Related LinksContents of BookChapters
by Swami Krishnananda
When we are established in the Samadhi state, if we open our eyes, we will not be able to see anything, in spite of the fact that our eyes are open. This is because the consciousness within has discovered the similarity of being between itself and the outside objects. The spatial distinction vanishes on account of that very same thing being inside the seeing subject and the object that is seen. Time is overcome, because space is no more there. So, Arthamatra-nirbhasattvam. The status of cognising the pure substance of the object, as it is in itself, is the ultimate Samyama, the so-called Samadhi of Yoga. It is the equilibrated consciousness that is called Samadhi. The up-and-down distinction that we usually observe between the seer and the seen is abolished, and the substance of the one enters into the substance of the other. Rather, an awareness arises within as to the similarity of structure of the substance of the one and the substance of the other. It is not that communion is created by meditation; it is only discovered as having been there already, right from eternity. This identification of the meditating consciousness with the vast structure of the physical cosmos constituted of the five elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether – as involved in the complexity of Sabda, Artha and Jnana – name, form and ideation, is the lowest state of Samadhi. This is called Savitarka Samapatti or Samadhi, in the language of Patanjali. He calls it by this name, because there is an internal metaphysical argumentation taking place, when the consciousness within struggles and grapples with the vast substance of the five elements in their relationships to name and form. Together with the conception of the objects as involved in name and form, there is also the interference of space and time. As these are very difficult things to imagine in the earlier stages of Samyama, space and time are dropped out altogether from consideration at this level, and only the name – form complex is considered. We have to peel out the outer vestments of the object, as we peel out an onion, stage by stage, until we enter into the substance of that thing. In this manner, the outer vestures of the object are gradually cast off by a graduated attempt made to commune one's consciousness with every vesture of the form.
And every Samyama on a particular vesture of an object is at the same time an achievement of union with that vesture to such an extent that the vesture ceases to be there, as a distinguishing mark of that object, or a differentiating feature of that object, it having become one with the meditating consciousness itself. Such is to be the achievement of the meditating consciousness in respect of the other stages or vestures of the object also. The Savitarka Samapatti is the lowest state of attainment. Because, here, the gross form of the universal object is the thing that is concentrated upon as related to its name and ideational form, Sabda and Jnana, in addition to the substantiality of it, the Artha, as it is called. Normally, no one can go beyond this stage. To say anything beyond it is a waste of time. But, intellectually and theoretically at least, we can take a peep into the further stages, in consideration of both the attainments that lie ahead, and the necessity to guard ourselves against any kind of distraction of our mind, contrary to the requirements of the meditational process. We can look into the bare outlines of what we can expect, though we cannot expect these for years to come or, perhaps, for some ages to come. Normally, these distant goals remain only as theoretical ideas. These are not easy things.even to imagine, much less to come in contact with actually. Even the so-called lowest Samapatti is far from the reach of anyone. One cannot hope to have even a glimpse of what it is. Who can rise to the status of the permeation of one's consciousness into the entire physical structure of the cosmos? Can we even dream of this state? However, this is regarded as the lowest of the Samadhi stages, the Savitarka Samapatti.
When we succeed in dropping out the association of the object with empirical name and form altogether, and in gaining contact with the object vitally, in its essential substantiality, where our substance becomes one with it – perhaps, this is the true transsubstantiation we hear of, we are in a higher state of attainment which is known as Nirvitarka Samapatti, where a grappling with, or an argumentation about, the relationship of name and form with the substance does not any more arise. Consciousness becomes giddy, unable to stand on its own legs, and feels as if it is melting away into nothing or, perhaps, everything. This is the height of religious consciousness that one can imagine, the pinnacle of spiritual attainments, and the last point in Yoga. But even this is not enough, says Patanjali.
Patanjali wants to make us mad by saying that even the Nirvitarka Samapatti is not enough. Because, the stages of Prakriti are not exhausted by these considerations of our attunement with the grosser forms of Prakriti as the five elements, known through the Samapattis known as Savitarka and Nirvitarka. Because, higher than the physical elements are the Tanmatras – Sabda, Sparsa, Rupa, Rasa and Gandha – the forces which are the essential constituent principles of the five gross elements, something like the electric energy that is behind the formation of things. An energy of vibrations is there behind the forms and substances of things. We can only say this much, because we cannot see these energies. We cannot imagine what this electricity is or what this vibration is. But there is something, a vital permeating vibration. This is the principle behind the concrete forms of objects, and the principles are called the Tanmatras. The Tanmatra is the principle of any particular substance, the 'that' as such, 'Tat' as it is called in Sanskrit. The 'that' is not the same as the 'what' mentioned by philosophers sometimes. The 'that' is invisible to the eyes and inconceivable to the mind. But, the 'what' is the descriptive form, the analytical feature of a particular object. Or rather, the 'that' is the noumenon and the 'what' is the empirical form. So, the 'that' or 'that-ness', apart from the 'what-ness' of an object, is the Tanmatra which is there again to be confronted in another stage of Samapatti which is known as the Savichara, when it is associated with the relationship of it with space and time. The last thing that will leave us is the notion of space and time. With all one's effort, we cannot get out of it, because we ourselves will cease to be, the moment there is a cessation of space and time. Our existence is nothing but space-time existence. If space-time is not there, none of us can be. So, the conception by the internal meditating consciousness, of these higher principles of Prakriti, beyond the five gross elements, in relation to space and time, at the time of communion, is known as Savichara Samapatti. It is Savichara, because a kind of internal analysis is still taking place – in a very high sense, of course – as to the proper relationship of the Tanmatras with space and time. We cannot overcome the limitations, or the distinguishing characteristics, of space and time, as long as we remain as a perceiving, cognising, meditating consciousness outside that on which we meditate or which we conceive in our mind.
