Tripura Rahasya

Sage Dattatreya

KING JANAKA said:

Wisdom is achieved in the course of many births by the lowest aspirants. As for the middle class, wisdom is gained in the same birth, but slowly and gradually according to the aforesaid scheme of learning the truth, conviction of the same, meditation - qualified samadhi and unqualified samadhi and finally sahaja samadhi (this last state is very rarely found).

Why fall into nirvikalpa samadhi, without gaining the fruit of its wisdom! Even if he should experience it a hundred times it will not liberate the individual. Therefore I tell you that momentary samadhis in the waking state are fruitless.

Unless a man lives the ordinary life and checks every incident as the projection of the Self, not swerving from the Self in any circumstances, he cannot be said to be free from the handicap of ignorance.

Nirvikalpa samadhi is characterized by the experience of the true Self, namely, Pure Intelligence. Though eternal and resplendent even ordinarily, this Abstract Intelligence is as if it did not exist. Abstract Intelligence is the background on which the phenomena are displayed, and it must certainly manifest itself in all its purity, in their absence, although its appearance may look new at first. It remains unrecognized because it is not distinguished from the phenomena displayed by it. On their being eliminated it becomes apparent. This is in short the method of Self-Realization.