When the self disappears

Patanjali describes samadhi as the state in which, in deep meditation, only the object of contemplation shines, and the awareness of oneself as a separate meditator falls away (Yoga Sutras 3.3). The three — the one who meditates, the act of meditating, and the object meditated upon — melt into one. This is the union that the word yoga has meant all along: not a doing, but a merging.

Samyama: the inner three as one

Concentration, meditation, and absorption — dharana, dhyana, and samadhi — are not really separate practices but three depths of a single movement. Practised together upon one object, Patanjali calls them samyama, the master key from which the light of higher wisdom dawns. Samadhi is simply that movement carried to its completion.

With seed and without seed

The tradition distinguishes degrees of this absorption. In the earlier stages (samprajnata or “seeded” samadhi), consciousness is still merged with an object — a form, a sound, a quality. In the highest stage (asamprajnata, “seedless” samadhi), even the object dissolves, and pure consciousness rests in itself alone, without support, utterly still and luminous. Here the very seeds of past conditioning are dissolved, and nothing remains to draw the soul back into restlessness.

Not the end, but the doorway

It would be a mistake to think samadhi is a trance or a blankness. It is the most awake state of all — consciousness fully itself, no longer scattered through the senses and the world. And while samadhi crowns the eight limbs, it opens onto something greater still: the permanent liberation Patanjali calls kaivalya, in which the Self abides forever free in its own nature. Repeated absorption ripens, at last, into that unbroken freedom.

The whole ladder in one breath

From ethical living to this final union, the eight limbs form one continuous ascent — and Kriya Yoga, by working directly with the breath and life-force, offers a swift inner route up it. Samadhi is where the ladder ends and the soul, having climbed through conduct, posture, breath, and stillness, simply rests in what it always was.