Meditation

From Sri Annamalai Swami's Diary Extracts

One evening while I was accompanying Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) on one of his walks, I asked him, 'When I meditate my breath seems to get suspended in my stomach. Is this good?'

B replied, 'That is very good.'

Cheered by this positive comment I asked him a further question: 'If I go on meditating after that, what will happen?'

'Samadhi will be attained,' replied B.

'Does samadhi mean that one is unaware of everything?' I asked

'No', said B. 'Meditation will go one without our effort. That is samadhi.'

'Then what is sahaja samadhi?' I asked.

B answered by saying, 'In that state meditation will always be going on. In that state the thought, "I am meditating" or "I am not meditating", will not occur.'

I then asked B about periods in my meditation when I was only aware of an all-pervasive blankness.

B did not seem to approve of these states. 'In the beginning,' he said, 'it is good if meditators meditate with self-awareness.'

The state of sahaja samadhi continued to intrigue me. A few weeks later I asked him another question about it. 'Can one practice sahaja samadhi right from the beginning?'

B replied by saying that one could.

'But how to practice it?' I asked. 'And how does one practice nirvikalpa samadhi? How many different kinds of samadhi are there?'

'There is only one kind of samadhi,' said B, 'not many kinds. To remain temporarily subsided in the reality, without any thought, is nirvikalpa samadhi. Permanently abiding in the Self without forgetting it is sahaja samadhi. Both will give the same happiness.