YOGA SAMADHI AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

YOGA SAMADHI AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS
Dhyana or meditation culminates in Samadhi. The object of meditation is Samadhi.
Samadhi is the goal of Yoga discipline. Body and mind become dead, as it were, to all external
impressions. The connection with the outer world is broken. In Samadhi, the Yogi enters into
Supreme Silence which is untouched by the ceaseless noises of the outer world. The mind ceases its
functioning. The senses are absorbed in the mind. When all the modifications of the mind are
controlled, the Seer, the Purusha, rests in his own Self. Patanjali speaks of this in his Yoga Sutras as
Svarupa-Avasthanam (establishment in one’s true Self).
There are kinds or degrees of concentration or Samadhi, viz., Samprajnata or conscious and
Asamprajnata or superconscious. In Samprajnata Samadhi, there are definite objects of
concentration for resting. The mind remains conscious of the object. Savitarka (with deliberation),
Nirvitarka (without deliberation), Savichara (with reflection), Nirvichara (without reflection),
Sananda (with joy), and Sasmita (with the sense of personality) are forms of Samprajnata Samadhi.
In Samprajnata Samadhi, there is a clear consciousness of the object meditated upon, as distinct
from the subject. In Asamprajnata Samadhi, this distinction vanishes, it being transcended