Many people associate different meanings to the Yogic state called Samadhi. Most people imply a sudden loss of awareness, or an experience of proximity to the divine, and so on.
Patanjali does not define samadhi as a one stop destination. It is a progressive move towards the ultimate completely calm state. At each stage, you are aware of what is happening, even though you are oblivious of most external happenings around you.
That is why Patanjali calls these stages as Samprajnyata Samadhi - i.e. stages of Samadhi with awareness. Mind is almost calm, but all activities have not stopped completely yet.
Patanjali talks about 4 such stages.
In the first stage which he calls Savitarka Samadhi, the Mind recognizes the gross attributes of the meditative target. If some God is your meditative target, you experience the physical form of that God, its capabilities and so on. But your mind still remains completely focused on the target.
While you are in this state, you experience intense joy or Ananda. The mind is still active and you are aware of your individual existence.
In the next stage, you start glossing over gross attributes of the meditative target and focus on finer aspects of it. These finer aspects can be some qualities that don’t have any perceptible attributes. They may be like the immense kindness or the love symbolized by God, assuming some God is your target. Or it could be the variation of sound, if Pranava was your target.
This stage is called Savicara Samadhi. There are thoughts still going on in the mind and it is not yet completely calm. But the thoughts are centered around the subtle aspects of the meditative target.
You experience immense joy or Ananda as earlier. You recognize your existence as separate from the meditative target. But you are no longer interested in grosser details of the meditative target. There is no Vitarka as in the previous case, But only Vicara, and Ananda.
As you move on, gradually the mind stops producing any thought. Even the subtle attributes of the meditative target go unnoticed. You are only focused on the target which is separate from you. You will experience extreme bliss or Ananda. But there would be no thoughts – neither gross nor subtle.
Patanjali calls this stage as Anandanugata Samadhi.
A stage further, even this experience of bliss stops. You have no feelings at all other than that you exist as an entity separate from the meditative target. This awareness of individual identity is called Asmita. Accordingly, this stage is called Asmitanugata Samadhi.
In this stage there would be no thoughts, no feelings, but just the awareness of individual existence. The mind is almost calm, but not completely yet, since it recognizes its separate existence. It is yet to move on to the final completely calm state.
But when the mind reaches a completely calm state, there would be no awareness at all. To be aware, the mind has to be active at least partially.
So, these are the four stages before one loses the awareness completely. That is why Patanjali classifies them as Samadhis with awareness or Samprajnyata Samadhi.
If we were to map the experience that Ramakrishna had when he was singing devotional songs and entering the Samadhi, maybe we can say this.
Initially, Ramakrishna was completely engrossed in the lyrics and the meanings of the songs. That filled him with joy. That was the first stage of Savitarka Samadhi.
Then as he engaged himself more, only the mood of the song remained. No cognizance of the meaning of individual words. He continued in the same blissful mood. That was when he entered Savicara Samadhi.
When Ramakrishna went further deep into the act, he probably would have stopped singing altogether, but would have remained in a very blissful state. That was Anandanugata Samadhi.
Once he crossed even this stage, he would have entered the Asmitanugata Samadhi where there were no feelings, no thoughts. He almost appeared to be frozen. He was entering deeper states of Samadhi.
What happens beyond this point is a mute question since we are actually asking about what happens when the mind stops! The person who has ever got into that state can never answer this question since he cannot consciously experience it. He has no awareness at all.
In Ramakrishna’s words – such a person becomes like a salt doll that went to explore the sea! The doll just dissolves into the sea and never comes back to report what it has found!
That is the ultimate stage of Samadhi which Patanjali calls as Asamprajnyata Samadhi – Samadhi with no awareness whatsoever.
We will continue our discussion in the next episode.
A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2019-2020
No comments:
Post a Comment