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Upanishads · Saubhāgyalakṣmī 2.18
॥
Devanāgarī
स्वयमुच्चलिते देहे देही नित्यसमाधिना । निश्चलं तं विजानीयात्समाधिरभिधीयते
Transliteration (IAST)
svayamuccalite dehe dehī nityasamādhinā | niścalaṃ taṃ vijānīyātsamādhirabhidhīyate
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
स्वयम् उच्चलिते देहेsvayam uccalite dehewhen the body moves of itself
देही नित्य-समाधिनाdehī nitya-samādhināthe embodied one, by constant samādhi
निश्चलं तं विजानीयात्niścalaṃ taṃ vijānīyātshould be known as motionless
समाधिः अभिधीयतेsamādhiḥ abhidhīyateis called samādhi
Translation
"When the body moves of itself, while the embodied one, by constant samādhi, is motionless — thus should he be known: [that] is called samādhi."
Version
d296e00658b0 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
Here is a definition that, to my mind, is better than all the preceding ones: the body moves, and the one within it is motionless. It is worth noting that this is the first of these definitions in which samādhi does not hinder living. The others described a state in which breath is exhausted, mind dissolved, and light extinguished; here the person walks, and his body does its own work.
This definition is the Vaiṣṇava side's own, and it holds to it readily; and about yukta-vairāgya, "unified renunciation," it was said when reading the Jābāla-darśana (7.4). Let us add the comparison relevant here, discussed when reading the Varāha (2.82): the dancing girl who dances with a pot on her head. She is absorbed in the music, leads the dance, follows the rhythm — and never for a moment forgets the pot; and this memory in her is not a separate thought but something running beneath everything else.
That is, motionlessness here is not the absence of movement but the motionlessness of attention; and this, to my mind, is the only reading under which the definition becomes achievable. Let us add the words svayam uccalite, "moves of itself." It means that deeds are accomplished without the participation of "I": the hand acts, and there is no doer.
And this is precisely what the Gītā calls nimitta-mātram, "but an instrument" (11.33), and expresses also in the words naiva kiñcit karomīti yukto manyeta tattva-vit, "let the knower of truth, united [in yoga], think: 'I do nothing at all'" (5.8).