physical method, depend more or less upon it for their practices.
  Rajayoga also uses the Pranayama and for the same principal psychic purposes as the Hathayoga, but being in its whole principle a psychical system, it employs it only as one stage in the series of its practices and to a very limited extent, for three or four large utilities. It does not start with Asana and Pranayarna, but insists first on a moral purification of the mentality. This preliminary is of supreme importance; without it the course of the rest of the Rajayoga is likely to be troubled, marred and full of unexpected mental, moral and physical perils.517 This moral purification is divided in the established system under two heads, five Yamas and five Niyamas. The first are rules of moral self-control in conduct such as truth-speaking, abstinence from injury or killing, from theft, etc.; but in reality these must be regarded as merely certain main indications of the general need of moral self-control and purity. Yama is, more largely, any self-discipline by which the rajasic egoism and its passions and desires in the human being are conquered and quieted into perfect cessation. The object is to create a moral calm, a void of the passions, and so prepare for the death of egoism in the rajasic human being. The Niyamas are equally a discipline of the mind by regular practices of which the highest is meditation on the divine Being, and their object is to create a sattwic calm, purity and preparation for concentration upon which the secure pursuance of the rest of the Yoga can be founded.
  It is here, when this foundation has been secured, that the practice of Asana and Pranayama come in and can then bear their perfect fruits. By itself the control of the mind and moral being only puts our normal consciousness into the right preliminary condition; it cannot bring about that evolution or manifestation of the higher psychic being which is necessary for the greater aims of Yoga. In order to bring about this manifestation the present nodus of the vital and physical body with the mental being has to be loosened and the way made clear for the ascent through the greater psychic being to the union with the superconscient Purusha. This can be done by Pranayama. Asana is used by the Rajayoga only in its easiest and most natural position, that naturally taken by the body when seated and gathered together, but with the back and head strictly erect and in a straight line, so that there may be no deflection of the spinal cord. The object of the latter rule is obviously connected with the theory of the six Chakras and the circulation of the vital energy between the muladhara and the brahmarahdhra. The Rajayogic Pranayama purifies and clears the nervous system; it enables us to circulate the vital energy equally through the body and direct it also where we will according to need, and thus maintain a perfect health and soundness of the body and the vital being; it gives us control of all the five habitual operations of the vital energy in the system and at the same time breaks down the habitual divisions by which only the ordinary mechanical processes of the vitality are possible to the normal life. It opens entirely the six centres of the psycho-physical system and brings into the waking consciousness the power of the awakened shakti and the light of the unveiled Purusha on each of the ascending planes. Coupled with the use of the Mantra it brings the divine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates that concentration in Samadhi which is the crown of the Rajayogic method.
  Rajayogic concentration is divided into four stages; it commences with the drawing both of the mind and senses from outward things, proceeds to the holding of the one object of concentration to the exclusion of all other ideas and mental activities, then to the prolonged absorption of the mind in this object, finally, to the complete ingoing of the consciousness by which it is lost to all outward mental activity in, the oneness of Samadhi. The real object of this mental discipline is to draw away the mind from the outward and the mental world into union with the divine Being. Therefore in the first three stages use has to be made of some mental means or support by which the mind accustomed to run about from object to object, shall fix on one alone, and that one must be something which represents the idea of the Divine. It is usually a name or a form or a Mantra by which the thought can be fixed in the sole knowledge or adoration of the Lord. By this concentration on the idea the mind enters from the idea into its reality, into which it sinks silent, absorbed, unified. This is the traditional method. There are, however, others which are equally of a Rajayogic character, since they use the mental and psychical being as key. Some of them are directed rather to the quiescence of the mind than to its immediate absorption, as the discipline by which the mind is simply watched and allowed to exhaust its habit of vagrant thought in a purposeless running from which it feels all sanction, purpose and interest withdrawn, and that, more strenuous and rapidly effective, by which all outward-going thought is excluded and the mind forced to sink into itself where in its absolute quietude it can only reflect the pure Being or pass away into its superconscient existence. The method differs, the object and the result are the same.
  Here, it might be supposed, the whole action and aim of Rajayoga must end. For its action is the stilling of the waves of consciousness, its manifold activities, cittavrtti, first, through a habitual replacing of the turbid rajasic activities by the quiet and luminous sattwic, then, by the stilling of all activities; and its object is to enter into silent communion of soul and unity with the Divine. As a matter of fact we find that the system of Rajayoga includes other objects, -- such as the practice and use of occult powers, -- some of which seem to be unconnected with and even inconsistent with its main purpose. These powers or Siddhis are indeed frequently condemned as dangers and distractions which draw away the Yogin from his sole legitimate aim of divine union. On the way, therefore, it would naturally seem as if they ought to be avoided; and once the goal is reached, it would seem that they are then frivolous and superfluous. But Rajayoga is a psychic science and it includes the attainment of all the higher states of consciousness and their powers by which the mental being rises towards the superconscient as well as its ultimate and supreme possibility of union with the Highest. Moreover, the Yogin, while in the body, is not always mentally inactive and sunk in Samadhi, and an account of the powers and states which are possible to him on the higher planes of his being is necessary to the completeness of the science.
  These powers and experiences belong, first, to the vital and mental planes above this physical in which we live, and are natural to the soul in the subtle body; as the dependence on the physical body decreases, these abnormal activities become possible and even manifest themselves without being sought for. They can be acquired and fixed by processes which the science gives, and their use then becomes subject to the will; or they can be allowed to develop of themselves and used only when they come, or when the Divine within moves us to use them; or else, even though thus naturally developing and acting, they may be rejected in a single-minded devotion to the one supreme goal of the Yoga. Secondly, there are fuller, greater powers belonging to the supramental planes which are the very powers of the Divine in his spiritual and supramentally ideative being. These cannot be acquired at all securely or integrally by personal effort, but can only come from above, or else can become natural to the man if and when he ascends beyond mind arid lives in the spiritual being, power, consciousness and ideation. They then become, not abnormal and laboriously acquired Siddhis, but simply the very nature and method of his action, if he still continues to be active in the world-existence.

2.3.01 - Concentration and Meditation, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Meditation, Sleep and Samadhi
  Chapter One
  --
  As for Nirvikalpa Samadhi, even if one wants it, it is only the result of a long sadhana in a consciousness prepared for it - it is no use thinking of it when the inner consciousness is only just beginning to open to Yogic experience.
  

Relaxation and Concentration


  --
  

Meditation, Sleep and Samadhi


  When one tries to meditate, there is a pressure to go inside, lose the waking consciousness and wake inside, in a deep inner consciousness. But at first the mind takes it for a pressure to go to sleep, since sleep is the only kind of inner consciousness to which it has been accustomed. In Yoga by meditation sleep is therefore often the first difficulty - but if one perseveres then gradually the sleep changes to an inner conscious state.
  --
  It [the tendency to fall asleep during meditation] is a common obstacle with all who practise Yoga at the beginning. This sleep disappears gradually in two ways - (1) by the intensifying of the force of concentration - (2) by the sleep itself becoming a kind of swapna Samadhi in which one is conscious of inner experiences that are not dreams (i.e. the waking consciousness is lost for the time, but it is replaced not by sleep but by an inward conscious state in which one moves in the supraphysical of the mental or vital being).
  The Yogic sleep is good only when it is Yogic enough to contain something, to be an inner consciousness or an experience of other planes. The jagarti is important - to be conscious in the sleep, an inner waking. But when the mind is not accustomed, it tends to respond to the impulse towards this "going inside" into an inner consciousness caused by meditation by simply falling into the usual sleep to which it is accustomed. Nidra is one of the recognised difficulties of Yoga - nidra refusing to turn into Samadhi, whether svapna- Samadhi or sus.upti. So the force is necessary and I will try to send it. I only wish people would give me more time for this inner work both for myself and them! but that seems past hoping for.
  It is probably that [in meditation] you go inside into a sort of Samadhi but are not yet conscious there (hence the idea of sleep).
  X is not asleep, but he has when he goes inside no control of his body. Many Yogis have this difficulty and use a contrivance which is put under the chin to hold up the head and with it the body during this inward-going concentration.

2.3.03 - The Overmind, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  What you call supramental overmind1 is still overmind - not a part of the true Supermind. One cannot get into the true Supermind (except in some kind of trance or Samadhi) unless one has first objectivised the overmind Truth in life, speech, action, external knowledge and not only experienced it in meditation and inner experience.
  The Overmind, the Intuition and Below

2.3.07 - The Mother in Visions, Dreams and Experiences, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Just yesterday you wrote to me, "The next step is to be conscious in the Samadhi" and today it actually took place. A great
  Holy Woman had come. Several of us went for her darshan.

3.02 - The Motives of Devotion, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The ground on which sceptical unbelief assails Religion, namely, that there is in fact no conscient Power or Being in the universe greater and higher than ourselves or in any way influencing or controlling our existence, is one which Yoga cannot accept, as that would contradict all spiritual experience and make Yoga itself impossible. Yoga is not a matter of theory or dogma, like philosophy or popular religion, but a matter of experience. Its experience is that of a conscient universal and supracosmic Being with whom it brings us into union, and this conscious experience of union with the Invisible, always renewable and verifiable, is as valid as our conscious experience of a physical world and of visible bodies with whose invisible minds we daily communicate. Yoga proceeds by conscious union, the conscious being is its instrument, and a conscious union with the Inconscient cannot be. It is true that it goes beyond the human consciousness and in Samadhi becomes superconscient, but this is not an annullation of our conscious being, it is only its self-exceeding, the going beyond its present level and normal limits.
  So far, then, all Yogic experience is agreed. But Religion and the Yoga of Bhakti go farther; they attribute to this Being a Personality and human relations with the human being. In both the human being approaches the Divine by means of his humanity, with human emotions, as he would approach a fellow-being, but with more intense and exalted feelings; and not only so, but the Divine also responds in a manner answering to these emotions. In that possibility of response lies the whole question; for if the Divine is impersonal, featureless and relationless, no such response is possible and all human approach to it becomes an absurdity; we must rather dehumanise, depersonalise, annul ourselves in so far as we are human beings or any kind of beings; on no other conditions and by no other means can we approach it. Love, fear, prayer, praise, worship of an Impersonality which has no relation with us or with anything in the universe and no feature that our minds can lay hold of, are obviously an irrational foolishness. On such terms religion and devotion become out of the question. The Adwaitin in order to find a religious basis for his bare and sterile philosophy, has to admit the practical existence of God and the gods and to delude his mind with the language of Maya. Buddhism only became a popular religion when Buddha had taken the place of the supreme Deity as an object of worship.

3.04 - The Way of Devotion, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Consecration becomes in its fullness a devoting of all our being to the Divine; therefore also of all our thoughts and our works. Here the Yoga takes into itself the essential elements of the Yoga of works and the Yoga of knowledge, but in its own manner and with its own peculiar spirit. It is a sacrifice of life and works to the Divine, but a sacrifice of love more than a tuning of the will to the divine Will. The bhakta offers up his life and all that he is and all that he has and all that he does to the Divine. This surrender may take the ascetic form, as when he leaves the ordinary life of men and devotes his days solely to prayer and praise and worship or to ecstatic meditation, gives up his personal possessions and becomes the monk or the mendicant whose one only possession is the Divine, gives up all actions in life except those only which help or belong to the communion with the Divine and communion with other devotees, or at most keeps the doing{|50c-} from the secure fortress of the ascetic life of those services to men which seem peculiarly the outflowing of the divine nature of love, compassion and good. But there is the wider self-consecration, proper to any integral Yoga, which, accepting the fullness of life and the world in its entirety as the play of the Divine, offers up the whole being into his possession; it is a holding of all one is and has as belonging to him only and not to ourselves and a doing of all works as an offering to him. By this comes the complete active consecration of both the inner and the outer life, the unmutilated self-giving. There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration,--for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world,--so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised. There are supposed by those who systematise to be three stages of the seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation. And by these, too, there comes when the accompanying feeling or the concentration is very intense, the Samadhi, the ecstatic trance in which the consciousness passes away from outer objects. But all this is really incidental; the one thing essential is the intense devotion of the thought in the mind to the object of adoration. Although it seems akin to the contemplation of the way of knowledge, it differs from that in its spirit. It is in its real nature not a still, but an ecstatic contemplation; it seeks not to pass into the being of the Divine, but to bring the Divine into ourselves and to lose ourselves in the deep ecstasy of his presence or of his possession; and its bliss is not the peace of unity, but the ecstasy of union. Here, too, there may be the separative self-consecration which ends in the giving up of all other thought of life for the possession of this ecstasy, eternal afterwards in planes beyond, or the comprehensive consecration in which all the thoughts are full of the Divine and even in the occupations of life every thought remembers him. As in the other Yogas, so in this, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all one's inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported here by the primary force of the emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the spirit and its members.
  This is the ordinary movement by which what may be at first a vague adoration of some idea of the Divine takes on the hue and character and then, once entered into the path of Yoga, the inner reality and intense experience of divine love. But there is the more intimate Yoga which from the first consists in this love and attains only by the intensity of its longing without other process or method. All the rest comes, but it comes out of this, as leaf and flower out of the seed; other things are not the means of developing and fulfilling love, but the radiations of love already growing in the soul. This is the way that the soul follows when, while occupied perhaps with the normal human life, it has heard the flute of the Godhead behind the near screen of secret woodlands and no longer possesses itself, can have no satisfaction or rest till it has pursued and seized and possessed the divine fluteplayer. This is in essence the power of love itself in the heart and soul turning from earthly objects to the spiritual source of all beauty and delight. There live in this seeking all the sentiment and passion, all the moods and experiences of love concentrated on a supreme object of desire and intensified a hundredfold beyond the highest acme of intensity possible to a human love. There is the disturbance of the whole life, the illumination by an unseized vision, the unsatisfied yearning for a single object of the heart's desire, the intense impatience of all that distracts from the one preoccupation, the intense pain of the obstacles that stand in the way of possession, the perfect vision of all beauty and delight in a single form. And there are all the many moods of love, the joy of musing and absorption, the delight of the meeting and fulfilment and embrace, the pain of separation, the wrath of love, the tears of longing, the increased delight of reunion. The heart is the scene of this supreme idyll of the inner consciousness, but a heart which undergoes increasingly an intense spiritual change and becomes the radiantly unfolding lotus of the spirit. And as the intensity of its seeking is beyond the highest power of the normal human emotions, so also the delight and the final ecstasy are beyond the reach of the imagination and beyond expression by speech. For this is the delight of the Godhead that passes human understanding. Indian bhakti has given to this divine love powerful forms, poetic symbols which are not in reality so much symbols as intimate expressions of truth which can find no other expression. It uses human relations and sees a divine person, not as mere figures, but because there are divine relations of supreme Delight and Beauty with the human soul of which human relations are the imperfect but still the real type, and because that Delight and Beauty are not abstractions or qualities of a quite impalpable metaphysical entity, but the very body and form of the supreme Being. It is a living Soul to which the soul of the bhakta yearns; for the source of all life is not an idea or a conception or a state of existence, but a real Being. Therefore in the possession of the divine Beloved all the life of the soul is satisfied and all the relations by which it finds and in which it expresses itself, are wholly fulfilled; therefore, too, by any and all of them can the Beloved be sought, though those which admit the greatest intensity, are always those by which he can be most intensely pursued and possessed with the profoundest ecstasy. He is sought within in the heart and therefore apart from all by an inward-gathered concentration of the being in the soul itself; but he is also seen and loved everywhere where he manifests his being. All the beauty and joy of existence is seen as his joy and beauty; he is embraced by the spirit in all beings; the ecstasy of love enjoyed pours itself out in a universal love; all existence becomes a radiation of its delight and even in its very appearances is transformed into something other than its outward appearance. The world itself is experienced as a play of the divine Delight, a Lila, and that in which the world loses itself is the heaven of beatitude of the eternal union.

3.1.01 - Distinctive Features of the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  I never heard of silence descending in other Yogas the mind goes into silence. Since however I have been writing of ascent and descent, I have been told from several quarters that there is nothing new in this Yogaso I am wondering whether people were not getting ascents and descents without knowing it! or at least without noticing the process. It is like the rising above the head and taking the station therewhich I and others have experienced in this Yoga. When I spoke of it first, people stared and thought I was talking nonsense. Wideness must have been felt in the old Yogas because otherwise one could not feel the universe in oneself or be free from the body consciousness or unite with the Anantam Brahman. But generally as in Tantrik Yoga one spoke of the consciousness rising to the Brahmarandhra, top of the head, as the summit. Rajayoga of course lays stress on Samadhi as the means of the highest experience. But obviously if one has not the Brahmi sthiti in the waking state, there is no completeness in the realisation. The Gita distinctly speaks of being samhita (which is equivalent to being in Samadhi) and the Brahmi sthiti as a waking state in which one lives and does all actions.
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  It happens that people may get the descent without noticing that it is a descent because they feel the result only. The ordinary Yoga does not go beyond the spiritual mindpeople feel at the top of the head the joining with the Brahman, but they are not aware of a consciousness above the head. In the same way in the ordinary Yoga one feels the ascent of the awakened inner consciousness (Kundalini) to the brahmarandhra where the Prakriti joins the Brahman-consciousness, but they do not feel the descent. Some may have had these things, but I dont know that they understood their nature, principle or place in a complete sadhana. At least I never heard of these things from others before I found them out in my own experience. The reason is that the old Yogins when they went above the spiritual mind passed into Samadhi, which means that they did not attempt to be conscious in these higher planes their aim being to pass away into the Superconscient and not to bring the Superconscient into the waking consciousness, which is that of my Yoga.
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  I explain this absence of the descent experiences myself by the old Yogas having been mainly confined to the psycho-spiritual-occult range of experiencein which the higher experiences come into the still mind or the concentrated heart by a sort of filtration or reflection the field of this experience being from the Brahmarandhra downward. People went above this only in Samadhi or in a condition of static mukti without any dynamic descent. All that was dynamic took place in the region of the spiritualised mental and vital-physical consciousness. In this Yoga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by a certain amount of psycho-spiritual-occult experience) is drawn upwards above the Brahmarandhra to ranges above belonging to the spiritual consciousness proper and instead of merely receiving from there has to live there and from there change the lower consciousness altogether. For there is a dynamism proper to the spiritual consciousness whose nature is Light, Power, Ananda, Peace, Knowledge, infinite Wideness and that must be possessed and descend into the whole being. Otherwise one can get mukti but not perfection or transformation (except a relative psycho-spiritual change). But if I say that, there will be a general howl against the unpardonable presumption of claiming to have a knowledge not possessed by the ancient saints and sages and pretending to transcend them. In that connection I may say that in the Upanishads (notably the Taittiriya) there are some indications of these higher planes and their nature and the possibility of gathering up the whole consciousness and rising into them. But this was forgotten afterwards and people spoke only of the buddhi as the highest thing with the Purusha or Self just above, but there was no clear idea of these higher planes. Ergo, ascent possibly to unknown and ineffable heavenly regions in Samadhi, but no descent possible therefore no resource, no possibility of transformation here, only escape from life and mukti in Goloka, Brahmaloka, Shivaloka or the Absolute.
  ***

31.01 - The Heart of Bengal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Bengalis as a race are worshippers of the feminine aspect of God. The religion and literature of Bengal abound in ceremonies of such worship. They do not generally worship God in his masculine aspect. They have not been able to make their own the self-poised calmness of Samadhi.They have wanted manifestation of the divine sport. So Bengal is the seat of the Mother, Shakti. Bengal is the land of Delight. The immobile Brahmanis not the aim of Bengal. The power of Delight of the Divine is inherent in the heart of Bengal. We find Rammohan, the worshipper of Shakti, at the dawn of modern Bengal. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda were also the worshippers of Shakti. Howsoever Vedanta may have influenced them, the worship of Shakti was very dear to their hearts. And in a different field, what Jagadish Chandra Bose has been demonstrating as a new aspect of Nature-worship also reflects nothing but the genius of Bengal.
   Bengalis have a bad reputation for being very fond of their homes. They take intense delight in their family life. They have drawn the picture of the household life prominently in their literature, verses and songs. The like of this is not to be seen elsewhere:

31.02 - The Mother- Worship of the Bengalis, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Vedantaproceeds with Purusa, and the Sakti-sadhanawith Prakrti.The aim of Vedantais to raise Prakrtiinto Purusa and immerse Her in the calm existence and oneness of Purusa.The aim of the Sakti-sadhanais to make Purusadescend into Prakrti and to reveal Her most intense and highest play. The ultimate aim of Vedantais Samadhi,trance - the final plunge into the Supreme. The main aim of the Sakti-sadhanais to establish a supreme Beauty, Victory and Vibhuti in the living existence.
   The revelation of Purusain man and creature is the ego-sense: 'I', or 'I exist.' The revelation of Prakrtiis the person, adhara, and the power that is at play in the person. The follower of Vedantatakes his stand on the sense of 'I'-ness and proceeds on the path of negation: "I exist and my person exists; I am not this person; I am not the body; I am not the vital; I am not the mind; I am merely a witness, and if I take away my regard from these things, they will not exist for me. I will go still higher. I will go to my real status, to my Siva-Self, the One without a second. I will sunder all ties of Prakrti and be united with the original essence of creation."

