The question of the importance of Samadhi

·期刊原文
The question of the importance of Samadhi
in modern and classical Advaita Vedanta.

Comans, Michael

Philosophy East & West
Vol.43 No 1

Pp.19-38

Jan. 1993

Copyright by University of Hawaii Press

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The word samadhi [1] became a part of the vocabulary of a
number of Western intellectuals toward the end of the first
half of this century. Two well-known writers, Aldous Huxley
and Christopher Isherwood, were impressed by Eastern and
specifically by Indian thought. Huxley made a popular
anthology of Eastern and Western mystical literature under
the title The Perennial Philosophy (1946), and in his last
novel, Island (1962), words such as moksa and samadhi occur
untranslated. In both these works, Huxley uses the words
"false samadhi, " implying that the reader was already
conversant with what samadhi actually is. Isherwood wrote an
account of the life of the nineteenth-century Bengali mystic
Sri Ramakrsna, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1959), and he
published as the second part of his autobiographical trilogy
an account of the years he spent with his own guru, Swami
Prabhavananda of the Ramakrsna Order, in My Guru and His
Disciple (1980). Why these writers were drawn toward Eastern
spiritual thought, and to the Vedanta teachings in
particular, is not the subject for discussion here. But
perhaps one significant reason is that with the decline in
organized religion after World War I, these writers found in
the Vedanta, as presented to them by the followers of Sri
Ramakrsna and his disciple Swami Vivekananda, a spirituality
which emphasized the authority of firsthand experience as the
only way to verify what was presented as the Truth. The
Vedanta, as they saw it, was a "minimum working hypothesis,"
which could be validated through cultivating a certain type
of experience, and that experience was seen to be a mystical,
super-conscious state of awareness called samadhi.

Isherwood edited a book of articles titled Vedanta for the
Western World (1948). In his introduction he emphasizes the
centrality of having a direct, personal experience of
Reality, which, he says, the Christian writers call "mystic
union" and Vedantists call "samadhi." Isherwood raises the
question as to how Reality can be experienced if it is beyond
sense perception, and he answers the question in terms of
samadhi experience:

Samadhi is said to be a fourth kind of consciousness: it
is beyond the states of waking, dreaming and dreamless
sleep. Those who have witnessed it as an external
phenomenon report that the experience appeared to have
fallen into a kind of trance. The hair on the head and
body stood erect. The half-closed eyes became fixed.
Sometimes there was an astonishing loss of weight, or
even levitation of the body from the ground. But these
are mere symptoms, and tell us nothing. There is only one
way to find out what samadhi is like: you must have it
yourself?

Huxley and Isherwood did not find Indian spirituality by
journeying to India--rather it was India which found them;
and the variety of Indian spirituality with which these
Englishmen came into contact in California in the late 1930s
was that of the Vedanta Society, founded by Swami Vivekananda
and his followers, who were monks of the recently established
(1886) Order of Ramakrsna. If we seek to locate the source of
the orientation of spiritual life around the cultivation of
samadhi experience, which has become one of the principal
characteristics of modern Vedanta, it must be traced to Sri
Ramakrsna himself. Ramakrsna was not a Vedantin in the
orthodox sense of one who has received instruction centered
on the exegesis of the sacred texts (sastra), which are
generally in Sanskrit, from a teacher (acarya), and who then
consciously locates himself within that specific body of
received teachings (sampradaya). Ramakrsna, as is well known,
affirmed that a variety of diverse disciplines and traditions
within Hinduism, and even outside of Hinduism, were valid in
that they were all efficacious means toward the same
spiritual goal. However, as has been pointed out, it would be
most correct to locate. Ramakrsna's teachings within a
Tantric paradigm. [3] Tantra is an expressly
experience-oriented discipline and it relies upon yoga
techniques, particularly those of Hatha Yoga, [4] to bring
about a samadhi experience. Ramakrsna frequently underwent
trance-like states, which are referred to in The Gospel of
Sri Ramakrishna as samadhi experiences. A typical description
in the Gospel would be the following passage:

At the mere mention of Krishna and Arjuna the Master went
into samadhi. In the twinkling of an eye his body became
motionless and his eyeballs transfixed, while his
breathing could scarcely be noticed. [5]

Ramakrsna has himself linked the occurrence of samadhi with
Kundalini Yoga, which is referred to in the treatises on
Hatha Yoga and is fundamental to Tantra soteriology. For
example, Ramakrsna is recorded as having remarked:

A man's spiritual consciousness is not awakened unless
his Kundalini is aroused.

The Kundalini dwells in the Muladhara. When it is
aroused, it passes along the Sushumna nerve, goes through
the centres of Svadhisthana, Manipura, and so on, and at
last reaches the head. This is called the movement of the
Mahavayu, the Spiritual Current. It culminates in
samadhi. [6]

From the above we should be able to see the importance that
the samadhi experience had in the life and teachings of Sri
Ramakrsna. Such an experience-oriented view of spirituality
was a legacy which passed from Ramakrsna to Vivekananda.
Vivekananda was receptive to this view, for it seemed to
agree with what he had studied of the British empiricist
philosophers and the positivist Auguste Comte, insofar as
they by University of Hawaii Press had stressed the
centrality of empirical experience. Vivekananda extended the
empiricist epistemology that all knowledge is derived from
sense experience into the domain of metaphysics, for he
thought that since experience is the basis of all knowledge,
then if a metaphysical Reality exists, it, too, ought to be
available for direct experience? And from his association
with Ramakrsna he gathered that samadhi was the experience
required in order to know God. In his writings he placed much
emphasis on the necessity of attaining samadhi. He loosely
translated samadhi as "super-consciousness,"[8] and he stated
in his work Raja-Yoga, a commentary in English on the
Yogasutras of Patanjali, that samadhi experience was the acme
of spiritual life:

Samadhi is the property of every human being--nay, every
animal. From the lowest animal to the highest angel, some
time or other, each one will have to come to that state,
and then, and then alone, will real religion begin for
him. Until then we only struggle towards that stage.
There is no difference now between us and those who have
no religion, because we have no experience. What is
concentration good for, save to bring us to that
experience? Each one of the steps to attain samadhi has
been reasoned out, properly adjusted, scientifically
organized, and, when faithfully practised, will surely
lead us to the desired end. Then all sorrows cease, all
miseries vanish; the seeds of actions will be burnt, and
the soul will be free for ever.[9]

