Samadhi - 8th Limb Of Yoga (8/8)

Samadhi is the last limb of the 8 limbs of Yoga. This is a state where your attention is fully inwards to the point where you can observe the impermanence of your mind patterns, emotions, etc. At this point, you can realize your True Self which is unchanging. In this stage of Samadhi, your perception of your mind and body disappears and a feeling of being One with everything starts to set in.

Transcript

The eighth and final limb of yoga is Samadhi.

This is the union or bringing together and oneness of your being.

During this stage,

Your attention is so much inwardly focused that you are now able to see the source or true nature of your being.

If you've noticed,

Like I've previously mentioned in the other talks,

The practice of the ill limbs has been designed from going from the outside world and how you relate to the outside world to gradually to more subtle practice where you're now looking inwards,

You're drawing your attention inwards and focusing on one point,

Which was dharana.

Then you started to really be aware of everything around you,

Which is dhyana.

Then when you keep holding on to this state of dhyana,

Which is meditation absorption,

Your thoughts are just so silent and you can really see where all your thoughts and concepts and your mind is coming from.

This true nature or true self that observes everything,

You'll find that this nature is very,

You can call it stable,

Unchanging.

This is just a part of you that remains very stable,

But is very clouded by all your thoughts and ruminations and things around you and sensory objects,

So you get very distracted.

In the state of samadhi,

You are just so inwardly focused that you can now perceive it.

This is a very subtle state to be in.

It's something that most people experience here and there,

Just glimpses of it,

But you'll notice that you do experience it through meditation,

Through your sitting practice.

I've experienced this myself a couple of times,

Just in long meditation,

Sittings and retreats where I'm just so inwardly focused that I catch just a glimpse of this oneness of being where it's just very permanent.

It's hard to put into words,

But it's a very tranquil state to be in.

This is where your mind drops away and then also your body drops away or your sense of body.

You almost forget that you have a body and that drops away too,

So it's just a oneness that you experience.

In this particular state,

You can come back to it over time because you finally realize your nature and this is the awakening that people talk about,

But it does take a practice of coming back to the basics and coming back to your meditation practice because we aren't really living in a mountain somewhere.

Typically,

If you're listening to this,

You probably have a job or family and different responsibilities in your daily life,

So our mind patterns come back again and take us away from that state where we know our true nature.

This is why what I like about this Eat Limb system of yoga is that it's very systematic and it's designed for anyone to use to help you get into the state because yes,

Your true nature is already there.

There's no work.

It's just unchanging,

But then at the same time,

It's very hard to experience because we have all these external stimulus taking our attention away.

We're not really inwardly focused half the time or throughout our day,

So the daily practice of bringing your attention back inwards,

Focusing on one point,

Becoming spacious or feeling that spaciousness and then holding that and eventually experience some of these,

Kind of like an ongoing practice,

But the beauty that you'll experience and the stillness and tranquility is well worth it in my experience.

It's not even about the benefits,

But rather something even more profound than that,

So just getting to a place of oneness,

Stillness,

And just a space of well-being and something that you discover your true nature.

That's something that's very profound and not something I can really wrap up in just a talk,

But something that you can clearly experience and it all starts by following these steps like I've mentioned in the past.

Doing the asanas,

The postures we discussed,

So your body is very flexible and able to sit for periods of time,

Being able to draw your attention inwards,

Pranayama,

You do your breathing exercises,

Following social ethics and just doing all these different steps,

So then it can guide you to this point of samadhi and dropping away your attachments in the process.

So it is a process of dropping away external things and bringing your attention inwards.

So I hope you liked this series of talks and we'll be making more content like this soon.

Thank you.