Upanishads · Mahāvākya p12
॥
Devanāgarī
नैषा समाधिः । नैषा योगसिद्धिः । नैषा मनोलयः
Transliteration (IAST)
naiṣā samādhiḥ | naiṣā yogasiddhiḥ | naiṣā manolayaḥ
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
न एषा समाधिःna eṣā samādhiḥthis is not samādhi
न एषा योग-सिद्धिःna eṣā yoga-siddhiḥthis is not the perfection of yoga
न एषा मनः-लयःna eṣā manaḥ-layaḥthis is not the dissolution of the mind
Translation
«This is not samādhi; this is not the perfection of yoga; this is not the dissolution of the mind.»
Version
4621e1aed144 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
Here is a line for whose sake this book is worth reading, and it is remarkable in that it denies three things in a row, ordinarily held out as the goal. It says: not samādhi, not yoga-siddhi, not mano-laya. Let us examine all three, for this distinction is subtle and is not drawn in the yogic books.
Samādhi is concentration — a state attained by practice and, like every state, transient: one enters it and leaves it. Yoga-siddhi is a perfection, that is, an acquired power; that even Patañjali calls these an obstacle (3.37) was discussed reading the Jābāla-darśana (6.20). Mano-laya is “the dissolution of the mind” — a state in which the mind has grown still and reflects nothing. In the yogic books it is carefully distinguished from the Highest, with the warning that it resembles attainment but is not one: a person emerges from it the same as he entered.
And here it is said that what is sought is none of the three. This deserves due appreciation. The book rejects not something foreign, but its own: everything listed is the possession of the very schools within whose circle it was written.
The Vaiṣṇava side says the same and distinguishes mano-laya from tattva-laya, “the stilling of the mind” from “dissolution into the object”; and warns that the first is attained by a drug as much as by exhaustion, and hence means nothing. Let us add, too, the measure it gives, for this measure is checkable. The two are distinguished by what comes after. From stillness one emerges unchanged; from an encounter one emerges changed, and the change is visible to others.