Vivekananda was attracted to Ramakrsna for reasons somewhat
similar to those that initially attracted Huxley and
Isherwood to the Vedanta taught by the followers of
Vivekananda: they all sought some direct, experiential
verification of the propositions of religious metaphysics,
and they all came to believe that the key to such
verification lay in the attainment of a samadhi or
"super-conscious" experience. This legacy of Ramakrsna, the
search for an extra-ordinary experience in order to validate
spiritual life, not only extended to the West via the
Ramakrsna Order of monks that Vivekananda helped to found,
but it also become a dominant view within the
Western-educated Indian middle class through the spread of
Ramakrsna-Vivekananda literature. The modern Indian
philosopher, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, an eloquent advocate
of the importance of experience in religion, has described
samadhi in the following manner: "In samadhi or enstatic
consciousness we have a sense of immediate contact with
ultimate reality.. It is a state of pure apprehension.. "[10]

At this point the reader may wonder whether we are not
stating the obvious, for is it not precisely because samadhi
is so important that modern Vedantins such as Vivekananda and
Radhakrishnan gave it such emphasis? It is certainly
important to modern Vedanta, but the question can be
legitimately raised as to what importance it has in the
Upanisads, the very source of the Vedanta, and in the
classical Vedanta such as in the works of Sankara, the most
famous of all the Vedanta teachers. That is the topic which
we shall now address.

The first point to be noted is that the word samadhi does
not occur in the ten major Upanisads upon which Sankara has
commented.[11] This is not a matter to be lightly passed
over, for if the attainment of samadhi is central to the
experiential verification of the Vedanta, as we can gather it
is, judging by the statements of some modern Vedantins such
as those cited above, then one would legitimately expect the
term to appear in the major Upanisads which are the very
source of the Vedanta. Yet the word does not occur. The
closest approximation to the word samadhi in the early
Upanisads is the past passive participle samahita in the
Chandogya and Brhadaranyaka Upanisads.[12] In both texts the
word samahita is not used in the technical meaning of samadhi
,that is, in the sense of a meditative absorption or enstasis
,although the closest approximation to this sense occurs in
the Brhadaranyaka. In the first reference (BU 4.2.1) ,
Yajnavalkya tells Janaka: "You have fully equipped your mind
(samahitatma) with so many secret names [of Brahman, that is,
Upanisads]."[13] Here the word samahita should be translated
as "concentrated, collected, brought together, or composed."

In the second occurrence (BU 4.4.23), Yajnavalkya tells
Janaka that a knower of Brahman becomes "calm (santa),
controlled (danta), withdrawn from sense pleasures (uparati),
forbearing (titiksu), and collected in mind (samahita). This
reference to samahita is the closest approximation in the
Upanisads to the term samadhi, which is well known in the
later yoga literature. However, the two terms are not
synonyms, for in the Upanisad the word samahita means
"collectedness of mind," and there is no reference to a
meditation practice leading to the suspension of the
faculties such as we find in the literature dealing with
yoga. The five mental qualities mentioned in BU 4.4.3 later
formed, with the addition of faith (sraddha), a list of six
qualifications required of a Vedantic student, and they are
frequently to be found at the beginning of Vedantic
texts.[14] In these texts, the past participles used in the
Upanisads are regularly changed into nominal forms: santa
becomes sama, danta becomes dama, and samahita becomes
samadhana, but not the cognate noun samadhi. It would thus
appear that, while Vedanta authors understood samahita and
samadhana as equivalent terms, they did not wish to equate
them with the word samadhi; otherwise there would have been
no reason why that term could not have been used instead of
samadhana. But it seems to have been deliberately avoided,
except in the case of the later Vedanta work, Vedantasara, to
which we shall have occasion to refer. Thus we would suggest
that, in the Vedanta texts, samadhana does not have the same
meaning that the word samadhi has in yoga texts. This is
borne out when we look at how Vedanta authors describe the
terms samahita and samadhana. Sankara, in BU 4.2.1, glosses
samahitatma as samyuktama, "well equipped or connected." In
BU 4.4.23, he explains the term samahita as "becoming
one-pointed (aikagrya) through dissociation from the
movements of the sense-organs and the mind."[15] The term
occurs again in the Katha Upanisad 1.2.24 in the negative
form asamahita, which Sankara glosses as "one whose mind is
not one-pointed (anekagra), whose mind is scattered."[16] In
introductory Vedanta manuals, samadhana is also explained by
the term "one-pointed" (ekagra).[17] The word samadhana can
thus be understood as having the meaning of "one-pointed"
(ekagra). In the Yogasutra, "one-pointed" (ekagra) is used to
define concentration (dharana),[18] which is the sixth of the
eight limbs of Yoga and a preliminary discipline to dhyana
and samadhi. We may see, then, that the Vedantic samadhana
means "one-pointedness" and would be equivalent to the yoga
dharana, but it is not equivalent to the yoga samadhi.

The word samadhi first appears in the Hindu scriptures in the
Maitrayni Upanisad (6.18, 34), a text which does not belong
to the strata of the early Upanisads[19] and which mentions
five of the eight limbs of classical Yoga. The word also
occurs in some of the Yoga and Sannyasa Upanisads of the
Atharvaveda.[20] Samadhi would thus seem to be a part of
yogic practice which has entered into the later Upanisadic
literature through such texts as the Yoga Upanisads as a
result of what Eliade calls "the constant osmosis between the
Upanisadic and yogic milieus."[21] The diverse teachings of
yoga were systematized in Patanjali's Yogasutras, where it is
explained that the goal of yoga is to restrain completely all
mental fluctuations (vrtti) so as to bring about the state of
samadhi. Samadhi itself has two stages, samprajana samadhi,
or an enstasis where there is still object-consciousness, and
asamprajatasamadhi or nirbijasamadhi, where there is no
longer any object-consciousness. Asamprajnatasamadhi became
known in later Vedanta circles as nirvikalpasamadhi.[22] The
point to be noted about yoga is that its whole soteriology is
based upon the suppression of mental fluctuations so as to
pass firstly into samprajnatasamadhi and from there, through
the complete suppression of all mental fluctuations, into
asamprajnatasamadhi, in which state the Self remains solely
in and as itself without being hidden by external,
conditioning factors imposed by the mind (citta).

