Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on November 14, 2010.
Swami Bhaskarananda explores what happens to a spiritual seeker after attaining samadhi, the state in which all mental waves and the sense of “I” fall silent and divine consciousness shines forth. Drawing on classical yoga and Vedanta, he explains the relationship between spirit (Purusha) and matter (Prakriti), the role of the three gunas—sattva, rajas, and tamas—in shaping our changing moods, and the graded levels of realization described in the scriptures, from initial awakening up to the highest “fourth state,” turiyā. Through vivid analogies—a light at the bottom of a still lake, salt dissolved in water, a coconut whose kernel has separated from its shell—he illustrates how a liberated soul can live in the world yet remain inwardly free, like someone calmly enjoying a movie they know is not real. The talk closes with a strong encouragement: every one of us carries this same divinity, and with sustained effort to purify and concentrate the mind, some degree of samadhi—and the profound freedom that follows—is genuinely within reach.
