A steady state of mind

The steadiness of prana is known as samadhi. Just by knowing that, in few moments the prana becomes steady and brings you to a space where you are completely hollow.

 

Patanjali tells you to become like a crystal, which is solid but allows light to pass through it totally. Though you exist with a body, in the state of samadhi you are not there at all. In other words you can live as though you don’t exist.

 

When you are with the Self, you are just with the just the self — steady, blissful and joyful and when you are with your senses, you are so totally in the senses.

 

The samadhi that you experience during activity is sabheej samadhi. Have you noticed a child? His eyes do not flitter here and there. They are steady. A child stares at things and there is depth in the eye of a child. This indicates the soul, how steady and stable it is. Your eyes are the window to see the world. If someone is very ambitious or greedy, their eyes will indicate that. If a person is kind and compassionate, the eyes will reflect that.

 

When I say eyes, I do not mean just the physical eyes but the face, the behavior, the senses, appearance, walk, words, your entire life reflects what you are deep inside.

 

This is the job of the senses. They tell you about the world and tell the world about you. The soul in you reflects the dignity in you. This is sabheej samadhi. Do you get it? You look at the mountain and the mountain reminds you of the self, of the consciousness.

 

You look at the ocean and the ocean reminds you of consciousness. Your mind is steady, your senses are steady. Steadiness is dignity. Steadiness is strength and steadiness is dispassion. You can experiment this. For a few moments you keep your body steady and keep your eyes steady and you will see almost immediately that the mind becomes steady and the breath comes to a standstill. This is when time stops, death stops, and immortality begins. Before time swallows you, before this earth gulps you, you wake up, and you swallow time.

 

Samadhi is a state of mind in which you can stay for a million years.

 

Every experience of your senses becomes complete. Have you observed your feelings when you are happy? You feel you are expanding. And what happens when you are sad, uptight or sorrowful? You experience tightness, reduction, isn’t it? Also when we feel expanded, our awareness is expanding, we tend to fall asleep. And when we want to have keenness of awareness, we seem to be more uptight, not relaxed.

 

Samadhi is a state of mind where you are sensitive to others feelings too. When you become sensitive to the world, nature becomes sensitive to you and listens to you. How can this happen? What is the condition? We will explore this in the next Sûtra.