31.04 - Sri Ramakrishna, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The dynamic Vedanta of Vivekananda, its application in life, is based on this foundation. Spirituality and life are not two separate things - spirituality should be established and made to flower and bloom in life itself. This great truth always inspired Vivekananda in all his activities. Before the advent of Sri Ramakrishna the word "religion" or "spirituality" used to convey an otherworldly pursuit to the aspirant and to the public as well. Wherever there was some real spiritual practice, the aim and the impulse naturally tended to illustrate the dictum that Brahman alone is the truth and the world an illusion. Sri Ramakrishna shook to its roots the then prevailing conception of illusionism when he made the great Vedantin Totapuri give up the negative path, "Brahman is not this, not this", and accept all this too as Brahman. He further showed Totapuri the glory of the Mother of the universe. Vivekananda seized upon this fundamental realisation of Sri Ramakrishna to turn the tide of religion. His endeavour was to bring down religion or spirituality on the surface of the earth, into normal society and into the ordinary ways of life-activities. Sri Ramakrishna was a genuine Sannyasin at heart but he had never appeared in the garb of a Sannyasin. Vivekananda in spite of his hoisting up the banner of a Sannyasin was a mighty worker in his heart and conduct. He was a worker, but inwardly in communion with the spirit. No doubt, Sri Ramakrishna laid great stress on Samadhi, trance, for the achievement of the unalloyed, pure spiritual truth, but he never accepted the Nirvikalpa Samadhi as the sole self-sufficing goal for all or even for the many. He did not want, personally, to melt away as a salt-doll in the ocean. Like Ramprasad he would rather not become a lump of sugar but taste it instead. The aim of his dynamic personality was to purify and transform the egoistic 'I' into the real I, and take part in the play of the Divine Mother in her creation.
   The future spiritual realisation will follow this line of development; all efforts will seek to make this great realisation still more manifest, widely established and universally practised. Sri Ramakrishna opened this immortalising fount of true spirituality and Vivekananda spread it abroad to create a living spiritual atmosphere. The spiritual leader of the future will fix for ever its concrete and permanent form.

31 Hymns to the Star Goddess, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  But when a larger cage is offeredwhen we obtain Dhyanalet us not rest there thinking ourselves free. The door is open, Samadhi lies beyond, and beyond that, when we are ready for it, the Real Freedom, Nirvana.
  O Lady of the Stars, let me not content till I penetrate the ultimate bars and am FreeOne with the Infinitely Great as with the Infinitely Small.

3.2.01 - The Newness of the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  But why should they [Yogis of the traditional schools] feel any pressure [of the supramental descent] when they are satisfied with the realisation they have? They live in the spiritual mind and the nature of the mind is to separatehere to separate some high aspect or state of the Divine and seek that to the exclusion of all else. All the spiritual philosophies and schools of Yoga do that. If they go beyond, it is to the Absolute and mind cannot conceive of the Absolute except as something inconceivable, neti neti. Moreover for getting Samadhi they concentrate on one single idea and what they reach is that which is represented by that idea the Samadhi is in its nature an exclusive concentration on that. So why should it open them to anything else? There are only a few who are sufficiently plastic to escape from this self-limitation of the sadhanawhat they experience is that there is no end to the realisation, when you get to one peak, you find another beyond it. In order to see more than this one has to get into conscious waking touch with the supramental or at least get a glimpse of itand that means passing beyond spiritual mind.
  ***

3.2.03 - Jainism and Buddhism, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The Buddhist Nirvana and the Adwaitins Moksha are the same thing. It corresponds to a realisation in which one does not feel oneself any longer as an individual with such a name or such a form, but an infinite eternal Self spaceless (even when in space), timeless (even when in time). Note that one can perfectly well do actions in that condition and it is not to be gained only by Samadhi.
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  The realisation of this Yoga is not lower but higher than Nirvana or Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
  ***

3.2.04 - Sankhya and Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Chitta is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc. It is these that in Patanjalis system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
  It [stopping the movements of the chitta] has a different function [in this Yoga]. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.

3.2.2 - Sleep, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  It [sleepiness during the day] may possibly be due to the attempt of the higher consciousness to descend then. It sometimes produces this effect of sleepiness on the body, for the physical attempts to go inside to meet the descending consciousness and if it is not accustomed to enter into one of the higher Samadhis on such occasions, the going inside translates itself to the physical as sleep. The exercise may have contri buted, of course, by its reaction on the body.
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  All dream or sleep consciousness cannot be converted at once into conscious sadhana. That has to be done progressively. But your power of conscious Samadhi must increase before this can be done.
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3.8.1.03 - Meditation, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  In Yoga concentration is used also for another object, - to retire from the waking state, which is a limited and superficial condition of our consciousness, into the depths of our being measured by various states of Samadhi. For this process contemplation of the single object, idea or name is more powerful than the succession of concentrated thoughts. The latter, however, is capable, by bringing us into indirect but waking communion with the deeper states of being, of preparing an integral Samadhi. Its characteristic utility, however, is the luminous activity of formative thought brought under the control of the Purusha by which the rest of the consciousness is governed, filled with higher and wider ideas, changed rapidly into the mould of those ideas and so perfected. Other and greater utilities lie beyond, but they belong to a later stage of selfdevelopment.
  In the Yoga of Devotion, both processes are equally used to concentrate the whole being or to saturate the whole nature with thoughts of the object of devotion, its forms, its essence, its attributes and the joys of adoration and union.

3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  waking state, but only in the deep trance of Sushupta Samadhi,
  concentration of consciousness in a state of illuminated Sleep. He
  --
  ordinary state must become sushupta in the trance of Samadhi
  to reach them and cannot comm and them in our waking consciousness.

4.1.1.04 - Foundations of the Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  When one goes into the inner being, the tendency is to go entirely inside and lose consciousness of the outside world - this is what people call Samadhi. But it is also necessary to be able to have the same experiences (of the Self, the workings in the inner consciousness etc.) in the waking state. The best rule for you will be to allow the entire going inside only when you are alone and not likely to be disturbed, and at other times to accustom yourself to have these experiences with the physical consciousness awake and participating in them or at least aware of them. You did therefore quite right in stopping the complete going inside while you were at X's place. There was no harm in having these experiences there or anywhere, but there should be nothing to draw the attention of others - especially of those who are not in the Yoga or in the atmosphere.

4.16 - The Divine Shakti, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  As the mind progresses in purity, capacity of stillness or freedom from absorption in its own limited action, it becomes aware of and is able to reflect, bring into itself or enter into the conscious presence of the Self, the supreme and universal Spirit, and it becomes aware too of grades and powers of the spirit higher than its own highest ranges. It becomes aware of an infinite of the consciousness of being, an infinite ocean of all the power and energy of illimitable consciousness, an infinite ocean of Ananda, of the self-moved delight of existence. It may be aware of one or other only of these things, for the mind can separate and feel exclusively as distinct original principles what in a higher experience are inseparable powers of the One, or it may feel them in a trinity or fusion which reveals or arrives at their oneness. It may become aware of it on the side of Purusha or on the side of prakriti. On the side of Pursha it reveals itself as Self or Spirit, as Being or as the one sole existent Being, the divine Purushottama, and the individual Jiva soul can enter into entire oneness with it in its timeless self or in its universality, or enjoy nearness, immanence, difference without any gulf of separation and enjoy too inseparably and at one and the same time oneness of being and delight-giving difference of relation in active experiencing nature. On the side of prakriti the power and Ananda of the Spirit come into the front to manifest this Infinite in the beings and personalities and ideas and forms and forces of the universe and there is then present to us the divine Mahashakti, original Power, supreme Nature, holding in herself infinite existence and creating the wonders of the cosmos. The mind grows conscious of this illimitable ocean of shakti or else of her presence high above the mind and pouring something of herself into us to constitute all that we are and think and will and do and feel and experience, or it is conscious of her all around us and our personality a wave of the ocean of power of spirit, or of her presence in us and of her action there based on our present form of natural existence but originated from above and raising us towards the higher spiritual status. The mind too can rise towards and touch her infinity or merge itself in it in trance of Samadhi or can lose itself in her universality, and then our individuality disappears, our centre of action is then no longer in us, but either outside our bodied selves or nowhere; our mental activities are then no longer our own, but come into this frame of mind, life and body from the universal, work themselves out and pass leaving no impression on us, and this frame of ourselves too is only an insignificant circumstance in her cosmic vastness. But the perfection sought in the integral Yoga is not only to be one with her in her highest spiritual power and one with her in her universal action, but to realise and possess the fullness of this shakti in our individual being and nature. For the supreme Spirit is one as Purusha or as prakriti, conscious being or power of conscious being, and as the Jiva in essence of self arid spirit is one with the supreme Purusha, so on the side of Nature, in power of self and spirit it is one with shakti, para prakrtir jivabhuta. To realise this double oneness is the condition of the integral self-perfection. The Jiva is then the meeting-place of the play of oneness of the supreme Soul and Nature.
  To reach this perfection we have to become aware of the divine shakti, draw her to us and call her in to fill the whole system and take up the charge of all our activities. There will then be no separate personal will or individual energy trying to conduct our actions, no sense of a little personal self as the doer, nor will it be the lower energy of the three gunas, the mental, vital and physical nature. The divine shakti will fill us and preside over and take up all our inner activities, our outer life, our Yoga. She will take up the mental energy, her own lower formation, and raise it to its highest and purest and fullest powers of intelligence and will and psychic action. She will change the mechanical energies of the mind, life and body which now govern us into delight-filled manifestations of her own living and conscious power and presence. She will manifest in us and relate to each other all the various spiritual experiences of which the mind is capable. And as the crown of this process she will bring down the supramental light into the mental levels, change the stuff of mind into the stuff of supermind, transform all the lower energies into energies of her supramental nature and raise us into our being of gnosis. The shakti will reveal herself as the power of the Purushottama, and it is the Ishwara who will manifest himself in his force of supermind and spirit and be the master of our being, action, life and Yoga.

4.2.1.03 - The Psychic Deep Within, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The empty condition by itself is not called Samadhi - it is when one goes inside, is conscious within but not conscious of outside things. What you describe yourself as doing involuntarily is this going inside and being conscious there. It was into the psychic centre inside that you were going, the place that you saw as a luminous maidan in a former experience. When one goes there it is just this peace and sweetness that one feels and also this sense of the Mother being there not far away or very near. So it is a very good development of the sadhana.

4.24 - The supramental Sense, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The supramental sense can act in its own power and is independent of the body and the physical life and outer mind and it is above too the inner mind and its experiences. It can be aware of all things in whatever world, on whatever plane, in whatever formation of universal consciousness. It can be aware of the things of the material universe even in the trance of Samadhi, aware of them as they are or appear to the physical sense, even as it is of other states of experience, of the pure vital, the mental, the psychical, the supramental presentation of things. It can in the waking state of the physical consciousness present to us the things concealed from the limited receptivity or beyond the range of the physical organs, distant forms, scenes and happenings, things that have passed out of physical existence or that are not yet in physical existence, scenes, forms, happenings, symbols of the vital, psychical, mental, supramental, spiritual worlds and all these in their real or significant truth as well as their appearance. It can use all the other states of sense consciousness and their appropriate senses and organs adding to them what they have not, setting right their errors and supplying their deficiencies: for it is the source of the others and they are only inferior derivations from this higher sense, this true and illimitable samijnana.
  -- 2 --
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  The range of the psychic consciousness and its experiences is almost illimitable and the variety and complexity of its phenomena almost infinite. Only some of the broad lines and main features can be noted here. The first and most prominent is the activity of the psychic senses of which the sight is the most developed ordinarily arid the first to manifest itself with ally largeness when the veil of the absorption in the surface consciousness which prevents the inner vision is broken. But all the physical senses have their corresponding powers in the psychical being, there is a psychical hearing, touch, smell, taste: indeed the physical senses are themselves in reality only a projection of the inner sense into limited and externalised operation in and through and upon the phenomena of gross matter. The psychical sight receives characteristically the images that are formed in the subtle matter of the mental or psychical ether, cittakasa. These may be transcriptions there or impresses of physical things, persons, scenes, happenings, whatever is, was or will be or may be in the physical universe. These images are very variously seen and under all kinds of conditions; in Samadhi or in the waking state, and in the latter with the bodily eyes closed or open, projected on or into a physical object or medium or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical ether revealing itself through this grosser physical atmosphere; seen through the physical eyes themselves as a secondary instrument and as if under the conditions of the physical vision or by the psychical vision alone and independently of the relations of our ordinary sight to space. The real agent is always the psychical sight and the power indicates that the consciousness is more or less awake, intermittently or normally and more or less perfectly, in the psychical body. It is possible to see in this way the transcriptions or impressions of things at any distance beyond the range of the physical vision or the images of the past or the future.
  Besides these transcriptions or impresses the psychical vision receives thought images and other forms created by constant activity of consciousness in ourselves or in other human beings, and these may be according to the character of the activity images of truth or falsehood or else mixed things, partly true, partly false, and may be too either mere shells and representations or images inspired with a temporary life and consciousness and, it may be, carrying in them in one way or another some kind of beneficent or maleficent action or some willed or unwilled effectiveness on our minds or vital being or through them even on the body. These transcriptions, impresses, thought images, life images, projections of the consciousness may also be representations or creations not of the physical world, but of vital, psychic or mental worlds beyond us, seen in our own minds or projected from other than human beings. And as there is this psychical vision of which some of the more external and ordinary manifestations are well enough known by the name of clairvoyance, so there is a psychical hearing and psychical touch, taste, smell, -- clairaudience, clairsentience are the more external manifestations, -- with precisely the same range each in its own kind, the same fields and manner and conditions and varieties of their phenomena.

4.25 - Towards the supramental Time Vision, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The consciousness of the timeless Infinite can be brought home to us in various ways, but is most ordinarily imposed on our mentality by a reflection of it and a powerful impression or else made present to us as something above the mind, something of which it is aware, towards which it lifts, but into which it cannot enter because itself lives only in the time sense and in the succession of the moments. If our present mind untransformed by the supramental influence tries to enter into the timeless, it must either disappear and be lost in the trance of Samadhi or else, remaining awake, it feels itself diffused in an Infinite where there is perhaps a sense of supra-physical space, a vastness, a boundless extension of consciousness, but no time self, time movement or time order. And if then the mental being is still mechanically aware of things in time, it is yet unable to deal with them in its own manlier, unable to establish a truth relation between the timeless and things in time and unable to act and will out of its indefinite Infinite. The action that then remains possible to the mental Purusha is the mechanical action of the instruments of the prakriti continuing by force of old impulsion and habit or continued initiation of past energy, prarabdha, or else an action chaotic, unregulated, uncoordinated, a confused precipitate from an energy which has no longer a conscious centre.
  The supramental consciousness, on the other hand, is founded upon the supreme consciousness of the timeless Infinite, but has too the secret of the deployment of the infinite Energy in time. It can either take its station in the time consciousness and keep the timeless infinite as its background of supreme and original being from which it receives all its organising knowledge, will and action, or it can, centred in its essential being, live in the timeless but live too in a manifestation in time which it feels and sees as infinite and as the same Infinite, and can bring out, sustain and develop in the one what it holds supernally in the other. Its time consciousness therefore will be different from that of the mental being, not swept helplessly on the stream of the moments and clutching at each moment as a stay and a swiftly disappearing standpoint, but founded first on its eternal identity beyond the changes of time, secondly on a simultaneous eternity of Time in which past, present and future exist together for ever in the self-knowledge and self-power of the Eternal, thirdly, in a total view of the three times as one movement singly and indivisibly seen even in their succession of stages, periods, cycles, last -- and that only in the instrumental consciousness -- in the step-by-step evolution of the moments. It will therefore have the knowledge of the three times, trikaladrsti, -- held of old to be a supreme sign of the seer and the Rishi, --not as an abnormal power, but as its normal way of time knowledge.

4.4.3.04 - The Order of Descent into the Being, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  not always the first result - went into a few seconds' Samadhi
  according to the ordinary language. The Force when it descends

4.4.4.05 - The Descent of Force or Power, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  in the full waking consciousness; if it brings a kind of Samadhi, it
  is usually a conscious inner condition - the consciousness taken

6.09 - THE THIRD STAGE - THE UNUS MUNDUS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  [771] Not unnaturally, we are at a loss to see how a psychic experience of this kind for such it evidently wascan be formulated as a rational concept. Undoubtedly it was meant as the essence of perfection and universality, and, as such, it characterized an experience of similar proportions. We could compare this only with the ineffable mystery of the unio mystica, or tao, or the content of Samadhi, or the experience of satori in Zen, which would bring us to the realm of the ineffable and of extreme subjectivity where all the criteria of reason fail. Remarkably enough this experience is an empirical one in so far as there are unanimous testimonies from the East and West alike, both from the present and from the distant past, which confirm its unsurpassable subjective significance. Our knowledge of physical nature gives us no point dappui that would enable us to put the experience on any generally valid basis. It is and remains a secret of the world of psychic experience and can be understood only as a numinous event, whose actuality, nevertheless, cannot be doubted any more than the fact that light of a certain wave-length is perceived as reda fact which remains incomprehensible only to a man suffering from red-green blindness.
  [772] What, then, do the statements of the alchemists concerning their arcanum mean, looked at psychologically? In order to answer this question we must remember the working hypothesis we have used for the interpretation of dreams: the images in dreams and spontaneous fantasies are symbols, that is, the best possible formulation for still unknown or unconscious facts, which generally compensate the content of consciousness or the conscious attitude. If we apply this basic rule to the alchemical arcanum, we come to the conclusion that its most conspicuous quality, namely, its unity and uniquenessone is the stone, one the medicine, one the vessel, one the procedure, and one the disposition235presupposes a dissociated consciousness. For no one who is one himself needs oneness as a medicinenor, we might add, does anyone who is unconscious of his dissociation, for a conscious situation of distress is needed in order to activate the archetype of unity. From this we may conclude that the more philosophically minded alchemists were people who did not feel satisfied with the then prevailing view of the world, that is, with the Christian faith, although they were convinced of its truth. In this latter respect we find in the classical Latin and Greek literature of alchemy no evidences to the contrary, but rather, so far as Christian treatises are concerned, abundant testimony to the firmness of their Christian convictions. Since Christianity is expressly a system of salvation, founded moreover on Gods plan of redemption, and God is unity par excellence, one must ask oneself why the alchemists still felt a disunity in themselves, or not at one with themselves, when their faith, so it would appear, gave them every opportunity for unity and unison. (This question has lost nothing of its topicality today, on the contrary!) The question answers itself when we examine more closely the other attributes that are predicated of the arcanum.

6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  the art of self-control, the yogis, attain perfection in Samadhi, a
  state of ecstasy, which so far as we know is equivalent to a state

9.99 - Glossary, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
    bhava: Existence; feeling; emotion; ecstasy; Samadhi; also denotes any one of the five attitudes that a dualistic worshipper assumes toward God. The first of these attitudes is that of peace; assuming the other four, the devotee regards God as the Master, Child, Friend, or Beloved.
    bhavamukha: An exalted state of spiritual experience, in which the aspirant keeps his mind on the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. From this position he can contemplate the ineffable and attributeless Brahman and also participate in the activities of the relative world, seeing in it the manifestation of God alone.
    bhava Samadhi: Ecstasy in which the devotee retains his ego and enjoys communion with the Personal God.
    Bhavatarini: (Lit., the Saviour of the Universe) A name of the Divine Mother.
  --
    chetana Samadhi: Communion with God in which the devotee retains "I-consciousness" and is aware of his relationship with God.
    Chidakasa: The Akasa, or Space, of Chit, Absolute Consciousness; the All-pervading Spirit.
  --
    ego of Knowledge (of Devotion): The ego purified and illumined by the Knowledge (or Love) of God. Some souls, after realizing their oneness with Brahman in Samadhi, come down to the plane of relative consciousness. In this state they retain a very faint feeling of ego so that they may teach spiritual knowledge to others. This ego, called by Sri Ramakrishna the "ego of Knowledge", does not altogether efface their knowledge of oneness with Brahman even in the relative state of consciousness. The bhakta, the lover of God, coming down to the relative plane after having attained Samadhi, retains the "I-consciousness" by which he feels himself to be a lover, a child, or a servant of God. Sri Ramakrishna called this the "devotee ego", the "child ego", or the "servant ego".
    eight fetters: Namely, hatred, shame, lineage, pride of good conduct, fear, secretiveness, caste, and grief.
  --
    jada Samadhi: Communion with God in which the aspirant appears lifeless, like an inert object.
    Jagadamba: (Lit., the Mother of the Universe) A name of the Divine Mother.
  --
    Mahanirvana: The great Nirvana or Samadhi.
    Mahanirvana Tantra: A standard book on Tantra philosophy.
  --
    nirvikalpa Samadhi: The highest tate of Samadhi, in which the aspirant realizes his total oneness with Brahman.
    nishtha: Single-minded devotion or love.
  --
     Samadhi: Ecstasy, trance, communion with God.
    Sambhu: A name of Siva.
  --
    savikalpa Samadhi: Communion with God in which the distinction between subject and object is retained.
    seer: A measure or weight equivalent to about two pounds.
  --
    sthita Samadhi: Samadhi, or communion with God, in which the aspirant is firmly established in God-Consciousness.
    subadar: An officer in the Indian army.
  --
    unmana Samadhi: Samadhi in which the functioning of the mind does not altogether stop.
    upadhi: A term of the Vedanta philosophy denoting the limitations imposed upon the Self through ignorance, by which one is bound to worldly life.
  --
    yoga Samadhi: The Samadhi that results when the devotee is united with God.
    Yogavasishtha: The name of a wellknown book on Vedanta.

Blazing P3 - Explore the Stages of Postconventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  of Buddhism, the Samadhi of yoga, the satori of Zen, the fana of Sufism, the shema of the
  Kabbalah, and the Kingdom of Heaven of Christianity.

BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
  ** Not necessarily at death only, but during Samadhi or mystic trance.
  *** All the words and sentences between parenthetical marks, are the writer's. This is translated

BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
  condition, called Samadhi, during which the subject reaches the culmination of spiritual knowledge.
  Unwise are those who, in their blind and, in our age, untimely hatred of Buddhism, and, by re-action,

BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
  into Brahm in cases of high Samadhi (the Turiya state) or final Nirvana; "when the disciple" in the
  words of Sankara, "having attained that primeval consciousness, absolute bliss, of which the nature is

Conversations with Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Then one of the following two things will happen: either you will remain fully conscious but with the mind empty, or you will have this consciousness but not in the waking state, that is, you will be in Samadhi.
  So, this work is the first step for you.
  --
  As for the loss of consciousness, do not fear. It might happen that, besides the two alternatives put before you last time, you could fall into an unconsciousness of which you would not keep any memory. You must try to avoid that and to attain either the waking state without mind or Samadhi.
  Is reading harmful? I do not need it much, and sometimes mental work is painful to me.

