There is this fascinating news report that a two hundred year old Buddhist Monk, was found in a cave in Songino Khairkhan district of Ulan Bator, body intact, sitting in the Lotus position, covered in cattle skin, in a very intense state of meditative trance. His mummified body has stood the test of time and according to Buddhist monks, this two hundred year old Monk could still be alive and is in a Samadhi trance state called Tukdam.

According to Buddhist philosophy, this state of Samadhi or Tukdam, is very close to the state of Nirvana, which is the final merger of the individual Soul with The Big Boss or The One, who we call God, Goddess, Creator, Ahura, Siva, Ram, Kali, Allah, Rab whatever suits your spiritual inclinations..

So what is this state of Samadhi and what about Nirvana?

For me, Samadhi is a state of self realisation got about either through the pure Grace of The Guru or through intense spiritual discipline. The realisation that you have come from the Great Fire and all that which is embodied in that Great Fire is contained within you and that The Creator and you are One. It is not intellectual knowledge but the soul realisation of this Oneness.

Whereas, Nirvana is liberation. Liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Liberation from the churning cease pool of karma. Liberation from one’s own stupidity and petty ego. I assume Nirvana means one will never truly come back, as one has merged with The One and has become The One, like when water is mixed with milk, becomes milk too, whereas Samadhi, gives you self realisation and one can use that self realisation to come back and serve one and all and basically get one’s teeth knocked out by benevolent humanity. (Very often Zoroastrian’s make an oil lamp of rose water, oil and milk….rose water merges with the milk, while the oil floats upwards, and then they light the lamp.)

So in the state of Samadhi you have realized Oneness but still not completely lost your identity and become Oneness. Whereas in the state of Nirvana you have got liberated from your own small self and merged with The Ocean and become The Ocean.

So the state of Samadhi comes first and if pursued further the state of Nirvana has to follow.

Perfect Masters have contained their growth to the state of Samadhi as They want to continue helping those who seek to grow spiritually and become One with The Throb of Creation. The Perfect Masters need to just exhale and They shall dwell in the state of Nirvana, but no, for some reason They love us so much that They have kept that final Sigh at bay. This is how much They love us and this is why The Guru is the most revered One in all of Creation. I mean the Real Perfect Master. The Giants. Not the riff raff dwarfs who go about calling themselves Perfect Masters.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings.

In my interviews with Bapuji for the book The Aum Of All Things, we got discussing about what the elusive term Samadhi meant.

“Beta what is this state of Samadhi or Liberation that everybody keeps talking about? The state of Samadhi according to me means the real state of the Soul. When an individual recognizes one’s true state, it gains knowledge of the Self or knowledge of the soul. To attain the state of Samadhi, what does the soul have to do? What kind of appropriate action does the soul have to perform? Whatever recording the soul has within itself, all that knowledge the soul will gain. Every soul is different in its state of evolution, even though inherently being One. One can go into the state of Samadhi only after following certain procedures, mainly celibacy and yogic breathing. Unless one does not achieve that level of Brähṁācharya or celibacy, one cannot achieve Samadhi. They say that if one keeps untainted celibacy for twelve long years and such a person is a celibate even in the state of dreams and keeps his or her celibacy intact for twelve years and that person also practices Pṛāṇāyam or yogic breathing everyday and does the chant of the sacred word Aum (or the word s(h)e believes represents the word God) s(h)e will awaken the power of the soul, which reposes in the Root Chakra or the Muladhār Chakra. When the Muladhār Chakra gets awakened, the energy travels through the other Chakras and reaches the soul.”

Wow! Celibacy and Pṛāṇāyam for twelve years; I think it is safe to say most of us are going to be in the state of non-Samadhi for a really, I mean really, a truly really loooooooong time!

But to tell you the truth, I don’t believe that celibacy has anything got to do with spirituality or even Samadhi. Yes, celibacy helps if you are keen on awakening your Kundalini and want to acquire certain paranormal powers. In sex, the very word ‘discharge’, means, something that once had power, through dissipation of energy, the power has got discharged.

So if you are keen on taking the energy that reposes in the Muladhār Chakra, (also known as the Root Chakra), and make the Kundalini Śhakti travel through the other Chakras, right up to the Crown Chakra, then yes, it is important that the energy is not discharged via sexual release. But that is if you want to acquire powers or Siđhis. But to be spiritual, I believe the power of God, reposes in the Heart Chakra, which is well above the naughty Chakra, and thus by being selfless, pure, kind, noble (not stupid, just noble), you will merge with your Master, with or without the use of the libido. God’s kingdom is not filled with celibates. It is filled with good people. Heaven is not some exclusive club for vegetarians and celibates. It’s packed with honest to God, fun loving, kind hearted souls who wish well, and who want to spread wellbeing. So according to me, and I may not be the best person to speak about celibacy and all that, but I know it in my gut, that true purity and humility and compassion open wider doors to Oneness and realisation and eventually liberation. But for that, one needs to operate from the state of pure, spiritual nothingness and detachment and selfless compassion and love. It’s all about love. Anyway that’s that.

“Just for intellectual reasons, where does the soul reside?” I inquired of Bapuji.

