Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00110)

Richard Ihle writes>
>Jerry, I was agreeing with your first comment 110% (assuming you were talking
>about *savikalpa-samadhi*); however, did you change your point of view in the
>second?

	Yes, I was talking about savikalpa-samadhi, or samadhi with "traces."
I don't think I changed my point of view in the second, but rather tried to
describe it differently (which is how semantics or words get me into so much
trouble).   In the savikalpa there is still a trace of self, but the
surroundings
are also self, and so produces a tremendous sense of oneness.  Nothing
much can be said about the nirvikalpa samadhi, having no traces at all
it is beyond words to describe (oneness and otherness both disappear).

> In the first case, however, would you not agree
>that the term *total environment* might be overly easily confused with
>*Prakriti*--which includes everything from the most rarefied "Substance"
>(Spirit) down to the most gross?
	Right.  But Alexis used the term not me.  When in samadhi,
one is sensitive to the spiritual, but nothing else, hence not really a
"total environment" which would include all planes.

> Naturally, of course, I am fairly
>certain that when you said "you become your environment" you were merely
>referring to the all-pervading quality of Spirit.
	Here again, the semantics seems to have bitten me.  Its
difficult to get it completely right, and as Eldon rightly points out, this
is a main cause of Theosophical friction.
	When consciousness crosses the Abyss, it enters savikalpa
samadhi and when consciousness at this state looks out at its
surroundings, it sees itself and feels those surroundings to be itself.
In a sense this could be called a merger of the subject and object,
but in another sense it is a hightened sensitivity to the Self.

	I don't recall hearing the term "Prakriti-laya" before, but I will
check it out.  I certainly understand the meaning as you give it.   Forgive
me, but my study of Sanskrit was years ago, and is terribly rusty.

	Jerry S.
	Member, TI