... justified. However high the power of awakening goes, there seems to be a beyond in which the image of sleep, of suṣupti , will still find its application. Such is the principle of the Yogic trance, Samadhi,—into its complex phenomena we need not now enter. It is sufficient to note its double utility in the integral Yoga. It is true that up to a point difficult to define or delimit almost all that ...
... Chaitanya and Mira PREFACE Often enough, when I sing in our temple, Indira Devi goes off into a mystic trance — samadhi — and sees Mira singing or dancing, in a Brindavan temple, in the midst of some devotees or learned sadhus who start with her a discussion or an altercation, as the case may be. After a time, when Indira Devi comes to, she relates ...
... experiences produces in this part of the mind a sense of exhaustion or of unease or dullness. Trance or Samadhi is a way of escape—the body is made quiet, the physical mind is in a state of torpor, the inner consciousness is left free to go on with its experience. The disadvantage is, that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved, it remains imperfect... Trance My Pilgrimage to the Spirit March 3, 1932 This action of the mental nature is the usual obstacle to progress. Each part of the nature wants to go on with its old movements and refuses, as far as it can, to admit a radical change and progress, because that would subject it to something higher than itself and deprive it of its sovereignty in its own ...
... Some Answers and Explanations Our Many Selves Need for Establishing a Relation between the Outer and the Inner “The disadvantage [of trance or Samadhi ] is that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved; it remain imperfect.” “Waking consciousness is not solved”? And naturally! Because if in order to ...
... compared with the ordinary mind. Is that all? ( Silence ) Somebody has asked me a question about trance—what in India is called samadhi , that is to say, when one passes or enters into a state of which no conscious memory remains when one wakes up: "Is the state of trance or samadhi a sign of progress?" In ancient times it was considered a very high condition. It was even thought to... literature I had always read marvellous things about this state of trance or samadhi, and it so happened that I had never experienced it. So I did not know whether this was a sign Page 274 of inferiority. And when I came here, one of my first questions to Sri Aurobindo was: "What do you think of samadhi, that state of trance one does not remember? One enters into a condition which seems blissful... people speak to me about samadhi, I tell them, "Well, try to develop your inner individuality and you will be able to enter these very regions in full consciousness and have the joy of communion with the highest regions, but without losing all consciousness and returning with a zero instead of an experience." So that is my reply to the person who has asked if samadhi or trance is a sign of progress ...
... satisfied with spiritual experience in the mind. But the mind can grasp only the fragmentary; it cannot completely seize the infinite, the undivided. The mind's way to seize it is through the trance of samadhi, the liberation of moksha, the extinction of nirvana, and so forth. It has no other way. Someone here or there May indeed obtain this featureless liberation, but what is the gain? The Spirit ...
... Challenge Perfect knowledge must lead to the trance of Samadhi.... True Knowledge cannot be attained except in Samadhi. (Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathasar, p. 247) Nor is it enough for the Sadhaka to have the utter realisation only in the trance of Samadhi or in a motionless quietude, but he must in trance or in waking, in passive reflection or ... state; they can be acquired only by means of the Yogic trance or Samadhi. In this connection the case of Sri Chaitanya is often cited. According to the accounts given by his associates he alternated between three different states: (i) the state of the bhakta, (ii) the intoxicated state and (iii) the state of Nirvikalpa or 'seedless' Samadhi. In the narration of Sri Ramakrishna: "Chaitanya... been cut off." 5 So, it is only in the highest state of Yogic trance that ego can be eliminated altogether. Conversely, on the elimination of ego-sense, a person must perforce leave the waking state and retire into Samadhi. And as we have mentioned above, for the general run of Sadhakas, this plunge into the trance-state is sooner or later followed by the dropping off of the body-sheath ...
... of so-called spiritual literature marvellous things about this state of trance or Samadhi; and it happened that I had never had it. I did not know if it was a sign of inferiority. And when I arrived here [at Pondicherry], one of my first questions to Sri Aurobindo was, 'What do you think of Samadhi, this state of trance which one does not remember? One enters into a condition which seems to be... Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 124) Trance-experiences are undoubtedly of great value in the pursuit of the spiritual goal as ordinarily understood, and the Nirvikalpa Samadhi taken in the specific sense in which the term is used, no doubt represents a supreme height of realisation that a seeker may aspire after. Naturally enough, this most elevated trance-state proves to be adequate if the... the inner to the outer waking." In this connection we feel tempted to reproduce in extenso what the Mother said in reply to the question " Is the state of trance or Samadhi a sign of progress ?" 2 "To enter into Samadhi is to pass into a state of which no conscious memory remains on awakening. "In ancient times this was considered as a very high condition. It was even thought ...