When we examine the works of Sankara, however, we find a very
sparing use of the word samadhi.[23] In the Brahmasutrabhasya
he makes three references to samadhi as a condition of
absorption or enstasis.[24] In the first (2.1.9) , he
implicitly refutes the idea that samadhi is, of itself, the
means for liberation, for he says:

Though there is the natural eradication of difference in
deep sleep and in samadhi etc., because false knowledge
has not been removed, differences occur once again upon
waking just like before.[25]

What Sankara says is that duality, such as the fundamental
distinction between subject and object, is obliterated in
deep sleep and in samadhi, as well as in other conditions
such as fainting, but duality is only temporarily obliterated
for it reappears when one awakes from sleep or regains
consciousness after fainting, and it also reappears when the
yoga arises from samadhi. The reason why duality persists is
because false knowledge (mithyajana) has not been removed. It
is evident from this brief statement that Sankara does not
consider the attainment of samadhi to be a sufficient cause
to eradicate false knowledge, and, according to Sankara,
since false knowledge is the cause of bondage, samadhi cannot
therefore be the cause of liberation. The only other
significant reference to samadhi in the Brahmasatrabhasya
occurs in the context of a discussion as to whether agentship
is an essential property of the self. According to Sankara's
interpretation, sutras 2.3.33-39 accept agentship as a
property of the self, but sutra 2.3.40 presents the
definitive view that agentship is not an intrinsic property
of the Self but is a superimposition. The word samadhi occurs
in 2.3.39 (samadhy-abhavacca), and here Sankara briefly
comments, "samadhi, whose purpose is the ascertainment of the
Self known from the Upanisads, is taught in the Vedanta texts
such as: 'The Self, my dear, should be seen; it should be
heard about, thought about and meditated upon'" (BU
2.4.5) .[26] Sankara shows by the phrase
atmapratipattiprayojana ("whose purpose is the ascertainment
of the Self") that he acknowledges that the practice of
samadhi has a role in Vedanta. However, these two references
do not in themselves present a conclusive picture of
Sankara's thought, for in the first reference it is evident
that he does not consider samadhi to be a sufficient means
for liberation, while in the second he has clearly given it a
more positive place as a means for liberation. This second
reference, however, has to be treated with some
circumspection as it forms the comment upon a sutra which
Sankara does not consider to present the definitive view.
Another reference to samadhi, where it again seems to have a
more positive value, occurs in the commentary upon the
Mandukyakarika of Gaudapada, where in verse 3.37 the word
samadhi is given as a synonym for the Self. Sankara glosses
the word samadhi in two different ways, and in the first he
says "samadhi = because [the Self] can be known through the
wisdom arising from samadhi."[27] Thus we can see that,
according to Sankara, samadhi has a role to play in Vedanta,
but yet the first reference (2.1.9) indicates that this role
is perhaps more circumscribed than the modern exponents of
Vedanta would have us believe. We will attempt to resolve the
matter through a wider examination of Sankara's thought,
particularly in regard to his use of yoga.

The first specific mention of yoga is in the Katha Upanisad,
and there is a verse in this Upanisad which details a type of
yoga meditation:

The discriminating person should restrain speech in the
mind, he should restrain the mind in the cognizing self,
he should restrain the cognizing self in the 'great self'
and restrain that 'great self' in the peaceful Self.[26]

Sankara introduces this verse with the comment that the
Upanisad here presents "a means for the ascertainment of that
[Self]."[29] In his commentary upon Brahmasutra 1.4.1,
Sankara refers to this Katha verse with the remark that the
sruti"shows yoga as the means for the apprehension of the
Self."[30] In his commentary upon Brahmasutra 3.3.15, he
again refers to this verse when he says that it is "just for
the sake of the clear understanding of the Self that the
sruti enjoins meditation, viz. 'the discriminating person
should restrain speech in the mind.... "[31] It is therefore
evident that Sankara considers the verse above to present a
method of yoga meditation leading to Self-knowledge. As to
his understanding of this Katha verse, he has explained it
succinctly in his commentary on Brahmasutra 1.4.1:

This is what is said. 'He should restrain speech in the
mind' means that by giving up the operations of the
extemal senses such as the organ of speech and so forth
he should remain only as the mind. And since the mind is
inclined towards conjecturing about things, he should, by
way of seeing the defect involved in conjecturing
restrain it in the intellect whose characteristic
consists in determining and which is said here by the
word 'cognizing self'. Then bringing about an increase in
subtlety, he should restrain that intellect in the 'great
self', i.e. the experience, or the one-pointed intellect.
And he should establish the 'great self' in the peaceful
Self, i.e. in that supreme Purusa who is the topic under
consideration, who is the 'highest goal'.[32]

aranyaka Upanisad 2.4.11, which forms part of the well known
Yajanavalkya-Maitreyi dialogue, Sankara briefly describes a
method of contemplation which is similar to the one mentioned
in the Katha 1.3.13. It is as follows:

[text]..as the skin is the one goal of all kinds of touch
[commentary] such as soft or hard, rough or smooth.... By
the word 'skin', touch in general that is perceived by
the skin, is meant; in it different kinds of touch are
merged, like different kinds of water in the ocean, and
become nonentities without it, for they were merely its
modifications. Similarly, that touch in general, denoted
by the word 'skin', is merged in the deliberation of the
Manas [mind], that is to say, in a general consideration
by it, just as different kinds of touch are included in
touch in general perceived by the skin; without this
consideration by the Manas it becomes a non-entity. The
consideration by the Manas also is merged in a general
cognition by the intellect, and becomes non-existent
without it. Becoming mere consciousness, it is merged in
Pure Intelligence, the Supreme Brahman, like different
kinds of water in the ocean. When, through these
successive steps, sound and the rest, together with their
receiving organs, are merged in Pure Intelligence, there
are no more limiting adjuncts, and only Brahman, which is
Pure Intelligence, comparable to a lump of salt,
homogeneous, infinite, boundless and without a break,
remains. Therefore the Self alone must be regarded as one
without a second.[33]

