The Process of Samadhi (Continued)

There was a mystic called Ouspensky, a Russian mystic. He had a perceptive capacity beyond ordinary human comprehension. He went to a hotel in Russia and saw an ashtray. Due to his perceptive capacity he could see in those ashes the faces of everybody who had used the ashtray. So many people had smoked cigarettes and thrown the ashes. He looked at the walls and could see the pictures of all those people who had occupied that room – because walls are not dead, inert bricks. They are vibratory organisations of the same force which constitutes the body and psychic condition of a person. So vibrations strike vibrations. If you go deep into the substance of your own self, you will be able to see the vibrations around you, and you will feel something which is quite different from what you usually feel.

So according to Patanjali, samadhi, samapatti, union, can be attained in anything – in a leaf, in a tree, in a flower, in any object whatsoever. But the aim is not that. It is only a preparatory, kindergarten stage of union that is described in the Sutras of Patanjali, because samadhi is a way of liberation of spirit. It is kaivalya moksha that you are asking for – supreme aloneness of Absolute self-identical being. That is what you are asking for.

For that purpose, all the things that you consider as objective should become the centre of your attention. Not only one little thing such as a rose flower, a fruit, a pencil, and so on – they are only preparatory stages. All things should be taken together in their unitary appearance; the entire material substance – the earth, the entire earthly phenomenon here. By ‘earth’, we do not mean only this ground on which we are sitting. It means anything constituted of material substance. The entire matter which is having a name, as you call it, and an idea that you have about it, should be separated from the thing as it is in itself. Contemplate the whole earth contemplate as your own body. Any mind that is not prepared for it cannot do this kind of meditation, because distractions which are rajasic and tamasic in their nature will not allow you. I am not saying that this samadhi can be attained so easily, but as I am taking up this subject, I have to tell you everything connected with this great theme of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Unless you are united in your being with that which you expect to have, you cannot expect anything. This is the whole principle of samadhi. If you want a universal experience of absolute be-ness, that has to become the being of your own being. It should not stand outside as a distant, far away vision of a heaven – many, many light years away. If you think God is endlessly far, at an infinite distance, you will ever remain as you are. If you distance yourself from an object, it will distance itself from you. It will do tit for tat.

So, in the beginning the whole earth principle in its visible form is taken as an object of samadhi. It is not ordinary meditation in the sense of thinking something. It is not thinking something; it is being something. That is samapatti, or samadhi. In ordinary perception we think something, observe something. Here the thing has become that which thinks. The thought of the object becomes the thought of the subject. Which subject? Again I mention to you, it is the subject that transcends the subjectivity of the observer and the objectivity so-called of the object, such that the objectivity also becomes a subjectivity, both of which are transcended in a higher synthesis of subject. This is how samapatti is described by Patanjali, in his own traditional language.

Now here again, when you consider the whole physical matter, the entire earth principle as the object of your samadhi, it has to be divested of the name that you have given to it and the idea that you have got about it. You should not say it is made up of some chemical substances or it is only some atoms and molecules, electric vibrations and it is called Earth, and it is distinguished from other things, other planets. These ideas also must go. The Earth is not distinguishable from other things, because it is constituted in the same way that any other planet is constituted.

Do you know that the planets are supposed to have come from the Sun? If you think that this is so, all the characteristics of the Sun are in every planet by the process of condensation. What is this Earth? It produces magnificent things. It gives you wheat and rice, there is sugarcane, there are mangos, and wonderful, beautiful things are growing. From where do they grow? From the Earth. From where has the Earth come? You say it is a chip of the Sun, a piece that has been shot out from the Sun. A flaming, burning, gaseous, terrible thing is the Sun, which has shot off by condensation this thing that has become the mother of the production of wonderful things in this world. You can imagine that if the effect is in the cause, everything must be potentially in the Sun also. Even the mango fruit is there. How is it possible? These things that we eat as our diet are existing in some highly potentised, super-active form of force. That is why it is said: surya atma jagatas tasthushascha. This is a mantra from the Rig Veda. This Surya that you are beholding with your eye is the soul of everything. It is your soul, and the soul of every bit of matter, every leaf, every tree, every fruit, everything that grows. Can you imagine that this entire solar system is operating due to the Sun, which is the soul? We think it is something electromagnetic – helium, whatever it is. These definitions will not work. It is that which operates the externalised form of the planets and everything that can arise from the planets – just as we have a soul which determines the movement of the limbs of the body, and anything that we do is the soul operating. But we say there is alot of distance; that the Sun is so far away – ninety three million miles. No. Can you say that your soul is far away, that it is so many millions of miles away from your skin? The idea of distance and space is, again, to be abolished by the process of Samapatti or samadhi, about which I will speak a little later.

