Eight Limbs Of Yoga 8- Samadhi

Samadhi is the final limb in this great art and science of yoga. As we saw in the third limb of asana, yoga is the process of joining together into unity, and samadhi is it’s experience.

Through dharana and dhyana we have entered deeper and deeper into ourselves and past beyond the limitations of ordinary mind. Paradoxically as we enter deeper into ourselves consciousness is expanding and samadhi is the embracing and unity of all that is in awareness. In samadhi there is no more distinction of ‘me’ and ‘not me’, of ‘I’ and ‘other’.

Sometimes samadhi is mistakenly identified with enlightenment. There is a wonderful

illustration of this in the life story of Rama Krishna. I believe the story is to be found in the book ‘Great Swan’, which no longer seems to be on my bookshelf so I will tell it from memory.

Rama Krishna is one of India’s great saints of the 20th Century. He was a brahmin priest at a Kali temple on the banks of the holy river ganges, in Dakshineswar, now part of Calcutta. The story is primarily about a wandering sadhu who came to Dakshineswar. Despite having never stayed in one place for more than two nights in several decades the sadhu felt compelled to stay in the company of Rama Krishna. The sadhu was an adherent of advaita vedanta and jnana yoga which is the pursuit of liberation through knowledge. Rama Krishna on the other hand was primarily a bhakti yogi, which is the yoga of devotion and he was an ardent devotee of the Divine Mother in the form of Kali. The two spent many night debating on spiritual matters and the sadhu espousing the superiority of his philosophies and the path of knowledge.

The sadhu, through his many years of rigorous spiritual practice was able to enter samadhi in meditation. However in his prolonged stay in Dakshineswar he became ill with dysentery. As his body weakened he was no longer bale to crete the condition to allow the arising of samadhi. He became so disconsolate that he decided to leave his body by walking into the ganga (river ganges) focusing his mind on Brahmin (God). He went to the river and summoning his last vestiges of strength and concentration he focused his mind and began to walk. After some time it occurred to him that he ought to have been deep in the river so he opened his eyes to find himself on the opposite bank standing before Kali. As you would he fell with bowed head.

I would dearly like to honor the nameless sadhu with his name, so if you do have a copy of ‘Great Swan’ and can look it up for me I’d be very grateful.

 Eight Limbs of Yoga 7 Dhyana

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