top of page
Writer's pictureCarla Aspesberger

What is samadhi?

Updated: Jul 22, 2022

If you have no interest in Truth, Self-Realization, Freedom, Peace and completeness beyond reasoning you can stop reading this now.



The word itself can be broken down into the root


“sam” - complete,


“a” - eternal,


“dhi” - inner wisdom.


It is thus a blissful union with the divine. A self-realization to the eternal consciousness. Liberation from suffering.


In samadhi one transcends beyond or before the awareness of an individual self, time or space because this awareness was there before the individual self and will also be there after. Thus the mind can not comprehend or grasp all samadhi states.


It is a pure and direct experience in conscious existence without the mind (in some samadhi states).


Samadhi is eternal blissfulness or “Sat Chit Ananda”. This translates to Truth consciousness and bliss.

Like a vibratory ocean and we are all drops in that ocean, samadhi merges all those energy drops as undifferentiated and indivisible oneness. This is to say the different vibrations can’t be distinguished from one another. They all merge into a cosmic melody.


There are a lot of different orders or levels of samadhi. Some people call it levels but there is also a misunderstanding in that. Once fully awake there are no levels, but for comprehension purposes, I will describe the different layers of perception awareness goes through to enlightenment or samadhi.


The final ones are very difficult to use language to explain as they are beyond worldly experience, so please understand language here falls short every time. These words are not it but it can point into the correct direction.


It is also very important to understand that I wrote this article from a non dualistic approach. There is a lot of information out there regarding this subject and due to the poor translation the message gets lost. Sanskrit doesn’t have English words to describe things and other words that are closely related are used but it does also alter the understanding. Gavagay theory is at play.


The sources of information I refer to here are from Patanjali’s sutras, Raja yoga, Upanishads and mostly non-duality teachers like Sri Ramana (he achieved Sahaja Nirvikalpa at 16), actualised.org , Parveen Nair etc. I have to give credit here to my favorite author - Santata Gamana.


I share information here that might shed some light on deep breath work or meditation experiences. Please don’t give attention to the ego here because it will turn this information into a goal of achieving the different samadhi’s and labeling levels of yourself and others in comparison. This is not the sentiment of the share at all, but I am not responsible or in any way in control of the way it is received.


The 6 different orders mentioned here are a simplified way from personal verification. Why is this important? The ego and mind is very intelligent. Once the spiritual realm is open, they notice that there is a threat to their existence. They will do everything in their power to preserve their own existence by convincing you how important it is to live from ego and mind. If light is not shed on this, ignorance becomes the default. The ego has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. A few that I have come across are: having mystical spiritual experiences, having nothing happen, feeling absolutely nothing, mind going crazy, inspirational ideas jumping forward. It is important to notice that the mind and ego will do everything they can to delay or stop transcendence progress, because it means they have to dissolve.


The best way they know how is to create distractions. If you are sitting in purvashta or after poise (pure being) about to transcend beyond the mind, a thought or great idea might pop into your field which pulls you back to the actions of the mind along with a thought, “I should write this down before I forget it and take action”


Please don’t get me wrong, I am not labeling it as bad. It simply is. I am mentioning it because I got stuck in striving towards the distractions instead of surrendering into the substratum of awareness which is the only eternal bliss that exists. All the other experiences are temporary in nature and therefore only offer momentary satisfaction. Leaving the search hungry for more!


It can be explained as the dog chasing its own tail. The tail can be anything from liberation, happiness, moksha, wealth, peace. It is only once the dog stops the chase that he realizes the tail he is chasing is a part of itself.


So use this article as information to verify and navigate the spiritual experiences of meditation if you please.



1. Waking State

  • Mental state - Active

  • Non-duality - No

  • Permanent - No


Samprajna - Samadhi (savikalpa) - this is an experience with a seed . An object of concentration, action or something happening like yoga, meditation or life. The state of enlightenment accompanied by reasoning, reflection, bliss and pure being. So the mind, ego and body are still present. In this state of samadhi we are able to think and cognise about our experience, analyzing the body and the mind and describing its beauty. Peaceful and quiet while being available to the outside world.


Knowledge based on words and descriptions and other ordinary knowledge based on sense perception. The mind alters between these two. It means “through transformation on an object with the help of words”. This is the state where it becomes easy to discern Truth from that appearing to be real. The mind becomes the object and awareness, the subject observing the mind.


2. Dream

3. Savikalpa

4. Deep sleep/ Unconscious

5. Kevala Nirvakalpa

6. Sahaja Nirvikalpa



It is not the mind that has to die or be eliminated, it is the realization that You were never the mind to begin with. Whenever an enlightenment experience happened, it was never the mind “doing or achieving” it. It was the mind dissolving back into source and You rested into your own True nature (Awareness).


“There is no path to enlightenment but only a fool doesn’t walk it.”

For more please sign up to my newsletter and join my weekly online classes. I am launching a course soon that includes methods and insights into Self-Realization.


Please leave a like and comment, it really helps others to find this too. Feel free to share this to make it easily accessible to those who need to see it.


Till next time…


17 views0 comments

Comments

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet

Add a rating
bottom of page