Samadhi

Discuss Sikhism, Shinto, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Kabbalah, others.
Post Reply
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

The Vaishnava Bhakti Schools of Yoga define samādhi as "complete absorption into the object of one's love (Krishna)." Rather than thinking of "nothing," true samādhi is said to be achieved only when one has pure, unmotivated love of God. Thus samādhi can be entered into through meditation on the personal form of God. Even while performing daily activities a practitioner can strive for full samādhi.

"Anyone who is thinking of Krishna always within himself, he is first-class yogi." If you want perfection in yoga system, don't be satisfied only by practicing a course of asana. You have to go further. Actually, the perfection of yoga system means when you are in samadhi, always thinking of the Visnu form of the Lord within your heart, without being disturbed... Controlling all the senses and the mind. You have to control the mind, control the senses, and concentrate everything on the form of Vishnu. That is called perfection of yoga" - A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

"Meditation means to absorb your mind in the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is meditation, real meditation. In all the standard scriptures and in yoga practice formula, the whole aim is to concentrate one's mind in the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is called samadhi, samadhi, ecstasy. So that ecstasy is immediately brought by this chanting process. You begin chanting and hear for the few seconds or few minutes: you immediately become on the platform of ecstasy." - A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

A Place for Paramahansa Yogananda Devotees
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Blue Nova



hmmm...interesting.

same thing as loving god with all ones heart. all one can do it think about god.....with loving thoughts.

so then god reaches down to that soul and then merges or becomes one with that soul.....

samadhi. all soul 'yearns or desires' for is god.....so god answers soul..and then ensues , a very long hug....between soul and god. during that time, soul , probably...all it wants to do is 'be left alone' with god...

seeks retreat...solitude....during this time called 'samadhi'. 'retreats to cave'.

during samadhi bonding between soul and god happens.

pretty 'western' description...yet, it is the same....yes ??????????????????????
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Rajakrsna

...no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

god & krsna are not the same, are they? the former is impersonal...whereas the latter is a person...like saying, "...that dog is nice but goofy is nicer."
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Thisbody



"Now that's pretty goofy," Goofy replied, before he goofed off.
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Rajakrsna

"Now that's pretty goofy," Goofy replied, before he became a mistake (mystic).
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Thisbody



As a perfected bhakta, dear Dr Melvin surely is kathab (כָּתַב).
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Blue Nova

ahhh....yes and no....about krishna being same as god. all of gods creations have a soul...which is a direct 'spark' of god. plants, animals and humans.

yesssss....when i first started on the path...i communed with krishna....and do you know what he did ? he pointed to god. so god is where i set my sights.

it is good to love krishna. it is good to love..... but our ultimate goal should be god. that is what christ says too....and guruji.

all 'good teachers' of god will point the 'student' to god.....

i love krishna..i love christ and guruji...and their teachers....

the ultimate goal is god.
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Rajakrsna

Horse With No Name

On the first part of the journey

I was looking at all the life

There were plants and birds and rocks and things

There was sand and hills and rings

The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz

And the sky with no clouds

The heat was hot and the ground was dry

But the air was full of sound

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name

It felt good to be out of the rain

In the desert you can remember your name

'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

La, la ...

After two days in the desert sun

My skin began to turn red

After three days in the desert fun

I was looking at a river bed

And the story it told of a river that flowed

Made me sad to think it was dead

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name

It felt good to be out of the rain

In the desert you can remember your name

'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

La, la ...

After nine days I let the horse run free

'Cause the desert had turned to sea

There were plants and birds and rocks and things

there was sand and hills and rings

The ocean is a desert with it's life underground

And a perfect disguise above

Under the cities lies a heart made of ground

But the humans will give no love

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name

It felt good to be out of the rain

In the desert you can remember your name

'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

La, la ...
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Blue Nova

good song......
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Thisbody

All the different steps in Yoga are intended to bring us scientifically to the superconscious state, or Samadhi. Furthermore, this is a most vital point to understand, that inspiration is as much in every man's nature as it was in that of the ancient prophets. These prophets were not unique; they were men as you or I. They were great Yogis. They had gained this superconsciousness, and you and I can get the same. They were not peculiar people. The very fact that one man ever reached that state, proves that it is possible for every man to do so. Not only is it possible, but every man must, eventually, get to that state, and that is religion. Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth, until we experience it ourselves. You cannot hope to make a man a surgeon by simply giving him a few books. You cannot satisfy my curiosity to see a country by showing me a map; I must have actual experience. Maps can only create curiosity in us to get more perfect knowledge. Beyond that, they have no value whatever. Clinging to books only degenerates the human mind. Was there ever a more horrible blasphemy than the statement that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book! Millions of people have been killed because they did not believe what the books said, because they would not see all the knowledge of God within the covers of a book. Of course this killing and murdering has gone by, but the world is still tremendously bound up in a belief in books.