... is the last highest overmind." What you call supramental overmind 1 is still overmind—not a part of the true Supermind. One cannot get into the true Supermind (except in some kind of trance or Samadhi) unless one has first objectivised the overmind Truth in life, speech, action, external knowledge and not only experienced it in meditation and inner experience. The Overmind, the Intuition ...
... mind, it goes without saying, for that must be abolished before going into trance), everything here in the head, above the head, around the head—absolutely immobile. After all that, towards the end of the night, at two in the morning, only a kind of faint suggestion was left: How can this state—which I knew in trance, in samadhi, and which necessitates lying down—become constant in a physical body which... three Supreme Principles, Existence ( Sat ), Consciousness ( Chit ), and Bliss ( Ananda ). × Samadhi : trance. × The Ashwatha Tree Katha Upanishad , II, iii, 1 . ... glass of water, but it was all so ... bizarre. And when I went back to bed, it took nearly forty-five minutes for the body to regain its normal state. Only after I had entered into another type of samadhi 2 and again come out of it did my consciousness fully return. It is the first time I have had an experience of this kind. During those three hours, there was nothing but the Supreme manifesting ...
... omnipotent, Page 1337 and associated with the state of dreamless Sleep or full Trance.) AUM Turiya, the Fourth; the pure Spirit beyond these three, Atman consciousness entering into Tat Sat and able to identify with it. Believed to be obtainable in its absoluteness only in absolute Trance—nirvikalpa samadhi. All this (first in the Upanishads) is the viewpoint from the mental consciousness... exceeded, the superconscient made conscient and the subconscient or inconscient which is the inevitable shadow of the superconscient filled with the true spiritual and supramental consciousness. The Trance, Dream and Waking States (all imperfect at present and either touched with obscurity or limited) become each completely conscious and the walls, gaps or reversals of consciousness that intervene between ...
... movements of the mind, cittavṛtti-nirodha ; there is the control of the breathing, Pranayama; there is the drawing in of the sense and the vision. All of them are processes which lead to the inner trance of Samadhi, the object of all of them mokṣa , and mokṣa signifies in ordinary parlance the renunciation not only of the separative ego-consciousness, but of the whole active consciousness, a dissolution... of desire. He has conquered his lower self, reached the perfect calm in which his highest self is manifest to him, that highest self always concentrated in its own being, samāhita , in Samadhi, not only in the trance of the inward-drawn consciousness, but always, in the waking state of the mind as well, in exposure to Page 240 the causes of desire and of the disturbance of calm, to grief... possible? No doubt, the Yogin for a time still remains in the body, but the cave, the forest, the mountain-top seem now the fittest, the only possible scene of his continued living and constant trance of Samadhi his sole joy and occupation. But, first, while this solitary Yoga is being pursued, the renunciation of all other action is not recommended by the Gita. This Yoga, it says, is not for the man ...
... called Samadhi. (The sign of the seeker in Samadhi is not that he loses consciousness of objects and surroundings and of his mental and physical self and cannot be recalled to it even by burning or torture of the body. These things happen in a trance, and people ordinarily call this state of trance as Samadhi. But while trance is a particular intensity, it is not the essential sign of Samadhi.) ... physical, practically discernible signs of this great state of Samadhi, which can be described in the modes of speaking, sitting and walking of the one who is seated in Samadhi, Samadhistha. But there are still other inner signs; (i) equality is the great stamp of the liberated soul; (j) samadhistha (one seated in Samadhi) is with mind untroubled by sorrows; he has done with desire for... 6. The state of Samadhi is tested by the following: Page 306 (a) expulsion of all desires; (b) inability of desires to get at the mind; (c) inner state in which freedom from desires arises; " (d) the delight of the soul gathered within itself with the mind equal and still high-poised above the attractions and repulsions, the alternations of sunshine and storm and ...
... don't understand this: "The disadvantage [of trance or samadhi] is that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved; it remain imperfect." "Waking consciousness is not solved"? And naturally! Because if in order to have a meditation or a relation with the inner world, you are obliged to enter into samadhi , your waking consciousness always remain what ...