Diamond Sutra 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Turned his awareness to what was before him: Elsewhere in the Maha Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Buddha begins his discourses after entering what is called the King of Samadhis, or Deepest of Trances. Here, in keeping with the tenor of this more down-to-earth discourse, the Buddha simply practices mindfulness. Normally four subjects of mindfulness are distinguished as an essential part of meditation. The first of these is kaya-smirti-upasthana (mindfulness of the body). The others are mindfulness regarding vedana (sensations), citta (thoughts), and dharma (dharmas). All of these are dealt with in the chapters that follow, but here the text specifies pratimukhim-smirtim-upasthapya, where pratimukhi simply refers to whatever is present, whatever one is facing. Since the primary subject of this sutra is the nature of the buddhas body, this can be viewed as the beginning of a meditation on the body of reality, which is the Buddhas true body, his dharma body. Kumarajiva alone among translators omits any mention of the Buddhas practice of mindfulness here.
  Taken together, the Buddhas actions in this first chapter represent the Six Paramitas, or

Liber 111 - The Book of Wisdom - LIBER ALEPH VEL CXI, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   ON THE ECSTASY OF Samadhi AND HOW IT DIFFERS FROM OTHERS
   137.
  --
   DE ECSTASIA Samadhi, QUO ILLIS DIFFERIT. (On the Ecstasy of Samadhi,
   and How it Differs from Others)
   Confuse thou not this Beatific Vision with the Trances called Samadhi;
   yet is Samadhi the Pylon of the Temple hereof. For Samadhi is the
   Orgasm of the Coition of the Unlike, and is commonly violent, even as
  --
   Samadhi, and to urge thyself perpetually to Repetition of thy Success
   therein, for it that been said by Philosophers of old that Practice
  --
   last this Samadhi shall become normal to thy common Consciousness, as
   it were a Point of View. Thus all Things shall appear to thee very

Liber 71 - The Voice of the Silence - The Two Paths - The Seven Portals, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   thoughts. He will get Samadhi upon that original thought, and this will
   be a terrible enemy to his progress.
  --
   This account of Samadhi is very incongruous. Throughout the whole
   treatise Hindu ideas are painfully mixed with Buddhist, and the
  --
   one of the forms of Samadhi, perhaps that upon the snake Ananta, the
   great green snake that bounds the Universe.
  --
   form of Samadhi was at his fingers' ends, had none. The point is very
   important, because on this theory the latter, after all his
  --
   we heard from Shri Parananda that the attainment of Samadhi, though it
   depended to some extent upon the attainment of the Yogi, depended also
  --
   one. A man might get quite a hot of Samadhi, and still be many lives
   away from Srotapatti.
  --
   the most elementary periods of Samadhi, is completely wiped out by
   progress through the grades. The Path would indeed be a Treadmill if

LUX.01 - GNOSIS, #Liber Null, #Peter J Carroll, #Occultism
  No-mind.: Stopping the internal dialogue, passing through the eye of the needle, ain or nothing, Samadhi, or one-pointedness. In this book it will be known as Gnosis. It is an extension of the magical trance by other means.
  Methods of achieving gnosis can be divided into two types. In the inhibitory mode, the mind is progressively silenced until only a single object of concentration remains. In the excitatory mode, the mind is raised to a very high pitch of excitement while concentration on the objective is maintained. Strong stimulation eventually elicits a reflex inhibition and paralyzes all but the most central function - the object of concentration. Thus strong inhibition and strong excitation end up creating the same effect - the one-pointed consciousness, or gnosis.

r1909 06 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   , also for a moment by mere thought, in head only. The others pervade body, last some seconds. Vaidyuta manava bust seen also Chandra (small) filled with vidyut. Body held & moved, the hold always there, not always noticed. Vidyunmandal. Sparks of lightning (vijas). Background red, bloodred or brownish red. Sun dark with broad golden rim. Golden-red scimitar (sattwa-rajas). Realisation of Vasudeva. Vijas of agni, jala, prithivi outside continually seen. Chaya Purusha, bust. Swarupa in red. U.R. exercise with kamananda. Long rope of prithivi, brilliant & coiling, in clouds of vayu. Brilliant rose. Kali blue black bust crowned with sun = Shakti with awakened buddhi (not ugra, simply outline). Savikalpa, Savichara & Avichara Samadhi, brief but very deep in spite of loud noise at ear. Exposure to sharp cold wind, no feeling of cold; to strong sun, only feeling of pleasant warmth. Mass of thick pale green. Sarup dhyan, antardarshi. Face of Shah Alum. Face of Kumudini. Kamananda from feeling (being startled) slight but pervasive. Basket of grapes on cotton, lid off to one side. Swapnavastha (imagination playing in Samadhi as in dream[)]. Glass jug with napkin on top. K. Nil Surya with blue black rays. Namadrishta, 1) Tejonama. 2) bill with rose red letters. 3 ordinary black letter. Writing not coherent or noteworthyall print. Open doors and wall behind. Kitten at Namasis. Newspaper, probably weekly B.M. [Bande Mataram] Written account. Handwriting some words & forms deciphered. Piece of needlework. Handwriting, deciphered most, not remembered. Golden background in Samadhi. Talked to UW in Samadhi. To someone else, politics. Pang in foot immediately reproduced in faceproves nervous current. Namadrishti. Typewrittendecipheredcoherent, but not remembered. Tennis-racket, dark and soiled. Given food in Samadhi, ruti & chutney. Face of K. Bh. Dark clouded sky with sun & strong light in clouds. Deep dark thick rose-red. Woods with white low railing outside, wooden. Sampatrais face in outline. Namasi (pale chayamay) with cup in hand. Long wooden bench. Electric shock moving leg. Sukshma image of network of chair in front of me. Two unknown or unremembered faces.. Rough adhardrishti. Boy wearing a turban stooping over something he stirs with his fingerindistinct. Aswini Dutt down to waist, features obscured. Bowl full of vegetables, moving. Most of motions involuntary at bath. Partial utthapana; raised violently up & floating on surface of water with palms for support. Saw wind very clearly against light clouds under thick dark ones and a pillar of cloudy moisture. One strong current blew very violently from right with whirls, eddies & upward and downward pourings; another very slight seemed to come from left & behind. At this time there was a strong wind and rain threatening.
   ***

r1912 01 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The afternoon was begun with a suspension of definite progress in the siddhi and, afterwards, an attack on the siddhi of the ananda.The most important siddhi was the perfection of the articulate thought, which resumed rapidly all the characteristics of perfect vijnanamaya thought,prakasha, asu, nischaya, inevitability (adequate, effective and effective illuminative) of the vak, truth of substance, nihshabdata. All these were perfected and delivered from breach or restraint, except the nihshabdata which is still pursued with shabda by the annamaya devatas; but the thought can no longer be strongly impeded or suspended by annamaya interference, only hampered in its speed. Fluency has been acquired, rapidity prepared and declared due at 8.22 a.m. on the morrow. A severe struggle was necessary with the shabda, the attack of the annam being obstinate and furious and added by the necessity of steering clear of the laya of vak in artha-bodha. Involved shabda in implicit vak, not involved vak in arthabodha is the rule of the expression of thought.Trikaldrishti was regularised in the interpretation both by perception and in expression of the lipis, drishtis, shakunas, on the basis of right interpretation of the meaning, the fulfilment in the sthula being as yet not guaranteed. There was also perfect prakamya vyapti of the unseen movements of the servant carefully tested for about half an hour,only where inference interfered, was there error. The Vani accompanied by the personal use of the relations established with the Master of the Yoga came to perfection.Exactness is entering into the pure trikaldrishti (subjective & self-existent without prakamya vyapti). The time of several incidents in the Yoga was exactly indicated, also the exact minute when the evening meal would be given. All these siddhis, however, are subject to interruption and obstruction, though not of the old powerful character.Triple sanyama in Samadhi has been established by involved process, occurring three times while walking, eg on the thought which [proceeded]3 undisturbed while the waking mind was unconscious, on the walk of the body or something in the immediate surroundings, on the fact of Samadhi or an experience in the Samadhi. External objects are, in this state, sensed not by the indriyas of the mind and body, but by the karana-indriya..Ananda sahaituka of raudra and pain with bhoga; the tendency in the morning to the whole kamabhoga was discontinued in the later part of the day.
   The Record entries for this period have not survived.Ed.

r1912 01 15, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Yesterdays promises have had a very meagre fulfilment, for they were made merely to whip into life the dying expectation of progress & finality. There has been only an increased persistence in the few drishtis that present themselves perfectly, the rest being mere blurs & smutches,a revival of consecutive fluency in the lipi,a deepening of the conscious Samadhi,an activity of the trikaldrishti which cannot be called perfect or new & is not yet proved in those parts which go beyond previous achievement,some streng thening of the siddhis of power,a constantly active relation with the personal Ishwara, a modification of the Jivas personality and the permanent (not continuous) consciousness of one Personality in all things & beings,a preparation of constant rati of the general anandasome obscure movements of the arogya which seem to be retrograde rather than progressive,an attempt of the elementary utthapana to recover lost ground, and nothing else tangible. Yesterdays was in fact a farther purificatory and preparatory activity.
   Todays is to be, if prediction can be trusted, an activity like the 13ths. Too much need not be expected, but there will be a constant progress and firm establishment of positive siddhis.

r1912 01 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The progress of the siddhi today was greatly curbed by another attack of the asiddhi, but the asiddhi has no longer much power over the mind and feelings; all it can do is to affect the sraddha, obscure hamper or suspend the siddhis of the third chatusthaya and bring about some reaction in the fourth.During the morning remnants of sleep-tendency and some lowering of the elementary utthapana helped the asiddhi. Walking from 9 to 12.10. Samadhi in the afternoon, very deep and full of all kinds of drishti & lipi, but very confused and only towards the end sometimes helped by vijnana activity. Walked from 5.20 to 8.20. The utthapana does not fail, but is not intense and powerful as before. There is no positive weariness, but in the afternoon there was a general depression of activity. During the exertion pain & stiffness do not show themselves or very slightly, nor even afterwards, only when the exertion has been suspended for some time. Their hold even when manifest is not great. Occasionally they fill the sukshma body & manifest if there is a pause in the activity.Roga was strong today, nevertheless it yields to the aishwaryam without being removed entirely. The activity is excess of vayu with a slight element of tejasic, jalamaya & parthiva action, but the results are dull and feeble compared with former manifestations. Other rogas can no longer make any impression on the system. Ananda of the nature of rati is becoming stable & permanent even in condition & event, as well as in all vishaya, action, movement etc. The personality is now habitually manifest in all things and persons; but is not always remembered. Trikaldrishti was largely inhibited, but reappeared towards the close of the day without recovering complete exactitude except occasionally. Assurance of safety given from outside. The most important development was the confirmation of raudrananda, pain being now invariably attended with pleasure. Formerly only the dull kinds of pain had this attribute, but now it has extended to those which are acute, although the intensity has not yet gone in experience beyond a certain degree. This development has been persistently predicted recently by the ever recurrent rupa of the bee, wasp or hornet. Rupas are now often distinct, stable & perfect on the background as well as in the akasha, but have not advanced otherwise. Sleep 11.45 to 6.45
   ***

r1912 01 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The rest of the day has passed in the final purification of the system from all trace of rajas or sensibility of the system to rajasic impressions from outside. The sattwic remnants are also being removed, but the process is not yet complete. A relaxation of the elementary utthapana occupied the system. The roga that came, is being slowly eliminated. Its chief characteristic is a dull form of watery nausea, slight in substance but with some tamasic power of oppression. The prithivi, tejas & jala are very weak. Hunger persists. Samadhi in the afternoon greatly improved, but not free of the tamas. Sleep 1.0 to 7. Signs of the raising of the objective siege.
   ***

r1912 01 22, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The morning was occupied by a strong attack of asiddhi in which even the finality of the first chatusthaya was denied. Advantage was taken with regard to an error by which the imperfect harmony of pravritti & prakash tending to an imperfect harmony of pravritti & shama was mistaken for persistence of sattwa, rajas & tamas. This error produced strong asraddha and a return of attack by the triguna. The attack came clearly from outside & did not arise in the adhara but was admitted into it by the consent of the Jiva. The harmonisation of prakash, pravritti & shama is proceeding. Meanwhile the particular siddhis are not definitely active except the physical. There was exercise of elementary utthapana for nearly seven hours from 6.30 to 1.30 with a break of eighteen minutes (12.12 to 12.30) for meals. During this time there were only three standing pauses of from two to ten minutes, but only one for rest (two minutes), the two others for reading the paper & bathing. The exercise was pursued in spite of an insufficient tapas in the physical aura. It was followed at its close by a stronger denial of anima than usual, but this disappeared directly the exercise was resumed from 3.30 to 6.30 and during these three hours there was no failure of utthapana, no depression, no defect of tapas in the aura. The denial of anima became inoperative for practical purposes and the three hours minimum & six to seven hours maximum was established today as predicted yesterday. In the afternoon there was a strong attack of sleep which prevailed for one hour & more. In Samadhi the occurrence of perfect continuous images & scenes (not so perfect) was reestablished.
   Lipi indicating the death of Binod Gupta at an early date, fixed tentatively either on or by the 25 of the month. No verification of prediction about varta, money from expected source arriving by the 22d. Rati of rasagrahana established but with viparita srotas of virakti impairing its fullness especially with regard to events. Sleep for 6 hours(?).

r1912 01 27, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Jnanam increases in force & exactness. The style of the vak rises to the inspired illuminative and is effective at its lowest level. The thought perception is now almost rid of false vijnanam in its material, but not in the arrangement of its material. Nevertheless accuracy of time is growing, accuracy of place has begun, accuracy of circumstance, chiefly, is defectiveall this in the trikaldrishti. Prakamya & vyapti are strong and more continuous, less chequered by error. The internal motions of animals & to a less extent of men, the forces working on them, the ananda & tapas from above, even the explicit thoughts are being more and more observed and are usually justified by the attendant or subsequent action. The siddhis of power work well & perfectly, in harmony with the trikaldrishti, not so well when divorced from it. The physical tone of the system is recovering its elasticity & with it elementary utthapana and bhautasiddhi are reviving. Samadhi improves steadily, but is much hampered by sleep which has revived its force during these last three or four days.
   Time-prophecy. Arrival from the match predicted after 11.30, a little before 11.45. Actual arrival 11.43. Sahityasiddhi is being finally prepared.

r1912 01 31, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The lipi & rupa are now less fugitive & more firm in outlines, but not yet sufficiently or spontaneously vivid. In rupa prakasha still predominates. Thought expression is perfect but infrequent; the script bears the burden of the transformation of the remains of asatyam to satyam. Trikaldrishti improves but in things petty & immediate; nevertheless distant movements are also becoming correct & proved, eg Lourdes illness in its progressive stages. Today siddhis of power showed and advance in power of detail, but towards the end they were successfully resisted. There is no definite progress in bhautasiddhi or visvagati though there is some sign of preparation for regularity in the last. The vijnanam is slowly asserting itself in karma. At night according to a previous prediction swapna Samadhi established its initial perfection in type, the recorded images being of an extraordinary minute perfection in vividness & multitudinous detail & sufficiently though not preeminently stable, eg a ship of another world. The images were mainly of the Bhuvar.
   ***

r1912 02 02, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   After a long progressive advance the lipi has established finally by a sudden manifestation simultaneity, stability, legibility and is only hampered in spontaneous vividness. The unity of the sentence in the lipi is also broken by the superimposition of other sentences. These difficulties were removed in the afternoon and all that is now left is to eliminate the habit of imperfect lipi and streng then the habit of perfect lipi. The exactitude of trikaldrishti has finally begun, but is strongly combated. Crude rupas are becoming clearer and of all kinds, but tejas, chhaya and prakash predominate. The visrishti broke out on this the seventh day, but tejasic excess only exerted itself, after and not before, for a short time. Subsequently vayavic excess remained for a long time. Today the Samadhi was used persistently as a preparation for sahitya. At night perfect images are the rule, but stability & vividness are not yet the ordinary law of the vision. Farther progress of sahitya.
   ***

r1912 07 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Continuity of record promises to become more common in the Samadhi.
   The first chatusthaya is now acting in its completeness by completeness of samata & the hasyam no longer depends on mangala upalabdhi. The body is also being possessed by samata & universal ananda even in what was formerly mere pain or discomfort. Sahaituka vishayananda is resuming its old occasional strength which now promises to be normal. The others are also more common. Nirvisesha (ahaituka, but another term must be used) shuddhananda seems about to be established and it is asserted that it is established within and in the body.

r1912 07 15, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   7) Trikaldrishti notably, powers less, Samadhi somewhat developed.
   The fifth has been immediately fulfilled; the personality of the balaka Krishna has taken possession of the sources of knowledge and communicates through the vani & vani script & even through the thought and the lipi; only the perceptions still belong to the Prakriti. The bala bhava (with a touch of the balaka) is established in the Shakti.
  --
   By several lipis the extension of the siddhi to trailokyadrishti was promised for the day, especially in Samadhi. The first step was to attach a perception to rupas seen of their meaning & circumstances. Subsequently in Samadhi a series of visions of Patala occurred, brief but some of them representing continuous incidents & scenes, eg, a ghat of many hundred steps descending to an abysmal river, small watersnakes darting through a river,all the scenes in shadow or dimness.
   Kama strong & the kamachakra tested. Primary utthapana & strength of the chakras was maintained throughout the day. In the evening the vani was active in the highest degree in the buddha. Tendency of sharira ananda was maintained, attended usually with continuous incipient ananda more or less pronounced, but not intense.

r1912 07 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   3) Samadhi largely developed
   4) Utthapana & health carried forward
  --
   The day was given up to an attack in great force by the Asiddhi disturbing or veiling all the chatusthayas. The strength of the kamachakra began to weaken in the morning & collapsed in the evening. The utthapana persisted almost untouched and the health though attacked held its own; the general ananda only wavered a little in the evening except the inner ahaituka etc in events which was entirely disturbed, but the sharira only came by intervals or persisted as a faint tendency. In the evening, however, there was a brief intense movement. After a violent struggle the powers prevailed over resistance in the evening. Trikaldrishti, likewise. Both attempted to move forward beyond normal action to invariability, but after a time the attempt was suspended. Trailokyadrishti was active, especially in the Samadhi, rupadrishti also, but in the chitra, sthapatya & cruder forms and no advance was made. Samadhi advanced considerably. Yesterdays lipi, story explained at the time as the connected tracing out of a story in the night in dream Samadhi was fulfilled. One or more scenes are presented & the thought traces the development of the connected incidents, often beginning before the appearance of the scene, to the conclusion. In the afternoon there was a struggle between sleep & swapna Samadhi, the latter prevailing for the greater part. At night a rapid succession of brilliant visions presented to the eye scenes from the swargabhumis generally, those of the ananda bhumi especially. There is a strong tendency for the disconnected dream with its incoherence & perverted memories to disappear. Sleep was reduced to four hours in the night. The promise was given during the day to confine it henceforth to a six hours maximum to be reduced successively to 4, 2 and nil. The Kalibhava was developed in the terms of the second chatusthaya, Mahakali, Mahasaraswati with a previous return to Maheshwari & Mahakali.
   ***

r1912 07 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The force at work today in a state of depression, internal ananda wanting. The siddhis were rather in a process of modification than of advance, except the trikaldrishti which is becoming more & more the normal action of the mind, but still chequered with the tejasic habit of exaggerating or misplacing a perception. Speculation recurs frequently. The tapas was depressed in order that the fifth chatusthaya might be arranged for action & the tendency to personal use of power in karma eliminated. The siddhis of power encountered a great resistance, but they were usually successful, though not in the detail. Samadhi with visions of Anandaloka, the swarga-bhumis, Earth & Swarga. Lipi about the King.Evidences of preparation of saundaryam still slight and indecisive but no longer doubtful.Sleep at night six hours & short sleep in daytime.
   ***

r1912 07 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   3) Vijnanam made invariable, powers enforced in detail, Samadhi extended.
   Sahitya was resumed today, the Life Divine commenced; also the systematic study of Magha, an orderly arrangement of material ( dhatus) for the Structure of Sanscrit Speech and a review of past Prerana records begun. The insistence on physical ananda was not strong, but health & utthapana were maintained & in the evening the physical capacity of surfeit was, momentarily at least, conquered. The realisation of action as movement of Shakti enjoyed by Purusha came strongly in active dasya with arrangement in knowledge of the kama. There was one remarkable instance of outflow. Vijnanam is now acting invariably, spontaneously, not in particular instances & by special tapas as formerly, but not yet perfectly. The Powers overbore opposition & acted upon detail as well as generally, with great frequency in the evening. Extension of Samadhi was not noticed in the swapna condition, but in the jagrat there was a temporary living in the pranamay jagat and a strong sensation of the vibrations of its earth & sense of its atmosphere. The annamaya self became finally trigunatita, indifferent to the action of the three gunas, not yet anantaguna. Tejasic tapas is dead in action, feebly phantomlike & ineffective in knowledge, but tamas is still strong, though the depression of the annamaya system, persistent recently, has been modified. Internal ananda is yet weak & overshadowed; only the buddhi keeps its grasp on the Anandam Brahma. Sleep at night six hours, in daytime half an hour.
   ***

r1912 07 19, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   KarmaThe Life Divine continued, Rigveda resumed, nirukta & prerana slightly, kavya touched, Bhasha proceeded with. The difficulty of understanding Magha now only persists, ordinarily, where the meaning of important words is unknown. Triple dasya was strongly confirmed in the mind in relation to the Krishnakali bhava. The health & utthapana appear to be a little stronger & the intenser ananda occurs normally in place of the old tendency with inceptual ananda but its frequency was not great & is still strongly resisted. Reading of lipi in Samadhi which was deficient, has been confirmed, but continuity of record was not clearly established. The vijnana action is perfected in itself, but still weak in force and not always perfect in action owing to the emergence of yet another layer of unreformed annamaya personality. The reform of this layer proceeded yesterday. The weakness is especially in the fluctuation from ananda vani & vijnana thought to buddha vani. Sleep 6 hours at night; in daytime swapna & sushupta Samadhi.
   ***

r1912 07 20, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   3) Vijnana, powers & Samadhi streng thenedcontinuous record developed.
   The record from today resumes the character of a communication and includes a view of the future as well as of the present and past. Hitherto the programme has been carried out but often with a feeble & uncertain execution. This has to be changed. Especially, today, the force & joy of the soul has to be revived & the tamasic hue cast over it by the uncertainties of the tamasic intelligence removed. It is already too evident that the Yoga will be fulfilled for the tamasic intelligence to deny it any longer, but the denial is now of the rapidity of Yogasiddhi and of the certainty or probability of the Adeshasiddhi. Bhasha & the Life Divine have already been resumed.

