Types of Samadhi – Nirbuja Samadhi Without Karma

I, 50 tajjah samskaro anya samskara pratibandhi
I, 51 tasyapi nirodhe sarva nirodhat nirbija samadhih

Born of this
luminous wisdom is a
subliminal impression
that prevents other impressions
from arising.

When the mind
becomes free from obstruction,
all vacillations cease,
and the mind becomes
absorbed into spirit
without producing future seeds.
Thus a new mind is born
of this wisdom,
free of ignorance.

M. Stiles

Iyengar explains that the power of discrimination blocks new impressions or samskaras from arising which may have impeded true knowledge by creating doubt. When doubts are cleared then discriminative knowledge is discarded. This gives way to the flow of luminous wisdom that is “free of doubts and discrimination. Then citta dissolves “all residual impressions, the thinking faculty and the feelings of “I” are extinguished without a trace and becomes universal. The soul alone manifests and blazes without form, in pristine clarity.

Sw. Satchidananda describes that the sadhaka has become a jivanmukta – a liberated living being; he/she can “live, eat and talk like anybody else, even do business like anybody else, but still (you) they are liberated … A jivanmukta is involved in the world for the sake of humanity without any personal attachment” This description reminds me of a verse from the Dhammapada “Even as a lotus may grow from roadside garbage and spread joy to many traveling souls with its scent, so a true follower of the Buddha shines and brings light to multitudes of blind mortals.” (verse 58/59)

Sw. Shyam says that the sadhaka realizes/experiences the true nature of Prakriti…”one knows directly that the Self is always free in itself, residing in its own state of immortality: unborn and unchanging. At the same time, the Self permeates all the forms of existence, which are eternally changing.

“The Radiance of Darkness” by Dionysisus the Areopagite
“Leave the senses and the workings of the intellect and all that sense and the intellect perceive, and all that is not and that is; and through unknowing reach out, so far as this is possible, towards oneness with him who is beyond all being and knowledge. In this way, through an uncompromising absolute, and pure detachment from yourself and from all things, transcending all things and released from all, you will be led upwards towards that radiance of the divine darkness that is beyond all being.

Entering the darkness that surpasses understanding, we shall find ourselves brought, not just to brevity of speech, but to perfect silence and unknowing.

Emptied of all knowledge, man is joined in the highest part of himself, not with any created thing, nor with himself, nor with another, but with the One who is altogether unknowable; and in knowing nothing, he knows in a manner that surpasses understanding.”

Dionysius the Areopagite, from the “Teachings of the Christian Mystics” Andrew Harvey, ed. Boston, MA: Shambala. 1998

Stiles, M. Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Boston, MA: Red Wheel/Weiser LLC. 2002
Swami Shyam, Patanjali Yog Darshan, India: International Meditation Institute, 2001, 3rd. edition.