How to Attain Samadhi?

Mark the three processes that take place in the mind during meditation. These are: CONTEMPLATION, FILLING, IDENTIFICATION. This is another triplet. Remember these three word-images. Repeat them mentally while doing spiritual practice. It will help you a lot really. Contemplate on Soul. Fill the mind with Soul. Then the mind becomes identified with Supreme Soul like wasp and caterpillar. As you think, so you become. Think you are Supreme Soul; Supreme Soul you will become.

When the mind is withdrawn from the objects and deep reflection sets in, the objective consciousness is shut up; Savitarka Samadhi commences. Ratiocination, analysis and synthesis (a priori and a posteriori ways of reasoning), investigation and abstract reasoning take place. This is Samadhi with reasoning. Evil thoughts cannot enter now. The mind is Sattvic (pure).

Deep study of philosophical works with mental purity is itself a form of Samadhi. The mind here is free from worldly thoughts. When your meditation becomes deep, you generally operate through the subtle causal body only. The causal body consciousness becomes your normal consciousness. Yogis have a normal causal body consciousness. A devotee of causal body consciousness is an occupant of higher dimension even when living in the fleshy tabernacle. He is one with Supreme Soul. He has Divine power; yet he has a thin ethereal body. He keeps up his individuality. A whirlpool is one with the whole mass of the water. It has a separate existence also. Similar is the case with the devotee who has a life with his causal body in omnipresent.

Ways to Attain Samadhi

Purify the mind by Japa (Chanting), Pranayama, Satsanga (Good Companion), Svadhyaya, Dana (Charity), Yajna (Ritual), Tapas (Penance) and selfless service. Then fix it on God. Destroy Sankalpa-Vikalpa of the mind. Unite the currents of the mind with the spiritual current. Abandon the idea or notion of “I, he, “thou, mine-ness and duality. Have attitude of Soul instead. Then Samadhi or super conscious state will supervene automatically.

There are four ways of destroying the ego or Ahankara, viz., two Non-duality methods (positive and negative), one devotees’ method of ungrudging, unreserved, absolute self-surrender (Atmanivedana) and the fourth, complete self-sacrifice of Nishkama Karma Yogis.

The negative method is denial: “I am not the body, I am not the mind.” "“Brahma satyam jaganmithya jivo brahmaiva na-aparah: - —Supreme Soul alone is real. The world is unreal. Embodied Soul is identical with Supreme Soul.” World includes the body. Meditate on this idea. Ego will vanish. The positive method is that everything is Self only: "“Sarvam khalvidam brahma— - All is Supreme. There is nothing but Supreme."”

Reference

Mind – Its Mysteries and Control by Sri Swami Sivananda