 “In the Third Eye or Ājña Chakra, between the eyebrows, resides the soul; the point in between the brows on the forehead. When one does Anulom and Vilom or alternative nostril breathing as practiced in Yogic Pṛāṇāyam, the entire subtle body comes together at one place, which is in the centre point between the brows. Thus, through the practice of celibacy and yogic breathing, the soul remembers its Ishta Dev or one’s Primordial God, Goddess or Guru; basically the One he or she prays to. Thus, while doing yogic breathing or Pṛāṇāyam one needs to focus on the One who you believe in and worship. So by performing the Pṛāṇāyam or Anulom –Vilom, and the chanting of the Aum sound, all the subtle energies gather into the soul and the soul awakens. That is when the soul experiences the subtle mind and goes into complete silence and the State of Formlessness. Focus on your God or Goddess or Guru, and make sure your mind doesn’t stray. After a while your mind will be truly focused. It will not be able to see anything else and will be able to see only That, and only That, and only That… And by focusing on the yogic breathing and The One, whatever power That One will have, will get transferred to you. Thus, be careful who you keep your focus on during meditation and Pṛāṇāyam. ”  

It makes sense. Who you meditate on, you become That. Focus on Baba Sai of Shirdi then all that which Baba Sai of Shirdi stands for and holds, that shall be yours too, with His Grace. If you meditate on water, you shall encompass the qualities of water and not fire.

“So, when the complete subtle body converges into the soul, the lack of a subtle body within the gross body leaves a vacuum and there is no consciousness of the body. This is when the soul reaches the Sahastrāgār; the 9^th Chakra. (I assume that this is in the astral body of each individual as the Crown Chakra is the seventh Chakra.) In the Sahastrāgār, there is the cell of each soul’s Creations. In the Sahastrāgār there is Godhood. There are cells of innumerable crores of Creations. So in the Samadhi state, the soul experiences the recordings that are already there in the soul and gains Self or Soul Knowledge. So whatever recording is present in the soul, the individual gets to know of that and as the soul has come from far and above, the knowledge is enlightening.”

“The soul’s state will be in the Samadhi Avastha or State of Liberation when there is no body consciousness. That is why Gautam Buddha sometimes could not hear any sound, even if you hammered a nail into His ear… that is the State of Samadhi. So when the subtle mind opens up, that is what I call as the state of Samadhi. By staying in the subtle… or one can even call this state the Prime Sub-Conscious Mind, the soul becomes totally awakened to its history and potential. There is so much of silence that someone who looks at the individual will assume that the person is dead. The more you move into this state of Samadhi, the soul of that person comes out of the body along with its subtle body. How does this happen? The Dasam Dwār or the tenth door or the Tenth Chakra opens. So when the soul comes out it goes away to roam into its Brähṁāñḍ or its Creation. So where does the soul really go? It can go to the various levels of Heaven. If it has more power, then it can travel up to the higher and higher dimensions.”

“If you go into the Subtle or Prime Sub Conscious Mind then you will go beyond the limited mind and you will go beyond the limited bodily relations or blood relations as well. You cannot remember anything related to your daily life when you are at that stage. From the Subtle or Prime Sub Conscious you reach the Prime Unconscious Mind. You are part of the process of Vreation. So much energy comes into the soul that you get the speed of the Infinite Mun or the Heart-Mind called, ‘Bayhuđ Kay Mun Ki Gati’ or Speed of Infinite Heart-Mind. There is so much speed as there is so much power.”

“But why is the state of Samadhi not so easily reachable? Tell me betā?”

“Is that a trick question? I mean twelve years of celibacy and go about life doing alternate nostril breathing, I mean, come on. There has to be a better way to tap into ones subtle or pure sub consciousness, without getting the libido in knots and doing alternative nostril breathing?”

“Naughty boy you are. The reason the state of Samadhi is so elusive is because we are all entangled into body consciousness and involved in the body and entangled in everything that is related with the body and our circle of emotions. So most people see the body and then remember only the body. They immediately come into body consciousness and the whole game is over. What can one do? That is why awakening the pure sub conscious mind is so important. One can call the awakening of the subtle mind as a state of ‘enlightened death’ too. The soul goes into such a state of calm silence that we refer to it as death. The process removes the subtle body out and allows the soul to move out of the body. Many of our Rūśhimunis or evolved Sages had the knowledge of going out of the body at will. They would travel, gather consciously all knowledge they wanted and then try to enlighten the world.”

 According to me the more you get into the technicalities of spirituality the more you realize that heaven and hell are within each one of us; the blossoming of one’s true self and the destruction of all that which is true; all within oneself. The power to discriminate between right and wrong and the power to choose between the Light or the chaos within, all within ourselves. For me, liberation means being free from one’s own clutches of darkness and desires and shedding off the false self and letting one’s true self shine through. And it is not easy. The path to liberating yourself from your lower self is filled with spiritual landmines and failure. But you just keep at it. Fall. Rise. Fall. Rise. Keep at it. Try and try and try to lengthen the moments of Light and prolong the distance between the moments of darkness. Yes, we are human and yes, we are going to blunder and so we need to try harder to embrace the Light for a little longer. The Light within is elusive; it’s playful; it’s a lover who wants to be possessed but won’t ever surrender till you are worthy, so you keep at it and someday, may be lifetimes later, you and I and Laloo Prasad Yadav, will be worthy of Her and be filled with Her and Radiate Her Essence and then become One with Her. Just keep at it. Trying to make one’s Master happy and proud of you, in spite of falling so many times is the only dream worth having and till you don’t reach it, keep trying and trying. That is the only true purpose of life.

Raising the Kundalini, the state of Samadhi and Nirvana and all that is super, but as Sai Bābā of Shirdi often says, there is a difference between Siđhī and Shuđhi which means that there is a difference between spiritual powers and spiritual purity. You may have your Kundalini all awakened and suited and booted, but that gives no guarantee of true spiritual growth. But yearning to be spiritually pure has one guarantee; it’s going to tickle the Old Man’s funny bone and make Him grin, from one astral ear to the other.

The state of Samadhi is the state of Active Oneness. The state of Nirvana is the ocean of bliss. There are idiots who still choose to serve than bask in the glory of Supreme Nothingness.

 This for me is worth more than all the Brähṁāñḍs in all the universes.

Be blessed always.