Samadhi is the eighth and final limb of Patanjali’s eight-limbed path, described in the Yoga Sutras as a state of deep meditative absorption in which the ordinary sense of a separate observer watching an object of meditation thins out, and in its deepest forms is said to dissolve altogether. It’s the limb the other seven are traditionally understood to be building toward — not a technique you perform, but a state the tradition describes as arising once concentration and meditation have sufficiently matured. And unlike a single unified experience, classical texts describe several distinct stages and types of samadhi, which is often what people are actually asking about when they search for the “types” of this state.
Where Samadhi Sits in the Eight Limbs
Samadhi is the last of Patanjali’s eight limbs, following pratyahara (sense withdrawal), dharana (concentration), and dhyana (meditation). These final three limbs are traditionally grouped together as samyama — a single, continuous deepening of attention rather than three separate skills practiced in isolation. Dharana is the effortful, repeated act of returning a wandering mind to one object. Dhyana is what happens once that effort softens into a steady, unbroken stream of attention toward the same object. Samadhi is described as the further stage in which even the subtle distinction between the meditator, the act of meditating, and the object being meditated on gives way, leaving something closer to the object alone, as the tradition puts it.
A classical image used to describe this progression is a flame: dharana is like repeatedly redirecting a flickering flame toward a target, dhyana is the flame burning steadily on it, and samadhi is the point at which flame and object seem to merge into a single, undivided light. It’s a useful way to hold the three stages as points on one continuum rather than as unrelated practices.
Samprajnata Samadhi: Absorption with an Object
The classical texts draw a foundational distinction between two broad categories of samadhi, and this distinction is what most “types of samadhi” questions are really pointing at.
Samprajnata samadhi, sometimes translated as “cognitive” or “with support,” is absorption that still retains an object of focus. The mind is deeply unified with something — a concept, a mental image, a subtle sensation — but that something is still present as an object of awareness. Within this category, the tradition describes a sequence of increasingly subtle stages, each one relinquishing a coarser layer of mental activity in favor of a finer one:
- Vitarka — absorption accompanied by gross, conceptual thought. The mind is unified with its object, but reasoning, naming, and conceptual associations are still present alongside the absorption.
- Vichara — absorption with subtler reflection. Gross conceptual thought recedes, but a more refined, reflective awareness of the object’s subtler qualities remains.
- Ananda — absorption accompanied by a quality classical texts describe as bliss. Here the object has become so subtle that what remains most prominent is not the object itself so much as a felt quality of the state.
- Asmita — absorption with a residual sense of “I am.” Even the sense of bliss recedes, and what’s left is described as a subtle, almost bare sense of individual selfhood — still present, but stripped of nearly everything else.
Each of these stages is traditionally described as progressively more refined than the last, moving from a mind still engaged with concepts and words toward a mind whose object of focus has become almost as subtle as awareness itself.
Asamprajnata Samadhi: Absorption Without an Object
Asamprajnata samadhi, “without support” or “without cognition,” is described as a state deeper than any stage of samprajnata samadhi, because it has no object at all. Where samprajnata samadhi is absorption with something — however subtle — asamprajnata samadhi is described as a cessation of mental modifications so complete that even the subtlest object, including the residual sense of “I am” found in asmita, falls away. What’s said to remain is not an experience of something, but a state without a describable content — which is part of why classical commentaries treat this stage as difficult to convey in ordinary language at all.
Later in the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali also describes nirbija samadhi, or “seedless” samadhi — sometimes treated as a further refinement of asamprajnata samadhi, in which no latent impressions remain that could give rise to future mental fluctuations. This state is closely associated with kaivalya, the liberation the entire text is oriented toward, and its “seedless” name is meant literally: no residue is left behind to sprout into further mental activity later.
Why “Types” Rather Than One Experience
It’s worth sitting with why the tradition bothers describing samadhi in stages at all, rather than as one single peak state. Classical commentary is fairly explicit that samadhi isn’t achieved once and then simply held onto — it’s described as something cultivated and stabilized gradually, with the coarser, object-based stages of samprajnata samadhi typically preceding the more refined, objectless states. This maps loosely onto how sustained attention practice actually seems to deepen over time in most contemplative traditions: absorption that still involves thought and reflection tends to come before absorption that doesn’t, and stability at one stage is generally described as a prerequisite for approaching the next.
It’s also worth being careful about what’s being claimed here. These stages are presented in the Yoga Sutras as a systematic account of increasingly refined absorption, not as claims this article is asserting as established fact about consciousness. Whatever one makes of the deeper metaphysical claims — about the dissolution of subject and object, or about moksha, liberation, as the ultimate horizon of the path — the staged structure itself is a coherent, internally consistent description worth understanding on its own terms, as part of a specific philosophical tradition rather than a universal claim about what meditation does for everyone.
Samadhi in the Context of Practice
None of this is meant to suggest that samadhi is the only reason to practice, or that a session without it has failed. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali present samadhi as the culmination of a long path that starts with ethical conduct and physical steadiness, long before it arrives at meditation. Most practitioners spend the overwhelming majority of their time in the earlier limbs — building the steadiness of dharana, letting concentration mature into the sustained flow of dhyana — and that’s not a lesser use of the practice; it’s the foundation the tradition says the deeper stages are built on. For a broader view of how samadhi fits alongside the other seven limbs, our guide to the eight limbs of yoga covers the full path from ethical restraint through to absorption.
A comfortable, stable seat matters more than it might seem for any of this. Lotus Pose and Easy Pose are the classical seated shapes associated with sustained meditation, while Corpse Pose offers a reclined alternative for practitioners for whom extended cross-legged sitting isn’t accessible — the specific shape matters far less than the ability to hold it without needing to move.
Curious about the rest of the path that leads here? Explore the eight limbs of yoga from the beginning, or try yoga-bits to learn all 68 yoga pose names through an interactive quiz.