to be the Cognitive Trance (samprajñata sam ̄ adhi ̄ ).... When however
all the modifications come under restraint, the trance is Supra-Cognitive
(asamprajñ ̄ata sam ̄adhi)
YBh 1.1The literal meaning of samadhi ̄ is ‘putting together’ (sam: ‘with’;
√dh ̄a‘to put’). Non-yogic meanings of sam ̄adhiinclude ‘to join,’ ‘to
arrange,’ and ‘to put in order.’ Absorption is a central connotation of
sam ̄adhi: Samadhiyante asmin iti sam ̄ adhi ̄ Óh: “Sam ̄adhiis that in which
all is absorbed.”^85 Dasgupta renders sam ̄adhias “unifying concentra-
tion.”^86 Connections between sam ̄adhi and integration include:
- Sam ̄adhi’sbasis: The psychophysical integration that makes samadhi ̄
possible - Sam ̄adhi’s process: Integration of mind with object
- Sam ̄adhi’spurpose: Reintegration of the yogin with puruÓsa
Samadhi ̄ culminates Yoga’s eight limbs, but is not itself the culmination
of Yoga. Samadhi ̄ denotes a range of states of higher consciousness nec-
essary for liberation. Similar to the way the external limbs of Yoga (1–5)
are instrumental to the internal limbs (6–8), the lower stages of samadhi ̄
are instrumental to the higher stages [YS 3.7–8]. The lower stage of
sam ̄adhiis sab ̄ıja, ‘with seed,’ that is, with viable samskÓ ̄aras, literally, ‘im-
pressions,’ subtle forms of experience, which remain in the mind and pro-
duce mental activity and bondage. In sab ̄ıja sam ̄adhi, new samskÓ ̄arasare
prevented, and existing ones are “kept under control and made invisible
to the vivifiying impulses from the outside.”^87 In nirb ̄ıja sam ̄adhiall
samskÓ aras ̄ are destroyed, even the samskÓ ̄arasgenerated in sab ̄ıja samadhi ̄
[YBh 1.51]. Sab ̄ıja sam ̄adhihas two varieties: samprajñata ̄ , involving
cognition applied to objects of meditation (thus called samadhi ̄ with sup-
port), and asamprajñ ̄ata sam ̄adhi, which is supracognitive and without a
supporting object of meditation. Eliade writes that in samprajñ ̄ata
sam ̄adhithe yogin
... is still conscious of the difference between his own completely puri-
fied consciousness and the Self; that is, he is conscious of the difference
between citta reduced to its luminous mode of being (sattva) and
puruÓsa. When this difference disappears, the subject attains
asamprajñ ̄ata samadhi ̄ , now every vÓrttiis eliminated, ‘burned’; nothing
remains but the unconscious impression (samskÓ ̄ara) and at a certain mo-
ment even these imperceptible samskÓ aras ̄ are consumed, whereupon
true stasis ‘without seed’ (nirb ̄ıja sam ̄adhi) ensues.^88
128 religious therapeutics