I want to begin with the wisdom for why this eighth limb or path of the Yoga Sutras is a destination for us all.
Why it is our sacred calling and how you can live many,
Many moments of your life in the experience of Samadhi as a practice,
As a conscious choice,
As a spiritual experience,
As a way of being that honors the liberation of true destiny.
Because when you build into your life the practices and the sacred teachings of these ancient scriptures,
Each of the eight limbs of the Yoga Sutras,
You have a basic philosophy and a guide to experiencing all of life's wonder and bliss and the emancipated moments that bring forward the ever-present,
Ever-content nature of your life.
All of which is to realize the grace and dignity that you hold for all that you desire and love.
And in this,
You awaken to the ever-present calm and peace that lives within you.
Sometimes it is only when we are quiet in deep meditation that we catch glimpses of this.
Bliss,
Inner peace,
A sense of oneness with all of life,
A feeling as though you are part of the universe,
Of divine consciousness.
Yet the true secret of eternal bliss is to practice living as your non-physical self,
To witness life as a series of present moments,
As the experience of love,
As total absorption,
That is,
Losing all external awareness,
All awareness of duality and losing the sense of I and the ego,
The mind,
Intellect and senses,
As time and space are transcended.
Does this sound like a practice you would love to experience?
Well,
Join me for this episode of the Wisdom Podcast,
And the last limb of our journey through the sutras,
Samadhi.
Samadhi is made up of two Sanskrit words,
Sama and di,
Which means equanimous and buddhi,
Or intellect,
Respectfully.
Thus,
The state in which a person brings about equanimity or this evenness of mind,
This sense of right disposition under stress,
On all levels of their intellect is called samadhi.
Another meaning of the word samadhi is completion.
Just like a problem is said to finish or be completed when we get its solution,
Samadhi is translated as full completion of a thought.
Therefore,
A person who reaches the understanding of their true self is said to have achieved a state of samadhi.
And a third meaning of the word samadhi is to bring together.
Thus,
The state in which the subject,
The meditator,
For example,
And the object of meditation,
A candle flame,
A sunset,
Scripture that you are looking at,
And knowledge of the object come together to form a union or a state of samadhi.
So hence,
The person who is meditating unites with the process of meditation itself.
Therefore,
We feel like we become one,
Not only with the source of our meditation focus,
But also one with the universe,
A oneness with all of life.
So in listening to these three definitions of samadhi,
What does this sound like to you?
And where have you had experiences of samadhi in your life?
One of the hopes I have in this episode is to remind you that you are cultivating moments of samadhi all of the time.
And as you realize this,
You can better choose and direct and consciously co-create samadhi.
And then allow it to become a place in which you live.
That is,
You walk around in your world in a state of self-regulation because you have the tools to do so.
And remember,
We are at this stage of the eight limbs at the finale,
So we have been cultivating all of the tools and the practices of each of the limbs up to now.
And with that,
We are able to exude this sense of peace and oneness with everything.
Yes,
Life can get a little stressful at times,
But then you use the tools,
The self-discipline of tapas,
And self-study or self-discovery of svadhyaya,
And truthfulness,
Satya,
And the ability to be calm and poised in the seat of meditation as you are still,
Asana.
All of these help to support our practice of meditation,
Dhyana,
Our focus,
Dharana,
And everything in between.
Therefore,
Yes,
We will get rattled at times,
At moments in our life,
But we can return far more easily and readily to this beautiful,
I call it a blissful state of life,
By choice.
In saying that,
One might wonder if samadhi is relevant in daily life.
And to ask yourself,
Is it truly possible to achieve samadhi and even stay here for a time amidst your daily actions,
The world in which you live,
The responsibilities you have,
And everything that happens that we don't expect?
The realization of our pure existence is possible as we meditate daily,
As we elevate ourselves step by step by practicing all of these beautiful ancient spiritual teachings of the Yoga Sutras,
And living,
Being our best self by choice.
So I'd like to share with you a few ways you can achieve samadhi.
And remember,
I've already asked the question,
How have you already been living this?
So please give that some thought and you will see,
Samadhi does show up in your life in the most beautiful and serene and perfect ways.
There are certain moments of concentration,
Dharana,
That occur in our daily lives in which we are completely engrossed in a task and we forget everything around us.
