Talk:Mahāsamādhi

In the description, where it says, "cease to live" I think it should say either, "cease to animate the mortal body," or the equivalent. 70.166.123.49 (talk) 20:09, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources for the term dharmic religions?
Where are the reliable sources that use the term dharmic religions in the context of this article? Dharmic religions is a now deleted obscure neologism and should not be used throughout Wikipedia. a good alternative is Indian religions. The number of google scholar results for "Indian religions"+"Indian religion" is (45.600 + 84.200) while it is only (492+475) for "dharmic religions" +"dharmic religion". See Deletion_review/Log/2007_September_8. Andries 19:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

List of people who have attained Mahasamadhi
Should we have a list of people (or saints for that matter) who have attained Mahasamadhi be included in this article? I feel that it would be an interesting inclusion to this article. Any thoughts on this would be most welcomed! -- S iva1979 Talk to me 15:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it's a good idea. Kkrystian 14:06, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


 * How could we possibly verify whether or not they had attained Mahasamadhi?&mdash;Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 14:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The article feels incomplete without examples of claims. My guess is that an enlightened master wishing to enter Mahasamadhi would first prepare by way of known rituals. They would also pick a date and inform a few of their followers. On the appointed day, they would begin and complete Mahasamadhi. I have read somewhere that this was how Sai Baba did it. Mahasamadhi would not be genuine if the individual died of natural causes or through ill health. 2600:1700:60A0:54E0:5876:78CD:1BB3:36F9 (talk) 03:08, 24 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Good point. Though I wonder how the internal link "list of..." ended up in this article? If namedropping a source such as Blackman is, then wouldn't it be best to give a few examples from the text. Of the three online sources only one was useful.

Jim Steele (talk) 19:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * You don't need to verify their mahasamdhis. This is a religious belief: the list would only need to be people described as having attained mahasamadhi. Anyone mentioned in reliable texts as having attained mahasamadhi according to their followers or hagiographies is all that matters. The problem is this list would include almost every deceased notable saint in India.Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 08:52, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Point of view
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but shouldn't this article be checked for neutral point of view and style? It seems to deal with belief, not fact, yet is written as though it is describing fact.Totorotroll (talk) 18:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed. I've added  for a start, but I don't know enough about the topic to really improve the article. Q VVERTYVS  (hm?) 20:11, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

So what happens to the body?
When the consciousness leaves the body, according to this teaching, what happens to the body? Is it just an ordinary corpse, is it incorrupt, or does it vaporize, turn to dust, etc...? FiredanceThroughTheNight (talk) 02:18, 26 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The general belief is that the body will not decompose, but remains. This is the description most modern movements use, and is the description the Self Realization Fellowship gives for Yogananda. It is also the source of a recent controversy when an Indian temple would not allow their deceased guru's body to be removed so they could watch it not decompose to prove his mahasamadhi. Some older texts seem to imply the body can simply vanish, but the descriptions of conscious dying are very common in yoga texts such as the Khecarīvidyā of Adinātha, but they generally leave out those juicy details and just describe the method. Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 09:00, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

With respect to Advaita, the distinction between matter and spirit simply vanishes forever for the subject entering mahasamadhi. In old scriptures various things have been told about what appears to the worldly deluded people, some scriptures state the body undergoes self preservation as few of the vital airs (see Vayus) remain even after life forces cease, whereas some state, the body disintegrates into five bhutas with the yogic fire, some say the body disappears in ether, some say the body was an illusion so it appears to disintegrate naturally to the worldy people (but didn't exist in the first place for the realised). The last one makes the most sense since most of the accounts of people undergoing mahasamadhi went through normal processes of cremation or other post-mortem rites. So yes, what happens to body after mahasamadhi hardly matters, atleast spiritually, the talks and controversies regarding the matter are people looking for juicy details as stated by Iṣṭa Devatā. Deathrider96099 (talk) 15:26, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Nirvikalpa
On what are we basing the claim that this ability comes from nirvikalpa samadhi? There needs to be at least one source to base this off of. And besides, these levels of nirvikalpa/savikalpa et cetera samādhi come from patāñjala yoga and are not nearly as universal as the belief in conscious death, which is a much older belief that we can find in the list of the ashtasiddhis, the eight magical powers gained through yoga. And Patāñjali's Yoga Sutras describe consciously leaving the body in the third pāda making no mention of the levels of samādhi:
 * “III.38 bandha-kāraṇa-śaithilyāt pracāra-saṁvedanāc ca cittasya para-śarīrāveśaḥ
 * By loosening the cause of bondage, and by knowledge of the passageways of the mind, the mind can enter into the bodies of others.”
 * Excerpt From: Edwin F. Bryant. The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali.

The Khecarīvidyā, which describes a variety of body leaving processes including conscious dying, makes zero mention of nirvikalpa samādhi. Where did this claim even come from? Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 09:14, 4 June 2016 (UTC)