r1912 07 21, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The second chatusthaya reemerged in the evening bringing with it a restoration of force & faith (not complete), but this reemergence was clouded afterwards. Health was much stronger, but perfect assimilation is still disputed by the apana, though the latter no longer produces distention of flatulence, but only tries to limit food-capacity, maintain the slowness of assimilation & restore the visrishti which has been discontinued for four days; the jalavisrishti is very strong and insistent. Nirvisesha kamananda in its intenser form, but not so intense as it was at times, is normal & frequent, but not long continued. The vyapti prakamya is becoming more decisive & intense. Samadhi is attacking the discontinuity & momentariness of the visible record,thought record has already the power of continuity. Sleep for five & a half hours1 hour in the daytime.
   ***

r1912 07 22, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Lipi 22.23. indicating these two days as of special importance. Sleep at night, which is tamasic, increases denial of utthapana, moral tamas, strength of apana & all asiddhi; sleep by day, which is strongly charged with Samadhi, refreshes & is inclined to be brief. It is evident that the sleep which attacks has its stronghold in the karmadeha and not in the actual body.
   Saundaryabodha & Ananda in the outside world are now perfectly established, but relics of asamata remain and momentary tendencies of mental revolt touch the prana & chitta & sometimes the buddhi, . Kalibhava is strong, but has not taken possession of the speech where the old sanskar is powerful. Krishna seems sometimes to remove himself and look out from behind a veil. This presence & absence in myself with its results reveals Christs state of mind when he complained of being forsaken by God. This is salokya,sayujya is when there is the same feeling of presence, but of God in contact with us or embracing the soul from outside, not of being in us & part of us, thought different& yet the same. Sadharmya is well established, but not perfect because of insufficient Ishwarabhava. The relation of Purushottama, Akshara Purusha and Kshara Purusha (Jivatma) is now constantly & vividly seen by me in others more than in myself, although just now it is manifesting in myself. In myself the Purushottama & Kshara Purusha are most vivid to me, in others the Jivatman & Akshara Purusha, while in the world at large (jagati), it is the Purushottama containing the other two in Himself & almost engulfing themthey seem to be merely movements of the Purushottama, parts, layers, aspects of His personality, as indeed they really are. This is because in the jagati & indeed in inanimate beings there is not the ahankara in the buddhi to create a sense of difference. Being more strongly aware of my own remnants of ahankara than that of others,or, rather being more troubled by my awareness the Akshara Purusha is less manifest to me than in others, in whom I see the ahankara only as a play of Srikrishna and am not disturbed by it.
  --
   Scenes of the future in Samadhi are manifesting & nearer to the antardarshi jagrat condition which has long been deprived of all but very dim images. There is a frequent replacement of perception of sthula by perception of prana valueseg a strong, almost violent pranamaya oscillation (throbbing & swaying) physically felt in chair & table when the physical chair & table were only given a slight vibration by a gentle motion of one seated on the table. The chair although detached from the table & connected only through my body shared strongly in the pranamaya disturbance. The senses tend to confuse the two & feel the chair and table physically moving, but the viveka having taken possession of the manas prevent[s] the sensations from succumbing to the error of the physical sense.
   The most important & decisive results were in the second and sixth chatusthayas. The Mahakali bhava in Mahasaraswati continent, after being clouded for some time, finally revealed itself as perfectly established and is developing the permanent ugrata, ishwarabhava etc; the ishwarabhava is tending to become independent of the results of activity & to consist in the force & confidence of the activity itself and of the personality manifesting. But also in the trikaldrishti sruti is insisting on self-justification and increasing the self-existent faith which is independent of the misleading twists & turns of immediate result & event. The Mahalakshmi bhava, hitherto absent, is now tending to appear. At first it replaced momentarily the Mahakali which it is intended only to colour without altering its character, afterwards it tended to bring the Mahalaxmi-Mahasaraswati combinations, but eventually it has subordinated itself to the proper Chandibhava. The Mahakali bhava tends to be weakened, but no longer blotted out by the old sanskaras in conversation & after sleep; but it is no longer replaced by Maheshwari-Mahasaraswati, but by an improperly combined quadruple bhava. The Maheshwari (Gauri) pratistha is still too prominent, because the habit of exciting mental tapas, against which the pratistha is an insurance, still lingers, though weakly, as a habit that always revives with the advent of Mahakali. The permanent realisation of the fourfold Brahman is final. The activity of shuddhi, mukti, bhukti is now final in all their parts, though not yet consummate; only the siddhi remains and this is being rapidly brought forward. It is still chiefly hampered in the karma proper to Mahakali & in the outward fulfilment of kama.

r1912 07 23, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Today is the day long fixed for the fullness of the third chatusthaya apart from the two later chatusthayas, in so far as its action can be complete without being entirely effective in kama, karma & the body. It is also the day when the movement towards that effectiveness begins. Siddhi of power today is working instantaneously & in detail & the action of all the powers is normal, regular, effective, invariably employed as the chief & proper instrument, but not yet entirely perfect in detail. Bhautasiddhi is working, but still overpowered by adhogati, nor likely to be free till general utthapana overcomes adhogati. Samadhi is still deficient in continuity of visible record. It is supposed that it will round itself off today. The vijnana is now working with force & applying itself both in knowledge & shakti to things of moment. The physical siddhi is engaged in fighting down the tamasic obstruction. Yesterday only a little literary karma was done, as previously announced, nor will anything be done today. The activity of lipi & rupa, almost suspended for a time, is now reviving. In trailokyagati the mind seems to be standing on the doorstep of the pranamaya. Nirvisesha kama Ananda throughout the day was active & the general tendency continuous. The strength of the Samadhi was increased & continuous coherent record established in the dream form, of speech, & communication with others on the plane of the Imagination, in the kalpanamayi prakriti of which are the heavens & hells of subjective experience objectivised in sensation (to the sukshma indriyas) but not in annam.
   ***

r1912 10 12, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Developed forms to show sufficient stability. Siddhis of power today. Samadhi from tomorrow.Fulfilled1
   Words italicised here and below were written in pencil after the original entry.Ed.

r1912 10 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The siddhis of power have to be made more powerful and give more rapid and accurate results; the rupadrishti in all its parts to conquer the obstruction finally. The defect of anima has to be minimised. Samadhi to develop rapidly. Ananda to begin to be stable.Fulfilled.
   ***

r1912 10 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The physical akash is still rebellious to the lipi, rupa & other drishtis & to all the siddhis which at all depend on the annam. It only gives normally the minimum results and has to be subjected to pressure of the will in order to give all the results attained. Today, it must be made to give up this habit of inductility due to inertia. Today, Ananda stable, intense & constant; Samadhi increased in range & richness; defect of anima (stiffness, in lower limbs especially) disregarded & convinced of its own impotence; siddhis of power to increase in frequency of accurate success; rupa & other drishtis to gain upon the akasha.Fulfilled
   Tomorrow the direct government will be continuous. Tonight there will be the Ananda of the actual embrace of the daughters of delight.Fulfilled (last in sukshma)

r1912 11 10, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The Samadhi is only obscured by the imperfect dharanashakti of the material mind.
   The defect of anima is prolonged by the tamas in the body.

r1912 11 14b, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Yesterday the [infallibility]1 predicted commenced, but it works in a small field, with difficulty & subject to a certain groping uncertainty & confusion in handling its materials. It is contradicted from time to time, but reestablishes itself. The tejas has been added to ananda & dasyam, but when it seeks to act with speed & vigour, confusion is the result, except in the sahitya where only a slight tendency to defect is apparent as the result of rapid & unreflecting inspiration. Today the trikaldrishti & shakti will embrace definitely a larger field,as it has already begun to do, but not yet with a triumphant infallibility; the lipi, drishti & Samadhi will resume a steady progress and the physical siddhi once more move forward. The sahitya proceeds perfectly, although not always compassing an entirely flawless expression at the first thought. Rodogune, in its final form is completed & only needs a slight revision correcting an inconsiderable number of expressions. Today the Isha Upanishad will be resumed & steadily pursued till it is completed in a perfect form. Farther rewriting will be unnecessary.
   MS infallibly

r1912 11 19a, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The sahitya still improves in sustained quality under the stress of rapidity, but the physical brain cannot yet respond to an unlimited call upon its vital energy. In all else there is still the adverse force. Swapna in Samadhi is improving & last night there was a long & clear swapna marred only by the confusion of the recording mind which mixed itself up with what it saw & produced a few incongruities.
   The directions of the [16]1 are more nearly observed, than before, but not yet perfectly. Dasyam is perfect, but not yet ananda because of the depression of asraddha. Shakti acts as a force which produces an effect & sometimes prevails, but cannot prevail at once, perfectly or even usually. Trikaldrishti is irregular, although there are signs of its improving.

r1912 11 30, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Rapidity only in the Veda-jnana. The place is beginning to be accurate, but the arrangement is not yet perfect. eg. a bird flying is observed, all the turns of movement are accurately predicted, but not always in their proper order; one turn is omitted or another too soon expected etc. Occasionally a momentary impulse in the bird or in the force that is driving it, is taken for a destined movement, but this source of error, which used to be dominant, is now very weak in its incidence & occasional in its occurrence B [Bijoy] is now responding rapidly to the suggestions of the Power in the siddhiprayoga, but still needs too much the aid of speech. His purity & mukti from dwandwa is perfect except in the karmadeha & the preparation of mukti from ahankara is being completed. Vijnana in the intellect, jnanam, in him is very strong, but not yet turned towards trikaldrishti. Prakamya & vyapti are well developed but not perfect. The other siddhis in him work fitfully. Samadhi is being prepared through dream. He gets sometimes the first stages of ahaituka & chidghana ananda
   Strong perception that S. [Srinivasachari] Bh [Bharati] & A [Aiyar] would come in the evening, less strong about A than the others & only general; fulfilled. Other vyaptis fulfilled or proved, vyaptis of action, vyaptis of thought, vyaptis of feeling. Prakamya generally turns into a vyapti. Prakamya vyapti may now be said to be perfect,as perfect as it can be without perfection of the trikaldrishti. Clash of ahankaras over B; first sign of a fresh movement forward so far as he is concerned.

r1912 12 03b, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Yesterday was a day of external suspension, almost of recoil. In the evening only the positive siddhi began to remanifest, but negatively the remnants of the impure tejasic elements in the karmadeha were [ ]1 farther eliminated & weakened. On the other hand, the new tejas has increased & grows on the buddhi which is admitting the subjective conditions of the adeshasiddhi, eg the Asura & Rakshasa bhavas of Mahakali, but not the probability of the siddhi itself in this life. Kamananda though it comes, has not overcome the opposition to its intensity & permanence. The higher material forms of lipi, in which vividness, simultaneity & amplitude are now gained, are beginning to manifest spontaneously. Only perfect spontaneity is lacking as yet to the perfected lipi. Rupadrishti is still held back at the point of development it had reached. Unstable developed images, stable images of a great crudity occur. Swapna Samadhi, night before last, gained a greater frequency of single & grouped image, but is still unable to develop long continuity of one series of events, which only occurs in purified swapna. Fresh proofs of trikaldrishti come daily, but the habitual invariability of correctness is not yet attained. A mixed action is the ordinary level, unvarying correctness only happens when the vijnana is in full vigour. The sky is once more clouded. This renewal of clouded weather in December had been foreseen, but not its date or even its approximate time.
   Sleep for two nights has been restricted, of its own motion, to six hours or a little over. The karmadeha is physically full of tamas and an effect is produced on the material body which is slow to work & does not easily respond to the demand for new siddhi; but the bhauta-siddhi is showing some signs of improvement and there is no actual collapse of the tapas, but only sluggishness in physical pravritti.
  --
   5) Samadhi to be regularised during December.
   ***

r1912 12 03, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   5) Samadhi to be regularised during December.
   ***

r1912 12 05, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Last night there was once more a dream of the higher order. The dream divided itself into two parts, images seen,the record of an experience or vision in another world from which the spirit had returned & the intellectual effort of the mind to understand the record. The latter was, this time, absolutely perfect, a vision of a road along which I proceeded, met by men & women richly adorned & sumptuously clothed, a land where there was no ugliness or poverty, up to the meeting of this road by another at right angles to it from the left & between the two roads a great park with its gate near the crossways. The position of roads, gate & park was exactly that of the Baroda park, the Station or Racecourse Road & the Camp Road, but there was no other precise resemblance. There was even a vital difference, since I crossed a bridge before reaching the crossways, but the Baroda bridge over the Visvamitri is beyond the Park gates & not on this side. The mind, however, at once ran to the conclusion that this was Baroda. The speculation interrupted the vision. Afterwards the Park was again seen, but once more the reasonings of the mind interfered. Subsequently the mind became uncontrollably active & though Luxmi gave some clear records, it brought in so many cross ideas & images that at last entire confusion & the cessation of the siddhi resulted. Nevertheless continuity of record in deep sleep has at last been established after a long period of failure. The frequent & perfect combination of hearing, touch, taste & smell with sight in Samadhi & dream is still wanting; for at present there is only occasional, though clear & intense, combined sight & hearing or sight & touch or hearing & touch, seldom all three together. Taste & smell are very rare. Afterwards there must be the actual experience of the spirits wanderings & not as now only subsequent records of them. This I had a long time ago in one or two instances, eg the Chhayamayi vision in Patala; but since then it has been discontinued. Finally, there must be the actual leaving of the body in trance, wholly or partially.
   There is a better & swifter subjective-objective response in others now to the vyapti & shakti prayoga; but it is still in its infant stages. Power is also telling on the bodies of others a little, eg. Bakhtyars sores heal almost at once; but this too is only in its commencement. Samata, shanti, sukha are perfect & only the nonfulfilment of Adesha-siddhi prevents freedom & fullness of the hasyam.

r1912 12 06, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The obstruction continues, but cannot prevent the continued perfection & increasing range & sureness of the prakamya-vyapti. Only, it clouds the vijnana & then the trikaldrishti cannot act certainly; it obstructs the Shakti-prayoga and brings about variation of failure & success; & it tries to disturb the system & prevent the growth of the physical siddhi and the Samadhi. Nevertheless, the perfect response of the mind to trikaldrishti is growing & the Power is recovering its tone in all immediate circumstances; neither of them act perfectly in detail. The ordinary bhautasiddhi is recovering its tone & defect of anima does not seem to have so strong a hold as before; arogyasiddhi is resisting the attacks upon it and the physical ananda persists in spite of obstruction. The body, however, is still sensitive to cold; the violent ejection of this sensitiveness has been predicted (yesterday in lipi), but the movement is not yet successful.
   Last night sleep once again fell to six hours or possibly less. Swapna- Samadhi grows in frequency & the combination of the vishayas is frequent & vivid, except in taste & smell, whose normal action in sleep is only being prepared. But the images & scenes are still fleeting & dream is disturbed in its continuity. The dream-images last night were of the old unreal kind & the air of unreality strong, but a connected series of events took place, coherent and reasonable, although unusual & only possible in a long past age with other manners. The events were correct, the images probably not all from the true record or free from present associations & figures, though there was no definite intrusion from the present. It was only the sense of self that belonged to the present. On the whole a considerable & steady progress.
  --
   The Kamananda has been almost constant at a varying pitch of intensity since the morning except for one interval of an hour or so; constant not continuous entirely, for there are momentary breaks. The tendency, however, is to substitute temporary mitigation for the actual break The physical struggle is obstinate, asiddhi bringing the imperfections of arogya, siddhi throwing them out. Adhogati returns constantly in the primary utthapana, but more in the shape of fatigue or the shadow of fatigue than denial of anima. Sleep is attempting to recover possession. There is as yet no decisive sign of the initial movement towards saundarya except in the overcoming of the first difficulty with regard to moulding the undercurve that took so long to develop. Elsewhere there is as yet nothing. Further fullness of progress is promised for the rest of the dayin power, rupadrishti, ananda & Samadhi.
   (Written 7 morning)
  --
   A long struggle for the rupadrishti, ended in a number of stable images attaining to the dense developed, far superior in consistency to last nights forms, appearing straight before the vision, a great frequency of absolutely perfect images which either avoid the eye or only appear for a second before it, & a number of crude forms. Colour, jyotih & tejah are now common in all forms. The objective of the siddhi is to establish the habit of the perfect & stable image placed full before the vision; the object of the enemy is to preserve every possible imperfection & especially prevent stability. After some hours cessation, physical ananda of a much greater intensity was given for a short time, but not continued afterwards. Samadhi progresses slowly; but the dreams at night almost got rid of the element of dream-image & were only a series of mental images & ideas woven into a connected series of speech & incident. The elimination of dream image, is the first great desideratum, of incoherence in thought record the second. In addition to these siddhis universal prema with the established chidghana & prema anandas, rising into the suddha, are being again superimposed on the ahaituka. Tejas is now more powerful & continuous, the sraddha established in everything except the Adeshasiddhi. Nine hours & more of walking & standing during the day failed to bring fatigue, but brought this time some amount of defect of anima. Sleep 6 hours and a half.
   Of the 1877 edition of Max Mller (Sanskrit text with padapha).Ed.

r1912 12 07, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Nothing fresh has been added this morning; except that perfect forms of the crude variety are now more stable in the full line of the vision & more varied, eg varnamaya, agnimaya & jyotirmaya, but it is only the bird that so appears,usually as on a former occasion the redbreast. In the fleeting images some of which are of an absolute perfection, various kinds of birds, flags, ink & other bottles, books[,] matchboxes, cigarettes, cigarette packets etc, in a word, the objects most commonly observed are commonest. In this respect there is a strong contrast to the images seen in Samadhi. The power is now being applied to movements in the mass where a number of agents are concerned. An effect is produced, especially at the beginning, but afterwards the resistance stiffens and is successful. Trikaldristi of exact time recommenced last night. There was the usual error; the return of S. M & N [Saurin, Moni & Nolini] was seen to be due after 9.30 (very unusual & even unprecedented for a long time past), later fixed at 9.38, but again unfixed & seen to be due nearer 10. At 9.38, exactly, R [Ramaswamy] came, not the others, who arrived at 9.53. Occasional physical Ananda is resumed, but not yet the intenser Ananda of last night. The combination of the subjective Anandas, sahaituka, is reestablished and almost perfect; but in one or two directions, eg ordure, massed sores & one or two kinds of events, jugupsa still comes in from the outside world & touches the external psychic nerves. There is also a persistence of hostile perception of ugliness which tries to take advantage of this or that object in order to deny the shuddhananda.
   Afternoon.

r1912 12 08, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   In the evening the Power & the rupadrishti regained their former activity & siddhi; no advance was made towards a fuller or wider perfection.. Sleep 7 hours. There was a still more perfect swapna Samadhi; marred only by a slight admixture of false thought in the watching mind, but the record of the thing seen was without a flaw & delivered from that tendency to overhaste in travelling through the scenes witnessed which shows an unsteady movement of the Apas in the mind. Everything was deliberate & slow as in the actual living of the scene. This was in deep Samadhi. There were a greater number of visions, dim chhayamaya, in light Samadhi, not continuous, but [? ] in thought & subject. The actual dreams were at first perfectly free from present ego or suggestion of present associations, although the dream-images recurred faintly; but afterwards they became touched with present image & thoughtassociation. Three hours more physical activity, continuous, & another hour making over nine hours; the result the same.
   MS Vyapta

r1912 12 10, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Sleep for over seven hours. The visions in Samadhi grow in richness and completeness, eg last night a vision of armies of different nationalities advancing successively along a road,not seen consecutively without interruption but successively with intervals of avikalpa Samadhi. Dream is still in the same stage, but last night present associations interfered less than before in spite of the insistence of the present ego sense. Dream images were, however, frequent.
   Lipi is now being left to the Akash to hold in its perfection without any assistance from the Adhara except the assistance of intention. For this reason its manifestation is infrequent, not copious & often attended by difficulty & illegibility; but the lipi is in itself perfect, only the manifestation is obscured by the films in the akashic movement between the eyes & the object. Rupa is still delayed at the stage of unstable vividness in the perfect images, the resistance is not conquered.