... generally attached in spiritual Sadhana to the phenomenon of yogic trance or Samadhi; for, this latter is considered to be a potent means — an almost unavoidable one, many would insist — of escape from the shackles and the obscuring glow of the physical nature and consciousness. But sleep too like trance (and "trance [itself]...can be regarded 1 The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 498-99... temporarily, the stone-grip of the ignorance of 'our waking that is sleep' and awakening instead in the superior states of consciousness and being. And herein lies the great role of 'sleep-trance' and 'dream-trance", to which we have alluded earlier in our discussion. Did not the Orphic doctrine that only when free from the body does the soul awake to its true life, lead naturally to the view that... 498-99. 2 Ibid., p. 499. Page 195 as a kind of dream or sleep" 1 ), can very well open the gates of these superior planes of our being; for in sleep, as in trance, we retire behind the veil of our limited waking personality and "the surface mental consciousness...passes out of the perception of objective things into the subliminal and the superior supramental or over-mental ...
... own consciousness, to disappear into another and temporarily or permanently lose itself, if not quite abolish. It has to go into the trance of Samadhi. For this reason the Raja and other systems of Yoga give a supreme importance to the state of Samadhi or Yogic trance in which the mind withdraws not only from its ordinary interests and preoccupations, but first from all consciousness of outward act... that it cannot ordinarily quite enter into another without leaving behind completely both all our waking existence and all our inward mind. This is the necessity of the Yogic trance. But one cannot continually remain in this trance; or, even if one could persist in it for an indefinitely long period, it is always likely to be broken in upon by any strong or persistent call on the bodily life. And when... least velleity of the human life, of the mental existence, to detach himself utterly from the world and, entering more and more frequently and more and more deeply into the most concentrated state of Samadhi, finally to leave the body while in that utter in-gathering of the being so that it may depart into the supreme Existence. It is also by reason of this apparent incompatibility of mind and Spirit that ...
... our present form of natural existence but originated from above and raising us towards the higher spiritual status. The mind too can rise towards and touch her infinity or merge itself in it in trance of samadhi or can lose itself in her universality, and then our individuality disappears, our centre of action is then no longer in us, but either outside our bodied selves or nowhere; our mental activities ...
... of the first things I told him when we met was, 'Well, everybody talks about trance and samadhi and all those things, but I have never had them! I have never lost consciousness.' 'Ah,' he replied, 'it's exactly the same for me!' It depends upon the level of development, that's what Theon used to say: 'One goes into trance only when certain links are missing.' He saw people as made up of innumerable... s of samadhi—for him, these domains were conscious; he would sit on his bed or in his armchair and have all the experiences. Naturally, it's preferable to be in a comfortable position (it's a question of security). If you venture to do these kinds of things standing up, for instance, as I have seen them done, it's dangerous. But if one is quietly stretched out, there is no need for trance. Besides... it's not necessarily in trance, in another world, that one gets the supramental consciousness.... No. It's something the Rishis realized with eyes wide open, in day to-day life, if I understand rightly. I don't know how they did it.... But I myself have never had it in trance, and neither did Sri Aurobindo—neither of us ever had trances! I mean the kind of trance where contact with the ...
... But since the yogic trance or Samadhi is so often held up not only as a supreme means of access to the higher possible spiritual consciousness but "as the very condition and status of that highest consciousness itself, in which alone it can be completely possessed and enjoyed while we are in the body," 1 we must digress here for a while to examine the nature of Samadhi and find out its utility... samādhi,... because this is the trance of absorption in which all psychoses and appearances of objects are stopped...." 3 1 Pātan jala S ū tra, 1.2. 2 Yoga-V ā sistha, IV. 5.18. 3 Chatterjee and Dutta, An Introduction to Indian Philosophy, p. 305. Page 79 In more general terms we may say that Samadhi or yogic trance is that state of superconsciousness... transcripts of the experiences therein to reach the portals of the normal waking consciousness. This is the state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi claimed to be the highest status of spiritual attainment and assiduously sought after by every seeker after trance. In this ultimate trance-state of pure superconscient existence, in this supra-mental immersion in the infinite being and the unconditioned bliss ...
... in the consciousness of the supreme Truth. Nor is it enough for the sadhaka to have the utter realisation only in the trance of Samadhi or in a motionless quietude, but he must in trance or in waking, in passive reflection or energy of action be able to remain in the constant Samadhi of the firmly founded Brahmic consciousness. 1 But if Page 364 or when our conscious being has become ...
... as distinguished from corresponding sub-planes in the mental being, or still more to dwell consciously upon them is the most difficult thing of all for the human being. It can be done in the trance of Samadhi, but otherwise only by a new evolution of the capacities of the individual Purusha of which few are even willing to conceive. Yet is that the condition of the perfect self-consciousness by which ...
... × Satprem had assumed that this state of consciousness was accessible only through a kind of trance or samadhi and that when Mother said one had to be capable of 'maintaining this state,' she meant that one should be capable of bringing it back here, into the waking consciousness. However, Mother rectified: ...
