Samadhi, a state of consciousness often considered one of the ultimate Yogic achievements, exerts a powerful pull on intense seekers. Yet, as Sadhguru emphasizes, pursuing the experience can lead one astray. Authentic spiritual growth, he explains, is not about lofty altered states; it’s about the relentless, transformative work of dismantling one’s own limitations. Leave behind the idea of visions of deities and esoteric floating; the path to genuine transformation requires an unwavering focus and conscious involvement with life.
Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. I’ve heard many amazing stories of Yogis going into samadhi as the ultimate level of consciousness, and I want to experience this too. But despite my best efforts, I don’t seem to get there. How should I approach samadhi?
Sadhguru: Samadhi means having an intellect that is equanimous. Otherwise, your intellect constantly discriminates. When I look around, I have no interest in whether someone is a man or a woman, but my intellect immediately identifies them as such. When you look somewhere, your intellect automatically tells you – this is a man, this is a woman, that is a tree. This is discrimination. To set this discrimination aside and simply look at life as it is, is samadhi.
Samadhi has been classified into eight forms or aspects, more to aid understanding than reflect reality. But when it comes to samadhi or anything for that matter, do not be an experience hunter. Spirituality is not about seeking experiences. Spirituality is about transformation. It is about transforming yourself and transcending your limitations. Whether through samadhi or other means, you are willing to do whatever it takes to transcend.
Transcendence requires understanding gravity. When you walk, gravity holds you down. If it releases you, you will float away. To get that release, merely thinking about flying or trying to fly will not work – you would just jump and fall down. But if you understand the nature of gravity, the rope that holds you down, and learn to undo it, you can fly. That is how airplanes fly. Through aerodynamic forces, which means understanding gravity, they transcend gravity.
Let me tell you a little story, because many of you attempt such things. One day, a tiny little turtle climbed a tree in the garden, perched on a branch, jumped, and fell flat on the ground. Slowly, over the next 24 hours, it made its way back to the top. Once again, it jumped and fell flat, suffering a lot of pain. But again, it climbed the tree. Two birds sitting in that tree looked at each other and said, “I think it’s time we tell him he’s adopted.”
Do not try to go into samadhi. If you make your intelligence super alert, knowing fully well that you do not know a damn thing, you will become aware of every step and every breath. If you become so aware that your memory has no power over you, you will be in samadhi – equanimous intellect. Which of the eight forms of samadhi it is does not matter. What matters is that it becomes a transformational force rather than experience hunting.
This has become a significant problem among spiritual seekers – they focus on experiences. “You know what happened? I sat in meditation, and I actually heard Shiva’s voice!”
The most important thing is not to seek experiences. Even if Shiva came and danced in your head, leave him alone, because the power of memory in your mind and body is so immense that it can deceive you for a thousand lifetimes about what is real and what is not. If you are born here, you might begin seeing Shiva. If you were born elsewhere, you might see angels floating around who look like your own kind.
Do not play with these things; you have played enough. If you are serious about where you want to go, stop playing around with these toys. No matter what others might tell you, learning to keep your memory aside is not simple. You cannot accomplish this by choice. It only works if you make your intelligence vibrant.
This is not a question of IQ but of intensity. If you do not know how to be intense, get seriously angry with someone next to you – you will see you are capable of intensity, but unfortunately only when driven by something negative.
If a dog chases you on the street, you might run a hundred meters in 9.6 seconds. Once you know you can do that, you can do it even without a dog. Intensity is there in everyone, but people are losing it because they were told for a long time that peace of mind is the ultimate goal of life. Such people will only rest in peace. This life should be on fire, but not in a damaging way.
The fire of life must burn in you full-on. As a little child, when you were five, six, seven years of age, if you played a game or did something else, you did so with full intensity. You do not have to jump like a child, but you can still be as intense with everything you do.
Intensity does not die in you unless you kill it with stupid philosophies or repetitiveness. Living out of memory rather than awareness leads to repetitiveness. But memory is the primary value in most people’s life right now – your qualifications, your family, everything is based on memory. This hanging on to memory is the problem because it creates repetitiveness.
Living out of memory and living out of awareness are two entirely different things. Spirituality is about moving into awareness, which is often described as light because you begin seeing things that were always there but you never noticed them. The moment you become aware, you begin to see.
Memory is a powerful thing. When you walk through a busy street, among thousands of faces, one face might suddenly appear brighter than others, simply because your mind holds a memory of that face.
Memory exerts that level of influence on you. You have to burn with awareness so you can access your memory by choice, not by compulsion. Right now, your hand is in the “memory box” all the time. It plays with everything – your likes and dislikes, whom you love and whom you hate; it all is based on memory.
Do not try to distance yourself from your memory because it will not work that way. You need to crank up your intensity to such an extent that it naturally creates a little distance between what is you and what is not you. You have accumulated this body, but right now, in your perception, there is no distinction between the accumulation and the one who accumulated it, because there is not enough awareness.
If you burn with awareness, it creates a little distance between you and your body. Once you are able to make this distinction, the compulsions of the body will not affect you much anymore.
“What do I have to do to get there? Do I have to give up my life? Should I go to a cave in the Himalayas?” This is not about where you go or what you do with your life. It is about how you do it – the how of life, not the what of life.
Adishankara said, “Jatilo mundi lunchita keshaha.” This means that just wearing Kavi[1] clothes and malas, and growing matted hair, will not bring any change. Others might think differently about you, but nothing will change inside you simply because you wear certain clothes, have matted hair, or smear yourself with ash from head to toe.
So, do not seek samadhi. Seek transformation. What is transformation? Identify your limitations and see how to move beyond them. Even the smallest limitation will not go away easily unless you burn with intensity. The easiest thing would be to give up. But if you burn bright enough, your limitations will go away. There is no other solution. Life has to be lit, not settled.
People ask me, “Sadhguru, what is this? Again you are back on schedule non-stop. When will you rest?” I said, “I will, one day.” One day, everyone will rest. Right now, it is time to live, and it is a bloody brief time.
If you explore the potential of what it means to be human, you will see this is a very brief life. We have to burn super bright, or it will slip away. I am not saying you have to do this – but if you value yourself and this life, you need to rise above all limitations and be able to glide through life.
