Utility Value of Samadhi
In samadhi, you are rid of all samskaras or engrams which cause disturbance in your inner space. This is the purpose why we need to achieve samadhi or fulfillment.
Actually if you achieve samadhi, you won't lose your business or your family or profession. Don't have any fear about samadhi! Only the engrams which hurt you, create disturbance in your inner space will be taken away. After samadhi, you will become a better person – whatever you are doing now, you will be more alive, more active, more intense, stronger.
It is not that you will forget that incident or the past. The fear and the greed which come up when the engrams come in front of you will disappear. That is the essence of samadhi. You don't need to change your lifestyle.
You will be having the same house, expanding your business. You will be more creative, blissful and happy. But no engrams will cause any disturbance in your inner space. The memory is there but the emotional connection – fear or greed - to the memory disappears. It is like this example: as of now, your mind is filled with high resolution pictures. That is why you can't store more than few pictures. Any memory that comes up suffocates you. So you throw that suffocation on others also – because you are suffocated. That is why you try to possess the other person in the name of love.
A small story:
Once on a cold night, a doctor was woken up to attend to an emergency. He traveled with great difficulty in the snowstorm. After examining the patient, the doctor told the patient's family to call for his lawyer, friends and relatives, and to make a will.
When the doctor then came back home, he told his wife about what happened. The wife asked, 'O God! Was the man that bad!'
The doctor replied, 'No. I just did not want to be the only person having to suffer on such a cold night!'
Many times, we call everybody not because they are needed but you don't want to be the only person suffering. Many times, our love ends up being a suffocation for the other person. With samadhi, it is not that you will be indifferent to the person. You will not have the hangover.
I tell you, not having the hangover about the persons, places or objects is the ultimate freedom. It is a tremendous freedom, clarity, courage, joy and bliss. With samadhi, the moral standard of the whole society will simply rise. You won't even need to teach morality. Your morality won't be there because of being moral; it will be there just because of your overflowing, fulfillment.
The problem is because of your fear of being open, you hold yourself back. You are not able to be completely with them when you are there; you have a shield around you for fear of rejection. So when you are not physically with them, naturally you will have hangover.
Samadhi converts the high resolution photographs to word documents! That is why people having samadhi have a strong memory; they can handle any number of things.
In samadhi, you will live like a god on planet earth. Put your energy into achieving samadhi. Only that life is worthy of living.
The other day, one of my swamis was driving me. I just turned to him and said, 'I wish you people had a body like mine.' He smiled and looked at me and said, 'What do you mean Swamiji?
See, when you are in samadhi, with just simple things you are completely contented, fulfilled. I was sitting in the front and some of my swamis were sitting at the back; they were having some nuts. They just gave me some nuts. I just put them in my mouth and I could clearly see the body was completely fulfilled, in samadhi, overflowing, ecstatic. Just a few nuts, nothing else! It is such a joy to live in this kind of body, with this kind of mind!
It is the ultimate luxury. I can say, any number of lives you can spend to achieve it; it is worth it. Only then you will know what is life.
A small story:
A lady filed for divorce. In the court of law, the judge questioned, 'Madam, what is your age?'
She replied, '35 years.'
The judge noticed that her hair was graying and her face was wrinkled and her body seemed frail. The judge asked her for her birth certificate.
The lady handed over the birth certificate. The judge inspected it and said, 'According to the birth certificate, you are 50 years. How can you say you are 35!'
The lady replied, 'The last 15 years I have lived with my husband. You call that a life!'
So understand, you may have to discount all the years you lived without samadhi in some court!
So samadhi is the basic quality for any human being to live. The whole Vedic civilization was built on this one truth of samadhi. Working for samadhi, achieving samadhi was the first priority. This is the period of brahmacharya in the first 25 years of life. First samadhi was achieved, then anything else.
Just imagine, if that would have happened in your life, how much of pain and suffering could have been avoided! Life would have been so much more beautiful, lot more joyful and blissful – not only in the personal level, but also in the social level and with the whole world. But the problem is in our life, we are constantly doing trial and error. In this itself, the whole life is gone. We don't have clarity or we don't know the straight way to live.
Ramakrishna says very beautifully, 'First samadhi, then world.' He says, 'Apply oil in your hand before you open the jackfruit.' Then the jackfruit will not stick in your hand. Apply samadhi in the inner space before you enter into the disturbing world.
There is one more example Ramakrishna gives: if you pour milk into the water, it will mix. But if you boil it, make curd and churn butter out of it, it won't mix. In the same way, make your being into butter through samadhi; after that it won't mix with the world (water); it won't get diluted with the world.
Your pain body will disappear. See, the pain body is responsible for constantly creating suffering for you, and causing suffering for others, and attracting suffering towards you. You won't be masters of creating worry, like we are now. Then whatever you do, whether you think it is good or bad, will always be understood as bad! What you carry, that only you will radiate.
A spiritual base is absolutely necessary for your own bliss as well as for goodness for others. That is the real service to society. Unless samadhi happens for you, you will neither be useful for you nor for society. That is why the whole Vedic tradition is about refining the inner software.
So it is time to work for samadhi, achieve samadhi and radiate samadhi. I tell you, even working for samadhi, even the path is such a joy! It opens a new dimension. Working for samadhi is the ultimate entertainment. Because it does not need any object. You may not have your favorite gadget, cellphone, laptop etc every time to entertain you. But W=working for samadhi does not need anything or anyone except you.
I can say, it is not only the best entertainment, is is also the best life. Even if one person works towards samadhi, it raises the consciousness of thousands of people. So, if you are seeking samadhi, even if you have not achieved, you will see you are raising the consciousness of thousands of people. And if you start seeking, the goal has to happen, it will happen.