... "the mind has to leave its own consciousness, to disappear into another and temporarily or permanently lose itself.. .in the trance of Samadhi." 2 For obvious reasons this mindless absolute trance-state cannot be our objective (vide Chap.V: The Critique of the Trance-Solution). Our aim is to transform the waking mentality itself, and for that we have to invoke another possibility open to the... positive a thing to express its entire unreality." 1 But this universal Illusionism is not a necessary concomitant of the supreme spiritual experience. If instead of the mind's abrupt Samadhi-plunge into the mystic sleep state of su ṣ upti that is now superconscient and therefore inaccessible to it, one succeeds in acquiring spiritual wakefulness in the supernal states intervening ...
... sort of a trance, and in that trance, he used to compose poems: poem after poem, poem after poem, that have come out in the name of The Adventure of the Apocalypse - a wonderful collection of poems which he could not have written in his waking consciousness. Some of these poems I think I'll read out to you later. So there, ladies and gentlemen, there again, a phenomenon: in trance, in samadhi ...
... planes above mind. 23 June 1933 What you call supramental overmind 1 is still overmind—not a part of the true Supermind. One cannot get into the true Supermind (except in some kind of trance or Samadhi) unless one has first objectivised the overmind Truth in life, speech, action, external knowledge and not only experienced it in meditation and inner experience. 25 February 1934 I sent... perception of these things because they lived at the highest in the spiritualised higher mind, and for the rest could only receive things from even the Overmind—they could not enter it except by deep samadhi (सुषुप्ति). Prajna and Ishwara were for them Lord of the suṣupti . 20 November 1933 Is it possible for another being to take birth in a human being's কারণ দেহ [kāraṇa deha] and see everything ...
... thence without the danger of losing itself in the higher planes so difficult for us to be in touch with—they being sushupta in us,—that we also in our ordinary state must become sushupta in the trance of Samadhi to reach them and cannot command them in our waking consciousness. 10) पितुश्च गर्भं जनितुश्च बभ्रे पूर्वाीरेको अधयत्पीप्यानाः । वृष्णे सपत्नी शुचये सबंधू उभे अस्मै मनुष्ये नि पाहि ॥१०॥ ...
... motivated and directed sadhana. If the aim was integral change and supramental transformation, it was necessary to avoid the usual traps and dangers of the traditional Yogas. In a condition of trance or samadhi the body may be laid asleep, individuality may be transcended, and the feeling of separativity may be suspended; only the soul is awake, and feels ineffably one with omnipresent Reality... Champaklal, Jaya Devi and others - are unanimous that, when Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had withdrawn after meditation, pranam and blessings, Datta spoke some words as if visioning something in a trance or a sudden apocalyptic flash. They had all seen that there was a new lustre, a luminous glory, on Sri Aurobindo - but what had brought about that change? Like a prophetess in a temple of old speaking... fascinating new world, a world of the Gods. She related to Sri Aurobindo what had been happening: *Sethna has advised the original "ten" be replaced by "six". †One of the sadhaks had in a trance seen Anilbaran Roy as a white swan rising. and Anilbaran Roy himself saw a vision of Mother India seated on a lion "as we see in Jagaddhatri figure ... a crown on her head, a sceptre In her fight ...
... the time sense and in the succession of the moments. If our present mind untransformed by the supramental influence tries to enter into the timeless, it must either disappear and be lost in the trance of Samadhi or Page 885 else, remaining awake, it feels itself diffused in an Infinite where there is perhaps a sense of supra-physical space, a vastness, a boundless extension of consciousness ...
... experiences. It can be aware of all things in whatever world, on whatever plane, in whatever formation of universal consciousness. It can be aware of the things of the material universe even in the trance of samadhi, aware of them as they are or appear to the physical sense, even as it is of other states of experience, of the pure vital, the mental, the psychical, the supramental presentation of things. It... impresses of physical things, persons, scenes, happenings, whatever is, was or will be or may be in the physical universe. These images are very variously seen and under all kinds of conditions; in samadhi or in the waking state, and in the latter with the bodily eyes closed or open, projected on or into a physical object or medium or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical... kinds of action otherwise and elsewhere than in the physical body, communication in the psychical body or some emanation or reproduction of it, oftenest, though by no means necessarily, during sleep or trance and the setting up of relations or communication by various means with the denizens of another plane of existence. For there is a continuous scale of the planes of consciousness, beginning with ...
