Samadhi
Samadhi Part 1 – “Maya, the Illusion of the Self”
Samadhi is an ancient Sanskrit word, for which there is no modern equivalent. There is a fundamental challenge with making a film about Samadhi. Samadhi points to something that can’t be conveyed on the level of mind.
This film is simply the outer manifestation of my own inner journey. The intention is not to teach you about Samadhi, or provide information for your mind, but to inspire you to directly discover your true nature. Samadhi is relevant now more than ever. We are at a time in history where we have not only forgotten Samadhi, but we have forgotten what we forgot.
This forgetting is Maya, the illusion of the self.
As humans most of us live immersed in our daily lives, with little thought of who we are, why we are here, or where we’re going. Most of us have never realized the true self, the soul or what the Buddha called annata – that which is beyond name and form, beyond thinking. As a result we believe we are these limited bodies. We live in fear, either conscious or unconscious, that the limited self structure that we are identified with, will die.
In today’s world the vast majority of people who are engaged in religious or spiritual practices such as yoga, prayer, meditation, chanting or any kind of ritual, are practicing techniques which are conditioned. Which means they are just part of the ego construct. The seeking and the activity isn’t the problem- thinking you have found the answer in some external form is the problem.
Spirituality in its most common form is no different than the pathological thinking that is going on everywhere. It is a further agitation of the mind. More human doing, as opposed to human being. The ego construct wants more money, more power, more love, more of everything. Those on the so-called spiritual path desire to be more spiritual, more awake, more equanimous, more peaceful, more enlightened. The danger for you watching this film is that your mind will want to acquire Samadhi . Even more dangerous is that your mind might think it has acquired Samadhi. Whenever there is a desire to attain something you can be sure that it is the ego construct at work. Samadhi is not about attaining or adding anything to yourself. Read more…
Samadhi Part 2 "It’s Not What You Think"
Samadhi begins with a leap into the unknown. In the ancient traditions in order to realize Samadhi it was said that one must ultimately turn consciousness away from all known objects; from all external phenomena, conditioned thoughts and sensations, toward consciousness itself. Toward the inner source; the heart or essence of one’s being.
In this film when we use the word Samadhi we are pointing to the transcendent. To the highest Samadhi which has been named Nirvikalpa Samadhi. In Nirvikalpa Samadhi there’s a cessation of self activity, of all seeking and doing. We can only speak about what falls away as we approach it and what reappears when we return from it. There is neither perception nor non-perception, neither “thing” nor “no thing”, neither consciousness nor unconsciousness. It is absolute, unfathomable, and inscrutable to the mind. When the self returns to activity there’s a not knowing; a kind of rebirth, and everything becomes new again. We are left with the perfume of the divine, which lingers longer as one evolves on the path.
There are numerous types of Samadhi described in the ancient
traditions and language has created much confusion over the years. We
are choosing to use the word Samadhi to point to the transcendent union,
but we could have used a word from another tradition just as easily.
Samadhi is an ancient Sanskrit term common to the Vedic yogic and
Samkhya traditions of India, and has permeated many other spiritual
traditions. Samadhi is the eighth limb of Patanjali’s eight limbs of the
yoga, and the eighth part of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. The
Buddha used the word “Nirvana”, the cessation of “vana” or the cessation
of self activity. Patanjali described yoga or Samadhi as “chitta vritti
nirodha”, the Sanskrit meaning “cessation of the whirlpool or spiral of
mind.” It is a disentangling of consciousness from the entire matrix or
creatrix of mind. Samadhi does not signify any concept because to
realize it requires a dropping of the conceptual mind.
Read more...
Samadhi Part 3 "The Pathless Path"
There’s a saying in Zen:
“Enlightenment is an accident but practice makes us accident-prone.”
In this film we will examine the mechanisms by which one becomes accident-prone.
Samadhi 3 conveys an overview of the two dimensions of practice, which are mindfulness and mental emptiness.
Samadhi is freedom from identification with the limited self; freedom from our conditioning; freedom from suffering. Sadhana or spiritual practice that leads to Samadhi has two fundamental aspects: the first aspect is purifying the self structure through practices which shift the energy out of conditioned patterns and pathological thinking. When the energy is free it facilitates greater interconnection, love, and expansion into higher levels of self or soul. What you think of as “other” becomes integrated into you. The self structure becomes like a node in increasingly higher levels of mind.
The paradox is that any practices we use to become free of the unconscious conditioning are themselves conditioned. At a point all techniques, all concepts, all doing, all attempts to realize Samadhi have to be let go of. A meditator cannot awaken. A self structure cannot awaken. It can only give up egoic control reactions and preferences which lays the groundwork and inner rewiring for staying awake on the gross subtle and causal levels.
The second aspect of practice could be called formless self-inquiry which is about becoming aware of awareness itself; waking up to the realization that all levels of self or soul are ultimately empty. Like the wings of a bird these two aspects of sadhana, mindfulness and mind emptiness carry one towards Samadhi- the collapse of all duality.
The path is you and every obstacle on the path is you. The path to Samadhi is not the sort of path where you put one foot in front of another to get to some destination. The path is a stripping away of illusion, a waking-up to exactly who, where and what one is.
Genre: Documentary | 2017 | Canada
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