Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga: NIYAMA | ishvara pranidhana
From trustful surrender to Ishvara comes Samadhi.
In the yoga sutra Patanjali tells us that trustful surrender as the doorway to the highest samadhi. He states that Ishvara is represented by mantra and explain how mantra japa (repetitive mantra) turns our consciousness inward and removes obstacles.
Ishvara is absolute being, beyond time, space, and the law of cause and effect. It has no form and no name and it is omniscient. In the world comprehensible to our humanness, there is nothing parallel to Ishvara's distinctiveness making it indescribable. How can we possibly surrender ourselves to something we do not and cannot know? Only when we read sutra 2:45 as a continuation of sutra 2:44 and bring together with the experiences of the yogis who have traveled this path do the concepts of trustful surrender to Ishvara and divine grace opening the door to samadhi become comprehensible.
As we continue our mantra sadhana, our mind becomes increasingly infused with the seeing power of the seer. Our ordinary mind is transformed into buddhi sattva, (extraordinary mind,) for we have regained our unalloyed luminous intelligence. With this fully transformed mind we are able to see the seer in her fullness. We are able to see the seer's oneness with Ishvara, for we to have become seers.
Our mind is no longer "our" mind- it is the mind of the seer. Now we see the ultimate truth through the eyes of the seer. This "seeing" is totally different from any form of seeing and knowing familiar to us in the objective world. The understanding that dawns in this state is as unique as the seers themselves. The experience is all consuming. It destroys all mental tendencies and deep seated afflictions, ignorance, distorted self-identity, attachment, aversion, and fear.
All curiosity regarding who we are, where we came from, where we will go after we die and how long we will live vanishes. This is how we reach the highest form of samadhi gracefully and spontaneously. We connect in with Ishvara.