[Advaita-l] The word *samAdhi* in shankara bhAshya

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

Here I'd like to draw the attention of prabhuji's of this list to the word
*samAdhi* & its contextual usage by Sankara bhagavatpAda in his bhAshya.

(a) In gIta 2-44 Sankara uses the word samAdhi..Here according to Sankara
samAdhi means buddhi or antaHkaraNa.  Here Sankara says that the conviction
or a resolute nature of the intellect is called samAdhi.  Hence samAdhi
here means buddhi.

(b) In gIta 2-53, here the word samAdhi means the *self*...The mind or the
intellect completely immersed when one see the true nature of the self by
discrimination..The point here tobe noted that it is not a mind still state
of nirvikalpa samAdhi, it is the realization of jnAni through
discrimination  that he is advitIya (secondless)...If it is PY's
asamprajnAtha samAdhi of sthitha prajna then there is no meaning for the
next verse..where Arjuna asks krishna, stithaprajnasya kA bhAshA??
kimAsIta, kim vrajeta etc. ..Ofcourse, it is a fact that the person who is
experiencing NS, cannot speak, cannot walk etc. :-)) Hence here samAdhi is
Atman..it cannot be equated or interpreted in such a manner to bring-in
PY's asaMprajnAtha samAdhi.  Accordingly, the word *samAdhishTa* in the
2-54 means one who is already established *naturally* in his true nature as
the self.

(c) In mAndukya kArika 3-37, the word samAdhi has been used & interpreted
by Sankara in two different ways...And neither of these interpretations
even remotely comparable to that of PY's AS or later vEdAntins' NS.

(d) In sUtra (2-3-39) samAdhyabhAvAccha (samAdhi +abhAvAt +cha), shankara
talks elaborately on direct means to AtmajnAna i.e. sravaNa, manana &
nidhidhyAsana...Here also samAdhi does not mean *samAdhi* as popularly
known in YS but it is only *samAdhAna*..The context here in this sUtra
makes it clear that samAdhi cannot be interpreted as PY's AS or NS.

In the all above references shankara does talk about samAdhi, yoga etc.
but strictly according to the true tradition of vedAnta and nowhere he
hints that it is PY.  Hence in bhAshya-s there is absolutely no mention
whatsoever of chakra-s like mulAdhAra, svAdhishTAna, maNipura etc. nor
kamala-s (like sahasra dala padma etc.) nor kundalini & its coiled power &
its journey through sushumnA etc.  Ofcourse, in some places where there are
some peculiar types of upAsana-s mentioned (like OmkAra, aghaMgraha etc.)
sometimes nAdi-s like ida, pingaLa and sushumna are mentioned & accpeted by
shankara as per vedic utterances.  But when it comes to self-knowledge
(Atma vijnAna) there is no mention of these words like chakra-s, nAdi-s,
kamala-s etc.

With all these observation, I would like to submit that there is no valid
reason for us to accept that PY or rAja yOga or haTha yOga or kundalini
yOga has a place in shankara siddhAnta pratipAdana.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar

PS :  I have taken the samAdhi word reference from my parama guruji's
Kannada work * Shankara vEdAnta pAribhAshika shabda kosha*...If I left out
any other valid references where there is room for interpretation of this
word  in favour of PY, kindly let me know.