r1912 12 11, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The resistance is now to the fulfilment of the Adeshasiddhi, for if once a permanent power is manifested, in the control of the events immediately surrounding the adhara, all farther resistance will be convicted of inutility. This resistance, it is suggested, is now about to be overcome. The rupadrishti is to be brought on a level with the rest of the vijnanachatusthaya in this week, the bhautasiddhi liberated from the pressure of the defect of anima, the Samadhi from the refusal of continuity in the visional record. Meanwhile the trikaldrishti & powers will expand rapidly in their action. The physical resistance to the Power in the body of self & others will yield, although it will from time to time recur until it is eliminated; as a result arogya, ananda & primary utthapana will be brought into line with the vijnanachatusthaya. Only saundarya in the physical siddhi will be left as a field of battle. The resistance to karma in the moulding of minds & the giving of experience & power will also break, & the resistance to the equipment. The rest will easily follow within these two months.
   5.pm
   The rupadrishti has advanced today; perfect crude forms now sit easily in the akasha, perfect crude dense & crude developed forms appear frequently & with some stability; absolutely perfect forms are more frequent, but not yet stable. The akasha is of itself bringing forward the lipi with more ease & force. The trikaldrishti is normally perfect, except in arrangement & exact time, unless it is confused with the shaktiprayoga,all that is perceived is seen to be correct, only all is not seen in its exact place. The range also is widening. Shaktiprayoga has now more force & normal effectiveness. The force of bhautasiddhi is also increasing, in the ordinary mahima & laghima. Intellectual infallibility is now seen to be a possibility & not far from realisation, at least where it can be immediately tested. Kama Ananda today was continuous for some minutes, though not of the greater intensity already achieved. Sukshma sparsha is increasing in force & keenness, but is still usually only a subtle physical sensation, except in touches of water, fire or electric atoms which have now a great sthula reality & linger on the body both in the solid sensation & in its physical-nervous effects. Other touches do not yet materialise. Sukshma gandha & gandha-rasa with sparsha is keen & powerful, but irregular in occurrence. Sravana & drishti of actual forms & voices as opposed to images & symbolic sounds are still behindhand. All these are now recognised as parts of Samadhi or visvagati, the fifth member of the third chatusthaya. Health is still attacked, but dully, not with yesterdays force.
   Written Dec 12th
   Later in the day the health was more strongly attacked in the process of digestion; it prevailed nowhere else, but on the contrary is being steadily extruded. The ananda of cold is growing but has not entirely extruded the returns of the discomfort which, even after its violent expulsion, returns from the environment. Sleep, nearly 7 hours. No advance in Samadhi. Physical activity for twelve hours, four hours in the morning (1 + 3), two & three-quarters in the afternoon, the rest in the evening & night (5.15 pm to 9 & 9.20 to 11). There was no reaction to speak of in the morning & the fatigue that occasionally came was always easily thrown off. Kama Ananda is resisted, but tends to become the atmosphere of the physical experiences.
   ***

r1912 12 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Physical exertion twelve hours (morning one hour + two hours 9.15 to 11.15; afternoon, three hours & a half; evening 4.40 to 9.10 & 9.40 to 10.40). In the morning there was pain in the soles of the feet when rising, but no appreciable stiffness in the limbs. Fatigue of adhogati, in the evening, was more persistent than usual, although not intense or powerful. Sleep, nearly seven hours. The last two nights, there has been a retrogression in Samadhi; the dreams are, besides, not remembered, but the incoherent dream seems to prevail.
   The asiddhi in the hair, although much diminished, is not yet removed.

r1912 12 15, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Visrishti (slight) in the evening, after the pressure of Apana had been got rid of by Will. Physical activity for 12 hours as usual. Sleep 6 hours. Progress in Samadhi nil. Lipi successfully vivid & spontaneous (varnamaya) at night, thus getting rid of the difference which had been established between daytime & night, with regard to the Lipi. There is, however, this difference that at night it is usually varnamaya, by day usually chhayamaya of all kinds.
   ***

r1912 12 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Immediately after writing the above, the trikaldrishti again became active for a time, but was clouded later on. At the same time the interpretation of lipi & rupa was re-manifested in perfection; but there was a renewed cloud of confusion over the immaterial drishti. Physical activity, resumed at 5.15 was continued till 12.15 with an interval of 25 minutes for meals. Today therefore gave a total of 16 hours out of 18. Fatigue only dominated the system once in the day, on the occasion already recorded. Sleep for 5 hours. Yesterday, in the Samadhi, the old movement of a conscious exit of the mental being from the material centre (not a complete exit, not trance, but the usual swapnamaya departure) was resumed. It has this defect still that too strong a trend of the consciousness towards the body remains, so that the purusha is easily drawn back to the body, leaving only his linga sharira in the place of dream experience. Dream has definitely relapsed into incoherence. Visrishti in excess of the usual quantity, nevertheless of an ordinary kind & amount.
   ***

r1912 12 20, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The sukshmadrishti has for the last two days been progressing. The gandhadrishti, which was always more pronounced than the others, has now overcome its two limitations, restriction of range to the smells most common in the immediate material experience and reliance on the material adhar; it is now admitting perfumes & other scents not within the physical range or usual experience. The rasadrishti, which was always prevented from manifesting till lately & even then was confined to the gandharasa, the touch on the palate of things smelt, has suddenly rushed to the front and stands on a level with the gandha except in frequency of the experience & permanence; but intensity & materiality are perfect & the range is not limited as it includes the sweet, the bitter & the pungent as well as nondescript tastes. Sparsha is still confined to the habitual touches, rain, wind, insects, heat of the sukshma sun, fire, etc & the result rather than the actuality of certain subtle touches. In Samadhi however sparsha is very vivid & the physical sensation remains after waking. The more developed touches (human) are only felt in the waking state through the subtle nervous system, but they are there often acute. Such touches as reach the sthula body without this veil increase in frequency & intensity. Finally, shabda is now beginning to disengage itself finally from the adhara. This sense which was the most acute & earliest to develop, is now the latest (rupa excepted) to perfect itself & the clear sounds of the jail do not repeat themselves. Finally, rupa is still confined to mere image, pratimurti, & does not give the murti or actual form of which there were some instances in the jail & afterwards, but none here.
   The health is still attacked. Last night there was a violent and unprecedentedly obstinate attack of the pain in the breast which used sometimes to occur when there was suppressed indigestion, but this time it was seen to come from outside & to be forced on the body. Intolerable at first, it was finally attacked and partly possessed by the ananda. It persisted in a dull form throughout the day, but was mostly cast out by the Will in the evening.. An attempt was also made to revive the ailments of cold & a crude appearance of tendency to phlegm in the nose was for some minutes materialised. All these, however, were failures and only at the centre & in the stomach was any real effect produced; in the latter, moreover, it was foreign and not native to the system. A very slight visrishti allowed for nominal relief at 8.30 pm. The twelve hours limit was maintained. Sleep 6 hours; but its attack was more oppressive than it should be.

r1912 12 24, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Nothing of note. Trikaldrishti & Powers slowly progress. Samadhi is still [inhibited]1 and Adhogati seeks to bring back the failure of anima.. The rupadrishti cannot yet hold the Akasha nor Ananda the body, though both come and manifest themselves in detail. Health is unable to progress. Today the sore-throat lessened, but did not absolutely disappear, & there were strong efforts to develop cough etc so that it might go by the normal course. In spite, however, of disregard of all rules & continual exposure of throat & breast to cold, it is going without materialising either into cold or cough. Physical activity 11 hours; again other occupations prevented the full amount. Sleep 6 hours.
   MS inhabited

r1912 12 27, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   After this month the diary has to change its character & become mainly a record of trikaldrishti, aishwarya, Samadhiexperience & work, literary & religious; at the same time a brief note of the physical siddhi will be kept. The aishwarya-vyapti has had effects on purifying considerably the mentality of all in the house, & in the increase & definite development of trikaldrishti in S [Saurin], but his knowledge is still only fragmentarily active. The successful application of the power in immediate result is still successfully resisted except in individual cases; but yesterday groups of existences were made to obey the Will and even to obey it in exact circumstance. The attack on the health seems to be lessening in force; but last night the cough, which is however entirely superficial, returned with some vehemence after a hot sukshma touch on the sensitive spot in the throat. Kamananda is still in the same condition, but the sahaituka shariranandas seem to be once more at a high intensity.
   The confused action of the intellect revived in some force and although the siddhis continued, certainty was for a time abrogated. The improvement in the Viceroys health took place in the direction willed, viz elimination of fever & pain. A period must now be fixed for entire recovery & it must be seen whether the element of time can be controlled. The Turkish business is also centring round the point willed, but the upshot is still in doubt. The cough tried to cling throughout the day, but disappeared by the evening, contrary to its action yesterday. Roga in its other symptoms clings, but cannot assert itself. Will acted with great accuracy in the matter of the returns in the evening, but the trikaldrishti was confused in details. Another failure as regards equipment. The failure was seen before it was known, by vyapti, but there was an attempt to mislead by false vyaptis. Sleep over 7 hours. Samadhi at night is absent, but takes place in the daytime,deep, the record confused with intervals of lucidity & coherence. There is a dull attack of defect of anima & mahima in the primary utthapana.
   ***

r1912 12 30, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   There is no farther need of a record such as has been kept during this month. There has been considerable progress, but upon lines which have now to be altered and soon to be abandoned. The programme proposed on the 3 December has as usual been fulfilled only in its beginnings & in one or two instances not at all. The stability of rupadrishti is of little value in itself, since the perfect forms do not hold the akasha, & has been accomplished only in the sense that the forms accomplished appear habitually & the progress made has not to be continually lost & built up again, as used to be the case. Lipi is not yet habitually spontaneous in legibility & still needs usually the stimulus of the subjective perception to become perfectly legible, but it appears more usually without particular demand, though less frequently without any warning or the turning of the attention in that direction. It will only be perfect when it appears uncalled for as an ordinary habit of the akasha and is always immediately legible without any attention or trouble to the mind. Trikaldrishti works perfectly often, but not always, nor even yet as a rule, except in single incidents which present themselves to the mind, but where the perception is active rather than passive, there is usually much uncertainty & confusion of details. Nevertheless the more or less perfect trikaldrishti does occur daily with some frequency & in an imperfect state it is working throughout the day. The Power has so far overcome resistance as to work habitually like the Trikaldrishti, but it is even more hampered & outside a narrow field imperfectly, slowly or irregularly effective. Samadhi has not been regularised.
   Ananda (kama) is occasionally intense on a moderate estimate of intensity. It is that is to say tivra, but not rudra, not even tivratara or tivratama. It occurs, tivra or kuntha, daily & often frequently in the day and is in that sense permanent. But it is not continuous in its permanence or constant in its intensity. Health in the last half of the month has been successfully resisted, rather than successfully progressive; cough, which had disappeared, has reappeared; the other fragments of roga, however vague, slight, blunted or disjointed, still persist & even when they seem to have finally disappeared, unexpectedly return. Nevertheless, they are losing force; but that is all that can be said. The saundarya has not progressed since the 10, materially; its successes are the merest beginnings & in most directions the opposite tendency prevails. Primary utthapana has so far established itself that ten to twelve hours daily are passed, walking or standing, without any permanent reaction except a vague defect of anima which sometimes tends to materialise feebly and a moderate adhogati, also vague & dull, in the earlier part of the day. The prediction about equipment has been entirely falsified & the acuteness of the position has not been lightened. The literary & scholastic work has begun to take shape & proceed or prepare to proceed on its proper lines, but the necessary materials are deficient. The religious work is now being founded on a certain power over the sadhana of others, but this is as yet only rudimentary. The same is true of other activities. There is an effective pressure of power, but not the sovran control that is needed. The contact with the Master of the Yoga is being constantly dulled & obscured by the siege of Ego in the environment, false suggestion & inferior vani. Realisation of Atman & Brahman Nirguna & Saguna is always available & at once returns in fullness when the mind turns in that direction, but the nitya smarana is not there, because, perhaps, the realisation of the Ishwara is not equally well-established. The whole Yoga is still subject to clouding & temporary breaches even of those siddhis that have been most perfectly accomplished. Although these breaches are often slight, temporary & without power yet their recurrence shows that the whole system has not been placed perfectly under the right control.

r1912 12 31, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Last night there was some swapna Samadhi, but only one image survives in the memory,a room or tent with a small table such as might be used in a tent & a sola hat on the table, seen for some time, but with a momentary eclipse after which it emerged again & then vanished, a scene without any incident or moving figure, although it was felt that there would have been either movement or incident, if the power of vision had been able to hold the scene. The background and atmosphere were very dim as is usually now the case with these visions.
   Visrishti, neither slight, nor excessive, in the afternoon; the first real evacuation since the 256 days.
   Physical activity 10 hours. Secondary utthapana of arms for half an hour; this time with ease, although earlier in the day there had been difficulty in maintaining it for half an hour due to defect of anima, resultant strain in the arms & pain of the negative electric current. Sleep nearly 7 hours. Swapna Samadhi with images indistinguishable to the eye from dream images, distinguishable by the viveka alone. The faculty of understanding the truth behind the dream record and disentangling its confusions has once more returned. Fresh proofs of the siddhis constantly occur, but there are plenty of instances of misplaced perception and the siddhis of power have as yet no assured mastery over results. Primary utthapana continues in the same condition; it cannot be perfected unless the secondary & tertiary are brought forward.
   This day closes the year 1912. From its morrow a new record begins in which the progress of the siddhi of Mahakali-Mahasaraswati has to be recorded. At present there is no sign of any rapid progress or of really great results. All is petty, hampered & limited. A siddhi rapidly established becomes otiose for days together. Continuity in the higher states seems as yet impossible, and from accomplishment there is always a relapse into a condition of partial asiddhi. The whole Yoga is continually beset with tamas and uncertainty & seems unable to rise permanently into clearness & perfect joy & assurance. There is no grief or acute trouble or even anything that can really be called trouble, but a dull depression never acute & a certain weariness & lack of interest has settled down on the system and is only lifted for short intervals or replaced by a mere ahaituka state of ambitionless content. The active force, ananda etc established for a short period, have failed to hold their own. The tejasic ideas of a joyous progress & of siddhi within a given time have once more proved to be falsehoods.

r1913 01 01, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Samadhi.
   Brilliant visions of sea, waters etc just before sleeping; but all were momentary. Such other visions as can be remembered, were all dark, chhayamaya and chhayavrita. Sleep, under 6 hours.

r1913 01 02, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Lipi advanced in power, vividness and authority. The beginnings of lipi-kaushalya, especially varna-lipi, were promised in the lipi itself and exemplified; this morning fiery, luminous & coloured lipis have occurred, of a rich substance and brilliant vividness. Rupa is still in the same stage, although it increases in the frequency, normality and even stability of perfect images, sometimes in the sukshma-sthula and sometimes in the sthula akasha. In the Samadhi the images were dim and inconstant.
   Sleep 6 hours. Primary utthapana 11 hours. Kamananda frequent and more easily intense, with a tendency to continuity. Siddhi of aishwarya and kamananda are indicated & promised, as well as of the lipi. Karma received a setback already predicted two or three days ago in the lipi Trouble in the entourage, but its area & force are limited.

r1913 01 05, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The persistence of tapas is now assured in spite of opposition; the action proceeds in the face of difficulties, disappointments & errors of method without flagging for more than a moment and is itself tejaswi even when the system loses hold of active tejas and falls back on shama or dhairyam. The physical obstacle to continuous karma is overcome as well as the subjective obstacle, failure of physical dhairya as well as failure of mental tejas. Mental dhairya, physical dhairya & pranic tejas assured, mental tejas has to be rendered equally permanent and invincibly active so that the physical brain may not flag in its response to the stimulus from above. The quaternary, Tejo balam pravrittir mahattwam, will then be assured in all the parts of the system. Vijnana is now beginning to assert its constant activity, pausing only to test the state of the intellect; for when the intellect, even in its darkened or clouded state, refuses to rest in error and begins to respond only to the satya, then the pratistha in intellect of the vijnanamaya action will be assured. At present, it is so assured in all but the trikaldrishti, the action of mind on the objective field, & this is so because the trikaldrishti itself is still limited in its ordinary action, though already perfect in its best moments & in its extraordinary movements. It has been decided yesterday that the development of the Knowledge must be left to the unaided action of the Prakriti, the Power to its own self development and the Samadhi, physical siddhi and Karma alone left for the present field of the stimulative action of the Will aiding Prakriti.
   Trikaldrishti has to be liberated from the dregs of possibility; lipi from the remnants of the obstruction in the akasha; rupa from the denial of stability in the higher forms; prakamya-vyapti from the interference of elemental thought-images; Samadhi from sleep & dream; power from the akashic obstruction to subjective reception and objective fulfilment; bhautasiddhi from defect of anima; primary utthapana from adhogati and the remnants of defect of anima; ananda from interruption and the obstruction by weaker nerve-elementals influencing the body; arogya from the habit of symptomatic recurrences. This field is almost conquered, subject to the last obstinate resistance.
   Secondary utthapana of the neck, loins & legs was resumed this morning. It is growing stronger in the first, almost nil in the second, absent in the third.

r1913 01 06, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   There is a tendency in the rupa to develop groups and paintings with their colours, but the obstruction in the akasha maintains itself & prevents the efflorescence of the rupadrishti which is waiting, perfect and richly-equipped, in the sukshma akasha for its hour of manifestation. The images of the swapna Samadhi were once more of the richer & brighter kind, but the dreams were more incoherent and ill-remembered. Kamananda is more persistent in recurrence, but has not yet established continuity. The other parts of the physical siddhi are heavily obstructed and do not move forward; to a less extent the power; only knowledge, trikaldrishti and lipi are moving forward irresistibly.
   ***

r1913 01 09, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The siddhi of the visrishti & freedom from satiety long combated and diminished has momentarily collapsed. Kamananda, although its activity has not disappeared, has at present no hold on the body. The physical siddhi persists in its retrograde motion. The external tapas is now falling away again from the system and is giving place to tapas under control of the dasyabuddhi .. The Samadhi has suddenly & without farther difficulty acquired siddhi in the vijnana & saviveka Samadhi, corresponding to the savichara and savitarka of the intellectual classification. The thought, whether as perception or vangmaya, maintains itself on the vijnanamay level, the intellect in a state of perfect passivity, only receiving it, even in the deepest swapna Samadhi which amounts to a practical sushupti of the manas & its silence in the mahat. It was because the system was accustomed to fall into sushupti whenever the manas-buddhi became inert, that this siddhi could not formerly be accomplished. Now the mind becomes inert, sushupta, but activity proceeds on the vijnanamaya level on which the Purusha is now jagrat in the body, and that activity is received by the inert intellect. Nevertheless owing to the great inertia of the intellect at the time, the thought is sometimes caught with difficulty, hardly remembered on waking, or, if remembered, then soon afterwards lost to the recollection. The intellect catches it, but does not get a good grasp upon it. The vijnanamay memory must become active, if the thought & vision of Samadhi are to be remembered. This higher memory is developing, not swe dame, but on the intellectual plane; things are now remembered permanently without committing them to heart, which formerly would not have been remembered even for a day if they had been even carefully learned by heart eg the first verse of Bharatis poem, in Tamil, not a line of which was understood without a laborious consultation of the dictionary. Yet although an unknown tongue, although no particular attention was paid to the words or their order everything remains in the mind even after several days. Formerly even a verse of Latin, English, Sanscrit carefully studied & committed to memory, would be lost even in a shorter time. The siddhi of the vijnana Samadhi shows that the Purusha is now rising into the vijnana or preparing to rise; the manomaya is becoming passive, the vijnanamaya Purusha, so long secret & veiled by the hiranmaya patra of the buddhi, is beginning to reveal himself, no longer indirectly, but face to face with the lower man.An initial siddhi is also preparing in script communication.As was predicted earlier in the day, the sahitya-siddhi has extended itself to poetry this evening & the long obstruction of the poetic faculty is passing away. The epic style has been recovered and only the dramatic remains. Fluency in all will come back during the month, spontaneous & immediate perfection hereafter within these two months .. The lipi is now being freely & naturally utilised for knowledge; there is no farther need of any attention to its development or to the farther development of the vani or script. Only the trikaldrishti & the Power still need attention (apramattata), and the rupadrishti & Samadhi still need the help of the Will for their wider development or their more perfect perfection.
   The siddhi of the vijna[na]maya level for the Thought in Samadhi does not extend to the vision; for this reason the dreams are still intellectual records or attempts to record rather than the actual vision of things and events, except when the dream is replaced by vision. Even then it is often savikalpa rather than sadarsha Samadhi. The dreams last night (those remembered) were again of consecutive & well connected records; this time the present ego sense was carefully excluded and only once a present association interfered with the accuracy of the record. A rapid movement in trikaldrishti is promised and one in rupa indicated.
   ***

r1913 01 10, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The necessity of apramattata has been removed from all the parts of the vijnanasiddhi except rupadrishti and Samadhi; the rest will be accomplished henceforth by the unaided direct action of the Para Shakti. Rupa developed to a certain extent, but still fails to overcome its one remaining difficulty. Swapna Samadhi was absent; the dreams, though clear & consecutive, slightly confused by the mixing of historical names (not thought of for years past,) and one or two present associations with the actual chain of incidents. The present ego was also prominent in the central figure.
   A violent struggle over the roga (digestive) began with success, passed through failure and ended again in success. There has been a strong reaction of asiddhi in the roga ending today in an attack of incipient diarrhoea, but the sense of health was persistent throughout & the whole system except the pure bodily part, remained unaffected by the attack. Even the body was free from any loss of strength or ananda; on the contrary the ahaituka ananda was strong not only in the mind but in the prana & the anna. Mukti therefore is almost perfect, although touches of the indriya-nirananda occasionally return.