Now,
Some of us love when this happens,
When we are in this mode of complete concentration at work,
Or when we are in a creative mode and it's like everything has fallen away and we're just completely embedded in the present moment.
Or in sport,
You've heard the term being in the zone.
All of these to describe moments of samadhi.
I think about what so many of you as clients have described to me,
Swimming,
Walking on the beach,
Sitting in meditation,
Looking out on the ocean,
All of these regular parts of your morning or your day,
These are all moments in which you can experience samadhi.
When we are completely absorbed in what we are doing,
Fully in the state of thoughtlessness,
That is,
In the absence of thought,
We are in samadhi.
The routine tasks that we do typically involve a lot of thinking,
Decision-making,
And also imagination.
Yet when we clear our mind through meditation,
Or the practice of yoga,
Or an activity in which we are fully attentive,
All of the unnecessary or self-created pressure in the mind and through our thoughts clears away to a higher and longer state of absorption in the present.
And that's why the present moment is so critical for our experience of samadhi.
We need to exist here and now.
If you've been listening,
You will have heard me in the last several episodes mention a five-minute practice of stillness.
I actually created a 30-day challenge for you in which the challenge was to practice each day for 30 days stillness,
Using the wisdom of the third limb of the sutras,
Asana,
And your ability to sit in meditation,
To hold still your posture.
There's a lot of beauty that comes out of being still.
For one,
You can close your eyes and dive into the world,
The vast world within you.
You can also quiet the mind as you become still and motionless.
And stillness is part of the meditation experience,
Because typically in meditation,
As we are still and as the mind follows the body in quiet,
We are less distracted.
We are more able to focus inward,
That sense of guiding the mind and the senses within of pratyahara,
The fifth limb of the sutras.
That five-minute practice of stillness,
Asana,
The seat of meditation,
The third limb,
Pranayama,
Breath control,
And directing and expanding the breath and bringing in life force energy.
The fifth limb,
Pratyahara,
Directing the senses and the mind inward.
Dharana,
The practice of concentration and focus.
To help us as we sit in meditation,
Dhyana,
Or unbroken concentration.
Each of these act as stages in which to build upon what we experience as samadhi.
So all of this to say,
You can achieve samadhi in so many moments of your life.
Go and seek it out.
Practice the other limbs of the sutras.
Feel the path that you are on,
All towards the ability to sit for longer periods in meditation,
In stillness,
In silence,
In calm.
And to dive deep,
Using pratyahara,
Into the world within.
To recognize that bliss exists within you,
Within each one of us.
And finally,
I leave you with a mantra to remind you of the easeful state of samadhi that you can willfully contemplate.
You may want to repeat it after me.
I awaken into the state of samadhi.
Into bliss.
Into oneness.
Into ever-present peace.
I choose to breathe in the life before me.
I hold gratitude and love for what I know.
For what lives before me.
For all that I choose to imagine and to be.
I am overjoyed in the sacred moments of life that I find here.
The beautiful oneness I am with all of life.
This is what I know.
This is what I live as.
What I choose is my comfort and peace.
And this is my sacred destiny forever.
You live in samadhi as you recognize your oneness with God.
This is the wisdom of samadhi.
And as you realize this,
As you come to know this,
Then the moments you create quite deliberately come out of this so easily.
I wish for you the practice of samadhi,
The way that you can bring it into your life quite deliberately,
Through breath,
Through presence,
Through love.
Because when you are being love,
You are in samadhi.
Write to me and let me know the ways in which you cultivate samadhi in your life.
And thank you so much for joining me in each and all of the episodes here on the Yoga Sutras.
Sending you great love.
This is Dorothy Sonori Juno.
Namaste.
Thank you so much for joining me in this episode of the Wisdom Podcast.
To hear more,
Please check out the other episodes here,
As well as my guided meditations,
Including my signature prose meditations and I AM mantras,
And as well the meditations to guide you into a deep and restorative sleep.
Please also visit me on social media and say hello.
And a special thank you to Insight Timer for this beautiful space to share all of my love.
Allow yourself to go within to access your inner wisdom and to live this.
Awaken your authentic power,
Live your truth and be love.
Namaste.