... lower is transformed, it becomes of one kind with the higher and there is nothing lower to pull downward. Letters on Yoga, p. 1143 (c) Samadhi — Yogic Trance Trance in English is usually used only for the deeper kinds of samadhi; but, as there is no other word, we have to use it for all kinds. Letters on Yoga, pp. 742-43 ...since mind-consciousness is the sole waking... of Samadhi he attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires. The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 499-500 "Nirvikalpa Samadhi" properly means a complete trance in which there is no thought or movement of consciousness or awareness of either inward or outward things — all is drawn up into a supracosmic Beyond. Letters on Yoga, p. 741 Nirvikalpa Samadhi according... Samadhi in Traditional Yogas Intimately connected with the aim of the Yoga of Knowledge which must always be the growth, the ascent or the withdrawal into a higher or a divine consciousness not now normal to us, is the importance attached to the phenomenon of Yogic trance, to Samadhi. It is supposed that there are states of being which can only be gained in trance; that especially ...
... of anxiety on Aurobindo's face. Later, we were to talk about this among ourselves and Amar-da rightly said: "The one for whom we were anxious was altogether calm like someone absorbed in the trance of samadhi." That Aurobindo was a man beyond anxiety or fear, that he was abhi (fearless} I had heard, but before this meeting I had not had the good fortune of seeing it for myself. ‘It was almost ...
... satisfied with spiritual experience in the mind. But the mind can grasp only the fragmentary; it cannot completely seize the infinite, the undivided. The mind's way to seize it is through the trance of samadhi, the liberation of moksha, the extinction of nirvana and so forth. It has no other way. Someone here or there may indeed obtain this featureless liberation, but what is the gain? The Spirit, the ...
... modifications, in the oneness of Samādhi. Samadhi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths as it draws farther and farther away from the normal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to waking mind, less and less ready to receive the summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point, the trance becomes complete, and it is then almost quite ... then uncoils itself and begins to rise upwards like a fiery serpent breaking up each lotus as it ascends until the shakti meets the Conscious Being (Purusha) in the brahmarandhra in a deep trance or Samadhi of union. Tantra also has discovered the power of the mantra, sacred syllable, name or mystic- formula, and with the aid of mantra, Kundalini-shakti can be awakened and new states of consciousness... current — udāna, opening for it a way through the mystic centre in the head, brahmarandhra. By departing from life in the state of Samadhi, one attains directly to that higher status of being to which one aspires. But even before one attains to the state of Samadhi, one is able to enter repeatedly into that state, and the Raja Yogic methods, during the processes of their repeated applications, ...
... you can my soul fulfil: Make me your own once and for all , Disposing of me as you will. ( A silence falls. All bow to the ground. Then Sanatan goes off into a half-trance — bhav samadhi — and Mira gazes at him for a few minutes. Then she shivers and looks at Ajit who bows again. ) AJIT ( brushing away his tears ) And then? MIRA What then? ... fare from dusk to dawn? And yet they'll ask: "For whom do you sing Forever, endlessly ? Whether one harks or no —you go on Pouring your melody !" For whom stays rapt, in trance, the saint, Comes the artist spring our earth to paint ? For whom do the skies, aflush, awake And trees in laughter of green outbreak? And yet they'll ask: "For whom do you sing ... less described, with words. It is revealed Only to His elect — His blessed brides, The Gopi-souls, who live from age to age In utter self-oblivion, immersed In His love's rapturous deep both in a trance Of rippleless silence and whirls of delight. But this last savour of His tenderness Can never accrue to those who have not been Initiated in His nectarous Love Which momently renews itself in ...
... itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the Shakti meets the Purusha in the brahma-randhra in a deep Samadhi of union. 10 The aim in Rajayoga is invariably the trance of samadhi when the pure still mind is possessed by (and possesses for the nonce) the highest supra-cosmic knowledge. To withdraw the mind first from the multiplicity of... claims of the heart. The man of knowledge could be doubled with the man of action, and both could achieve co-existence with the man of devotion. The body athletic, electric, aesthetic, the mind in a trance of self-lost supernal stillness, the ratiocinative intellect forging the supreme identity "I am Brahman", the determined will to action enacting the truth of yogah karmasu kauśalam ("Yoga is skill ...
... and some of them we know because she has mentioned them. One question was about the state of samadhi or trance. As the Mother later narrated to her audience in the Ashram playground: ‘In all kinds of so-called spiritual literature I had always read wonderful things about this state of trance or Samadhi, but I had never experienced it. So I did not know whether this was perhaps a sign of inferiority... questions to Sri Aurobindo was: “What do you think of ‘samadhi,’ of that state of trance one does not remember? One enters into a condition which seems to be blissful, but when one comes out of it, one has no idea of what has happened.” He looked at me, saw what I meant and told me: “It is unconsciousness … You enter into what is called ‘samadhi’ when you go out of your conscious being and enter into ...
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