r1913 01 11, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Today the dasya in the third degree will be confirmed, the rupadrishti overcome its last obstacle, the Samadhi develop in its deficient parts, the secondary utthapana progress. Kamananda will reassert its control & the shadow that has materialised in the health be removed. The action of the Will will pass over entirely into the fourth chatusthaya, in which Power will establish its control. Trikaldrishti will become more widely active.
   Afternoon.
   The Samadhi is developing in its deficient parts, lipi in swapna Samadhi, shabdadrishti in jagrat, but the development is slow and impeded. Swapna- Samadhi by flashes is frequent, but still fails to hold the vijnanamay level or to attain continuity. Secondary utthapana made slight progress before the prediction was written. The action of the Will is passing away from the rupadrishti & the Samadhi, but not yet passed. The Power is working on the body & has already diminished the abnormal insistence of the jalavisrishti & got rid of the stress of the abnormal parthiva visrishti. There is strong resistance to the fulfilment and the mental parts have been all day in a state of confused action. Nothing clear & decisive yet emerges.
   The news today are the reverse of favourable, although in consonance with the trikaldrishti, which expected the emergence of a yet stronger trend against Turkey. Aiswarya in the karma is strongly hampered and to a certain extent baffled.
  --
   In the evening perfect forms directly under the eye became numerous and a number of them stable, but these were not of the most lifelike perfection, the defect being insufficiently developed material; the perfection was in the circumstances. Will has relinquished the rupadrishti to the self-action of the Para Prakriti, and is only slightly active for the Samadhi. Swapna- Samadhi is attempting to develop continuity, but is obliged to have recourse to recurrence in order to stimulate the tendency, as the habit of the drishti withdrawing immediately from the thing once it is seen, still prevails. Kamananda chiefly sahaituka was resumed, but not yet with a sustained frequency. Power began to control the bodily siddhi, but not yet with entire success; the jalavisrishti at last revived its intensity and the relics of sensitiveness to cold with nirananda suddenly recovered intensity. Secondary utthapana, attempted, failed to progress sensibly; but the primary utthapana overcame easily an attempt to break it and continued strongly from about five to after half past eleven (walking all the time) with only a break for meals. Sleep at night fell from 7 or 8 hours to five. Trikaldrishti manifested a striking power and accuracy. The resistance to Power in the karma showed itself in a fresh outbreak of anaikya in the surroundings, known by trikaldrishti before it happened.
   ***

r1913 01 12, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Yesterdays prediction, although not unfulfilled, was pitched in a key too high for the actual sthula fulfilment. The rupadrishti overcame its last obstacle but not perfectly; dasya in the third degree was confirmed, but not clearly & decisively, as the actions & thoughts are still confused, it is dasya, but dasya without clearness about the command; Samadhi developed in its deficient parts, slightly; secondary utthapana progressed in easy positions and for the rest more in the sukshma than the sthula; Kamananda reasserted itself rather than its control; the shadow in the health has been removed in the sukshma, but only diminished and almost extruded in the sthula, but it still clings; trikaldrishti has widened its activity & produced some striking results, but still works amid the suggestions of the intellectuality; power has relinquished the third chatusthaya & centred on the fourth, but some habitual action of will still lingers in the Samadhi. This high pitch, however, is intended, as these predictions are programmes or pratijnas rather than mere prediction, & the fulfilment has to rise to the pitch of the prediction, not the prediction fall to the pitch of the sthula fulfilment.1
   Today the tertiary dasya will become decisive and prepare to pass into the fourth degree or supreme dasya; rupadrishti & Samadhi farther progress on yesterdays lines; trikaldrishti become at once great (mahat) and striking. Health will farther extrude the relics of the old symptomatic survivals, subject to some farther struggle; secondary utthapana declare itself more clearly; kamananda overcome the obstacles still presented to it; the general bodily power greatly increase. Aishwarya after making itself felt in the rest of the physical siddhi, will throw itself on the saundarya and the karma, which will begin to develop larger proportions. But the chief movement will be the final emergence and justification of the Mahakali element in its shuddha Asuric bhava.
   Afternoon
   The tertiary dasya has become decisive, trikaldrishti continues to produce striking results, but its mahattwa is faulty when applied by the Mahakali movement. In Samadhi the clearness, consecutiveness & frequency of lipi increases & the tendency to continuity continues, but today the Will was not used. The struggle in the health continues; jalavisrishti is virulent, the semi-tejasic parthiva visrishti dominated, but not yet entirely dislodged in tendency; other symptoms also cling. The Mahakali element has emerged but is not yet justified. Instances of opposition to the karma have abounded today, even in the midst of the preparation for a larger activity of the karma. Secondary utthapana has occurred, but is not more advanced than yesterday, although it is felt that it is gathering strength.
   Final.13th morning.
   The tertiary dasya is complete, except for occasional attempts to revolt of the asatya dwesha; the supreme dasya is preparing. Rupadrishti failed to progress in the direction of stable perfect forms, but developed in the less perfect forms, not however decisively; Samadhi proceeded no farther than in the afternoon. Trikaldrishti continues to be striking & has a wide range, but is variable & uncertain in its action. In health the movement of extrusion progressed with great difficulty, &, although it seems to have succeeded, it is too early as yet to estimate the progress. Secondary utthapana progresses & the bodily power (tejo balam mahattwam pravrittih) greatly increases; but the kamananda did not overcome its obstacles, but rather manifested itself occasionally, especially in the sukshma body as madira, in spite of them. Aishwarya is applying itself more consistently to karma and saundarya. The Mahakali action is apparently established & sanctioned, but not yet justified by results.
   Here the manuscript has closing quotation marks.Ed.

r1913 01 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Programme.The trikaldrishti to widen still farther previous to getting rid of its variability & uncertainty, rupadrishti & Samadhi to overcome the remnants of the obstacle still opposed to them, aishwarya to generalise success; health, secondary utthapana & kamananda to continue their struggle & prevail.
   Record of domestic trikaldrishti.
  --
   Samadhi, today, reenriched itself with drishti of the spoken shabda, ie to say human voices & words reaching the ear as if overheard and, in addition, memory of the thing seen reemerges. Three shabdadrishtis were distinct, a female voice saying ?, another saying simultaneously in quite another scene  ! and Ramaswamys voice, saying I dont know what; a fourth, Ramaswamys voice again, said something which did not reach the supta ear clearly. Things seen were a darbar hall, the interior of an Indian house, a door in a river-steamer, a long railwaysaloon, several figures; the rest are forgotten. Tamasic nidra could not be extruded from the swapna Samadhi, which had finally to be abandoned.
   In the trikaldrishti knowledge of the past, of past lives, of feelings, thoughts & motives of people in the past is becoming normally active. It has been suggested that Aishwarya should be renounced in the physical siddhi except saundarya; but owing to the persistence of physical asiddhi,tejas in the assimilative process, virulent jalavisrishti, inhibition of kamananda (except in the form of madira and sukshma sahaituka kamananda), etc,the mental shakti & its anucharas are unwilling to accept this suggestion as anything but a false & premature movement of withdrawal. The personality of the Master, long held back, remanifests in Script.
   Rupadrishti still develops slowly,a little more stability in the Akashic forms, the appearance of a momentarily stable perfect rupa in the daylight. The dreams at night were all about the relations in other lives with a single person and his surroundings, but the associations of the present were more insistent than they have been for some time past and confused the record. In swapna Samadhi a certain initial continuity seems to have been established.
   There is a strong attack of asiddhi in the karma. Prakamyavyapti with regard to the results of the cricket match were correct, but not very correct; about the mad patient entirely wrong. In both cases tejasic tapas of volition interfered with the truth. The atmosphere of the house is full of the struggle and the opposition to the dharma of the satyayuga of which the assistants of the satyayuga are the chief instruments owing to their clinging to their egoism and small selfishnesses. The struggle in the body centres about the tejas in the assimilation which seeks to prolong its abnormal activity.

r1913 01 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   In yesterdays programme, only the first item was thoroughly fulfilled. In the second, there was a progress; the Samadhi overcame the obstacle to continuity, but the continuity attained was slight; the rupadrishti succeeded only in the barest possible manner, the momentary stability of a perfect form, the longer stability of a form developed but not sufficient in material substance. Aishwarya began the movement towards generalising success, by trying to get rid of such willings as are not consonant with the central movement of the Supreme Will, but the process is not yet complete; the struggle continued in health, utthapana & kamananda, but they did not prevail, except in effecting an obscure, moderate & preparatory success & in streng thening the force of their sukshma vaja or subtle material substance, of which, however, shansa, the actual bringing out into material being has not yet been realised. Chitraratha and Madira still increase.
   ProgrammeTrikaldrishti to widen still farther and begin to get rid of variability and uncertainty; rupadrishti & Samadhi to overcome the remnants of the obstacle opposed to them, more potently; aishwarya to generalise success; kamananda to come forward in the sthula; health & secondary utthapana to continue their struggle & grow in strength.
   The pitch of the programme has been slightly lowered in order to come into better conformity with the trikaldrishti; but this is preparatory to a rise.
  --
   Several predictions have followed, but as they are experimental in their nature, they need not be recorded. Samadhi has been antardrishta jagrat with lipi and thought. There was proof of an increased bodily force and pravritti, but not yet of sufficient dharanasamarthyam (dhriti, sthairyam) of a single occupation. Yet it is alleged that [two of the]2 essential requisites demanded before the literary work could be allowed to recommence, play of vijnana and sufficient primary utthapana both in body & brain, are already accomplished, though they have to be confirmed in the karma; but the third, equipment, is yet wanting. Aishwarya is generalising itself slowly, but has not yet got rid of the mere tapasic volition which can create a force or tendency, but not produce the required effect. The perfect aishwarya either produces an immediate particular effect, (that being the limit of the thing willed), or a final result, without regard to the immediate or intermediate steps, or produces a final result through or subsequent to certain particular steps which may constitute the whole or a part of the apparent nimitta (immediate karana) of the final effect (karya). The first form is already strong and frequent, the second works, but with great slowness and infrequency, the third is yet rare & undeveloped. Trikaldrishti is effecting its siddhi with regard (1) to place, (2) to ordinarily unforeseeable effect. Rupadrishti is developing, in the daylight, long stability of images complete and incomplete and variety of image, (tejas, chhaya, chhayamay, tejomay & agnimaya varna). Script is free and active. Consideration of kartavyam akartavyam is finally disappearing, in its remnants, out of the supreme dasya.
   In the evening the rupadrishti began to develop variety of perfect forms, but did not advance in stability. Swapna Samadhi was scanty, but the tendency towards continuity persevered in its struggle with the escaping drishti. Sleep which has recently been excessive, fell back to its normal level of six to seven hours. Kamananda, throughout the day, frequent & increasing in its hold on the body, has not yet recovered its tendency to continuity.

r1913 01 15, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Yesterdays programme was amply fulfilled in the trikaldrishti and kamananda; rupadrishti & Samadhi advanced very little; aishwarya began to generalise itself; secondary utthapana increased in innate force but was less in duration; arogya continued with some success, but not complete success its struggle to exclude the symptomatic touches. Tejas in the assimilation is still the principal defect.
   ProgrammeTrikaldrishti to widen entirely and get rid of variability, ie of its moments of reversion to the old activity of the intelligence, but not yet of uncertainty. Aishwarya to generalise its successful movement. Rupadrishti and Samadhi to prevail in their struggle. Kamananda to triumph. Secondary utthapana to generalise itself in its minor movement. Health to persevere in its successful struggle.
   The general subjective ananda, after the test of several days experience, may be now considered permanently established & continuous in its shuddha, ahaituka and chidghana parts, about to be continuous in its prema part. In the sharira the sahaituka is established, although as yet without intensity or firm continuity, the ahaituka awaits the triumphant event of the kamananda. It exists, but is infrequent. The bhukti is nearing fulfilment.
  --
   Lipi, rupa & Samadhi, the three allied movements necessary to visvagati have to be delivered from the obstruction surrounding their activity in the akasha. These three movements constitute the central part of todays programme.
   Afternoon
   In the morning trikaldrishti passed rapidly through several stages, applying [itself]1 correctly with speed to a series of incidents, foreseeing a series of a single incident repeated beforehand, without any data and contrary to experience, assembling a mass of perceptions and arranging them with more or less accuracy. The process still continues. Aishwarya generalised success, but the success which comes slowly & with some effort, after some resistance. Rupadrishti was streng thened and kept in the akash forms perfect in all respects except a certain tenuity of material & a certain aloofness from the front layer of the sthula akash. The strongest movements were in Samadhi and kamananda. In the antardrishta jagrat Samadhi lipi organised itself & stable crude rupa, perfect in outline, completeness, clearness, stability, in all but steadiness of material & vividness, was manifested, as well as crude rupa deficient only in firm vividness. Lipi is not yet sure of stability. In the swapna Samadhi images abounded and some showed continuity or both combination & continuity, eg a shaggy dog, lean & miserable-looking, trotting up to a wall & smelling it, the wall returning & remaining after eclipse, crude, the sound of a small silver piece falling & a stout man near a window looking for it & picking it up, the man becoming vague after eclipse, but the window remaining vivid. In both the rupa & lipi have today become organised for use, especially for trikaldrishti & the Samadhi generally for jnana & trikaldrishti. In the antardrishta symbolic colours are again returning, eg Ss [aura], green brilliant, blue black tending to be blue, but often dulled into grey, uncertain suffusion of red from a blood-red sun; also, symbolic images, eg, in the same connection an unhatched egg replaced by a crown. Kamananda was entirely triumphant flooding the sukshma deha, seizing the sukshma parts of the body & touching its sthula parts with an intenser ananda than has ever been experienced before, equal to the first movements of the actual maithuna ananda. In the morning this came repeatedly, thrice, with hardly any interval and was each time continued for some time, & in the afternoon the ananda has returned and although, not so intense, is more persistent. There are also touches of ahaituka rudrananda and ahaituka tivra, negative vaidyuta & vishaya. The ananda now comes & continues even when the mind is otherwise occupied.
   Todays telegrams. The Viceroys health almost answered to the Aishwarya as within the first fortnight of [January],2 the time fixed, he was able to go out for a drive; but the premature exertion has brought back a return of restlessness at night & neuritis in the arm. The trikaldrishti is fulfilled in both the favourable & adverse movements, only the Aishwarya is slightly baffled. As foreseen, there is no result from the two witnesses summoned. Again, as foreseen to be willed by the Ishwara only recently, there have been fresh aviation accidents, more storms & wrecks and a serious railway accident all in the news of a single day; all occurred in England, but this was not foreseen. The revolt of Nature against machinery continues.
  --
   Secondary utthapana and kamananda have entirely fulfilled the programme, also health; Samadhi has prevailed, except in bringing about long continuity in the swapna and developed rupa in the antardrishta; rupadrishti has had only a slight success. Aishwarya and trikaldrishti have followed the lines laid down for them, but the movement is not yet complete.
   MS its

r1913 01 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   1) Trikaldrishti has now to replace entirely the action of the intelligence; that is, nothing has to be done by judgment, logical reason, speculative imagination, sanskara born of memory; but even the most trifling and unimportant things have to be known by vijnana agencies. Where vijnana does not give light, there has to be no judgment, conclusion or even speculation. Aishwarya has to be utilised only where there is perception of the Divine Will behind; it has no longer to reflect in any way the movements of the manomaya Purusha or the manomaya Shakti. Lipi has to get rid of the obstacle in the Akasha which prevents it from manifesting with a successful and easy vividness. Rupa & Samadhi have to continue their struggle and progressively prevail. 2) Kamananda has now to move towards continuity of the more intense form and entire continuity of the less intense. Arogya has to expel the symptomatic survivals in the assimilation and kamachakra. Secondary utthapana, established in its generalised activity, has to increase the force of pure mahima and of anima. Saundarya must still struggle with its obstacle without as yet prevailing and the Aishwarya with the obstacle to the equipment.
   Letter from Biren showing an improved mental state and a vague dawning of vyapti & speculative trikaldrishti. An instance of success in subjective-objective in its subtler or more subjective parts. The power of the aishwarya-vyapti in the subjective-objective field is now considerable and daily successful, but its compulsion on the objective action is still meagre. Today, as was foreseen, there is a fresh instance of train collision in England and the perception that the Viceroys health would not be seriously affected, is justified.
  --
   Kamananda has lasted through the afternoon, with slight intermissions, sometimes slight, sometimes intense, but more in the subtle than in the gross body. Secondary utthapana of the neck confirmed yesterdays fulfilment as to time and force and added a purer mahima, but one of less duration; applied to one leg only, perfect in laghima & almost perfect in pure mahima, it lasted for as long as one could count deliberately two thousand. Sthapatyalipi shows a movement of remanifestation. Samadhi was barren of any progress, but did not go backward.
   In the evening Rupadrishti developed in the crudest forms a greater variety and completeness. Samadhi at night was barren & the dreams confused in record. Aishwarya showed a considerable increase in force and each exercise of will was successful. Vijnana became active, though not yet well-harmonised, in its various parts and lipi more in possession of the akasha, though still obliged to use an effort in order to manifest; there was a perfect intelligibility and appositeness in most of the lipis and a full play of interpretation of the various objective materials of trikaldrishti. The subjective powers of knowledge have passed their period of effort and difficulty; only the objective material is still unable to deploy itself easily & richly in the material akasha. Power is beginning to accomplish its firm mastery, although still hampered in the matter of equipment and slow in other provinces. There is fresh proof of its efficacy in karma.
   ***

r1913 01 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Yesterdays programme has to be completed; trikaldrishti has to get rid of the remnants of false stress which constitute now its one remaining positive defect; aishwarya to illumine itself with knowledge of the Divine Will,for up till now it has only got rid of the urgency which impelled it to employ itself blindly and merely for exercise. It has also to confirm the movement excluding ineffectual applications. Lipi has attained to successful vividness; it has still to attain to easy vividness. Rupa & Samadhi must continue their struggle. Kamananda successful in the afternoon was slight and rare in the evening; it must expel the hesitation in the body which prevents it from domiciling itself in the sthula. Arogya, although much stronger, does not yet exclude the return of the symptoms which it has expelled; these affections must now be compelled to disappear. Secondary utthapana, which maintained in the afternoon and at night its efficiency except for a stronger attack of adhogati and defective anima, must increase the force of pure mahima in order to combat this deficiency.
   The matter of the equipment has now been handed over to the passive Ishita; it is the one point of almost complete unsuccess which still prevents faith in the adeshasiddhi from attaining to self-confidence and fullness,although the failure of the saundarya to emerge is a powerful auxiliary obstacle.
  --
   Rupa & swapna Samadhi are now moving in the direction, first, of abundance, secondly, of the recovery of the old activities that have been lost by the action of the Vritras, thirdly, of the perfection of their materials. Dream at night was frequently confused. The physical siddhi suffered a slight reaction.
   ***

r1913 01 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Today has been a day of attack by the enemy and difficult survival of the gains of the siddhi, lipi maintaining itself, but manifesting with difficulty in the akash, trikaldrishti chequered by false suggestion and aishwarya successfully resisted and almost entirely overcome. Rupadrishti & Samadhi have made no advance. The cause of the difficulty & the opportunity of the attack has been the necessity of finally establishing the harmony of pravritti with nivritti, tapas & tejas with shanti & dasya. The habit of the Nature acquired by long practice in the sadhana has been to insist on shanti, udasinata, & passivity as the condition of progress. It is now necessary to overlay & fill the shanti, udasinata, & passivity, the Maheshwari basis, with an active & even violent & rapid tapas of Mahakali-Mahasaraswati; but the habitual reaction of failure caused by the irruption of false tejas & false tapas has first to be eliminated before the harmonisation can be managed.
   Since the above was written, prediction in the script has been justified; Successful struggle in vijnana during the rest of the day, triumph in the evening. Rupa develops brihat with difficult[y], not yet perfection except in single figures. The struggle in the afternoon was successful in maintaining the minimum gains of the siddhi; in the evening the siddhi has triumphed, restored the akashalipi to its fullness, although it is still laboured, brought aishwarya forward, without as yet being able to get rid of ineffective aishwarya, developed a fair abundance of rupas (chitra, sthapatya, akasha) but with perfection & stability in the akasha only for some crude forms & some crude dense & crude developed, these, however, are entirely perfect, and began to justify tejas & tapas in their results. It is now increasingly evident that the condition of success in the future is the broad and general activity of the vijnana including in itself all the members of the third chatusthaya and not any longer the separate development of each member by itself. Nothing fresh in the evening and night; activity of vijnana, rupadrishti, Samadhi, but no definite progress.
   ***

r1913 01 21, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Aishwarya-vyapti once more effective in subjective objectivity with a striking exactness; for the Turkish draft reply to the Note is couched in exactly the terms and contained exactly the reasons about Adrianople that had been suggested; even the modification about the Aegean islands, viz. the insistence on the coast islands alone, is the one that from the beginning was suggested & continually maintained by the thought and the ishita. Aishwarya also in Poincares election which seems at one point to have been in jeopardy. The progress in the vijnana chatusthaya & the kamananda now continues like that of a creeping tide, throwing up waves always higher and seeming to retreat or rest for a moment, but in the result always advancing. Only in the physical siddhi other than ananda this movement as yet fails to establish itself. In the evening it took a much larger sweep and even the rupadrishti, which is the most sluggish of all the vijnana siddhis, began to manifest abundance. The lipi given a few days ago rupas by the milliards, is now being accomplished, as already in chitra & sthapatya images are coming multitudinously and the salamba chitras & salamba rupas are beginning to follow suit. Crudeness, inconstancy & want of firm outline are the rule; on the other hand they have often great richness of colouring and not infrequent perfection of form, sometimes even of outline. The perfect developed or lifelike forms still occur, but rarely. In Samadhi continuity of scene & action seem at last to be established, but only for the single act; still this minor continuity has occurred even in the jagrat antardrishta. The physical siddhi is obstinately disputed, especially health; even the kamananda is forcibly interrupted. Nevertheless this great change has been established in the sanskaras of the body that, while formerly it felt release from the continued ananda as a relief and as its normal condition of purity & freedom, now it feels continuity of it to be its normal condition and absence of it to be not purity but want, not freedom but a bondage.
   ***

r1913 01 24, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The days news about the Turkish acceptance of the Powers Note is a success for the trikaldrishti (vyaptiprakamya) & for the Aishwarya for the conclusion of peace, but a violent defeat for the Aishwarya about the terms of peace which were either the coast islands should be retained and Adrianople either not ceded or ceded with dismantled fortifications or war. This morning kamananda of a great intensity continued for a long time and the ordinary level of intensity has also been raised; the ananda is still continuous at the time of writing. (afternoon.) Subsequently, the ananda increased to a yet greater intensity & gave the first definite hint of what it will be when it is firmly and uninterruptedly in possession of the sthula body. It subsided for a time at mealtime without actually disappearing, but, now, immediately after meals, is again active. It continues even when walking or absorbed in other work or thought, but is less firm then and does not attain to the full intensity. Lipi in the morning attained its full spontaneous materiality and is in the course of attaining its full freedom of profuse manifestation. Samadhi, deepest swapna, with fairly numerous images, scenes, a freer lipi, thought & vani sometimes quite coherent and one perfect & vivid varnamaya picture of a woman of high rank in some ancient age in a pillared room open upon a court having her toilette done by slaves. This is the first time that there has been a consistent jagrat condition of the manas in so profound a state of the swapna Samadhi; the defects that remain are the fleeting character of the images, a too rapid passing from one thought to another not connected with it and an occasional mixture of records and thoughts.
   Abundance of rupa has begun definitely in addition to abundance of lipi. The chitra & sthapatya were already abundant and are now redeveloping an extraordinary minuteness of perfection; a bas-relief figure not so long as the thumbnail, is sometimes perfect in its details, eye, ear, beard, hat up to the buttons of the coat & frequently in the facial expression and bhava of the body. Perfect landscapes, vivid groups are also frequent. Sketches are multitudinous. But now freedom & abundance are coming in the akasharupa along with vividness, variety & sufficient stability. The defects of blur, vagueness, inconstancy of outline, paucity & infirmness of material are being surmounted. Kamananda in continuity still persists (nearly 6 pm) & is attempting to establish a high degree of continuous intensity as its usual pitch. With one short interval of half an hour, it has now been continuous for nearly ten hours.

