Samadhi

“ Then the glory of the soul, undisturbed by the distractions of the mind, or motions of the body, will shine in its full effulgence; and the Yogi will find himself as he is and as he always was, the essence of knowledge, the immortal, the all-pervading.
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. ”

“ When the Prana becomes lean (vigourless) and the mind becomes absorbed, then their becoming equal is called Samadhi. This equality and oneness of the self and the ultra self, when all Samkalpas cease to exist, is called Samadhi. Or, who can know the true greatness of the Raja Yoga. Knowledge, mukti, condition, and Siddhis can be learnt by instructions from a guru alone. Indifference to worldly enjoyments is very difficult to obtain, and equally difficult is the knowledge of the Realities to obtain. It is very difficult to get the condition of Samadhi, without the favor of a true guru. ”

“ Forthwith in presence of the assembly, gathering up his body and entering Samâdhi, calmly he ascended into space, and there displayed himself, walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, emitting fiery vapor from his body, on his right and left side water and fire, not burning and not moistening him. Then clouds and rain proceeded from him, thunder with lightning shook the heaven and earth; thus he drew the world to look in adoration, with eyes undazzled as they gazed ”

“ Samadhi for any one person is relative to his waking consciousness, but implies insensitiveness of the body. If an ordinary person throws himself into trance and is active on the astral plane, his Samadhi is on the astral. If his consciousness is functioning in the mental plane, Samadhi is there. The man who can so withdraw from the body as to leave it insensitive, while his mind is fully self-conscious, can practice Samadhi. ”

“ In this state of Samadhi all the difference between "I" and the "Brahman" goes away, everything is reduced into unity, like the waters of the Infinite Ocean -- water everywhere, nothing else exists -- language and thought, all fail there. Then only is the state "beyond mind and speech" realised in its actuality. Otherwise, so long as the religious aspirant thinks or says, "I am the Brahman"--"I" and "the Brahman", these two entities persist -- there is the involved semblance of duality. After that experience, even after trying repeatedly, I failed to bring back the state of Samadhi. ”

“ To walk streets paved with gold and play a harp incessantly while chanting doleful praises to a Deity who ought to become wearied of the never-ceasing adulation, would still be a more desirable goal of our strife, than that so inaccurately and unattractively described by many students of Oriental religions and philosophies as the state nirvana, or samadhi. ”

“ Their test of its purity, like our test of religion's value, is empirical: its fruits must be good for life. When a man comes out of Samâdhi, they assure us that he remains "enlightened, a sage, a prophet, a saint, his whole character changed, his life changed, illumined." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Where all the changes of nature cease for ever, who is thought beyond all thoughts, who is equal to all yet having no equal, immeasurable, whom Vedas declare, who is the essence in what we call our existence, the perfect — such a Brahman, O sage, O learned one, shines in the heart of the Jnani in Samadhi. ”

“ Samadhi, therefore, literally means " fully placing together," and its etymological equivalent in English would be " to compose " (com=sam; posita= place) . Samadhi therefore means "composing the mind," collecting it together, checking all distractions. ”

“ Rhys Davids says (B. p. 177) : "Buddhism has not been able to escape from the natural results of the wonder with which abnormal nervous states have always been regarded during the infancy of science. . . . But it muse be added, to its credit, that the most ancient Buddhism despises dreams and visions; and that the doctrine of Samādhi is of small practical importance compared with the doctrine of the noble eightfold Path." Eitel says (Handbook, p. 140) : "The term Samādhi is sometimes used ethically, when it designates moral self-deliverance from passion and vice." ”

“ For a single individual he has many gifts and many noble qualities. He is also very courteous in his manners. He knows how to control his senses; he has said that he will not marry, but will live a pure life. That is good. I always go into Samadhi when I see him. ”

“ Then Siddha-Samadhi said to those demigods, "O devas, this prince's horse, which he had kept ready for his sacrifice, was stolen at night by Lord Indra. Kindly bring that horse back now."
Immediately those demigods brought that horse before him, after which Siddha-Samadhi dismissed them. When the prince saw all these wonderful happenings, he fell at the feet of Siddha-Samadhi, and inquired from him. "How have you attained such power, which I have not seen or heard of any one else possessing? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In this way, both prajna and samadhi, awareness and noninvolvement, which have been described as the active and passive sides of meditation, are achieved simultaneously.
Now, let us penetrate to that state in which we are not attached. What do we get to know? Not being attached we are tranquil and guileless. This state underlying all motions and passions is called samadhi. Penetrating to this fundamental state we encounter a natural wisdom that is conscious of this original tranquility and guilelessness. This wisdom is called prajna. ”

“ When the thinking organ is thought of as bereft of the qualities of activity and dullness, it is then called Sānanda, 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 Sāsmitā 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 ”

“ This however did not bring out all that was contained in Enlightenment. The affective or will element which moved the Buddha to come out of his Sāgaramudrā-Samādhi,—a samadhi in which the whole universe was reflected in his consciousness as the moon stamps her image upon the ocean,—has now developed into the doctrine of Device. For the will is more fundamental than the intellect and makes up the ultimate principle of life. ”

