Samadhi – the State of the Supra-Consciousness
Samadhi represents the glorious and final state of every authentic spiritual path. Even if we call it different names – Satori in Zen, Nirvana in Buddhism or the Deification in Christianity – it is in fact, the same supreme condition of the human being.
The reality of the Samadhi state must be effectively lived: it is not enough to find out information about it or to imagine it, because this is impossible. The truth of its existence, besides the actual experience, is only a partial truth.
Samadhi, the supra-conscious state of divine ecstasy, represents the last stage in Yoga. It is the complete fusion in the person who is a savant, between the object known and the knowledge itself.
Thus meditation (Dhyana) can be represented by a triangle: in one corner is the consciousness of the adept(the one who meditates), the second corner is the aspect that is to be known (the object of the meditation) and the third is the action of knowing the object under to meditation. These three are distinct. In Samadhi (the divine ecstasy), they merge totally; they melt into each other and become one and the same reality.
The object of mental concentration and of profound meditation is brilliantly alone in the enlarged field of the yogi’s consciousness in Samadhi. The duality of subject-object, learned person and object to be known disappears completely as well. In this state, the completely mind takes the form of the object; therefore, its own form appears to be missing. In reality, the yogis say that the mind doesn’t disappear, because even if its ability to think other thoughts is suspended, the much enriched consciousness does not lose this capability. Once in this state perception is realized without intermediary channels (like the senses or the mind) and that is why such an experience is a phenomenon of identification. Samadhi represents a non-differentiated state of identification with the object to be known, immersion in its ultimate essence, in a pundit’s awareness of detaching from himself. The yogi experiences a state of consciousness in which he perceives the unique and non-differentiated substrata of all things, creatures and universes. In this time one gains direct knowledge of what the wise men have said for millennia, namely: “the part is in the Whole and the Whole is present in the part”. In Samadhi, the human being withdraws his consciousness from the object of meditation, copying it within the inner self. Thus, the object to be known becomes the connoisseur and the connoisseur becomes the process of knowing itself. ” One becomes one with everything”. This state is sometimes referred to as “void” (shunya) because of the contrast with the apparent complete objectivity that preceded it.
Meditation (Dhyana) that results in the Samadhi state is a progressive process. As an object can be observed shedding its exterior attributes, then the meditator can identify himself with the very essence of this object. Only Pure Existence remains; our essential nature. When water evaporates, the reflection of the Sun in it disappears too. Similarly, when the mind dissolves itself in the Absolute Reality (God), hence when the lake of the mind disappears, the consciousness of individuality disappears as well. The beatitude that marks the entering of Samadhi is beyond words.
This process of the re-discovery of the unique, non-differentiated substrata of everything that exists, constitutes the essential prerequisite condition of spiritual enlightenment. From this moment, finite objects no longer appear as separate and limited structures.
Moreover, the consciousness that forms all things comes to the surface, being revealed as the true reality of perceivable objects.
Samadhi does not represent an inert condition, as skeptical persons say. The life in spirit does not mean annihilation. When the spirit uncovers itself from the veil of illusion, focusing its attention on ordinary things and being beyond the limitations of this ephemeral existence, life is intensified.