r1913 01 27, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Trikaldrishti made a final stride forward to its ultimate perfection by getting rid of the habit of tamasic denial which used to fasten on the least sign of amangala and asiddhi and hasten to accept adverse probability or even possibility as adverse certainty. In the place of this denial there is left a strong uncertainty chiefly with regard to those parts of the siddhi in which the sraddha has not yet been established by events, ie the saundarya and karmasiddhi. Aishwarya attained to perfection of detail and is now beginning to act automatically and without effort in its various fields, but is still resisted firmly in the karma in which there is a general attack on the siddhi which has been developing for some time past, as the opposition shifted more and more from the Yogasiddhi to the karmasiddhi, and is now at its height. The aishwarya has got rid of the remnants of tapasic stress and struggle which marred its perfection of method and has only to get rid of a remnant of tamasic anxiety & asraddha about its results. Vani, script etc are being more & more justified and whenever the trikaldrishti acts, it is justified and false trikaldrishti, ie misinterpretation of material, is being put in its proper place and turned into satyam. Therefore, the asraddha is being forced to its final collapse. Lipi is now free, vivid and spontaneous, but not always legible. Rupa has attained to activity in all kinds, but not yet free activity, & to more frequent stability in all but the developed perfect form; its force is daily increasing, but the progress is marked by the old gradual slowness & has not yet come into line with the new rapidity. Drishti of Samadhi & visvagati developed yesterday in force & stability, but has still an imperfect hold on the akasha. Kamananda has overcome all its difficulties, eg noncontinuity of intense ananda while walking etc, except the mere habit of intermission; this habit grew stronger yesterday, & there was much & frequent intermission. On the other hand the ananda pervades the system more perfectly & has not lost either in intensity or in ease of recurrence. It is growing more powerful in the raudra form. Arogya is increasing; strongly attacked yesterday, it overcame all difficulties except the weakness of the second chakra. There has been no parthiva visrishti, except nominal & infinitesimal relief, for these seven days, and it is now clear that this visrishti is no longer a physical necessity, but a habit kept in survival by the imperfect speed and still faulty method of the assimilation which, instead of drawing the food at once into the akash by the power of the mukhyaprana, recurs partially to the old panchabhauta absorption & therefore leaves a deposit which has to be dematerialised, or else produces symptoms of tejasic & jalamaya irregularity before it completes its process. For this reason, jalavisrishti is still overfrequent and the demand of the Apana still continues. Secondary utthapana is progressing in strength of laghima and mahima and has begun to expel defect of anima into the outworks of the physical system, but this process is still in its initial stages. Only saundarya is slow to manifest; it does not yet succeed in getting rid of its positive contradictions, the signs of old age etc. The saundarya once in motion and the equipment to hand, the whole siddhi will be in simultaneous successful movement.
   ***

r1913 01 28, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Today, according to promise, proofs of the action of Aishwarya-ishita-vyapti in the karmasiddhi are beginning to crowd in; incidentally, the trikaldrishti is being justified against the relics of tamasic hesitation at every step. Dream became perfect in type, though still imperfectly organised, on its way to conversion into memorative experience in Samadhi. Rupa in swapna Samadhi is now much more stable, although continuous experience in vision and in the sukshmadeha, as distinguished from continuous dream experience & momentary experiences in the sukshmadeha, are still held back from manifestation. Secondary utthapana in the neck increased in mahima, (maintenance while counting 1000 deliberately is the test), but defect of anima is still strong here and it resists successfully, in the back, the extension of the utthapana. Laghima is in all parts of the body sufficient, mahima variable, anima weak except in certain positions of the arms and legs. In the arms in the primary position utthapana can easily be maintained for an hour and, if necessary, for much longer. Arogya after a struggle gave proof of increasing force; there was the first real parthiva visrishti at the close of the seventh day, but even here the force of assimilation was proved by the absence of any serious reaction such as would have been inevitable a short while ago. Rupadrishti in the jagrat still progresses slowly & is perfect only in a few types, but its stability increases.
   Dasya finally shed the remnants of the tertiary stage, & the quaternary dasyabuddhi is now constant & invariable whenever there is any turning of the mind towards the nature of the action, whatever the action may be. The purnabrahmadrishti is also normalised &, whenever there is smarana, invariable, whatever the object. Along with this development, there is perfect objective vishayananda even in the bibhatsa and jugupsita; the same perfection is establishing itself in the subjective vishaya, bibhatsa, apriya, amangala, & there are only a few defects. Kamananda fell to a minimum, but now persists under all circumstances and is not suspended at night, but is always there subject to the anusmarana. It is growing again in intensity, with the intention of maintaining intensity in the constancy. It still tends to diminish, though not disappear, while walking, and to become involved or implicit by distraction of attention.

r1913 01 31, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Samadhi took a great stride forward. It has begun to organise itself and images (visual, auditory, sensational, actional, tactual) came in a crowd, not yet well organised, but evolving their own organisation. Continuity of incident accompanied with perfect vividness was greater in one typical case than has yet happened and the tendency of image to survive into the antardarshi jagrat was strong and successful. Rupadrishti in the jagrat is at last emerging definitively out of the prison of the sukshma, but the movement is not yet complete. Trikaldrishti and aishwarya are becoming more effective in details of the siddhi. The subjective tamas which returned partially for a short time, has been rejected and the physical is being expelled. In the chitra two fresh circumstances have reemerged, 1, chitra of objects, eg a sword, moneybag, spear etc, 2, chitra of familiar faces & scenes, eg the face of Gladstone & neck with collar.
   The following lipis etc have been fulfilled or are in the course of fulfilment.
  --
   (4) Rupadrishti besides Samadhi. (Lipi. Rupadrishtis release had been promised, but this lipi indicates the previous release of Samadhi. Fulfilled immediately.[)]
   The following have been given.
  --
   Later in the day the Ananda still farther increased and at night, for the first time, the development of waves of Ananda out of simple touches, eg. the contact of the feet with the soil, was imposed on the system. This happened while walking and continued for several minutes. It is the sign of a new stage of progress in the physical siddhi. Rupadrishti was finally released from concealment in the subtle akasha; numerous images presented themselves, chitra of various kinds presented new developments of richness and a certain freedom was obtained in the akasharupa; but the perfect & developed forms are still momentary. Forms have once more begun to appear in the darkness. The improvement in Samadhi was maintained, chitra especially of great richness and perfection appearing frequently, and in addition the commencement of the free and niradhara shabdadrishti was indicated. Arogya, free in other respects, is yet attacked by the tejas in assimilation & by weakness of the chakra. In trikaldrishti there is a movement towards the enforcement of correctness in all mental motions; not only their proper arrangement and the perception of the truth to which each relates, but this movement has, as yet, only begun to emerge, although long promised. Considerable force had to be used to maintain the utthapana. Dream was active, sometimes entirely free & accurate, almost equal to actual experience, sometimes coloured with present associations. The attack on the karmasiddhi may now be considered as having failed, since the effects produced have been unimportant.
   The siddhi at the end of January, stands in a condition of considerable advance accomplished, rapidity increasing, finality in sight.
  --
   (7) Vijnana is complete in jnana, established & effective in trikalsiddhi but still imperfectly organised, established in power but still imperfect in effectiveness and organisation, established in lipi but still weak in the richer varieties and not completely organised, established in rupa, but still poor and manifested with difficulty, except in chitra & sthapatya, established in Samadhi but still hampered in continuity, poor in antardrishta jagrat, ill-organised and in jagrat shabdadrishti etc elementary & infrequent, established & effective in prakamya vyapti, but imperfectly organised, established in pranic mahima & laghima, but still resisted, deficient in anima.
   (8) Ananda of the body is established, but not yet sovran. Arogya imperfect in assimilation and kamachakra, doubtful in phlegm centres & skin, otherwise established. Utthapana is established in the pranic basis, active in primary & secondary, but everywhere hampered by defect of anima; of tertiary there is as yet no sign. Saundarya is manifest only in the slow alteration of certain lines in the feet & the trunk and in its subjective basis of youthful feeling.

r1913 02 02, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   4) Rupa, lipi, Samadhi active and growing.
   5) Health emergent again in assimilation and in chakra
  --
   The united action of tapas & trikaldrishti (formerly detrimental to each other) is now established in its harmony, although survivals of the past discord persist. The lipi, a little hampered recently, has recovered its profuse action and easy self-revelation of significance. In the kamananda a double sanyama is developing &, indeed, already active by which a part of the manas activity has detached itself to attend to the sensation of the ananda while the main energy is otherwise concerned. By this movement, which has yet to be perfected, the ananda has been enabled not only to possess, but to become sovereign of the body in both the states of physical activity and of mental abstraction; once this sovereignty is well established and emphasised, only the states of sleep and Samadhi remain to be mastered. The state of Samadhi is already open to the ananda, but its entrance there is still exceptional.
   (Feb 3)
   In accordance with the programme Ananda has taken sovereign possession of all states and has been continuous yesterday from the morning when it commenced, throughout the day, prevailed over several attempts to expel it in the evening, the time when it has usually declined, persisted throughout the night every time that the sleep was interrupted, recurred & held the body constantly in moments of Samadhi and was often present in sleep. The only defect of the continuity was interruption by sleep and unevenness,failure of continuous intensity; for twice in the evening it became almost implicit and in sleep it became involved in apparent cessation. Rupa and lipi were both active, & rupa commenced extending its range of stable developed images; the greatest progress, however, was in Samadhi which finally triumphed and produced great, complex and continuous images and incidents in profusion, taking possession of dream, which is now passing into swapna- Samadhi. Present association hardly occurred at all in a crowded succession of dreams and even present ego, though not entirely absent, became a practically negligible quantity. Only a slight tendency to inconstancy and rapid transition, not amounting to incoherency, marred this rapidly effected perfection. For the first time, the vision of the book with freely legible passages and sentences, became frequent and, if not yet fixedly stable, yet sufficiently stable in its rapid self-revelation for whole sentences & even several sentences at a time to be simultaneously read and understood. Ahaituka raudrananda also commenced to manifest more freely & continuously. Trikaldrishti and Power are active in their organised movement. Proofs of karmasiddhi were given, especially the arrival of money in the full sum willed & more than had been probable or expected. There were slight indications of the emergent health and the elimination of positive asaundarya; here alone the fulfilment was meagre and unconvincing.
   ***

r1913 02 03, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The struggle over the health still continues and for the last two evenings there has been feverish heat in the system and a limitation of the pranic energy; utthapana has been practically discontinued. The attempt to establish force in the chakra has failed. On the other hand, there has been no success in the endeavours of the enemy to reintroduce eruption or the affections of cold. Kamananda showed at times an increased intensity working on the body rather than seated in it, but at others was dull and even implicit. Rupa progresses with the old slowness; Samadhi did not increase, nor lipi grow in richness. Trikaldrishti & power continued to work accurately; but without intensity or inspiration, & only in details. The days programme was not fulfilled in the sthula.
   ***

r1913 02 04, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Kamananda got rid of the tendency to fall into the implicit state. It subsides now at its lowest to a subdued ananda bordering on the implicit, but usually well manifest out of which the normal intensity emerges. Samadhi is now well established in variety, frequency and brief continued activity of scenes and images. Communication with the manasic world in the jagrat is now occurring; formerly there was drishti only of the pranajagat and the subtle Bhu.
   ***

r1913 02 07, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   During the rest of the day, the parts of the Yoga which had been clouded, reemerged in full strength, with the exception of Rupa and Samadhi which did not yet manifest their full former strength. There are signs, however, in the swapna and jagrat Samadhi of a more perfect manifestation approaching.
   Lipi8-9 27 February. 12.

r1913 02 09, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Today is marked mainly by the continuation of the movements of the eighth; development of the Krishna Kali relation, progress of the instruments of knowledge, a more general force of the Powers, a more settled action of the rupadrishti, a finally secure and easy action in the akash of the lipi, Kamananda constant in the intense or subdued forms throughout the day and part of the night,though in the evening almost implicit, and more frequent & powerful in the state of Samadhi, slow progress of the swapna Samadhi, the physical siddhi struggling with the remnants of asiddhi which intend to return or persist, maintenance of the karmasiddhi. Except in the lipi nothing assuredly final and definite.
   ***

r1913 02 12, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   This movement continued throughout the day, ceased in the evening. The movement is towards the purification of error out of the trikaldrishti & aishwarya and dream, incoherence & insufficiency out of the Samadhi. But the resistance in the akasha is still strong enough to prevent an unhampered rapidity of improvement. Health improves & grows stronger, yet the abnormal symptomatic affections, which have no longer any coherence or raison dtre, still recur or cling. Adhogati is persistent & prevents the established utthapana from frequently manifesting. Saundarya is still limited to its one or two imperfect details. Karmasiddhi develops, but slowly & against a considerable obstruction.
   ***

r1913 02 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   A day of uncertain development. Swapna Samadhi is slowly becoming more purposeful and developing a better organisation.
   ***

r1913 04 01, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The first chatusthaya is now beyond the danger of successful attack except in the positive samata; a few touches of asamata & ashanti come occasionally, but soon die away. The second chatusthaya is feeble and ill-organised owing to the trivial nature of the siddhi and the failure of everything which would strikingly prove the Adesha. There is a general action of the vijnana, but it is not yet extricated from falsehood and uncertainty, so that all that can be done is to watch results & see whether the perception is a truth or a misapplication. Rupadrishti is of the feeblest & Samadhi fails to advance. Physical siddhi is only fragmentary & its progress successfully resisted. The sixth chatusthaya is present, but only when the attention is attracted to the Brahman. The fifth chatusthaya is also fragmentary and mingled with ill-success.
   There has been a great activity of the poetical power which has acquired rapidity accompanied with forceful & effective inspiration, but not always with inevitable & illuminating inspiration. The attempt is now to maintain the invariability of the illuminated & inspired inevitability without diminishing the rapidity. This is in epic poetry. The foundations of a rapid & sure inevitability are being laid in other literary powers. Equipment (bare) for three months has been effected.

r1913 05 21, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   All the vijnana siddhis are now permanently active and effective, but with defects and limitations & subject to the continued mental activity of mixed truth & falsehood which is still successfully maintained in the mental environment by the opposing tendencies of Prakriti and successfully thrust upon the mind in the form of suggestions. The rupa & Samadhi formerly deficient have now a petty but sufficient regular fertility, which can be rapidly enlarged & eventually perfected. They still lack some of their old felicities, but when these return, they will no longer be fitful, uncertainly held & willed as formerly, but natural, spontaneous and a permanent possession. The rupas are principally embarrassed by the persistence of a few dominant images which shut out the others or replace them when they attempt to manifest. Another difficulty is the resistance obstinately offered to the emergence from the prana akasha of the perfect, as distinguished from the representative images.
   In the physical siddhi, Ananda is the most advanced. The vishayanandas of the senses are all perfected in type, seldom contradicted, but as yet insufficient in intensity, except in the taste, where even it is uneven. The higher mental anandas are all present (prema, chidghana, shuddha), but as yet imperfectly active. Ahaituka ananda is constant in shanti, but not yet in active santosha. The sahaituka sharira anandas are established and growing; the ahaituka manifest but infrequent. Ahaituka kamananda is alone well-established, and awakes whenever recalled, but is still too much a matter of the will and not a self-acting dharma of the body. It can manifest now in any state, jagrat or Samadhistha. Thirst has almost disappeared, though it made an appearance for two or three days, mostly in a suppressed form; but does not now occur even in the unusual heat of this summer. Hunger makes its appearance fitfully and is never intense & seldom prolonged; it is being rapidly replaced by hungerless bhojanananda. Heat & cold are still slightly effective on the body. Pain has turned into some form of ananda except in extreme touches, eg burning by fire, blows touching the bone, etc; but here it is only the immediate contact that is painful, the after effect is always anandamaya; in some touches, eg mosquito bite the habit of discomfort still continues, but is now occasional and not a dharma of the body. Pain of events is the one asamata of mind still persisting & then only as asamata of failure; this too is occasional, largely artificial and no longer a dharma of the mind.
   Arogya is troubled now only by the vicissitudes of the visrishtivisarjana which have much diminished and by the inefficiency of vajra. The solid visrishti takes place now irregularly after five days or three or more than five; it was preceded & is still accompanied or followed usually by some action of excessive tejas in the jala bhuta; but this is rapidly diminishing. Occasional trouble of vayavya or taijasa jala has been frequent, but seems now to be moving towards elimination. Jalavisrishti showed recently a tendency towards rapid diminution & even disappearance; at present it is again restored, but has no longer its former force and abundance. Touches of eruption and fragments of phlegmatism (sneezing etc) still subsist, but are effete and cannot materialise into roga.

r1913 06 04, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   5) Samadhi to be delivered from obstruction, though not yet perfectly grasped.
   6) Ananda to be continuous, arogya & utthapana streng thened; saundarya will still be obstructed.

r1913 06 05, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Thought, trikaldrishti, telepathy to be cleared of their obstructions & impurities. Aishwarya to spread. Samadhi to be arranged.Begun.
   ***

r1913 06 06, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Thought, trikaldrishti, telepathy to be farther cleared. Aishwarya to spread & streng then. Samadhi to increase in force. Done
   Rupadrishti to grow in clearness & stability.Not evident.

r1913 06 08, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Today to be especially marked by physical siddhi & Samadhi.
   ***

r1913 06 10, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Today rupadrishti will reemerge & move henceforward irresistibly towards perfection. The siddhis of power also recover their force from today & the Samadhi moves forward.
   ***

r1913 06 11, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   A day of baffled aiswaryasiddhi & mixed tejas & depression of tejas & sraddha. Departure of Shatrughna. Ananda tends to be continuous in manifestation, but failed at night. Rupadrishti reemerged & lipi became freer. No evident progress in Samadhi. The siddhis of power acted in small things with partial effectiveness, but failed in great. No definite progress of utthapana or arogya.
   ***

r1913 06 12, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Dasya of the body to be emphasised, sraddha & tejas restored, knowledge perfected in circumstance and Samadhi with rupadrishti streng thened. Aishwarya etc to become more effective.
   ***

r1913 06 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   5) Samadhi obstructed; developing rupadrishti entirely suspended in jagrat.
   6) Ananda reduced to the matrix condition in continuity with occasional manifestation of subdued intensity.

r1913 06 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Since last evening struggle of siddhi to reemerge. Strong tamas & scepticism of rapidity & of adeshasiddhi. Remnants of depression. Still it is apparent that behind the veil knowledge & power are increasing in force. There is no such appearance with regard to Samadhi. Strong physical lassitude, revival of thirst, some discomfort.
   ***

r1913 06 15, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Samadhi still confused & rupadrishti ineffective.
   Ananda moving towards continuity in a greater intensity.

r1913 06 16b, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The siddhi of aishwarya must now effect the rupadrishti & Samadhi, and then attack more exclusively the physical siddhi with a part of its action on the karma & kama. Till then the ishita will take charge for the most part of the fourth & fifth chatusthayas.
   ***

r1913 06 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The siddhi of aishwarya must now effect the rupadrishti & Samadhi, and then attack more exclusively the physical siddhi with a part of its action on the karma & kama. Till then the ishita will take charge for the most part of the fourth & fifth chatusthayas.
   ***

r1913 06 17a, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The programme has been perfectly fulfilled. Lipi is now master of its akasha; rupadrishti is reemergent & needs only the union of a normal stability & clearness in all forms to be perfect. Jagrat Samadhi (antardrishta) is still obstructed, but the swapna Samadhi is perfect in all but long continuity; it possesses now in thought, vishayas & even lipi an ordinary coherence & continuity.
   Ananda is once more apparent in Samadhi, & sleep alone has the power to effect its discontinuance.
   The other physical siddhis are still obstructed, though slowly tending to prevail.

r1913 06 17b, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   5) Samadhi to proceed in coherence & continuity.
   6) Increase of telepathy & vyapti.
  --
   5) Coherence & continuity are now much stronger in the Samadhi; several groups of circumstances are observed, however, there is little concentration on the single group or object as yet.
   6) Telepathy & vyapti are assuming a larger activity.

r1913 06 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   5) Samadhi to proceed in coherence & continuity.
   6) Increase of telepathy & vyapti.
  --
   5) Coherence & continuity are now much stronger in the Samadhi; several groups of circumstances are observed, however, there is little concentration on the single group or object as yet.
   6) Telepathy & vyapti are assuming a larger activity.

r1913 06 19, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   3) Samadhijagrat.
   ***
  --
   The programme was hardly fulfilled at all except in 1. Rupa-drishti was again obstructed, although inferior images appeared, rarely with any stability, & superior, rare also, without stability. Jagrat Samadhi increased only in sukshma sparsha. Ananda was subdued & occasional, not continuous till the evening & then only for a time. Utthapana of the legs, horizontal, was effected with difficulty for 15 minutes. Arogya of assimilation was not pronounced & the karmic successes were slight. On the other hand trikaldrishti & aishwarya progressed,especially telepathy. Articulate thought in the inevitable form was powerfully resumed.
   ***

r1913 06 20, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   2) Samadhi steadily progresses in coherence & continuity of scene.
   3) Rupadrishti still emergent & obstructed.

