The Meaning of Samadhi

A reader posted the following comment a few days back asking about the true meaning of Samadhi:

Hari Bol Prabhu ji !
I am eagerly waiting for your upcoming posts and with your kind grace, hopeful to understand the Truth. I have one query regarding my understanding. You may choose to not answer the question if you feel that in upcoming posts it will be answered on its own.

The question is about the state of ‘Samadhi’. What is the meaning of the word Samadhi or State of Pure Bliss? What I understand is that Samadhi is a State when one knows who he really is, i.e. there is no difference between God and Himself, where one has realized that he is not ‘Jad’ but Chetan. As King Janak said in Sri Ashtavakra Geeta after realizing the truth, “How amazing am I, I bow down to myself.” 

Please guide me, if my small mind with little knowledge is on the right path.
Hare Krishna !

As for the meaning of Samadhi: the way I see it, it means to be at par with the One. Upadhi means to be near, almost like just one step below. Samadhi means to be the same. From that angle, you are right that Samadhi is a state where one knows who one really is. But I would like to briefly differentiate between just knowing it and experiencing it. From second-hand knowledge, one may know all about Samadhi but the actual state of Samadhi goes beyond knowing – it is about being. It is about feeling. It is about experiencing.

The conditioning of one’s soul prevents one from experiencing this transcendental state. Once you acquire such a state, all you have to do is maintain the state of non-conditioning and the state of Samadhi continues.

I would like to share something more: very strong sensations, unmistakable physical sensations, emerge throughout one’s body, especially on the ajῆa chakra and Sahasrara. The sensations are so profound that you no longer find anything external interesting. The world outside you may be unaware of your internal state, but bliss in the form of physical sensations and inexplicable joy keeps trickling down within you.

From the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep, you unceasingly feel such sensations. That is the state of Samadhi. This is my personal experience and anyone can experience it too if they are willing to work for it. Just like ripples are only formed in water and not on the ice, your state of bliss is frozen when in Samadhi. Anger, lust, hatred, and other negative emotions simply cannot even emerge, let alone cause any ripple in your unbroken state of bliss.

Samadhi is not about seeing a flash of light or a one-off-fleeting-moment of feeling one with the cosmos. What good is that experience? How will that transform one? Many texts of the modern age lead the reader to believe that you are sitting in a meditational posture and one day you just go into Samadhi, as if by accident. That is a load of rubbish, for, what cannot be validated and replicated, has no place in the eyes of a yogi. In Samadhi, you have full consciousness. Surely, it is so sharp and so channelized that it is different from the normal state of consciousness. You may want to read –  The nine stages of attaining bliss.

I will write more in the ongoing series at the right time. I am just as eager to clear for you the mystery that shrouds the term Samadhi.

Peace.
Swami