We can see that the type of yoga which Sankara presents here
is a method of merging, as it were, the particular (visesa)
into the general (samanya). For example, diverse sounds are
merged in the sense of hearing, which has greater generality
insofar as the sense of hearing is the locus of all sounds.
The sense of hearing is merged into the mind, whose nature
consists of thinking about things, and the mind is in turn
merged into the intellect, which Sankara then says is made
into 'mere cognition' (vijanamatra); that is, all particular
cognitions resolve into their universal, which is cognition
as such, thought without any particular object. And that in
turn is merged into its universal, mere Consciousness
(prajnana-ghana), upon which everything previously referred
to ultimately depends. There are two points which ought to be
noted concerning Sankara's presentation of yoga which differ
from the model we find in Patanjali's Yogasutra. The first
concerns method. Sankara does not say that all thought forms
must be restrained in the manner of the cittavrttinirodha of
the Yogasutras. While in other places Sankara has mentioned
that meditation involves the withdrawal of the mind from
sense objects,[34] he has also made it clear that control of
the mind (cittavrttinirodha) is "not known as a means of
liberation."[35] Rather, Sankara's method involves thinking,
although it is thinking of a certain type, leading from the
involvement in particulars to a contemplation of what is more
general and finally to the contemplation of what is most
general, that is, Consciousness. Thus Sankara's method of
yoga is a meditative exercise of withdrawal from the
particular and identification with the universal, leading to
contemplation of oneself as the most universal, namely,
Consciousness. This approach is different from the classical
Yoga of complete thought suppression.

The second point is one of approach, for nowhere does Sankara
present the Atman-Brahman as a goal to be reached. On the
contrary, his approach is that the Atman-Brahman is not
something to be acquired since it is one's own nature, and
one's own nature is not something that can be attained. This
approach has its corollary in his method of negation: the
removal of superimpositions in order to discover what is
already there, although concealed as it were by all sorts of
false identifications based ultimately upon the ignorance of
who we really are. Such an approach is different from that of
the classical Yoga of the Yogasutras, where a goal is
presented in terms of nirvikalpasamadhi, which one has to
achieve in order to gain liberation. That Sankara's method is
one of negation in order to "reveal the ever revealed" is
evident throughout his whole discussion of the role of action
in the matter of liberation. In Brahmasutra 1.1.4, an
opponent argues that the role of scripture is injunctive--it
is to enjoin a person either to do something or to refrain
from doing something--and the role of the Upanisads, too,
after presenting the nature of Brahman, is to enjoin
meditation upon Brahman as a means of release.[36] Sankara
replies that if liberation is to be gained as a result of an
action, then liberation must be impermanent. He specifies
that actions can only be of four kinds: an action can produce
something, or it can modify a thing, or it can be used to
obtain something or to purify it.[37] He takes up each action
in turn and argues that liberation is not something that can
be either produced, attained, modified, or purified by any
action whether physical, oral, or mental. His main argument
is that if liberation is an effect of some kind of action,
then liberation would have a beginning and would be
time-bound and hence noneternal, and that such a consequence
would go against the whole tradition that teaches that
liberation is eternal. Sankara's view is that liberation is
nothing but being Brahman, and that is one's inherent
condition, although it is obscured by ignorance. He says that
the whole purpose of the Upanisads is just to remove duality,
which is a construct of ignorance;[38] there is no further
need to produce oneness with Brahman, because that already
exists. Sankara's frequent use of the phrase "na heya
naupadeya" (cannot be rejected or accepted)[39] along with
the word Atman indicates that the Self cannot be made the
object of any kind of action whatsoever. Sankara has
summarized all this in his commentary on the Brhadaranyaka:

... liberation is not something that can be brought into
being. For liberation is just the destruction of bondage,
it is not the result of an action. And we have already
said that bondage is ignorance and it is not possible
that ignorance can be destroyed by action. And action has
its capacity in some visible sphere. Action has its
capacity in the sphere of production, attainment,
modification and purification. Action is able to produce,
to make one attain, to modify or to purify. The capacity
of an action has no other scope than this, for in the
world it is not known to have any other capacity. And
liberation is not one of these. We have already said that
it is hidden merely by ignorance.[40]

Thus we can see that the perspective of Sankara is
fundamentally different from that of the yoga tradition
where, although the purusa is presented as not something to
be acquired, liberation is nonetheless a real goal to be
attained through a process of mental discipline, which
necessitates the complete suppression of all mental activity.

That there is a certain ambivalence toward yoga on the part
of the followers of Vedanta can be seen in Brahmasutra 2.1.3,
"Thereby the Yoga is refuted," which offers a rejection of
yoga following upon the rejection of Sankhya philosophy. The
problem as Sankara sees it is that yoga practices are found
in the Upanisads themselves, so the question arises as to
what it is about yoga that needs to be rejected. Sankara says
that the refutation of yoga has to do with its claim to be a
means of liberation independent from the Vedic revelation. He
says, "... the sruti rejects the view that there is another
means for liberation apart from the knowledge of the oneness
of the Self which is revealed in the Veda."[41] He then makes
the point that "the followers of Sankhya and Yoga are
dualists, they do not see the oneness of the Self."[42] The
point that "the followers of Yoga are dualists" is an
interesting one, for if the yogins are dualists even while
they are exponents of asamprajnatasamadhi
(nirvi-kalpasamadhi), then such samadhi does not of itself
give rise to the knowledge of oneness as the modem exponents
of Vedanta would have us believe. For if it did, then it
would not have been possible for the yogins to be considered
dualists. Clearly the modem Vedantins, in their expectation
that samadhi is the key to the liberating oneness, have
revalued the word and have given it a meaning which it does
not bear in the yoga texts. And, we suggest, they have given
it an importance which it does not possess in the classical
Vedanta, as we are able to discerm it in the writings of
Sankara.

