When I say that sahaja samadhi encapsulates all the lower samadhis, and dissolves them into a new state, I don’t mean that those samadhis go away. They are still all fully functionally present. Self-realization is present in sahaja samadhi. God-consciousness is present within sahaja samadhi.
Sahaja samadhi just refers to a kind of wholeness that holds all of these like branches on a tree. Like the trunk holding all those branches. When you look at the tree you would not say that the tree is one branch or several branches or the right side of the tree, or the left side, or the center. You just say, “The whole tree”, which includes every branch, the shape, the distinct character of every branch, every leaf, every piece of bark and wood skin. Every aspect of that tree is contained in the tree. sahaja samadhi likewise contains all of the samadhis, Nirvikalpa samadhi, Savikalpa samadhi, Laya samadhi. All the samadhis are present in that grand Samadhi that transcends them all, that also holds them all and that is both greater and unfathomable in its nature, greater than all the samadhis, and yet unfathomable in terms of description.
In the same way, the notion that ignorance is overcome is foreign to sahaja samadhi. That ignorance becomes transcended, is characteristic of the initial savikalpa and nirvikalpa states. The initial savikalpa states are temporary absorptions in the Absolute. Nirvikalpa is permanent absorption in the Absolute from a subjective viewpoint, that the “I” has become that, merely the “I”. That’s called Self-realization. The quality of ignorance itself is intact just as Self-realization remains intact, Savikalpa samadhi remains intact, Nirvikalpa samadhi remains intact.
This is something that will cause much debate in spiritual circles. Teachers generally need to reiterate that they are beyond ignorance, that ignorance had been destroyed in them. Certainly there is a grain of truth to that from the perspective of sahaja samadhi. But because sahaja samadhi permeates the physical structure, the light of the Self has come right to the surface of the skin and beyond. There is also a paradoxical acknowledgment of the limited state of the nervous system, this full understanding of the body itself, in and of its own accord. So the triumphant language, the spiritually triumphant language of Self-realization, looses its desirability in sahaja samadhi. You might find, likewise, in a merely Self-realized individual, lots of holy talk favoring sacred subjects, sattvic topics. Whereas you might find someone in sahaja samadhi cursing, angry, impetuous, displaying signs of what might be misunderstood to be disturbances. That’s only because they are no longer interested in abiding in that which precedes the body-mind since they know themselves to be the whole, inside and out, outside and in.
There is no absorptive character in sahaja samadhi per se. There is no sign of absorption into what precedes the body-mind. Absorptions have been rendered obsolete. They are not necessary, which is not to say that they cannot occur in sahaja samadhi. Like I said, the trace of every samadhi, every state of consciousness remains intact in sahaja samadhi, so that any one particular samadhi could actually appear. Yet that being, the sahaja samadhi immersed being, will understand it to be some kind of fractional factor, something that’s utterly unimportant, even the most sublime or intoxicating absorptions. The signs of those absorptions will be rendered to the one who is truly in sahaja samadhi to be unimportant, even distractive, even unnecessary, even a sort of fakery perhaps. Therefore in the final state, in the Natural State, no distinction is made between the waking state and God.