In order to reach the superconscious state in a scientific manner it is necessary to pass through the various steps of Raja-Yoga I have been teaching. After Pratyahara and Dharana, we come to Dhyana, meditation. When the mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power of flowing in an unbroken current, as it were, towards that point. This state is called Dhyana. When one has so intensified the power of Dhyana as to be able to reject the external part of perception and remain meditating only on the internal part, the meaning, that state is called Samadhi. The three--Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi--together, are called Samyama. That is, if the mind can first concentrate upon an object, and then is able to continue in that concentration for a length of time, and then, by continued concentration, to dwell only on the internal part of the perception of which the object was the effect, everything comes under the control of such a mind.

This meditative state is the highest state of existence. So long as there is desire, no real happiness can come. It is only the contemplative, witness-like study of objects that brings to us real enjoyment and happiness. The animal has its happiness in the senses, the man in his intellect, and the god in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful. To him who desires nothing, and does not mix himself up with them, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and sublimity.

From:

"Raja Yoga" by Swami Vivekananda, Chapter VII
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Blue Nova

w0w....how wonder-full !!

thank you for posting such a beauty-full quote
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Thisbody

A Definite Way to Contact God — By Laurie Pratt (Tara Mata)

The fact that there is a technique, such as Yogoda teaches, whereby Cosmic Consciousness can be attained, is in itself proof that this higher sense is indeed an inherent faculty of all men, needing but the necessary training to call it forth. Most people believe that divine knowledge comes to only a few chosen people, and that the average man can approach no nearer to God than his "faith" will take him. Realization that there is a definite Way to contact God, a technique usable by all men in all circumstances, has come with such a liberating shock to many Yogoda students that they feel they have undergone a new birth.

I have one such case in mind—a man who, as soon as he had heard the Yogoda message, was swept up into Cosmic Consciousness. He is the only man of true Illumination, outside of Swami Yogananda, whom I have known personally, though I have heard or read of a number of other Yogoda students who have had a more or less similar experience.

This man was possessed of intense religious faith and aspiration. Though well read in the sacred scriptures of the world, especially those of the Hindus, he knew that this intellectual knowledge was barren and stony; it did not feed the soul-hunger within him. He did not wish merely to read about spiritual food, but to taste it. Under the even tenor of his days there yawned a black abyss of despair—despair that he was worthy of any direct contact with God, since no such experience was given to him. He finally came to doubt, not God, but the possibility that he would ever be able to have more than an intellectual comprehension of Him. This conviction struck at the roots of his life, and made it seem a worthless and meaningless thing.

Into this dark night of his soul came the light of Yogoda. After attending a few of the public Yogoda lectures, and before taking the class lessons, this man felt the heavy weight of despair lifting from his heart. Returning to his home one night from the last of the public lectures, he was conscious of a great peace within himself. He felt that in some deep fundamental way, he had become a different person. An impulse urged him to look into a mirror in his room, that he might see the new man. There he saw, not his one face, but the face of the Hindu teacher whose lecture he had attended that evening. The flood-gates of joy broke in his soul; he was inundated with waves of indescribable ecstasy. Words that had been merely words to him before—bliss, immortality, eternity, truth, divine love—became, in the twinkling of an eye, the core of his being, the essence of his life, the only possible reality. Realization that these deep, everlasting founts of joy existed in every heart, that this immortal life underlay all the mortality of humanity, that this eternal, all-inclusive love enveloped and supported and guided every particle, every atom of creation, burst upon him with a surety, a divine certainty that caused his whole being to pour forth in a flood of praise and gratitude.

He knew, not with his mind alone, but with his heart and soul, with every cell and molecule of his body. The sublime splendor and joy of this discovery were so vast that he felt that centuries, millenniums, countless eons of suffering were as nothing, as less than nothing, if by such means this bliss could be obtained. Sin, sorrow, death—these were but words now, words without meaning, words swallowed up by joy as minnows by the seven seas.

Physiological Changes

He was aware, during this first period of illumination and during the weeks which followed, of a number of physiological changes within himself. The most striking was what seemed a rearrangement of molecular structures in his brain, or the opening up of new cell-territory there. Ceaselessly, day and night, he was conscious of this work going on. It seemed as though a kind of electrical drill was boring out new cellular thought-channels. This phenomenon is strong proof of Bucke’s theory that Cosmic Consciousness is a natural faculty of man, for it gives evidence that the brain cells which are connected with this faculty are already present in man, although inactive or non-functioning in the majority of human beings at the present time.

