The Interior of Hinduism
Samadhi — union in stillness.
The yogi's summit: awareness absorbed in its object until the seam disappears. Patanjali maps the approach in eight limbs.
Reached throughThrough sustained concentration — the last of Patanjali's eight limbs, not the first
What it is likeThe distinction between the one watching and the thing watched thinning, and then gone
What it signifiesThat the mind has stopped moving, which is what Patanjali defines yoga as in his second line
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held
Samadhi is the eighth and final limb of Patanjali's yoga, where the distinction between the meditator and the object of meditation collapses. The tradition distinguishes stages carefully — with seed and without, absorption still carrying content versus absorption that does not — and warns that the states are not the goal, only the doorway. What separates the Hindu account from the Buddhist one is the interpretation: what is revealed, in Advaita's reading, is that the self was never separate from Brahman in the first place.
The same ground, other faiths
claims that share this one's ideas
The four who went into the orchard.
Judaism · story
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The Philokalia.
Christianity · scripture
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Nam simran — the Name, repeated.
Sikhism
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The Yellow Court Classic.
Taoism · scripture
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Sing HU.
Eckankar · rite
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Sound rightly spoken has power.
Vedic Religion · core tenet
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