Downward Facing Blog

If playing video games, smoking pot, and having sex produce Samadhi, why do yoga?

My last blog post on Samadhi drew this feedback from Mark;

“I have a question. Im assuming that when Samadhi burns up our mountain of bijahs it is only the yogic samadhi that is capable of doing this. Is it possible for the no big deal samadhi 2 burn our mountain of seed. If this is possible wouldnt video game junkies be the most clear headed people in the world. Or stoners? But then where does the difference occur and who makes that judgement?”

Great question, thanks. I actually meant to expand on that idea anyways.

Here’s two points:

1. Samadhi does not equal “clear headed”2. Samadhi is what MAKES the bijahs.

In case you have no idea what that means, bijah means “seeds” and refers to all the little karmic residue in your subconscious that you carry like heavy luggage from life to life.

It’s like this; you’re wandering around through your day, not thinking of anything in particular, until BAM something grabs your attention. That “thing” then makes an imprint upon the mind, which is a seed (samskara). When you imprint enough upon the mind that one thing enough times it forms a tendency (vasana) and when that is repeated enough times, the tendency becomes an action you are forced to do or undergo blindly (karma). It’s like starting a cigarette habit;

• You see someone powerful who is smoking (micro Samadhi imprint)

• You see it again and again, creating a desire in you to smoke (tendency)

• You start to smoke, and you become addicted. You have to smoke until you become conscious of your behavior (karma)

Or take this example; you’re out somewhere in mid-stream of a conversation and someone impossibly hot and sexy walks by. What happens? I usually go into a little trance (Samadhi) and maybe forget what I was saying. If that person was REALLY hot then it imprints upon the mind, forming a samskara.

(does Lydia make an impression?)

The DNA building blocks of the material realm are built up of the three threads (gunas) of decay (tamas), activity (rajas), and balance (sattva). We can have samadhis on all these levels (plus two more).

Tamasic samadhis: sleep, drugs, television (deluded)Rajasic samadhis: sports, activity, my coffee addiction (distracted)Sattvic samadhis: genius, artistic inspiration, mystical experiences. (Imaginative)

So here’s the deal: lower levels of samadhis (bijahs) get burnt up by higher levels of samadhis only. So if you’re stoned, playing video games and sleeping a lot, we’d better get you up and exercising (rajas) to break up the tamas. Then we’ll talk about yoga later.

Patanjali lists five states of consciousness:

1. deluded2. distracted3. imaginative4. one-pointed5. stillness

Yoga is creating higher level samadhis, or bijahs, that’s all. The yogic samadhis are the last two: one-pointed and still.

One pointed is where we have a support still (like a mantra), which is called “with seed Samadhi”, and stillness is called “without seed Samadhi (nirbijah) Without seed Samadhi is ‘nirodh’, which any student who’s gone a bit through the yoga sutras knows; “yoga chitta vritti nirodha-ha” which means, “yoga is the condition of consciousness in which there’s no fluctuations”.

Yes, if smoking pot and playing video games worked, I’d likely have attained to great states of consciousness when I was 14.

This is why yoga works so great to stop addictions. People wonder how to quit smoking or drugs or whatever. I always say to them “don’t quit!” Just keep doing your habits but ADD yoga. Eventually the higher level Samadhi will short-circuit the lower ones.

Mucho love beams, Adrian Cox www.yogaelements.com