The matter to be decided is what place samadhi, and yoga in
general, holds in Sankara's thought. We suggest that his
commentary upon the Bhagavadgita contains certain
programmatic statements that are of general assistance in
determining his views on the place of samadhim and yoga in
the Advaita scheme of liberation. In the Gita, Sankara very
frequently glosses the word yoga when it occurs in a verse by
the word samadhi, thereby indicating that on many occasions
he understands yoga to mean the practice of a certain
discipline wherein samadhi is the key factor, as in verse
6.19, "...for one who engages in yoga concerning the Self"
(yunjato yogam atmanah), which Sankara glosses as "practices
samadhi concerning the Self" (atmanah samadhim
anutisthatah).[43] It is evident that he considers samadhi as
a state wherein normal distinctions are obliterated, as is
evident from his statement in 18.66, "the evils of agent-ship
and enjoyership etc. are not apprehended in deep sleep or in
samadhi etc. where there is discontinuation of the flow of
the erroneous idea that the Self is identical to the
body."[44] Here, as in his commentary upon Brahmasutra 2.1.9,
Sankara links deep sleep and samadhi, and it is evident that
he recognizes samadhi to be a state wherein distinctions are
temporarily resolved, as they are in deep sleep.

At the beginning of his commentary upon the Gita, Sankara
makes a significant statement concerning the relation of
Sankhya to Yoga.[45] He says that Sankhya means ascertaining
the truth about the Self as it really is and that Krsna has
done this in his teaching from verses 2.11 up until 2.31. He
says that sankhyabuddhi is the understanding which arises
from ascertaining the meaning in its context, and it consists
in the understanding that the Self is not an agent of action
because the Self is free from the sixfold modifications
beginning with coming into being. He states that those people
to whom such an understanding becomes natural are called
Sankhyas. He then says that Yoga is prior to the rise of the
understanding above. Yoga consists of performing disciplines
(sadhana) that lead to liberation; it presupposes the
discrimination between virtue and its opposite, and it
depends upon the idea that the Self is other than the body
and that it is an agent and an enjoyer. Such an understanding
is yogabuddhi, and the people who have such an understanding
are called Yogins. From this it is clear that Sankara
relegates Yoga to the sphere of ignorance (avidya) because
the Yogins are those who, unlike the Sankhyas, take the Self
to be an agent and an enjoyer while it is really neither.
They are, therefore, in Sankara's eyes, not yet knowers of
the truth.

Sankara again clearly demarcates Sankhya and Yoga in his
comments on verse 2.39, where Krsna says, "O Partha, this
understanding about Sankhya has been imparted to you. Now
listen to this understanding about Yoga.... "According to
Sankara, 'Sankhya' means the "discrimination concerning
ultimate truth, " and the 'understanding' pertaining to
Sankhya means a "knowledge which is the direct cause for the
termination of the defect which brings about samsara
consisting of sorrow and delusion and so forth." He then says
that Yoga is the "means to that knowledge" (tatpraptyupaya)
and that Yoga consists of both (a) karmayoga, that is,
performing rites and duties as an offering to the Lord once
there has been a relinquishment of opposites (such as like
and dislike) through detachment, and (b) samadhiyoga.[46] In
4.38, Sankara again explains the word yoga occurring in the
verse as referring to both karmayoga and samadhiyoga.[47] It
is evident that Sankara understands the word yoga in the Gita
to refer to both karmayoga and to the practice of meditation,
that is, samadhiyoga. It is also evident that he considers
yoga to be a means leading to Sankhya-knowledge but that it
is not the same as Sankhya-knowledge. In 6.20, Sankara says
that one apprehends the Self by means of a "mind which has
been purified through samadhi."[48]

From the evidence of the above we suggest that according to
Sankara the role of samadhi is supportive--or purifying--and
is preliminary to, but not necessarily identical with, the
rise of the liberating knowledge. As is well known, Sankara
considers that knowledge alone, the insight concerning the
truth of things, is what liberates. To this end he places
great emphasis upon words, specifically the words of the
Upanisads, as providing the necessary and even the sufficient
means to engender this liberating knowledge. Sankara
repeatedly emphasizes the importance of the role of the
teacher (guru/acarya) and the sacred texts (sastra) in the
matter of liberation. For example the compound
sastracaryopadesa, "the instruction on the part of the
teacher and the scriptures," occurs seven times in his
commentary on the Gita alone, along with other variations
such as vedantacaryopadesa, and it regularly occurs in his
other works as well.[49] The modem Vedantin, on the other
hand, has overlooked, possibly unknowingly, the importance
which sacred language and instruction held in the classical
Vedanta as a means of knowledge (pramana) and has had to
compensate for this by increasing the importance of yogic
samadhi which is then put forward to be the necessary and
sufficient condition for liberation.

The contrast between the Vedanta of Sankara and some of its
modem exponents is clear enough. But it should not be thought
that the modem emphasis on yogic samadhi is without
precedent. As we have mentioned, there is evidence of yoga
techniques in the principal Upanisads themselves although it
did not then have a dominant emphasis, and this is reflected
in the approach of Sankara in his commentaries. However, in
the centuries following Sankara, Advaitins have exhibited a
gradual increase in their reliance upon yoga techniques. This
can be shown by examining a few of the Advaita
Prakaranagranthas, noncom-mentarial compositions by Advaita
authors.

The only noncommentarial work that is widely accepted as the
composition of Sankara is the Upadesasahasri. In this work
the word samadhi rarely occurs. The word samahita is used in
13.25, and we have previously argued that samahita
(concentrated) has a meaning equivalent to the word
samadhana, one-pointedness of mind, but it does not have the
same meaning as nirvikalpasamadhi.[50] Sankara mentions
samadhi three times in the Upadeaasahasra,[51] but he does
not extol it; on the contrary, speaking from the
understanding that the Self is nirvikalpa by nature, he
contrasts the Self and the mind and says:

As I have no restlessness (viksepa) I have hence no
absorption (samadhi). Restlessness or absorption belong
to the mind which is changeable.[52]

A similar view is expressed in 13.17 and 14.35. In 15.14
Sankara presents a critique of meditation as an essentially
dualistically structured activity.[53] Furthermore, in
16.39-40, Sankara implicitly criticizes the Sankhya-Yoga view
that liberation is dissociation from the association of
purusa and prakrti,[54] when he says:

It is not at all reasonable that liberation is either a
connection [with Brahman] or a dissociation [from
prakrti]. For an association is non-eternal and the same
is true for dissociation also.[55]

Thus it is evident from the above that Sankara implicitly
rejects both the soteriology of yoga, namely, that liberation
has to be accomplished through the real dissociation of the
purusa from prakrti, and the pursuit towards that end, that
is, the achievement of nirvikalpa or asamprajatasamadhi.

