Samadhi (Hinduism, Yoga)

Samadhi is a state of consciousness for whose description words are considered to be totally inadequate. It is said to be the highest state of consciousness, associated with direct mystic experience of reality. In that it is beyond the [avastha]

(waking, dreaming, deep sleep) it make be equated with [turiya]

. Samadhi cannot be experienced until a condition of mindlessness has been created, through the deliberate elimination of the objects of thought from consciousness. The organs of sense perception are so controlled that they no longer pass to the mind their reactions to what is perceived. The mind loses its identity by absorption into a higher state which precludes any awareness of duality, although a form of unitary awareness of the conventional world is retained. Different levels of consciousness or degrees of samadhi are distinguishable. [Savikalpa samadhi]

is subject to time and change; [nirvikalpa samadhi]

, the higher state, is timeless. Samadhi is the end result and aim of the practice of yoga (separately explained). If the object of meditation is the Absolute or the personification of the Absolute in God, then [samadhi]

is an experience of total union. It may then be equated with the supra-conscious state [turyatita]

. It is a term used in a different sense in Buddhism, where it is equivalent to concentration or one-pointedness of citta (separately described).

The eighth component of the eightfold path of yoga.