8 Limbs: Limb 8: Samadhi

“Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss is where I am found.” ~from the Song of the Soul

“Samadhi is the end of the sadhaka’s (spiritual person’s) quest. At the peak of his meditations, he passes into the state of samadhi, where his body and senses are at rest as if he is asleep, his faculties of mind and reason are alert as if he is awake, yet he has gone beyond consciousness. The person in a state of samadhi is fully conscious and alert… …this state can only be experssed by profound silence. The yogi has departed from the material world and is merged in the Eternal. There is no duality between the knower and the known for they are merged like camphor and the flame.” (taken from Light on Yoga)

Samadhi is merging back with the divine. Samadhi is the most profound state of meditation and consciousness. In samadhi, the process of concentration, the object of concentration, and the mind that is trying to concentrate or meditate have all become one. Samadhi is something we sometimes get glimpses of, but never fully have a complete handle on (or else we’d be enlightened). It is a state of oneness with the divine, perceiving the entire universe with the soul, where everything else dissolves and there is only pure awareness. Truly a state of pure consciousness beyond limits of the physical body and limitations of the mind and the senses. Samadhi is not something we practice, but something we may experience (most likely spontaneously) through dharana (concentration) and dhyana (meditation).