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Message |
| Posted By: |
UT |
| Date: |
29-Nov-2001-19:19:56 |
| Subject: |
Samadhi |
Buried 'way too deep in another thread, Juan Lobos Rameriz asks:
## Have you been in Samadhi?
## If so, what is that like for you?
## I sincerely want to know.
These questions were not asked of me, but I think they're interesting, so I'll give 'em a shot. Yes. No big deal.
To explain a little bit, I think that NonPoet is right on by reminding that samadhi is just the *start* of enlightenment. Depending on how you define 'samadhi', it really is No Big Deal. Everyone who has ever stopped all thought and experience in meditation has tasted samadhi. It's just that clear, bright, eternal silence that is left when you get yourself out of the way. Sometimes you have a hazy, unclear experience of that silence; sometimes you have a bright, clear experience of it.
Another "level" of samadhi is when that shiny, bright silence doesn't go away when you resume thinking or acting. The thoughts and activity are there, but so is the silence. That's cool, too, but if you are like most seekers who have experienced this -- even if it was only for brief periods of time -- one of the first things you realize is that it has *always* been there, and you just didn't perceive it before. Now you can. Thoughts and activity are going on but the silence is always there. Cool, but again No Big Deal. IMO, at this point, you're barely out of the starting gate on the racetrack to enlightenment.
As for Rama's students experiencing samadhi, I must say that this very conversation surprises me. I've known *many* students who have had samadhi experiences. I've known many of them who, like me, started having such experiences decades before they met Rama. IMO, such experiences really are No Big Deal. The first step -- samadhi during meditation -- is easy to experience...just meditate well. And the second step -- samadhi in activity -- comes along when it feels like it. And it can go just as quickly. The idea of the Big Flash Of Enlightenment, after which you are permanently enlightened forever, just doesn't seem to happen that much. Most traditions who actually have flashes of samadhi happening among their students are hip enough to tell them that they are cool and all, but not to get attached because they could well disappear tomorrow and not show up again for a while.
That's why I think there's an etiquette to be observed with regard to cool experiences, especially experiences of samadhi. It you have such experiences and talk about them occasionally to inspire other people with the knowledge that they are neither rare nor difficult to attain, cool. I suspect that has a positive karmic spin. But if people get all flashed out by their samadhi experiences and start to believe that it means they are somehow special, and talk about those experiences to suck attention and gather a crowd around themselves, I suspect they are playing with karmic fire. First, because sucking attention just ain't karmically cool, and second, because such actions are probably the surest path one could undertake to make their own samadhi experiences "go away."
Just my opinion...
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