Thus, it is the recognition of the soulhood, selfhood, atmatva, the very existence of a transcendental nature in everything that you perceive, in the whole Earth atmosphere, including the solar system and the galaxies. Put them together into a mass, as it were, a conglomeration of material energy, and unite yourself with that. You become embracing consciousness. Great joy you must feel inside. Great joy! The Sun is your friend. What do you lack? Not only is he a friend, he has entered you. The soul of the whole solar system is the soul of your own person. All the planets dance around you. They are not dancing around the Sun outside, because his soul and your soul are identical. The solar system has entered into you. Nobody can know what will happen to you at that time. Why do people dance in ecstasy? Bhaktas, mystics, great saints and sages cannot control themselves in this experience. It is beyond comprehension. The body will break into pieces if you inject such energy into this person.

So go slowly, slowly, slowly. Don’t proceed in a hurry, in case something happens. First of all, see that you have no external desires; otherwise it will damage your whole system. This meditation is like dynamite. It can break things, and it can help you. It can break yourself if you touch it in an irresponsible manner. So these meditations are a great divine blessing; they are dangerous things also, at the same time, if the body and mind are not prepared. I am not again going into the whole preparatory process of yama, niyama, pranayama and so on. You know all these things very well, and I have no time to go into these details. But I am mentioning to you that unless there is already a preparatory discipline which has hardened your personality as a receptive medium of this great incoming power, you will not be able to withstand it. Six hundred volts entering into your body – it will burn you to ashes.

Meditation is the golden treasure before you. There is nothing that you cannot achieve. You have just to close your eyes and intensely ask That; no, don’t ask That, become That. The whole of samapatti is nothing but becoming That. If you deeply become That, there is a vibration, a response that emanates from That which is otherwise wrongly considered as external to you. There are no other people here. There are no other things in the solar system. The entire space-time complex, which is so incalculably great, cannot be considered as something that is operating internally to an outer cosmos. This whole world is a manifestation of space-time only.

You will be wondering what this is, how space-time, abstract concepts, ideas, can become solid Earth? How can they become? What is space? It is nothing. It is an emptiness, a vacuum. And time, another vacuum. You are saying that the coming together of two vacuums have created this solid Earth? How is this possible? Read a great book: Space, Time and Deity by Samuel Alexander. It is a great thesis that he wrote in the form of lectures in Scotland. He will explain to you how space condenses itself into the form of the Earth. Space does not exist as a vacuum, as Alexander said. The Upanishads say: tasmat va etasmat atmana akasas sambhutah; satyam jnanam anantam brahma, says the Taittiriya Upanishad. Existence-consciousness-infinity-bliss – that is the same Self of everything. From that, space came. What is the meaning of that? God created heaven and Earth; He separated the firmament, says the Bible. What is the meaning of that? What is the matter? The infinite plenum has become a vacuum, as it were; but that so-called vacuum, which looks like an emptiness, has emanated from a fullness which is the plenum of the Infinite. Therefore, the fullness is potentially present even in this so-called nihil which you call space-time.

By a gradational process of density and condensation, space-time has become vibrating air, the heat which is fire, the liquid and the solid earth. Now you know from where we have come and what we are made of – what are the things around us. We are made of that satyam jnanam anantam Absolute; and if you want to call it space-time, okay, call it. The very ultimate causative substance of it, which has given rise to our perceptive faculty included, makes it impossible for us to consider anything as a segregated object. Yoga is nothing but the union of the subjective consciousness with the objective existence. That is yoga. Then in this union, the objectivity melts into the subjectivity. It becomes a transcendental subjectivity. This transcendental subject is called God Almighty. That is the Absolute. That is kaivalya. That is, attaining which, is called moksha.

Here is a little preparatory introduction to you about what samadhi, samapatti is. I shall try to continue this subject in detail another time.