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NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI

SAHAJA SAMADHI

PRESENTED BYthe Wanderling

NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI

 ALSO KNOWN AS: Asamprajnata-Samadhi 

SAMADHI: (Sanskrit) "Enstasy without form or seed."The realization of the Self, Parasiva, a state of oneness beyond all change or diversity; beyond time,form and space.

NIRVIKALPA:- Nir means "without." Vi means "tochange, make different." Kalpa means "order,arrangement; a period of time."

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Nirvikalpa Samadhi is generally considered toincorporate the following four Jhanas within its scope:

8) Eighth Jhana:  jhana beyond perception and

nonperception (nevasannanasanna) Saijojo.7) Seventh Jhana:  jhana of pure emptiness (akinci ,lit. "nothingness") Ken-Chu-Shi.6) Sixth Jhana:  jhana of pure expansiveconsciousness (vinnana).5) Fifth Jhana: jhana of boundless space(anantakasa).

Enstasy: A difficult term that embraces both ecstasyand profound attainment of wisdom, the state of enstasy is, in fact, that state of Nirvana when onerecognizes The Void, the absolute reality thateverything is nothing.

Kalpa: (as a period of time) A Maha Yuga is 4.32million years, ten times as long as Kali Yuga. Twentyseven Maha Yugas is one Pralaya. Seven Pralayas isone Manvantara. Finally, six Manvantaras is a Kalpa.That is, one Kalpa is 27x7x6 = 1,134 Maha Yugas.This works out to 1134 x 4.3 million = 4.876 billionyears.

Kalachakra: the Wheel of Time:

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1. The Outer Wheel – the cosmic time cycle. Whileeach Kala comprises a year, an unit of Chakra is thetime taken by the sun to move across twelve

constellations and for the Kala to repeat 21,600 times.2. The Inner Wheel – the life force. Channels andenergy circulation within the individual person. Whileeach Kala comprises a day, a unit of Chakra is thetime taken by the various internal energies to pass the‘Twelve Wheels’ and for one to breathe 21600 times.

3. The Other Wheel – shatters the Ten Fetters of lifeand death, enables the practitioner to transcend thecycle of Rebirth, and gain spiritual purity andemancipation, thus achieving the “KalachakraBuddhahood”. The Other Wheel is based on themutual interaction, circulation and spiritual unionbetween the Outer Wheel and the Inner Wheel.

Once upon a time, Indra, the king of heaven and of whom Indra's Jeweled Net is attributed, wanted tostop an event. Indra summonedMother Kali,representing Time, who acted as Obstruction to stopthe event. Obstruction then began to stop many other events. Only Ganesha was beyond Time, so Ganesha

controlled Time and became Lord-of-Obstruction.Now, at the start of ANY undertaking, the help of Ganesha is needed to control Obstructions.

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It is said the legendary land of SpiritualEnlightenment, the mystical kingdom of Shambhala,hidden deep in the mountains of Tibet, guards the

most sacred and secret spiritual teachings of theworld, including the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time), thepinnacle of Buddhist wisdom.

 As to the above opening sentence, "NirvikalpaSamadhi is generally considered to incorporate the

following four Jhanas within its scope," then going onto list Jhana's number 5 through 8, it should be sobrought to the attention of the reader that the Buddhain his quest for Awakening was NOT able to fully find the answers he sought in the Eight Jhana States tohis satifaction. They are, thus then, not the end all beall of Full Attainment. To wit the following as foundin The Jhanas in Theravadan Buddhist Meditation:

"Before he became the Buddha, at the beginning of

his spiritual quest, Siddhartha Gautama studied

with two teachers. The first teacher taught him

the first Seven Jhanas; the other teacher taught

him the Eighth Jhana. Both teachers told him theyhad taught him all there was to learn. But

Siddhartha still didn't know why there was

suffering, so he left each of these teachers and

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wound up doing six years of austerity practises.

These too did not provide the answer to his

question and he abandoned these for what has

come to be known as the Middle Way. The suttasindicate that on the night of his Enlightenment, he

sat down under the and began his meditation by

practising the Jhanas (for example, see the

Mahasaccaka Sutta - Majjhima Nikaya #36). When

his mind was "concentrated, purified, bright,

unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy,steady and attained to imperturbability" he direct

it to the "true knowledges" that gave rise to his

incredible breakthrough in consciousness known in

the sutras as Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi. So we

see that the Jhanas are not only at the heart of

his teaching, but also were at the heart of his ownpractise." (source)

The first teacher taught him the first Seven Jhanas;the other teacher taught him the Eighth Jhana. Bothteachers told him they had taught him all there was tolearn. But Siddhartha still didn't know why there wassuffering, so he left each of these teachers andwound up doing six years of austerity practises.

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On the night of his Enlightenment, he sat down under the Bodhi Tree and began his meditation by practisingthe Jhanas. When his mind was "concentrated,

purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection,malleable, wieldy, steady and attained toimperturbability" he direct it to the "true knowledges"that gave rise to his incredible breakthrough inconsciousness known in the sutras as AnuttaraSamyak Sambodhi. The austerity practises as foundin Zen monasteries that follow the original tenents of the ancient traditions is designed to replicate the

environment faced by Siddhartha that led up to hisbreakthrough. See:

DOING HARD TIME IN A ZEN MONASTERY

It should be noted that in his monograph, TheQuestion of the Importance of Samadhi In Modernand Classical Advaita Vedanta (1993), discussing

 Asamprajnata Samadhi being the same asNirvikalpaka Samadhi, Michael Comans, PhD, writes:

