Samadhi (Intergration)

 

The final integration of the sheaths of being at last brings access to the knowledge of the soul to join that of the heart and the body. Samadhi is the only state where you experience the absorption of the body, mind, and soul as a single unit.

BKS Iyengar, Light on Life

 

The experience of samadhi or integration is one of bringing back into the fold the parts of ourselves we have rejected.  Although samadhi brings us into a deeply nourishing experience of freedom and contentment, the actual stitching together of the broken off parts can be painful. Afterall, there are usually good reasons why we have disguarded parts of ourselves.  These are the parts that got left behind when we were abused or neglected and at an age or a state of life when we could not protect ourselves.  We come to experience some parts of ourselves as the good parts that are deserving of love and some parts as the bad shameful parts that we need to exorcise for self-preservation, to stop bad things from happening. 

 

Until we have integrated these unwanted parts back into the heart, events and situations that feel even a little like the original abandonment can trigger intense shame and anxiety.   Because something in us still believes that bad things happen to us because we are bad.  It is only through loving the parts of ourselves that feel shameful that we break this cycle. 

 

But this can feel like inviting all you enemies into your house and treating them with hospitality.  We need some friends to help us.

 

Asana, pranayama, meditation, and prayer, open an inner conduit to the divine self within to be present with us when the shame and anxiety of abandonment, failure, and overwhelm rises.  Held inside by this infinite loving presence, we can little by little begin to allow the feelings of shame and anxiety into the heart where they can be transformed from enemies into the innocents who manifested them to survive. Through healing, when feelings of shame and anxiety arise, I have begun to see them as prodigal sons and daughters, gifts from God, the little ones longing only for the wide open embrace of my heart.

 

I wonder if when I am dying, this experience of Samadhi will be one of the most precious to me.  To have held with love, tenderness and even longing the parts of myself that I used to despise.