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SAMADHI
The passage from
'concentration' to 'meditation' does not require the application of any new
technique. Similarly, no supplementary yogic exercise is needed to realize samadhi, once the yogin has
succeeded in 'concentrating' and 'meditating.' Samadhi, yogic 'enstasis,'. is
the final result of the crown of all the ascetic's spiritual efforts and
exercises. The meanings of the term Samadhi are union, totality; absorption in,
complete concentration of mind; conjunction. The usual translation is
'concentration,' but this embarks the risk of confusion with dharana. Hence we have preferred to translate it 'entasis,' 'stasis,' and conjunction.
. . . Patanjali and his commentators distinguish several kinds or
stages of supreme concentration. When Samadhi is obtained with the help
of an object or idea (that is, by fixing one's thought on a point in space or
on an idea), the stasis is called samprajnata
samadhi ('enstasis with
support,' or 'differentiated enstasis'). When, on the
other hand, samadhi is obtained apart
from any 'relation' (whether external or mental) that is, when one obtains a
'conjunction' into which no otherness' enters, but which is simply a full
comprehension of being one has realized asamprajnata-samadhi
('undifferentiated stasis'). Vijnanabhikshu adds that
samprajnata samadhi
is a means of liberation in so far as it makes possible the comprehension of
truth and ends every kind of suffering. But asamprajnata
samadhi destroys the 'impressions [samskara] of all antecedent mental functions' and
even succeeds in arresting the karmic forces already set in motion by the yogin's past activity. During 'differentiated stasis,' Vijnanabhikshu continues, all the mental
functions are 'arrested' ('inhibited'), except that which 'meditates on
the object'; whereas in asampranata samadhi all 'consciousness' vanishes, the entire series
of mental functions are blocked. 'During this stasis, there is no other trace
of the mind [citta] save the impressions [samskara] left behind (by its past
functioning). If these impressions were not present, there would be no
possibility of returning to consciousness.'
We are, then, confronted with two sharply differentiated classes of states.' The
first class is acquired through the yogic technique of concentration (dharana) and meditation (dhyana),
the second class comprises only a single 'state'-that is, unprovoked enstasis, 'raptus.'
No doubt, even this asamprajnata samadhi is always owing to prolonged efforts on the yogin's part. It is not a gift or a state of grace. One can
hardly reach it before having sufficiently experienced the kinds of Samadhi
included in the first class. It is the crown of the innumerable
'concentrations' and 'meditations' that have preceded it. But it comes without
being summoned, without being provoked, without special preparation for it. That
is why it can be called a 'raptus.'
Obviously,
'differentiated enstasis,' samprajnata-samadhi,
comprises several stages. This is because it is perfectible and does not
realize an absolute and irreducible 'state.' Four stages or kinds are generally
distinguished: 'argumentative' (savitarka), 'nonargumentative' (nirvitarka),
reflective' (savicara), 'super-reflective' (nirvicara). Patanjali also
employs another set of terms: vitarka, vicara, ananda, asmita. (Y-S-, I, 17). But, as Vijnanabhikshu,
who reproduces this list, remarks, 'the four terms are purely technical, they are applied conventionally to different
forms of realization.' These four forms or stages of samprajnata
samadhi, he continues, represent an ascent; in
certain cases the grace of God (ishvara)
permits direct attainment of the higher states, and in such cases the yogin need not go back and realize the preliminary states. But
when this divine grace does not intervene, he must realize the four states
gradually, always adhering to the same object of meditation (for example,
Vishnu). These four grades or stages are also known as samapattis,
'coalescences.' (Y.S., I, 41-)
All these four stages of
samprajnata samadhi
are called bija samadhi
('samadhi with seed') or salambana
samadhi ('with support):, for Vijnanabhikshu
tells us, they are in relation with a 'substratum' (support) and produce
tendencies that are like 'seeds' for the future functions of consciousness. Asamprajnata samadhi, on
the contrary, is nirbija, 'without seed,'
without support. By realizing the four stages of samprajnata,
one obtains the 'faculty of absolute knowledge' (Y.S., 1, 48) This is already an opening towards samadhi
'without seed,' for absolute knowledge discovers the ontological completeness
in which being and knowing are no longer separated. Fixed in samadhi, consciousness (citta)
can now have direct revelation of the Self (purusha).
Through the fact that this contemplation (which is actually a
'participation') is realized, the pain of existence is abolished.
Vyasa (ad Y.S., III, 55) summarizes the
passage from samprajnata to asamprajnata
samadhi as follows: through the illumination (prajna, 'wisdom') spontaneously obtained when he
reaches the stage of dharma-megha-samadhi, the
yogin realizes 'absolute isolation' (kaivalya)-that is, liberation of purusha
from the dominance of prakriti. For his part, Vacaspatimishra says that the 'fruit' of samprajnata samadhi
is asamprajnata samadhi,
and the 'fruit' of the latter is kaivalya,
liberation. It would be wrong to regard this mode of being of the Spirit as a
simple 'trance" in which consciousness was emptied of all content. Nondifferentiated enstasis is not
absolute emptiness.' The 'state' and the 'knowledge' simultaneously expressed
by this term refer to a total absence of objects in consciousness, not to a
consciousness absolutely empty. For, on the contrary, at such a moment
consciousness is saturated with a direct and total intuition of being. As Madhava says, 'nirodha
[final arrest of all psychomental experience] must
not be imagined as a nonexistence, but rather as the
support of a particular condition of the Spirit.' It is the enstasis
of total emptiness, without sensory content or intellectual structure, an
unconditioned state that is no longer 'experience' (for there is no further
relation between consciousness and the world) but 'revelation.' Intellect (buddhi), having accomplished its mission, withdraws,
detaching itself from the Self (purusha) and
returning into prakriti. The Self remains
free, autonomous: it contemplates itself. 'Human' consciousness is suppressed;
that is, it no longer functions, its constituent elements being reabsorbed into
the primordial substance. The yogin attains
deliverance; like a dead man, he has no more relation with life; he is 'dead in
life.' He is the jivan-mukta, the 'liberated
in life.' He no longer lives in time and under the domination of time, but in
an eternal present, in the nunc stans by which Boethius defined eternity.