“ Samâdhi,’ and says it is ‘a common expression for the effects of such ecstatic, ultra-mystic self-annihilation.’ All this is simply ‘a darkening of counsel by words without knowledge.’ Some facts concerning the death of Ânanda are hidden beneath the darkness of the phraseology, which it is impossible for us to ascertain. ”

“ One who is devoted to him or her, obtains the highest bliss. Now I will describe a regular method of attaining to Samadhi, which destroys death, is the means for obtaining happiness, and gives the Brahmananda. Raja Yoga, Samadhi, Unmani, Manonmani, Amaratwa, Laya, Tatwa, Sunya, Asunya, Parama Pada, Amanasska, Adwaitama, Niralamba, Niranjana, Jiwana Mukti, Sahaja, Turya, are all synonymous. Raja Yoga, Samadhi, Unmani, Manonmani, Amaratwa, Laya, Tatwa, Sunya, Asunya, Parama Pada, Amanasska, Adwaitama, Niralamba, Niranjana, Jiwana Mukti, Sahaja, Turya, are all synonymous. ”

“ All planes below the atmic are one plane for him. He begins his Samadhi on a plane to which the mere man cannot rise. He begins it on the atmic plane, and thence rises stage by stage to the higher cosmic planes. The same word, samadhi, is used to describe the states of the consciousness, whether it rises above the physical into the astral, as in self-induced trance of an ordinary man, or as in the case of a Jivan-mukta when, the consciousness being already centred in the fifth, or atmic plane, it rises to the higher planes of a larger world. ”

“ In our present Sutta—and the principal reason for its existence as a separate Sutta is that it points out just this—it is pointed out that Samādhi includes, it is true, the jhānas, but also other, and very different things. These are the habit of guarding the doors of one’s senses; constant mindfulness and self-possession ”

“ The yogi, or disciple, who has by these means overcome the obscurations of his lower nature sufficiently, enters into the condition termed samâdhi, "and comes face to face with facts which no instinct or reason can ever know." He learns—
"That the mind itself has a higher state of existence, beyond reason, a superconscious state, and that when the mind gets to that higher state, then this knowledge beyond reasoning comes. ... All the different steps in yoga are intended to bring us scientifically to the superconscious state or samâdhi. ”

“ But then, in transcendental states of Samadhi, the body with its Lingasarira, the vehicle of the life-principle, is entirely left out of consideration: the three states of consciousness are made to refer only to the three (with Atma the fourth) principles which remain after death. And here lies the real key to the septenary division of man, the three principles coming in as an addition only during his life.
As in the Macrocosm, so in the Microcosm: analogies hold good throughout nature. ”

“ To fully define Theosophy, we must consider it under all its aspects. The interior world has not been hidden from all by impenetrable darkness. By that higher intuition acquired by Theosophia, or God-knowledge, which carries the mind from the world of form into that of formless spirit, man has been sometimes enabled, in every age and every country, to perceive things in the interior or invisible world. Hence, the "Samadhi," or Dhyan Yog Samadhi, of the Hindu ascetics ”

“ I was attempting to make sense of his claims, when he said that samadhi was incomprehensible to the human mind. Then he paused, slowly scanned the audience, and announced that he would be helping advanced, sincere seekers in their quest for enlightenment... on his *own*.
"He's on a power trip!" I thought. "Maybe he's been planning this all along. Maybe he actually believes in it. In either case... "
"You need to realize that I am doing this because it is what the Infinite wants me to do. ”

“ That is prajna. Yet no desires arise from these distinctions. That is samadhi.
. . . It follows that freedom from attachment (to external things, which replaces meditation in Ch'an Buddhism) , enables you to look into the heart of all the Buddhas of the past, and yet it is nothing else than what you yourselves experience today.12
Perhaps the most revolutionary thing about this approach was that it seemed to eliminate the need for all the traditional apparatus of Buddhism. ”

“ Dattatreya maintains that the practice of samadhi as a quiescence is not necessary because, according to him, the Self has never been bound and hence is not required to practice anything to gain knowledge of Itself. The Self, which is Consciousness Itself, can never lose consciousness of Its true nature and therefore Samadhi is superfluous. ”

“ The special views attributed to them are that everything really exists, that an arhat can fall from arhatship, and that continuity of thought constitutes Samâdhi or meditation. These theses may perhaps be interpreted as indicative of an aversion to metaphysics and the supernatural. A saint has not undergone any supernatural transformation but has merely reached a level from which he can fall: meditation is simply fixity of attention, not a mystic trance. ”

“ All this bringing of the mind into a higher state of vibration is included in one word in Yoga — Samadhi. ”

“ Yama, Niyama, Āsana, Prānāyāma, Pratyāhāra, Dhāranā, Dhyāna, and Samādhi are the eight limbs of Yoga. ”

“ 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. ”