However such a view became blurred in the writings of
post-Sankara Advaitins. This can be briefly shown by
examining some later Advaita prakarana texts. For example, in
the popular fourteenth-century text Pancadasi, we find a
mixture of Vedantic and Yogic ideas. Towards the conclusion
of the first chapter on the "Discrimination of the Real"
(tattvaviveka) , the author explains the Upanisad terms
sravana, manana, and nididhyasana (vv. 53-54), and then
proceeds to describe the cultivation of samadhi as the means
whereby the mediate verbal knowledge derived from the
Upanisads is turned into immediate experience (vv. 5962).
However, in chapter nine, "The Lamp of Meditation"
(dhyanadipa), meditation is prescribed for those who do not
have the intellectual acuteness to undertake the
Self-inquiry; and in chapter seven (v. 265), the author
repeats the verse of Sankara from the Upadesasahasri("As I
have no restlessness"), which was cited above. Therefore it
would appear that the Pancadasi is an early example of a
Vedantic text which is consciously making room for classical
Yoga but which has not lost sight of Sankara's
perspective.[56]

The Vivekacudamani is a popular text in contemporary Vedanta
circles and is ascribed to Sankara. However, it is highly
unlikely that it is a genuine work of Sankara, for the fact
that there are no Sanskrit commentaries on this work by any
of the well-known commentators on the works of Sankara would
indicate that the Vivekacudamani is either a late composition
or that it was not regarded as a work of Sankara by the
earlier Advaitins.[57] In this text, samadhi comes in for
considerable praise; for example:

Reflection should be considered a hundred times superior
to hearing, and meditation a hundred thousand times
superior even to reflection, but the Nirvikalpaka Samadhi
is infinite in its results.[58]

We can observe in this text how samadhi is treated as the
indispensable requirement for liberation, and we can see in
the following verse that samadhi is advocated for the same
reason as is given in Yogasutra 1.1.4: "at other times [the
Self] takes the same form as the mental modifications
(vrttisarupyamitaratra)":

By the Nirvikalpaka Samadhi the truth of Brahman is
clearly and definitely realized, but not otherwise, for
then the mind, being unstable by nature, is apt to be
mixed up with other perceptions.[59]

As a final example of the use of samadhi in this work we cite
the following verse:

Through the diversity of the supervening conditions
(Upadhis), a man is apt to think of himself as also full
of diversity; but with the removal of these he is again
his own Self, the immutable. Therefore the wise man
should ever devote himself to the practice of Nirvikalpa
Samadhi for the dissolution of the Upadhis.[60]

If we compare the idea contained in this verse with the ideas
of the Upadesasahasri, we find that nowhere in the
Upadesasahasri does San-kara advocate the dissolution of the
upadhi: On the contrary, his attitude throughout the
Upadesasahasri is to show that an upadhi is to be negated
merely through the knowledge that it is an object, for as an
object it cannot be identical with the perceiver; and because
an upadhi is essentially unreal (mithya), it cannot negate
the nondual truth, and therefore no additional effort need be
expended for its removal.

As a final example of the increasing tendency to identify
Vedanta and Yoga, we refer to a late Vedanta text, the
Vedantasara of Sadananda (fifteenth century A.D.). He, like
the author of the Pancadasi, has added samadhi to the triad
of sravana, manana, and nididhyasana. What is of interest
here is that he has reinterpreted samadhi to make it conform
to Advaitic ideas; for example, nirvikalpa samadhi is said to
be the state where the mind is without the distinctions of
knower, knowledge, and object of knowledge and has become
totally merged in the "nondual reality."[61] Furthermore,
this text lists the eight limbs of Yoga practice mentioned by
Patanjali (Yogasutra 2.29), suitably reinterpreted to conform
to the Vedanta. There are other, later Vedanta texts which
also do this.[62] Thus we see that through the centuries
Vedanta has increasingly accommodated itself to Yoga, leading
to the almost complete absence of a distinction between the
two in modem times.

Conclusion

Although the importance of concentration is evident from the
early Upanisads (BU 4.4.23), a form of yoga practice leading
to the absorptive state of samadhi is only in evidence in the
later texts. We have seen that Sankara does speak of a type
of concentration upon the Self which is akin to yoga insofar
as there is the withdrawal of the mind from sense objects,
but he does not advocate more than that and he does not put
forward the view that we find in classical Yoga about the
necessity of total thought suppression. We have seen that he
has used the word samadhi very sparingly, and when he has
used it, it was not always in an unambiguously favorable
context. It should be clear that Sankara does not set up
nirvikalpasamadhi as a spiritual goal. For if he had thought
it to be an indispensable requirement for liberation, then he
would have said so. But he has not said so. Contemplation on
the Self is obviously a part of Sankara's teaching, but his
contemplation is directed toward seeing the ever present Self
as free from all conditionings rather than toward the
attainment of nirvikalpasamadhi. This is in significant
contrast to many modem Advaitins for whom all of the Vedanta
amounts to "theory" which has its experimental counterpart in
yoga "practice." I suggest that their view of Vedanta is a
departure from Sankara's own position. The modem Advaitins,
however, are not without their forerunners, and I have tried
to indicate that there has been a gradual increase in
samadhi-oriented practice in the centuries after Sankara, as
we can judge from the later Advaita texts.

NOTES

Abbreviations are used in the notes below as follows:

BSBh Brahmasutra-Sankarabhasyam with the Commentaries
Bhasyaratnaprabha of Govindananda, Bhamati of
Vacaspatimisra and Nyaya-Nirnaya of Anandagiri. Edited
by J. L. Sastri. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1980.

BU Brhadaranyakopanisad.

ChU Chandogyopanisad.

US Upadesasahasri of Sankaracharya, A Thousand Teachings:
in Two Parts--Prose and Poetry. Translated by Swami
Jagadananda. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1979.

