Pada-the Freedom Chapter. Actually he begins his book with Samadhi,
and then in the second chapter drops right back down to basics,
showing how to put one's first foot on the path of the inward journey
through the sheaths of being. In his third chapter, he brings us back up
to the zenith of yoga but warns of the dangers on the way if we suc
cumb to the temptations of growing power. His last chapter is the most
beautiful and lyrical, enjoying the sweetness of the great task accom
plished, yet at the same time, he goes out of his way to set our feet back
firmly on the ground.
Samadhi is an experience, which he makes clear is worth struggling
to reach. It is transformative and utterly purifying. But what then?
Samadhi is a state of being in which you cannot do. You cannot catch
a bus when in samadhi. In a state of oneness, how would you be able
to discriminate which one to get on? Samadhi leaves the practitioner
changed forever, but he still has to get dressed in the morning, eat
breakfast, and answer his correspondence. Nature does not simply dis
appear once and for all. It is simply that the realized yogi is never again
unaware of the true relationship between Nature and Cosmic Soul. Or
dinary people say, "I live my life." The yogi is aware that it is the Di
vine Breath that lives us. And he can see that Divine Breath in others.
His insight penetrates at all times beneath the surface of appearances.
Essence is more real than expression.
Kaivalya is both freedom and aloneness, but as I said, it is the
aloneness of a prime number that, indivisible by any other number ex
cept Oneness itself, lives in unassailable innocence and virtue. The yogi
has experienced the freedom that comes from realizing that life has
nothing to do with perpetuating the existence of our mortal selves, ei
ther in its physical or egoic forms. The yogi has taken the opportunity
to encounter the imperishable Self, before all that is transient disap
pears, as it will, just as a snake sloughs off its old skin.
The realized yogi continues to function and act in the world, but
in a way that is free. It is free from the desires of motivation and free
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