Samadhi - The End or The Beginning?
In Siddha Samadhi Yoga, our main focus is on teaching Samadhi. Everybody feels, that Samadhi is the last step in Astang Yoga, ‘How are you teaching it as the first step?’ There are eight limbs of Yoga and each limb refers to different aspects of our being. They are Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. The first limb, Yama is related to how you operate in the world? How you operate with others? Vyavahara i.e. behavior with reference to others is Yama e.g. being truthful, not to accumulate goods etc. are Yamas. Niyamas are your own personal habits like cleanliness, self-analysis etc. These are more to do with yourself rather than your interaction with others.
It is basically, how am I to be with myself. Asanas is for the body. What is a Perfect Asana? Perfect Asana is not doing all kinds of acrobatics. Asana means - a steady and comfortable posture. To attain a steady and comfortable posture is the process of Asana. Pranayama is subtler than Asana. It is about your life energy or your prana shakti. Your body is vital, only as long as it has Prana. The body may have everything, but, if it doesn’t have Prana it is useless. Pranayama means to expand or extend the Prana. Pratyahara is for the senses. Pratya means different and ahara means food. Normally, objects are the food for eyes. Sound is the food for ears. Touch is the food for skin. Smell is the food for nose. Taste is the food for tongue. In this way, our five senses have got different aharas. When the senses instead of going outwards, go inwards they begin to have a different ahara. They begin to feed on something that is different from the external flow. All sensory organs are attuned to outer food or inputs. When in meditation the mind is turned inwards. The senses start getting different food i.e. Parabramha Stithi.
So taking the sensory organs inwards is called Pratyahara. Dharana relates to the mind (Manas) i.e. what you hold in your mind. If you hold crazy things in your mind, then the body will be disturbed by that. If you hold a nice, wonderful picture in your mind, then the whole body will relax. The mind is like a TV screen, you can project anything on your mind. The projection on the mind comes from two places - either the external senses, which give you the stimulus or your past memory will give you the stimulus. In computer language you can draw the input from your memory or it is coming from the periphery. Whatever the mind holds that begins to happen to the body. Dharana has to do with what you hold in your mind. If you hold negative things, then negative things will begin to happen to your body. If you hold positive things, then positive things will happen in your body. What you hold in your mind shifts very rapidly with knowledge for e.g. if you hear the sound of a door opening in the dark, one person may say a ghost is making the sound and starts shivering. A person, who knows that there is wind, and because of that the door is moving, will not get scared.
So what you experience depends upon the knowledge you have. So knowledge - right discrimination is very important. Dhyana is concerned with the intellect (Buddhi) i.e. with what you understand. Dharana is concerned with the mind, Dhyana is concerned with the intellect. Now Samadhi is concerned with the Being i.e. the ego-state (Ahamkara). Ahamkara means the sense of identification - What you consider yourself to be. Your discrimination depends upon what you consider yourself to be. The reason you hold certain things as right or wrong, good or bad, all depends on the sense of identity. The function of the intellect is to simply protect your identity (somebodiness), which you are bound to.
So, Samadhi is to puncture that state of somebodiness and become a nobody. So, as you go on meditating, you start feeling more and more free. The more you let go, the more freedom you experience. So what is it that we must teach people? If we tell them you must be truthful, you must be straight to others, you must do good things. After you have attained these Yamas then we will go to Niyamas - your personal habits and refine them. After you have become perfectly pure and clean then we will think about sitting in a particular Asana, that is comfortable. First get yourself perfectly okay then decide to sit comfortably. Is this the way Yoga goes? It is the most foolish way to go about it. Do you think that from Yama, Niyama it is possible to go to Samadhi? So is it going to happen? It is impossible! That is why all of the Yoga is dead, because they have gone in the reverse direction. When a person begins to let go, by going inwards, he gains strength, gains inner happiness, he will automatically do things better than before. Then the Yamas and Niyamas happen naturally to him. He will naturally live in freedom, strength and the beauty of life will naturally open up.
- By Guruji Shri Rishi Prabhakar
It is basically, how am I to be with myself. Asanas is for the body. What is a Perfect Asana? Perfect Asana is not doing all kinds of acrobatics. Asana means - a steady and comfortable posture. To attain a steady and comfortable posture is the process of Asana. Pranayama is subtler than Asana. It is about your life energy or your prana shakti. Your body is vital, only as long as it has Prana. The body may have everything, but, if it doesn’t have Prana it is useless. Pranayama means to expand or extend the Prana. Pratyahara is for the senses. Pratya means different and ahara means food. Normally, objects are the food for eyes. Sound is the food for ears. Touch is the food for skin. Smell is the food for nose. Taste is the food for tongue. In this way, our five senses have got different aharas. When the senses instead of going outwards, go inwards they begin to have a different ahara. They begin to feed on something that is different from the external flow. All sensory organs are attuned to outer food or inputs. When in meditation the mind is turned inwards. The senses start getting different food i.e. Parabramha Stithi.
So taking the sensory organs inwards is called Pratyahara. Dharana relates to the mind (Manas) i.e. what you hold in your mind. If you hold crazy things in your mind, then the body will be disturbed by that. If you hold a nice, wonderful picture in your mind, then the whole body will relax. The mind is like a TV screen, you can project anything on your mind. The projection on the mind comes from two places - either the external senses, which give you the stimulus or your past memory will give you the stimulus. In computer language you can draw the input from your memory or it is coming from the periphery. Whatever the mind holds that begins to happen to the body. Dharana has to do with what you hold in your mind. If you hold negative things, then negative things will begin to happen to your body. If you hold positive things, then positive things will happen in your body. What you hold in your mind shifts very rapidly with knowledge for e.g. if you hear the sound of a door opening in the dark, one person may say a ghost is making the sound and starts shivering. A person, who knows that there is wind, and because of that the door is moving, will not get scared.
So what you experience depends upon the knowledge you have. So knowledge - right discrimination is very important. Dhyana is concerned with the intellect (Buddhi) i.e. with what you understand. Dharana is concerned with the mind, Dhyana is concerned with the intellect. Now Samadhi is concerned with the Being i.e. the ego-state (Ahamkara). Ahamkara means the sense of identification - What you consider yourself to be. Your discrimination depends upon what you consider yourself to be. The reason you hold certain things as right or wrong, good or bad, all depends on the sense of identity. The function of the intellect is to simply protect your identity (somebodiness), which you are bound to.
So, Samadhi is to puncture that state of somebodiness and become a nobody. So, as you go on meditating, you start feeling more and more free. The more you let go, the more freedom you experience. So what is it that we must teach people? If we tell them you must be truthful, you must be straight to others, you must do good things. After you have attained these Yamas then we will go to Niyamas - your personal habits and refine them. After you have become perfectly pure and clean then we will think about sitting in a particular Asana, that is comfortable. First get yourself perfectly okay then decide to sit comfortably. Is this the way Yoga goes? It is the most foolish way to go about it. Do you think that from Yama, Niyama it is possible to go to Samadhi? So is it going to happen? It is impossible! That is why all of the Yoga is dead, because they have gone in the reverse direction. When a person begins to let go, by going inwards, he gains strength, gains inner happiness, he will automatically do things better than before. Then the Yamas and Niyamas happen naturally to him. He will naturally live in freedom, strength and the beauty of life will naturally open up.
- By Guruji Shri Rishi Prabhakar
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