Samadhi is a sanskrit word used in the Hindu tradition to indicate cosmic consciousness.

I use the term to describe a destination on the spiritual landscape, but it should not be confused with the entire spiritual journey or a permanently desirable state.

I have written this basic blog which is a good starting point and an advanced article on dealing with existential depression after peak experience in a spiritual awakening.

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

I’m going to use the metaphor of surfing for samadhi. If you’ve never been surfing — no sweat, substitute any pleasurable and varied activity you engage in.

This picture was chosen deliberately, if surfing is life, then the picture above is samadhi.

What is samadhi?

In a day spent surfing you’ll have these peak experiences. moments when you feel you are moving in concert with the ocean and are part of the rhythm of the world. Samadhi is a peak experience of oneness with the divine, and it is very pleasurable. I’ve heard that this experience can be achieved with acid, although I’ve always been au natural myself.

(I usually advocate against the use of drugs to achieve spiritual insight because they’re unsustainable, are unhealthy for the body in the long term, and their continued use during an awakening can destabilize someone the point of insanity. That said I realize some people first find out about the spiritual landscape through drugs so an ye harm none, etc.)

It doesn’t really matter how you get to samadhi, the experience can change the way you feel about life, and being in a human body.

There are really lovely moments in life.

Coming down from samadhi

Regardless of how or why you have a peak experience, for those of us who are embodied… we come down. It’s not permanent.

After an experience like samadhi, there is a period of readjustment. Leaving the experience of divine oneness, and returning to a human body, can be a deep, irreconcilable, and awful grief.

No one achieves a sustainable experience of samadhi without a shit ton of work. Lots of us attain a taste of the union, then have to return to our suddenly horrific reality. (This was not horrific when we started mind you — it only became horrific by comparison).

The tough, tough, immeasurably tough truth is: you can’t get attached to samadhi.

Reconciling samadhi

If you’re on a spiritual journey, samadhi will come. It comes on its own, without any conscious pursuit and you get to enjoy it. But then you have to let it go, so it can come again. That can be really tough, returning to daily life can be a total bitch.

It’s not the kind of experience you can tell other people about. They won’t understand what it was, or why you’re sad it’s gone. If you chase it, it will remain elusive. If you used drugs to get there, you can totally wreck your health trying to stay there. Bottom line: its a gift. If you want to get there more often you’ll have to put in the work, and it’s not certain.

This is where the metaphor of surfing comes in really handy. Surfing is a sport, a way of life, and it requires dedication and respect for the ocean to really enjoy it consistently. Even a master surfer doesn’t always have great peak experiences on the waves. They’ve just optimized their chances to enjoy themselves. It takes time and discipline to master surfing.

I’m a bit vague on the sustained experience of enlightenment. Some of the people I trust on the subject of a sustained and stable spiritual awakening are Jed McKenna, Gopi Krishna, Mary Shutan, and Chögyam Trungpa. Not because I’ve experienced it myself, but because they’ve been accurate in describing the territory I have experienced.

All of them say samadhi is a nice place, but not where a stably enlightened person remains, not a spiritual destination, and only reliably enjoyed when one has done a significant amount of spiritual work.