Key idea of the Yoga Sūtras
samādhi · absorption
Absorption: the mind wholly given to its object, or resting without any object.
Samādhi, absorption, is both the eighth limb and the theme of Book I. As a limb it is meditation in which only the object shines, as if empty of its own form (3.3). Patañjali distinguishes kinds. Absorption with an object (saṃprajñāta) is accompanied by coarse thought, subtle thought, bliss and the sense 'I am' (1.17). The other absorption has no object: it follows practice in letting thought cease, and only latent impressions remain (1.18). The coalescences of 1.41–1.45 are all absorption with a seed (1.46). When even the impression of wisdom is stilled, everything is stilled, and this is absorption without a seed (1.51). Its supports include faith, energy, memory and wisdom (1.20), intense urgency (1.21), and devotion to Īśvara (1.23, 2.45). The last absorption the text names is the cloud of dharma, which comes from constant discernment (4.29).
Vyāsa
“But that [state] which, when the mind is single-in-intent, fully illumines a distinct and real object and causes the hindrances (kleśa) to dwindle, slackens the bonds of karma, … is called the yoga in which there is consciousness of an object (saṃprajñāta).”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya in J. H. Woods' translation (1914), p. 3–4.
How it has been read
Translations vary: Woods has 'concentration', others 'contemplation', 'absorption' or 'enstasy'. Vyāsa opens his commentary by equating yoga with samādhi, a quality of mind found in every state, though only the one-pointed and stilled count as yoga proper (on 1.1).
A common misreading
Samādhi is often pictured as a trance or a blissful high. In the text bliss belongs to one form of absorption with an object (1.17), and the goal is the seedless absorption beyond all objects (1.51).
Where the text defines it
- 1.17 Absorption with an object is accompanied by the forms of coarse thought, subtle thought, bliss and the sense 'I am'.
- 1.18 The other absorption follows practice in letting thought cease; only latent impressions remain.
- 1.46 These indeed are absorption with a seed.
- 1.51 When even that is stilled, everything is stilled: this is absorption without a seed.
- 3.3 Absorption is that same meditation when only the object shines, as if empty of its own form.
- 4.29 For one who seeks no return even from the highest insight, discernment is constant, and from it comes the absorption called the cloud of dharma.