Another important change was felt in his spinal column. The whole spine seemed turned into iron for several weeks, so that, when he sat to meditate on God, he felt anchored forever, able to sit in one place eternally without motion or consciousness of any bodily function. At times an influx of super-human strength invaded him, and he felt that he was carrying the whole universe on his shoulders. The elixir of life, the nectar of immortality, he felt flowing in his veins as an actual, tangible force. It seemed like a quicksilver, or a sort of electrical, fluid light throughout his body.

During the weeks of his illumination, he felt no need of food or sleep. But he conformed his outward life to the pattern of his household, and ate and slept when his family did. All food seemed pure spirit to him, and in sleep he was pillowed on the "everlasting arms," awakening to a joy past all words, past all powers of description.

He had previously suffered from chronic catarrh and had been a heavy smoker; now his body was purged of all sickness, and desire for nicotine was wiped completely from his consciousness. His family and friends were aware of a great change in his appearance and manner; his face shone with a radiant light, his eyes were pools of joy. Strangers spoke to him, irresistibly drawn by a strange sympathy; on the street-car, children would come over to sit on his lap, asking him to visit them.

The whole universe was to him bathed in a sea of love; he said to himself many times, "Now at last I know what Love is! This is God’s love, shaming the noblest human affection .Eternal love, unconquerable love, all-satisfying love!" He knew beyond all possibility or thought of doubt that Love creates and sustains the universe, and that all created things human or sub-human, were destined to discover this Love, this immortal bliss that was the very essence of life. He felt his mind expand, his understanding reach out, endlessly widening, growing, touching everything in the universe, binding all things, all thoughts to himself. He was "center everywhere, circumference nowhere."

The Atom-Dance of Nature

The air that he breathed was friendly, intimate, conscious of life. He felt that all the world was "home" to him, that he could never feel strange or alien to any place again; that the mountains, the sea, the distant lands which he had never seen, would be as much his own as the home of his boyhood. Everywhere he looked, he saw the "atom-dance" of nature; the air was filled with myriad moving pin-pricks of light.

During these weeks, he went about his daily duties as usual, but with a hitherto unknown efficiency and speed. Typed papers flew off his machine, completed without error in a fourth of his customary time. Fatigue was unknown to him; his work seemed like child’s play, happy and carefree. Conversing in person or over the telephone with his clients, his inward joy covered every action and circumstance with a cosmic significance, for to him these men, this telephone, this table, this voice was God, God manifesting Himself in another of His fascinating disguises.

In the midst of his work, he would suddenly be freshly overwhelmed by the goodness of God Who had given him this incredible, unspeakable happiness. His breath would stop completely at such times; the awe which he felt would be accompanied by an absolute stillness within and without. Underlying all his consciousness was a sense of immeasurable and unutterable gratitude; a longing for others to know the joy which lay within them; but most of all, a divine knowledge, past all human comprehension, that all was well with the world, that everything was leading to the goal of Cosmic Consciousness, immortal bliss.

This state of illumination was present with the man for about two months, and then gradually wore away. It has never returned with all its pristine force, though certain features, especially the sense of divine peace and joy, return whenever he practices the Yogoda meditation exercises.

We can well imagine, with Doctor Bucke, that a race of men, possessing as a normal and permanent faculty this sense of Cosmic Consciousness, would soon turn the earth into a paradise, a planet fit for Christs and Buddhas, and polestar for the wheeling universe.

From:

Inner Culture, Vol. 6 (Later: East-West)
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Rajakrsna

We can't remain sitting & do nothing. We've got to come out from our individual shells & go where our services are needed especially those who are victims of child abuse, rape, calamities, poverty, diseases & injustice. Let's not wallow in fantasies, self-realizations & divinity. REALITY is out there. The hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, the poor, the victims of war, racism & prejudice.
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Thisbody



So true, Raja!
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

Quote from Adhikari



As already mentioned, all devotees should try to be compassionate in a practical way. I do want to mention though that the Indian counterpart of SRF does many organized activities to help people: YSS Charities. By no means is this intended to absolve other devotees of concern for the less fortunate, it is just to show that this idea is a real part of Yoganandaji's mission.
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

Samadhi

Post by rajakrsna »

End of topic

--------------
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
Post Reply

Return to “Eastern Religions”