r1913 06 21, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   2) Rupadrishti slightly emergent; Samadhi without definite progress.
   3) Vangmaya still resisted & interrupted; imperfect in vak.

r1913 07 05, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Sleep, for the last two days, has diminished its hold; on the th, from 12 to 5.40 with two half hours of continuous nidravishta 4 Samadhi, the 5 from 12 to 4 (about), with half an hour & an hour of broken nidravishta Samadhi. Dasya is growing more & more concrete in its hold on the system & the movements of the body no longer depend even partially on the will, but are often enforced contrary to the immediate will of the body or the will in revolt of the Jiva; the latter circumstance is rare & came yesterday after a long interval of passive submission as a result of the sudden revival of asraddha & weariness of physical tapasya. The element of tapasya is now much reduced, but still persists in the physical siddhi. For the most part all action is now a passivity supporting more or less effective tapas, not tapasya. In Samadhi coherent sentences of lipi are now common, but in the mass the lipi is incoherent. Isolated figures or momentary groups still prevail. Antardrishta jagrat is confined to the most elementary crude forms and even these come with difficulty and rarely; antardrishta speedily passes into sushupta or swapna Samadhi.
   ***

r1913 07 07, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   A beginning in the predominance of aishwarya was subsequently predicted and took the shape of prayogas initially successful, then successfully baffled by opposing forces of habitual resistance, then fulfilled by unexpected circumstances suddenly intervening & showing the direct hand of the Ishwara. Samadhi was once more active, but has not recovered normal coherency or long continuity of action. Sleep resumed its force, bringing one hour of nidravishta Samadhi in the afternoon and more than seven hours sleep at night.
   Saundarya generally is forcefully obstructed & makes no progress; but in one detail there has been unexpected and rapid progress,a rounding off of the sharp angles of those fingers which were formerly square. This was noticed two or three days ago, but farther progress was sensible even in the course of a single day. In only two or three of the fingers are there still traces of the old sharp angles. This isolated rapidity is a strong contrast to the occasional slow & slight progress covering many months & the usual failure of all success in other attempts of the psychic body to alter by mental force the physical sheath into its own image.

r1913 07 08, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   (7) Samadhi & rupa active.
   Rupa (crude) was only briefly active in a few images, but these evinced a perfection and stability in various circumstances (image on background, crude image, group, developed image) not yet so decisively combined. Samadhi recovered coherency & is developing application to life. (eg Alpt carrying a cane chair through a veranda; Bh. [Bharati] offering to Rg & another some food, three glasses on a table & pieces of cocoanut (?)).
   (8) Utthapana.

r1913 07 09, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Samadhi is more vigorous & dream recovering continuous coherence, but the movement of Samadhi towards long continuity of single incident is not yet effective. Lipi is pressing slowly upon the akasha for removal of its habitual defects.
   ***

r1913 07 11, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   In accordance with the prediction the movement of the vijnana from action in the slight, petty & detailed to action in the satyam, ritam, brihat was commenced. At first the knowledge was merely brihat in manas, hundreds of perceptions coming without order or right direction; then the satyam in this infinity came to be revealed not the ritam; every perception was found to be true, but not always true at the time & in the place & order of circumstance indicated by the mind. Subsequently the ritam commenced, the trikaldrishti occurring with perfect accuracy even in the mental & sunless perceptions, but before it could be completed, other preoccupations commenced which filled the rest of the day (kriti). The movement of dasya, tejas, aishwarya, Samadhi to mahattwa were similarly interrupted. Kamananda, only occasional the day before,
   [This entry was left incomplete. Three blank pages follow.]

r1913 09 05a, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The rest of yesterday evening passed in a return to a former mental condition, with a background of udasina ananda held against touches of disquiet, an imperfect & clouded knowledge, an ineffective or only partially and slowly effective will, a poor & struggling lipi & rupa, an unprogressive & infrequent Samadhi. The dasyabuddhi of the body, strong in the afternoon, was covered at night.
   ***

r1913 09 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The chief movement has been the development of the ideality, its increasing hold on the rebellious & self-acting intellectuality in the outer swabhava and the transfer of the mental activity to the ideal plane. Telepathy has increased to a considerable extent and embraces now the thoughts also, but is not always evenly active; in the use of the trikaldrishti it has become something of a stumbling block, as the rapid perception of the movements of impelling force, intention & impulse impresses the still active intellectual devatas with a false idea of actual result and tend[s] to shut out the event from the perception. Nevertheless the vijnanamay determination of the actual event even in detail begins to be more frequently reflected in the intellectual parts and has some force but, usually, little or no jyotirmaya prakasha. Power varies, but has grown in insistence, success & grip on the akasha. Vani & script are still excessive in statement, but the inert element tends to pass out of them. Lipi is now well-established in activity; but is more usually perfect in chitra & sthapatya than in akasha where the old faults of paleness, insufficient legibility & fragmentary manifestation are still powerful. Incoherence has not yet been removed, but the power to interpret lipi, coherent or incoherent, has grown immensely & is only faulty, as a rule, when the vijnana is clouded by the aprakasha & the intellect once more active. Rupa grows more fertile & is once more rich & perfect or almost perfect in chitra & sthapatya, (one defect is excess of human figures & defect of animal forms & objects), but in akasha it cannot yet compass the union of vivid clearness & stability. The obstruction here is still strong. Samadhi has increased in habitual coherence & continuity; even the lipi in sushupta swapna now tends to be coherent.
   The physical siddhi is always resisted & put back in utthapana & saundarya; in ananda & arogya it is progressive with occasional retrocessions. Habituality of kamananda and frequency of the other physical anandas has considerably increased; also to a certain extent their intensity. A serious effort is being made to get rid of the obstinate fragments of eruption, headache, cold & stomach complaint which still recur needlessly in the system. Headache usually occurs only by vyapti from other adharas.

r1913 09 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   (Yesterday) [i.e. the 14] An attack on the health (assimilation) brought about a suspension of the kamananda & attempt at asiddhi; dominated early in the afternoon. The tejas is now beginning to fulfil itself against the tamas; its predictions being correct or corrected by the vijnanamaya prakasha. Lipi, rupa & Samadhi continued steadily to gain in habitual force; but in the latter two the akasha is not yet clarified of the main obstruction. Trikaldrishti is habitually correct even in rough detail & often in exact detail, but with an element of erroneous & perverting stress on the telepathic impressions and considerable gaps and lacunae. Utthapana somewhat weakly recommenced in arms, neck and legs. The struggle, successful on the whole, still continues with the remnants of the old slighter ailments, eruption & cold. The former has no tejas & there is usually the eruption without the irritation. The latter is losing tejas, but is persistent. Roga of the assimilation has still an occasional force as in the morning. In the saundarya the lower range teeth have retained their whiteness, only slightly stained at first with a shadow of yellow, for five days, (formerly one day could hardly be registered,) and the upper are getting clarified to an extent not yet experienced since the reaction began or even before it. There is as yet no sign of reaction. In other directions the reaction holds or allows only a slow and doubtful progress in one or two details. Sahitya steadily continues, but only in short flows of energy.
   ***

r1913 09 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The other principal movements were in lipi and Samadhi. In lipi the various stages through which the etheric script has wavered backwards & forwards, indistinctness or paleness of script, illegibility, partial legibility, vividness of single words, vividness of short phrases, unspontaneity, partial spontaneity, incoherent richness, illegible vividness, legible vividness, etc have been passed through rapidly in a final movement and lipi is now fixed in the akasha as an abundant phenomenon both in the single word & the short phrase, spontaneous, vivid, legible, simultaneous, authoritative, and is now extending to long phrases. The interpretation of lipi is still occasionally hesitating owing to the uncertainties of the trikaldrishti, but this hesitation has disappeared from the thought scripts. The full authority of the thought is necessary to the full authority of the lipi. Rupa has developed a final richness, variety, frequency & perfect grouping in all the chitra & sthapatya forms including the vision in transparent substances; it has developed occasional perfection in single crude forms of all kinds & even in ghana, but is vague & indistinct in grouped images, & vivid but momentary in the lifelike developed or dense images. These are old difficulties. Samadhi last night attained again & more powerfully on the whole to richness, variety, grouping, vividness, continued action, shabda; but the continuity has to be swift and is limited to a very few successive movements owing to want of firm hold on the jagrat-swapna & jagrat-sushupta conditions. Only in dream is there long continuity; & dream is now, so far as remembered, usually connected & coherent, with only slight survivals of the old defects. Its images are more vivid & nearer to the forms of Samadhi, but are still dream images. As yet they are not dreams of actuality, but scenes from past lives, sukshma experiences etc. The dreaminess has not departed out of them.
   All the subjective anandas, especially prema & next to it shuddha have been finally fixed in the system; none of them are yet new in form, experience or intensity, but a tendency to greater generality of intense experience is visible. The perception of ugliness & ungainliness contradictory of beauty which had reemerged & long persisted is now sinking back into the shuddha & chidghana anandas. Kamananda was occasional & ceased to preserve continuity; it now stands that the ananda can no longer be successfully excluded for a single day, but it is not yet continuously permanent because it still visits the body and does not yet hold it as its natural dharma. Arogya improved, but is still struggling against difficulties. Utthapana increases in force slowly & with difficulty. The weakness of the body & its capacity for exhaustion struggle powerfully to keep their hold.

r1913 09 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   In the evening there came the perfectly clear & stable image in the akasha, single and small group, but this was limited to the non-lifelike & to one or two figures, ie different kinds of birds & butterflies; but in that limit even the most developed figures occurred with some freedom; a third image, (a cat on a bough,) came without the clearness. This was in the full evening light outside the house, in the subdued light of evening in the house, the images were repeated but not with such ease & absolute clearness, & at night in the lamplight they failed still more to acquire the full vividness. The force of association here was evident. Certain habitual images appear with more power in the lamplight, but this was in a different manner of vaguely compacted definitenessin a transition stage between the mere image & the lifelike image. Samadhi was again very powerful and this time short conversations occurred in some of which the speaker was visible as speaking,an almost entirely new circumstance. Scent also has begun & the first hint of taste.
   Trikaldrishti & will-power were again allowed to lapse into the pure intellectuality but this time a greater power to distinguish between the action of the two & consequently between true & false trikaldrishti was developed out of the confusion. Utthapana was contradicted by a great weariness and weakness. After six days of whiteness the upper teeth began again to become clouded and a slight shade to fall on the lower, especially on those at the right side. Kamananda increased in intensity. The personal lilamaya relation with the Master of the Yoga emerged, still feebly hampered by the old tapomaya & manomaya movements.

r1913 09 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Neither the faith nor the energy recovered its tone during the evening and night. Still, progress was made. Something like the full bhava of the personal relation was manifested, and the relation itself is now permanent and secured against successful attack. The simulative vanis attempt to persist, but they cannot prevail, endure or pervert. The bhavas permanently manifest are those of conqueror and master, playmate and guide & instructor. There was also progress in the Samadhi, smell & touch manifesting vividly, both combined with sight & action &, in the latter case, with sound; but the attempt to confirm & extend continuity failed. Dream manifested again full ihabhava of form & association, which could not, however, disturb the continuity & intelligibility of the series of incidents portrayed. Both in Samadhi & jagrat perfect intelligibility of even fragmentary, confused or ill-decipherable lipi was firmly & suddenly established; undecipherable lipi still offers a difficulty to the thought perception. Telepathy flowered freely, but is not yet perfect in range or precision. Kamananda reached a high intensity, but was suspended, as commonly, during the night. Roga showed some reaction, & the physical siddhi generally is passing through a stage of persistent & concentrated obstruction.
   ***

r1913 09 19, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Today, the disturbance created yesterday continued in its after effects, chiefly in want of faith. Finally, calm and ananda returned and the control of the divine guidance manifested. Kamananda was less intense, trikaldrishti & aishwarya very broken & the siege of the external intellect persistent and heavy. Samadhi made no progress, rupa only in the arrival of akasha rupa on a background, but lipi recovered & increased its force.
   ***

r1913 09 22, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The siddhi has now firm standing in knowledge, in spite of lapses & lacunae, and the guiding Script can be invested in a definite form. The guiding Script orders & indicates, it does not predict. Its movement must be entirely liberated from the shadow of control by the minds vigilance, suggestive & distrustful, which still subsists in the environmental outlook. The trikaldrishti has been reconstituted and needs only a greater illumination & decisive[ness] to get rid of the one positive defect that still clogs it from perfection, false distribution of stress by the masquerading of mental will-suggestions in the guise of knowledge-perceptions. That once cured, the range of practical knowledge will automatically increase. The willpower is as yet unable to act without a Prakritic resistance in the physical akasha. This habit of resistance must steadily be overborne and eliminated. It is especially active when continuous & detailed movements are dictated by the willpower to external objects, but this resistance has been overborne before and must now be overborne habitually. Finally, the actuality of the lipi, rupa & Samadhi must prevail over the blind and inert, but stubborn refusal of the physical ether. This is the immediate work that yet remains in the third chatusthaya.
   In the fourth, it is now evident that what is being prepared by the apparent reaction towards asiddhi of continuity in the kamananda, is the ability of the body to bear the high intensity of maithunananda without emission and its distribution as ananda throughout the body. A stronger force of natural health and a more perfect habit of assimilation is being prepared by the suspension of the imperfect siddhi in arogya. Similar movements account for the long obstruction or renewed obstruction in utthapana & saundarya as in the Samadhi and the adesha-siddhi. These movements must be helped by the will to work out more rapidly.
   ***

r1913 11 11, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Lipi .. Rupa .. Samadhi ..
   Trikaldrishti, telepathy, jnana + aishwarya-ishita .. vashita
  --
   The vijnnachatusthaya is now the chief subject of the sdhana, strong in knowledge, growing towards strength in power, deficient in range of being. The first two must grow by abhyasa alone; lipi needs some abhyasa still, but is on the point of a greater perfection; rupa & Samadhi still need some tapas & much abhysa.
   ***
  --
   Self-perfection of the trikaldrishti and telepathy; self-perfection of the lipi; development of rupa and Samadhi.
   ***
  --
   The dasyabuddhi has become a little blurred. It must be restored to its former energy. At present, the aishwarya working in the intellect is fitfully effective & with a struggle, the aishwarya must come out of the ideality & act freely & without responsibility.. In this way & in no other the ideal powers will manifest themselves. More has yet to be done with the rupa and Samadhi today.
   ***

r1913 11 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   There is as yet no advance in the third & fourth chatusthayas. The obstruction there has concentrated itself. It will rapidly break down even in the rupa and the Samadhi, not so soon in the saundarya.
   The mind need not always take an anticipatory part in the script. It is enough that it should receive and follow. At present the old habit of unintelligent pranic reception & suggestion has once more a dominant play in the outer swabhava. The vijnana in the trikaldrishti is apt to be quiescent.

r1913 11 22, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   On the whole, the first chatusthaya is finally secure; the second & in the third jnana & prakamyavyapti are firm in spite of waverings & temporary eclipses, to a less extent the trikaldrishti; similarly the lipi; rupa and Samadhi are secure in their beginnings but fitful in their activity. Subjective ananda is perfect, but for occasional half obscurations. The powers are perfect in type, uncertain in application.
   No definite advance during the day

r1913 11 24, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The record between 11th & 23 Nov. entered on separate sheets. The record was discontinued after the 20th September,1 as often before, because it was found that the habit of miscalculation still persisted, temporary success being mistaken for final fixity etc. None of the siddhis are yet finally perfect. Even the first which is nearest to absolute finality has been disturbed yesterday & has not yet recovered its balance. It is firm in the mass, but not on the surface of the mentality. In the second a temporary perfection, deficient only in faith, abhayam, ishwarabhava, was broken, it is indicated, in order that the dasatya & tapatya buddhi might be combined, taking the place of the old alternation between passive and udasina dasya-buddhi and active egoistic tapas; the combination represents the right Mahakali tapas. As a result the Maheshwari pratistha is more covered than before, & the relapse from rajasic excitement to udasina shanti is no longer entirely permitted. Faith in the rapidity of the Yogasiddhi and in the adeshasiddhi has been shaken by yesterdays movement; even the faith in the Yogasiddhi was temporarily tarnished, though not entirely suspended. The Akasharupa after a half-successful or initially successful attempt to recover its former activity, has fallen back into the crude, rudimentary & disorganised condition from which it was trying to emerge. Lipi is obstructed and only exceptionally legible, though generally intelligible to the perceptions by an imperfect legibility. The faculties of knowledge & power are once more in a state of confusion and the Samadhi still unable to organise itself or manifest permanently its previous realisations. The fourth chatusthaya is still in the state of asiddhi. Saundaryabodha is once more obstructed, but rasa, priti & bhoga of the subjective Ananda in outward things seem to hold their own. Internal Ananda is superficially broken up, though still sound at the core.
   ***

r1913 12 01a, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Kamananda at night began to recur in the state of Samadhi
   ***

r1913 12 03b, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   There has been a relapse, as powerful as the combined forces of the outer world could make it. The attack on the samata has been furious and has had some superficial success, but the dhana, the parvata remains unmoved & intact. The second chatusthaya has been successfully inhibited from its full & arranged action, but here too the success is superficial. The third has been partially affected in knowledge, entirely in the unfinished parts of power; not at all in Samadhi. The rest has been obstructed, not really affected. The fourth & fifth have been obstructed & to a certain extent injured.
   The first thing, as always, is to restore the anandamaya action of the vijnanabuddhi and Brahmabuddhi. This after a long interval is being done. Dispelling & expelling of the intellectual & emotional activity forced again on the system is the indispensable preliminary, and this is often difficult because it entangles itself, by habit or of deliberate purpose, with the legitimate action. Absolute passivity, absolute sraddha in the Master of All, is the means. There is no other means. It is essential that all should be recognised as the being & action of the Ishwara and yet that the two agencies Arya & Anarya should be distinguished.

r1913 12 07, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The powers of Tapas increase in their dominance & insistence. Samadhi, manifesting from time to time, shows always a little more progress. Only the rupa is now strongly obstructed.
   ***

r1913 12 08, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The physical siddhi will revive from today, beginning with the Anandas. The health & utthapana will rapidly follow in the next two or three days. Already physical ananda (kama) is becoming common in Samadhi & dream & seeks to prolong itself there. It needs now only fixity in continuity & intensity.
   The physical ananda has already begun its battle for fixity with a series of initial successes. These are now confirmed by an outbreak of ahaituka maithunananda unparalleled as yet in its prolonged continuity & intensity. The continuity & intensity are now being constantly repeated, though the ahaituka maithunananda is still rare.

r1913 12 12b, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The transfer of the perceptive & determinative intellectuality to the ideal plane has been violently & artificially retarded for the last two or three days by rushes of cloud & confusion, by a constant hammering of apparent refutation & ill-result at the sraddha. Nevertheless it is still being steadily pursued under all difficulties and is now about to be extended to the movements of tapas & tejas, which like the prakasha, must be made entirely satyam & ritam in the brihat. In the prakasha it is the perceptions of actuality & especially of determinative event in the actuality which are the remaining centre of deficiency and their imperfection is intimately connected with the common action of asatya tejas & asatya tapas in the Will powers & Will-states. Chitra & Samadhi, obstinately obstructed, progress with a hampered slowness which cannot yet convert itself into rapidity.
   Arogya struggles towards finality; kamananda grows & persists, stimulating from time to time other anandas; utthapana has definitely entered on its final uninterrupted progression; saundaryam alone remains ineffective & uneffected.

r1913 12 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Kamananda is once more active in the erect position and during movement of the body, but intermittently, not with continuity. There is an initial movement towards its recovered action at night and in Samadhi.
   Trikaldrishti of telepathy has once more manifested; it has two movements, one purely receptive, in which the movements past, present & future of an object reach the mind, but there is no active knowledge or discrimination of their actuality & relations till after the event, and a second both receptive & discriminative in which the future eventuality is correctly known before the event. In both cases but especially the first any tapasic stress on the intention, tendency, thought or impulse of the object as indicative of the eventual movement, leads to error; the same is true, if there is any attempt to infer intellectually the result from past or present data. Self-active non-telepathic trikaldrishti is at present more of the skylight than of the direct variety. This is not, however, always the case.

r1913 12 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   There is a growing strength of Samadhi; shabda & sparsha returned & were combined with rupa & action; distinct & coherent lipis occurred; the actions seen were more prolonged and better organised. The organisation however, as well as the prolongation, is still rudimentary. Kamananda was this time successfully established in the night, but is only occasional in sleep or Samadhi. The body is still unable to maintain it with perfect continuity; although the relapse is now a habit forcibly maintained, and not at all a necessary relief or respite. Akasharupa maintains the same character of persistent pressure on the Akasha without possession or any real stability.
   Arogya in the digestive faculties seems now to be tending away from the struggle between health & the petty fragments of digestive ailments (for nausea, constipation[,] diarrhoea etc have for some time been absent from the system except in touches of looseness, obstruction, nauseative tendency) to the old struggle between abnormal assimilation of food & normal or abnormal waste. For the last two days waste has been abnormal. Waste has to become subnormal without disturbing the digestive processes. Kamananda is now fixed,either recurrent or continuous,in all states except that of sleep & Samadhi. Sukshma tivrananda is rapidly developing ubiquity & intensity. All the sahaituka physical anandas are now constant in the body, except vaidyuta which is yet rare and occasional. Ahaituka tivrananda is now becoming spontaneous although usually with some aid from smarana.
   The subjective anandas, although well-established, are liable to clouding especially by the loss of the sense of beauty in the adaptation of form to guna. If the Brahman is seen in the guna of a face that is mean or ugly, the meanness or ugliness becomes itself beautiful to the inner eye & through the inner eye to the outer vision; but, this failing, the shuddha & premanandas fail by temporary loss of the chidghana. Premananda is also attacked by old sanskaras of relation & non-relation. Normally, however, chidghana, ahaituka & suddha are permanently manifest; prema is there usually in the priti, not so commonly in the bhoga.

r1913 12 15, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Kamananda today, though intense at times, was much interrupted. Akasha rupa & Samadhi steadily increase.
   ***

WORDNET














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