1. When the word samadhi is used in this article, it
refers only to the higher stage of samadhi known as
nirvikalpasamadhi, which is an "enstasis without thought
constructions."

2. Vedanta for the Western World, ed. C. Isherwood (London:
Unwin Books, 1975), p. 15.

3. The three years of continuous Tantric sadhana under the
direction of the Bhairava Brahmani was his longest and
most significant training. See W. Neevel, "The
Transformation of Sri Ramakrishna," in Hindu-ism.' New
Essays in the History of Religions, ed. B. Smith (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1976). The time spent under the direction of
Totapuri, who was said to be an Advaitin, was much
shorter than the time spent studying Tantra, and the
information available on Totapuri is very meager, so it
is difficult to be sure whether he was actually an
Advaitin rather than a follower of yoga.

4. M. Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Bollingen
Series, no. 56 (New York: Princeton University Press,
1973) , pp. 227 ff., and The Hathayogapradapika of
Svatmarama (Madras: Adyar Library, 1984), p. 125.

5. Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami
Nikhi-lananda (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1974), p.
195.

6. Ibid., p. 814. Also cf. pp. 310, 576.

7. Cf. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (Calcutta:
Advaita Ashrama, 1970), vol. 1, p. 470, "If there is a
God, you ought to be able to see Him. If not, let Him
go." Also cf. his introduction to Raja-Yoga, pp. 125 ff.,
and vol. 2, p. 220, "Knowledge can only be got in one
way, the way of experience; there is no other way to
know."

8. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 137, 180, 181,212, and vol. 5, p. 300.

9. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 188.

10. S. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religions and Western Thought
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1940), p. 51.

11. G. A. Jacob, A Concordance to the Principal Upanisads and
Bhagavadgita (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971); G. M.
Kurulkar, Sasandarbhanighantusahita Dasopanisadah (Pune:
Tilak Maharastra Vidyapitha, 1973).

12. ChU 8.1.3, 4, 5; BU 4.2.1, 4.4.23.

13. The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, with the Commentary of
Sankaracarya, trans. Swami Madhavananda (Calcutta:
Advaita Ashrama, 1975), p. 410.

14. Cf. BSBh, p. 36; Vivekacudamani of Sri Sankaracarya,
trans. Swami Madhavananda (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama,
1974), vv. 19-27; Aparoksanubhati or Self-realization of
Sri Sankaracarya, trans. Swami Vimuktananda (Calcutta:
Advaita Ashrama, 1977), vv. 3-8.

15. Ten Principal Upanisads with Sankarabhasya, Works of
Sankaracarya in Original Sanskrit, vol. 1 (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1978) , p. 937, " samahitah
indriyantahkaranacalanarupad vyavrtya aikagryarupena
samahito bhutva." (Hereafter, all Upanisad references
containing Sankara's commentary will be to this work).

16. Ibid., p. 78, "asamahitah-anekagramana viksiptacittah."

17. Tattva Bodha of Sankaracharya (Bombay: Central Chinmaya
Mission Trust, n.d.), p. 7; Aparoksanubhuti (cited n. 14
above), v. 8.

18. Georg Feuerstein, The Philosophy of Classical Yoga
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980), p. 84.

19. Paul Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads (New
York: Dover, 1966), pp. 23-26. Also, see Winternitz
quoted in S. Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy
(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975), vol. 1, p. 39. Eliade
considers the Maitrayani to belong to the same period as
the Bhagavadgita, i.e., between the second century B.C.
and the second century A.D. (Eliade, Yoga, p. 124).

20. Amrtabindu 6, 16; Aruneya 2. It also occurs in the
Bhagavadgita at 2.44, 53, 54.

21. Eliade, Yoga, p. 114, remarks: "It is true that the
Upanisads remain in the line of metaphysics and
contemplation, whereas yoga employs asceticism and a
technique of meditation. But this is not enough to halt
the constant osmosis between the Upanisadic and yogic
milieus."

22. I do not know why later Vedantins used the word
nirvikalpa to characterize what is essentially the yogic
asamprajnatasamadhi. Perhaps they wished to distinguish
their practice from that of classical Yoga. The word
nirvikalpaka was first introduced into the astika
("orthodox") tradition by Kumarila Bhatta, who used it in
his explanation of perception, under the influence of the
Buddhist philosopher Dignaga. See D. N. Shastri, The
Philosophy of Nyaya-Vaisesika and Its Conflict with the
Buddhist Dignaga School (Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya
Prakashan, 1976), p. 438.

23. I am assuming that Sankara is not the author of the
Yogasutrabhas-yavivarana, as this issue has not yet been
settled. See W. Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection:
Explorations in Indian Thought (New York: State
University of New York Press, 1991), chap. 6.

24. BSBh 2.1.9 (p. 365, line 6), 2.3.39 (p. 545, line 10),
2.3.40 (p. 551, line 2) ; Word Index to the
Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya of Sankara, T.M.P. Mahadevan, general
ed., 2 vols. (Madras: University of Madras, 1973).

25. BSBh 2.1.9 (p. 365, line 6).

26. Ibid., 2.3.39 (p. 545, line 10).

27. Mandukya 3.37 (p. 224, line 3).

28. Katha 1.3.13. Cf. J. Bader, Meditation in Sankara's
Vedanta (Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1990), chap. 3.

29. Katha 1.3.13 (p. 83, line 11).

30. BSBh 1.4.1 (p. 295, line 10).

31. Ibid., 3.3.15 (p. 694, line 12).

32. Ibid., 1.4.1 (p. 295, lines 12 ff.).

33. BU 2.4.11 (p. 764, lines 11 ff.). See also Madhavananda,
trans., Brha-daranyaka Upanisad (cited n. 13 above), pp.
253 ff. I have cited Madhavananda's translation here as I
cannot make any significant improvement on it.

