Nirbija Samadhi

(Patanjali Yoga Sutra)

Aphorism 1.51
1.51 When even these latent impressions from truth filled knowledge recede along
with the other impressions, then there is objectless concentration.
(tasya api nirodhe sarva nirodhat nirbijah samadhih)

tasya = of that

api = too

of

nirodhe = receding, mastery, coordination, control, regulation, setting aside

sarva = of all

nirodhat = through nirodhah (nirodhah = control, regulation, channeling,

mastery, integration, coordination, understanding, stilling, quieting, setting aside of)

nirbijah = without a seed, seedless (nir = without; bijah = seed)

samadhih = deep absorption of meditation, entasy

Even the effects of samadhi recede: On the path of Self-realization, you

systematically find attention moving past all of the levels of your being. This word
recede (as a translation of nirodah, 1.2) describes what the experience is like:

When you succeed in meditation to go inward, leaving aside the external

environment, it is as if the world recedes from you, though it is your attention that
has come inward.

When you move past your body, going inward, it seems as if body awareness
recedes.

The same thing happens with breath, with which you give a great deal of
emphasis until ready to go past that; then it seems that the breath recedes.

When you encounter the chattering, noisy, distracting conscious mind, it

eventually seems that this too recedes.

When you encounter the many layers and levels of the unconscious, they too
gradually seem to recede.
They only appear to recede: All along, none of these are actually receding, but that
is the way it is experienced. Thus, before moving into the higher experience of

objectless, or formless samadhi, even those blissful residues from the lower states
of samadhi seem to recede, as attention moves still further inward, leaving them
behind as well.
Objectless samadhi comes: While even these latent impressions from truth filled
knowledge (1.50) recede along with the other impressions, then there is objectless
concentration (1.18), which was described as the state following the four stage of
meditation on an object (1.17).
Supreme non-attachment: Along the way, one systematically experiences the
stages of vairagya (non-attachment), and how that process goes ever further inward
(1.15), all the way to the supreme non-attachment (1.16).