"I do not know why later Vedantins used the word

Nirvikalpa to characterize what is essentially the

 yogic Asamprajnata Samadhi. Perhaps they wished

to distinguish their practice from that of classical

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Yoga. The word Nirvikalpaka was first introduced

into the astika ("orthodox") tradition by Kumarila

Bhatta, who used it in his explanation of

perception, under the influence of the Buddhistphilosopher Dignaga. See D. N. Shastri, The

Philosophy of Nyaya-Vaisesika and Its Conflict

with the Buddhist Dignaga School (Delhi: Bharatiya

Vidya Prakashan, 1976), p. 438." (source)

SEEBUDDHIST MEDITATION: Stages of Mindfulness

and AbsorptionPATH OF MINDFULNESS LEADING TO INSIGHT

SAHAJA SAMADHI

The explanation of the distinction between SahahaSamadhi and Nirvikalpa Samadhi is a difficult one.The following on Sahaja Samadhi is extrapolated from

the works of Ed Fisher :

The Baghavan Sri Ramana Maharshi distinguishesSahaja Samadhi from Nirvikalpa Samadhi by saying:

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In Sahaja Samadhi the mind is "dead", "resolved

into the self, like a river discharged into the oceanand its identity lost."

Ramana also says: "the trance has no goodunless vasanas (latent ideas and forms of the mind)are destroyed." But Ramana holds a strong bias to

the early Upanishad and Vedanta that essentiallydismiss the Advaita experience of non-duality as anti-thetical to their doctrine which may account for hisdisparaging the "trance" and "ecstasy" of NirvikalpaSamadhi and placing it in a lower status than HISversion of a Sahaja Samadhi with duality and content.

In an effort to explain Ramana's distinction between

Nirvikalpa and Sahaja it may be he assumes it is notthe quality of the "experience" (which may range froma Near Death Experience to Nirvikalpa Samadhi)that determines rank in the Samadhi hierarchy --- butto what degree vasanas are permanently destroyed,or (as in his own case) already highly evolved --- uponre-entering phenomenal life. This appears to

determine the level of Enlightenment one manifestsafter the Advaitic experience- which can range fromremaining in a state of relative ignorance to becominga jivanmukta like Ramana.

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Ramana's vasanas were already highly evolved at thetime of his experience, so upon re-emergence fromwhatever experience he attained his vasanas further 

evolved via intense intellectual perception of religioustexts to the degree he could function as a jivanmukta.Thus for Ramana it is more the quality of Enlightenment one retains after the transcendentexperience as to what name and rank he awards thelevel of the original experience --- and thus in my view(i.e., Fisher) arbitrarily applies the term 'SahajaSamadhi'.

In short --- I assume Sahaja does not enter intodefining the quality of the ultimate state of a samadhicexperience where Nirvikalpa is supreme- butdistinguishes any level of advaitic experience whichresults in the experiencer becoming imbued withhighly evolved vasana enabling his/her permanent

Enlightenment as a jivanmukta.(see)

NOTE: In a question and answer interview in thebook Be As You Are by David Godman, Sri Ramanais asked to clear up the difference betweenSamprajnata-Samadhi and Nirvikalpa Samadhi.Ramana responds with:

"Holding on to the supreme state is Samadhi. When

it is with effort due to mental disturbances, it is

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Samprajnata. When these disturbances are absent,

it is Nirvikalpa. Remaining permanently in the

primal state without effort is Sahaja."

Ramana seems to elevate Sahaja Samadhi to ahigher rank than Nirvikalpa Samadhi wherein Fisher smoothes out the distinction. Fisher, of whose worksthe above section on Sahaja Samadhi is cited from,and whom I worked closely with editing and citing his

works, is achampion of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, primarilybecause he himself, at age 42, experienced a self-realization consciousness raising event he callsa spontaneous transcendent episode that he relatesalmost exclusively as being Nirvikalpa Samadhi.Fisher fully outlines his Awakening experience in abooklet, now found in it's completeness online at:

A MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE: A TranscendentJourney

To his everlasting credit, and why I find Fisher's

experience credible, is what he presents in a footnoteon his transcendent journey :

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"Wholeness is an invented term expressing the

ultimate reality (or non reality) partially revealed

through transcendent experience. The feeling is

that this account describes one infinitesimal steptowards awareness of an ultimate state similar but

not identical to the Buddhist concept of

Suchness."

The fact that Fisher says his experience is most likely just one infinitesimal step towards awareness of anultimate state similar but not identical to the Buddhist concept of Suchness is most telling. Especially so inthat the section on Nirvikalpa Samadhi it is stated thatNirvikalpa Samadhi, of which Fisher champions,incorporates the highest Jhana states but nothing

about going beyond them. If you recall, the Buddhahad to go beyond the Jhana states in order to achievethe consummantion of incomparable enlightenment,

 Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.

James Swartz, known as Ram, in an interview titledCommentary on the Teachings of Ramana Maharshiand conducted by John Howells in January 2003, at

Tiruvannamalai, South India, offers the followingregarding Nirvikalpa Samadhi:

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"If you argue that you are aiming at nirvikalpa

samadhi where there is no mind, fine, but the

problem with nirvikalpa samadhi is that a fly

landing on your nose can bring you out of it, notthat there is anyone there to come ‘out’. And when

the ‘you’ who wasn’t there does ‘come back,’ as I

 just mentioned, you are just as stupid as you were

before… because you were not there in the

samadhi to understand that you are the samadhi.

If you are the samadhi you will have it all the timebecause you have you all the time…so there will be

no anxiety about making it permanent." (source)

Compare Fisher's experience with that of the

Wanderling's as found in Dark Luminosity.

For possible additional clarification, especially as itapplies to the Ramana side of things and NirvikalpaSamadhi, as well as other spiritual guides, pleasesee:

SAHAJA SAMADHI: OTHER VIEWS