Raja Yoga (the Yoga Sūtras with commentary) — trans. Swami Vivekananda (1896)

But it does not end here. There is a still higher plane upon which the mind can work. It can go beyond consciousness. Just as unconscious work is beneath

DHYANA AND SAMADHI.

consciousness, so there is another work which is above consciousness, and which, also, is not accompanied with the feeHng of egoism. The feehng of egoism is only on the middle plane. When the mind is above or below that line there is no feeling of " I," and yet the mind works. When the mind goes beyond this line of self-consciousness it is called Samadhi, or super-consciousness. It is above consciousness. How, for instance, do we know that a man in Samadhi has not gone below his consciousness, has not degenerated, instead of going higher ? In both cases the works are unaccompanied with egoism ? The answer is, by the effects, by the results of the work, we know that which is below, and that which is above. When a man goes into deep sleep he enters a plane beneath consciousness. He works the body all the time, he breathes, he moves the body, perhaps, in his sleep, without any accompanying feeling of ego ; he is unconscious, and when he returns from his sleep he is the same man who went into it. The sum-total of the knowledge which he had before he went into the sleep remains the same ; it has not increased at all. No enlightenment has come. But if a man goes into Samadhi, if he goes into it a fool, he comes out a sage.

What makes the difference ? From one state a man comes out the very same man that went in, and out of another state the man becomes enlightened, a sage, a prophet, a saint, his whole character changed, his life changed, illumined. These are the two effects. Now the effects being different, the causes must be different.

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As this illumination, with which a man comes back from Samadhi, is much higher than can be got from unconsciousness, or much higher than can be got by reasoning in a conscious state, it must therefore be super-consciousness, and Samadhi is called the super-conscious state.

This, in short, is the idea of Samadhi. What is its application? The application is here. The field of reason, or of the conscious workings of the mind, is narrow and limited. There is a little circle within which human reason will have to move. It cannot go beyond it. Every attempt to go beyond is impossible, yet it is beyond this circle of reason that lies all that humanity holds most dear. All tliese questions, whether there is an immortal soul, whether there is a God, whether there is any supreme intelligence guiding this universe, are beyond the field of reason. Reason can never answer these questions. What does reason say ? It says, " I am agnostic ; I do not know either yea or nay." Yet these questions are so important to us. Without a proper answer to them, human life will be impossible. All our ethical theories, all our moral attitudes, all that is good and great in human nature, has been moulded upon answers that ha\e come from beyond that circle. It is very important, therefore, that we should have answers to these questions ; without such answers human life will be impossible. If life is only a little fi\e minutes' thing, if the universe is only a "fortuitous combination of atoms," then why should I do good to

DHYANA AND SAMADHI