What have the worldly spiritual masters believed Nirvikalpa samadhi to be? They believed them to be miracles of the chit (chit chamatkar). When they lose awareness of their physical body, they believe that all the information from the sense organs (indriya gnan) has come to an end. But the knowledge beyond the senses (atiindriya gnan) has not arisen and therefore they are wondering in the zone of play of the chit. They see all kinds of effects of the chit. In this, some see a white light but that is not a true samadhi; it is nirindriya (without sensory input) samadhi. It is not samadhi if you lose awareness of the body. On the contrary, there is greater and acute awareness of the body in Nirvikalpa samadhi. How can one call it Nirvikalpa samadhi when he verily loses the awareness of the body?

Questioner: What is a Nirvikalpa samadhi?
Dadashri: ‘I am Chandulal’ is vikalp samadhi. Everything that one sees is also vikalp samadhi. When a child breaks something precious, it breaks Chandulal’s peace.

Questioner:  What is the meaning of sankalp and vikalp? 
Dadashri: Vikalp means ‘I’ and sankalp means ‘my’.  One (the self) becomes that which it imagines to be (kalptaru, kalpswarup). Whatever vikalp is made, one becomes that. When one says, “I am Chandulal,” he becomes that. When he says, “I am unhappy,” he becomes that. This projection is the vikalp. So this goes under ‘I’ and ‘mine.’ That vikalp can never be broken until he attains the knowledge of the Self, and hence he can never become vikalp-less (nirvikalp). ‘I renounced this, ‘I read so many scriptures, ‘I performed so many worships’ etc., are all vikalps. These vikalps remain entrenched and therefore he cannot say, “I am the Soul.”  As long as the awareness and the belief, ‘I am Chandulal, I am a priest, I am an ascetic etc.,’ has not gone, how can he say, ‘I am a pure Soul?’ And until then how can he attain Nirvikalpa samadhi (bliss of the egoless state)? All these are merely words and everything remains only as words. Only vitraag Lords and their followers were in Nirvikalpa samadhi. They simply remained ‘knowers’ of all that unfolded whether right or wrong. They were ‘knowers’ of stones that were hurled at them as well as ‘knowers’ of garlands of flowers that were offered to them.  How can you call them vitraags if they are not ‘knowers’? But some assert, ‘We are in Nirvikalpa samadhi,’ just because their awareness of the body is gone. Awareness of the body is absent even during sleep, so that too can be called Nirvikalpa samadhi, right? Those who lose awareness of their body when they are awake and see light when their chit is actively projecting are experiencing only that, nothing else.  That is not the ultimate state. It is a grave mistake to believe and affirm so. In Nirvikalpa samadhi there is complete awareness of the body, as well as the Self.  Otherwise, vitraag Lords would not be able to see anything in their keval Gnan.

No one really understands Nirvikalpa samadhi; everyone has different connotations of it in their own language (bhasha). People have also interpreted the Soul in their own language and yet they say, “I want to have knowledge of the Soul.”

The impurity of the chit of the sant purush (a saint who is in the process of seeking liberation) or those who have reached similar spiritual level is significantly reduced. So they punish their body whenever a desire for something worldly arises within them, ‘Why do you have these desires?’ They even put chili pepper in their eyes! Now what would foreigners say about such a gnan (knowledge)? They will say, “He must be crazy.” Muslims too would think they are crazy.  But people here (Hindus) regard them as wise. They put chili pepper in their eyes because the eyes made a mistake in seeing ‘something wrong’. Here the fault lies with the one who sees.

People in India are such that they will even put a lock on their mouth! These people believe that loss of bodily awareness is Nirvikalpa samadhi. They believe they have entered the dimension beyond the senses (atiindriya state, nirvikalp state) because the information through the senses is not coming through (nirindriya state). They think that they have entered the nirvikalp state (atindriya state).  No! The atiindriya state is way beyond that.  They have discarded awareness of the senses; they have not yet attained the state of atiindriya state. So where are they? They are in a nirindriya state; a state void of senses.  And in this nirindriya state, they keep saying, ‘Hum, hum (‘I am something, I am something’), and believe they are in the state of a Nirvikalpa samadhi.

Still, their intentions are good. Their intention behind putting chili powder in their eyes is good; therefore they will attain liberation some day.

In the Kramic path, Nirvikalpa samadhi begins when one is very near to attaining the final liberation, whereas here in the Akram path, you (addressing the mahatmas who have received Gnan) have already attained the state of Nirvikalpa samadhi. In the Kramic path you have to suffer all necessary penance till the very end. You have to suffer the penance of lonch; hair plucking ritual, and other penances and rituals.  In the Kramic path the doer is a separate entity, karma is separate, the knower is separate but at the same time one claims, “I have to do dhyan” Hence there the ‘doer’ (the one meditating), the goal (dheya), and the process of meditation (dhyan), are all separate. But only when these three unite as one, can there be a little experience of the bliss of nirvikalp. But in the Kramic path, the sense of doership remains till the end. That is why they say, “I am doing dhyan.”

Dhyey, which is the goal, is to be nirvikalpi and dhyata; the seeker, is vikalpi (‘I am Chandulal’, he has ego because he does not have the knowledge of the Self), then how can one do dhyan? Still, the scriptures say because a vikalpi does dhyan of the nirvikalpi, he will one day become nirvikalpi. But it does not allow one to become nirvikalpi and one continues to say, “I have to do this. I have to do that.” If one gets drowsy, he will say he wants to eat less, hence he will have to fast. So they meditate on the nirvikalp state, in order to climb out of the hole of a vikalpi state. 

‘We’ have not just given you a nirlep Atma i.e. a Soul which remains absolutely free from all worldly entanglements, but ‘we’ have also given you Nirvikalpa samadhi. In the Kramic path one attains Nirvikalpa samadhi only when his ego becomes completely purified to the point of egolessness. Wherever one has to undergo a process of renunciation or acquisition, there will always be vikalp there, namely ‘I have to renounce’ or ‘I have to attain’. Vikalp is bound to occur whenever something significant has to be attained and trivial things have to be renounced. There is not just one vikalp but infinite vikalps.  To be strict with disciples or to discipline them is also a vikalp.

True darshan is one that brings samadhi by just looking at the person. There are some people who make you vomit the moment you set eyes on them. Why do people constantly do ‘our’ darshan? It is because what they see gives them samadhi. What is this samadhi like? It is a samadhi which will not go away even if you try to get rid of it! If you tell the samadhi to go, it will not. Once the ego of doership is gone, it can never come back. Samadhi remains in all that you do; when you eat, drink, walk, talk, etc., the knower, the Self, remains separate from it all. 

The Lord has said, “If you are in the non-self (kalpana) then you are guilty if you do not think. And if you are the Self (nirvikalpa) then you are guilty if you think.” 

When the mind, body and speech become ‘silent’ for eight minutes, the Lord calls it the beginning of samayik ( to ‘see’ the non-Self by being the Self) and if this state of silence remains up to forty-eight minutes, the Lord calls it samayik. This state of ‘silence’ cannot remain for more than forty-eight minutes, for anyone. Samayik is to remain in the Self.

‘Bhagwan unge bhasheeyo, samayik urtha,

Samayik pun atma, the-re sidho earth.’

The Lord has defined the meaning of samayik as: ‘Samayik is Atma and Atma is samayik’.