The seer becomes the seen, consciousness becomes matter, the meditating principle becomes the very thing on which it meditates. It becomes the 'other' thing, and does not merely conceive, or have an idea, of the other thing. "To know is to be" is the point we arrive at in direct cognition and realisation, when we come face to face with the structure of the space-time process which conditions even the subtle vibratory principles known as the Tanmatras. When even space and time are overcome, and we are one with the Tanmatras, we become an omnipresent something; we are then in Nirvichara Samapatti. We become practically omnipresent. We permeate the cosmos. We do not remain any more as a 'you' or an 'I'; that has gone forever. It has gone forever, never to come back. A great joy surges forth within the omnipresent consciousness. Unthinkable, incomprehensible, undetectable, indefinable, ungraspable – such is the bliss that bursts forth within oneself on account of having perceived, grasped, possessed and enjoyed all things at one stroke. A joy which cannot even be dreamt of by even the richest man in the world, or the greatest emperor of the universe, enters into the being of the meditating principle, not on account of being in possession of the universe, but on account of having become one with it. The universe rises above its relationship with its own contents, which earlier appeared to be outside itself, and gazes at its own self as a completeness, as a mass of being which has gathered its corns into a granary of its totality. And Self-realisation of the universe takes place, not the individual self realisation, of a he or a she, but the universal Self realisation, where the cosmos recognises itself as it really is. This joy is an experience which is designated by Patanjali as Sananda Samapatti, an attainment attended with great joy, bliss. All the words in the dictionary cannot exhaust the content of the significance of this joy. A bare universal Self-consciousness remains as 'I-am-What-I-am', or as one is sometimes told, 'I-am-That-I-am', or simply 'I am', or even more simply 'I'. All words are useless in the end. No word is capable of conveying any sense here. The richest literature and the brightest word that one can think of in any language pales into an airy nothing before the requirement of this mighty experience of the universal 'I', which is God-Consciousness or God-Experience. There can be nothing more than this. How can there be anything more than God-Experience? This is the Cosmic 'I' asserting Itself, the Sasmita Samapatti, an attainment where 'I' alone remains, but an 'I' which is divested of the 'you' and the 'he' or 'what' aspect, freed from space and, time itself, what to speak of objects of perception and knowledge. The 'I' that one becomes in this stage excludes everything that can be designated or conceived as the 'you' or the 'what', a Total Subject which has no object outside it, and therefore cannot be called a 'subject' at all. It is not even an 'I'. It is nothing that one can ever hope to think in one's mind. This is Sasmita Samapatti, the lofty Samadhi.
And, as a tyrannous creditor will not go without extracting the last drop of blood from our body, and ruthless he shall be in extracting this from us, so Patanjali does not leave us even at this. Like a leech, he catches us again, and wants to tell us that there is something more than this. Patanjali is more than a Shylock and will not be satisfied with even all the blood that we have. So he extracts the last quintessence of our being itself and sees to it that it is not there. We are abolished totally, root and branch, and we are no more to be retained in the memory of anyone. Our memory even should not be there. Such a tyrant, such a despot, it is hard to imagine. But, such is Yoga. The despotic, tyrannical attitude of Yoga is such that it will not permit even the memory of our existence, even after cutting off all our existence totally. That ultimate self-annihilation in the attainment of an ultimate Self-gathering and experience, a dying to live, a total relinquishment for a total fulfilment, an utter death far an utter eternity, is known as Nirbija Sarnapatti, the final Samadhi. We do not know what it is, and the less that is said about it the better.
So goes Yoga. And all shades of Yoga come together here in their last requirements. Whatever the path that the seeker may pursue, he will find that he is here on this point ultimately. Whatever be the religion that he may be practising or may belong to, whatever the spiritual technique that he may be adopting in his practices, whatever be the aims that he holds in life, all these come together here, in this last point of attainment, which, faintly, the teacher Patanjali attempts to describe in his Sutras, taking us stage by stage, step by step, from all the lower categories of cosmic evolution, raising us to the very point at which evolution started, merging us in the bosom of the Creator Himself – call him Purusha, if you like – and seeing that we live the Life Eternal. Here the exposition of Yoga is over.