34. Cf. commentary on Katha 1.2.12 and Bhagavadgita 16.1.

35. BU 1.4.7 (p. 663, line 9).

36. BSBh 1.1.4 (p. 69, line 6).

37. Ibid., 1.1.4 (p. 79, lines 7 ff.). Also, for the
reference to action as consisting of four types, cf. BU
3.3.1 (p. 798, lines 22 ff., and p. 801, lines 1 ff.),
4.4.22 (p. 933, lines 21 ff.); Mundaka 1.2.12 (p. 152,
lines 25 ff.) ; US 17.50; Shri Shankaracharya's
Upadeshasahasri with the Gloss Padayojanika, ed. D. V.
Gokhale (Bombay: The Gujarati Printing Press, 1917); Shri
Shankarabhagavatpada's Upadeshasahasri with the Tika of
Shri Anandagiri Acharya, ed. S. Subramanyasastri
(Varanasi: Mahesh Research Institute, 1978).

38. BSBh 1.1.4 (p. 79, line 1); also BU 2.1.20 (p. 739,
lines 20 and 24).

39. BSBh 1.1.4 (p. 64, lines 2 and 4; p. 84, lines 3 ff.; p.
85, lines 1 ff.; p. 87, lines 4 ff.).

40. BU 3.3.1 (p. 798, lines 19 ff.).

41. BSBh 2.1.3 (p. 354, lines 1 ff.).

42. Ibid., 2.1.3 (p. 354, line 3).

43. Bhagavadgita with Sankarabhasya, Works of Sankaracarya
in Original Sanskrit, vol. 11 (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1978) 6.19 (p. 107, lines 9 ff.), and also
5.21, 6.4, 8.10, 12.6, 13.10, 18.33.

44. Ibid., 18.66 (p. 296, lines 6 ff.).

45. Ibid., introd., 2.11 (p. 9, lines 14 ff.).

46. Ibid., 2.39 (p. 27, lines 13 ff.).

47. Ibid., 4. 38 (p. 80, line 18).

48. Ibid., 6.20 (p. 107, line 16 [my emphasis]).

49. Ibid., 2.21 (p. 20, line 12), 2.63 (p. 36, line 12), 8.8
(p. 128, line 16), 13.30 (p. 215, line 23), 13.34 (p.
217, line 19), 18.16 (p. 263, line 19), 18.17 (p. 264,
line 4), 18.50 (p. 281, line 7), 18.55 (p. 284, line 9);
Word-Index to Sankara's Gitabhasya, ed. Francis X. D'Sa
(Pune: Institute for the Study of Religion, 1985). Also
cf. BU 2.1.20 (p. 744, line 23), 2.4.2 (p. 767, line 5),
2.5.15 (p. 776, line 12); ChU 6.15.2 (p. 537, line 12),
8.1.6 (p. 571, line 2); Katha 1.5.12 (p. 96, line 1);
Mundaka 1.2.12 (p. 153, line 5), 2.2.7 (p. 162, line 22);
US 17.51-52.

In an otherwise interesting and insightful article, "The
Path of No-path: Sankara and Dogen on the Paradox of
Practice" (Philosophy East and West 38, no. 2 [April
1988]), David Loy has come to an erroneous conclusion (p.
133) that "there can be no means--not even sruti--to
realize Brahman.... "But if that were the case, it would
not be possible to explain Sankara's concerted effort in
meticulously commenting on sruti; and such a statement
also overlooks the numerous references where he states
that the sruti is the means of knowledge for Brahman. It
is precisely because Sankara sees no other way to arrive
at the knowledge of the unconditioned Absolute that he
resorts to the sacred words of the Upanisads as the means
to dispel the ignorance of the ever present Self. Among
Western scholars, Sankara's views on sruti have been well
articulated by W. Halbfass in his discussion of the role
of sruti in Sankara's thought; see his Tradition and
Reflection (cited n. 23 above), chap. 5.

50. Samadhana is mentioned in US 17.23-24. Cf. Tattvabodha
(cited n. 17 above) , p. 7: "samadhanam kim?
cittaikagrata."

51. US 13.14, 17 and 14.35.

52. Ibid., 13.14.

53. Ibid., 15.14.

54. The Sankhyakarika of Isvara Krsna, ed. and trans. S.S.
Suryanarayana Sastri (Madras: University of Madras,
1973), vv. 20, 21, 66, 68.

55. US 16.39-40.

56. Cf. Pancadsi of Sri Vidyaranya Swami, trans. Swami
Swahananda (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1975).

57. There are two commentaries on the Vivekacudamani: one is
by a little known writer, Harinathabatta, and the other
is a recent commentary by Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati, who
was the Sankaracarya of Sriagiri Matha from 1912 to 1954.
See R. Thangaswami, Advaita-Vedanta Literature: A
Bibliographical Survey (Madras: University of Madras,
1980), p. 218; Advaita Grantha Kosa, prepared by a
disciple of Sri Ista Siddhindra Saraswati Swami of the
Upanisad Brahmendra Mutt (Kancheepuram: n.n., n.d.), p.
67. Perhaps the Vivekacudamani is itself a work of one of
the Sringiri Sankaracaryas?

58. Vivekacudamani (cited n. 14 above), v. 364.

59. Ibid., v. 365.

60. Ibid., v. 357.

61. Vedantasara or the Essence of Vedanta of Sadananda
Yogindra, trans. Swami Nikhilananda (Calcutta: Advaita
Ashrama, 1974), p. 110.

62. The Aparoksanubhuti has been ascribed to Sankara but is
unlikely to be a genuine work. See Encyclopedia of Indian
Philosophies, ed. Karl Potter, vol. 3, Advaita Vedanta up
to Samkara and His Pupils (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1981), p. 320. The final forty-four verses (out of 144)
describe yoga. Here, however, yoga is consciously
reinterpreted within a Vedantic manner: "The complete
forgetfulness of all thought by first making it
changeless and then identifying it with Brahman is called
Samadhi known as knowledge" (Vimuktananda's trans., cited
n.14 above, v.124) . The Sarvavedantasiddhantasarasangraha
is another work which is most likely not a work of
Sankara. See Thangaswami, Advaita-Vedanta Literature
(cited n. 57 above), p. 220; Potter, Advaita Vedanta up
to Samkara, p. 339; Advaita Grantha Kosa (cited n. 57
above), p. 68. In this work we again find the grafting of
yogic nirvikalpasamadhi onto Vedanta teachings; see The
Quintessence of Vedanta, trans. Swami Tattwananda
(Emakulam: Sri Rama-krishna Advaita Ashrama, 1960), pp.
171 ff.