Samadhi (समाधिः)

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वितर्कविचारानन्दास्मितारूपानुगमात्संप्रज्ञातः ॥ १.१७ ॥

Meaning: The concentration called right know-ledge is that which is followed by reasoning, discrimination, bliss, unqualified ego.

This Samadhi is divided into two varieties.

• Samprajnata
• Asamprajnata

The Samprajnata is of four varieites. In this Samadhi come all the powers of controlling nature.

• Savitarka

The first variety is called the Savitarka, when the mind meditates upon an object again and again, by isolating it from other objects. There are two sorts of objects for meditation, the categories of nature, and the Purusa. Again, the categories are of two varieties; the twenty-four categories are insentient, and the one sentient is the Purusa. When the mind thinks of the elements of nature by thinking of their beginning and their end, this is one sort of Savitarka. This part of Yoga is based entirely on Sankhya Philosophy. Egoism and will, and mind, have a common basis, and that common basis is called the Chitta, the mind-stuff, out of which they are all manufactured. This mind-stuff takes in the forces of nature, and projects them as thought. There must be something, again, where both force and matter are one. This is called Avyaktam, the unmanifested state of nature, before creation, and to which, after the end of a cycle, the whole of nature returns, to again come out after another period. Beyond that is the Purusa, the essence of intelligence. There is no liberation in getting powers. It is a worldly search after enjoyment in this life; all search for enjoyment is vain; this is the old, old lesson which man finds it so hard to learn. When he does learn it, he gets out of the universe and becomes free. The possession of what are called occult powers is only intensifying the world, and in the end intensifying suffering. Though, as a scientist, Patanjali is bound to point out the possibilities of this science, he never misses an opportunity to warn us against these powers. Knowledge is power, and as soon as we begin to know a thing we get power over it; so also, when the mind begins to meditate on the different elements it gains power over them. That sort of meditation where the external gross elements are the objects is called Savitarka.

Tarka means question, Savitarka with-question. Questioning the elements, as it were, that they may give up their truths and their powers to the man who meditates upon them.

• Nirvitarka

Again, in the very same meditation, when one struggles to take the elements out of time and space, and think of them as they are, it is called Nirvitarka, without-question.

• Savichara

When the meditation goes a step higher, and takes the Tanmatras as its object, and thinks of them as in time and space, it is called Savichara, with-discrimination.

• Nirvichara

When the same meditation gets beyond time and space, and thinks of the fine elements as they are, it is called Nirvichara, without-discrimination.

• Sananda

The next step is when the elements are given up, either as gross or as fine, and the object of meditation is the interior organ, the thinking organ, and when the thinking organ is thought of as bereft of the qualities of activity, and of dullness, it is then called Sanandam, the blissful Samadhi.

• Asmita Samadhi

In that Samadhi, when we are thinking of the mind as the object of meditation, before we have reached the state which takes us beyond the mind even, when it has become very ripe and concentrated, when all ideas of the gross materials, or fine materials, have been given up, and the only object is the mind as it is, when the Sattva state only of the Ego remains, but differentiated from all other objects, this is called Asmita Samadhi, and 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; but he will have to think of himself as with a fine body. Those that in this state get merged in nature without attaining the goal are called Prakrtilayas, but those who do not even stop at any enjoyments, reach the goal, which is freedom.