Re: Paramahamsa Hariharananda! Samadhi and nothing. -- KRIYA YOGA DISCUSSION BOARD

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Date Posted: 13:41
Author: Hendrik - 20 Mar 2001
Subject: Re: Paramahamsa Hariharananda! Samadhi and nothing.
In reply to: Flash - 20 Mar 2001 's message, "Re: Paramahamsa Hariharananda! Samadhi and nothing." on 13:31

I wonder why the attainment of a breathless state is always put forth as an argument for the supposed realized state of Hariharananda. Also, I don't understand why there is so much dispute about him; many people who seems to know him personally utters respect of his dignified atmosphere.

I do not know about Nirvikalpa Samadhi, but it seems that entering a state of suspended breath is something like a precondition for going deeply inward. I read a letter of the visionary Swedenborg where he claims that without that state "no religious insight is possible". But surely he was no enlightened yogi.

I doubt that the capability of entering such states by will does by itself make one a great yogi. We make the mistake of taking each and every word published by SRF for granted. What Yogananda said, or is supposed to have said, is for many now the measure-stick of yoga. Of all the great yogis that I know, he is the one I have the least trust in as far as general statements on yoga are concerned. He is often so sweeping and simplyfing in what he says that caution should be applied building yogic theories on his words.

There are these reports of Indian yogis entering such a paralytic state, let themselves be buried and remain underground in this sort of Samadhi until someone digs them out decades later.

And when they are finally made to wake up again, they may either curse you for pulling them out of their blissful rest, or react in the same way they would have done just before they entered that trance.

Just as if they had experienced a "break" in their lives, without further consequences. Like someone who for one night gets caught in a fairy dance and by the time he breaks away from it, 20 years have passed already although for him only a few hours have passed.

So what is this catalepsy good for concerning indiviual development? Is this Nirvikalpa Samadhi, or are there rather different kinds of deep trances, accompanied by an outer immobility, a 'death-like' state?

Some of these states seem to resemble an unconscious blissful sleep, a sort of coma which has no further consequence for one's sadhana. Proof is that these people haven't changed an inch when they come out of it even after many years.

So, please, why is the state Hariharananda is reported to stay in now and then necessarily 'Nirvikalpa Samadhi'? What IS 'Nirvikalpa Samadhi'? The assumption that it is identical with making your body pulseless is making a fool of yoga.

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Replies:

Re: Paramahamsa Hariharananda! Samadhi and nothing. -- Flash - 21 Mar 2001, 13:42
- Re: Paramahamsa Hariharananda! Samadhi and nothing. -- Hendrik - 21 Mar 2001, 13:43
Re: Paramahamsa Hariharananda! Samadhi and nothing. -- David (content), 03:45