The Samadhi and sleep are identical

In Sutra Bashya and Mandukya :-  the  Samadhi and sleep are identical. 

Brihad Upanishad does not advocate Samadhi.

It is not possible to stop thought for more than a half-second whilst in the waking experience. If one succeeds in controlling thought and then banishes it, one passes into Nirvikalpa Samadhi, which is identical with deep sleep. The only difference between ordinary deep sleep and Samadhi therefore is that the ordinary man falls asleep involuntarily whereas the yogi has the satisfaction of knowing that he has passed into sleep by his own effort of will in banishing thoughts.

 Patanjali warns against sleep as a hindrance to yoga, he means when it occurs in the early stages of the practice before one has obtained the power of control and consequently to banish thought. This fact that Samadhi is deep sleep is kept secret because people would not be tempted to take up yoga. Then what is the value of it? Why, to sharpen the mind, to enable it to keep away all extraneous thoughts when one gets out to reason in the practice of the next higher stage, i.e. Gnana.

 Yoga is thus simply a sharpening-stone for the mind to enable it to take up Gnana. Living without thoughts is Impossible. The very thoughtless state itself is a thought.  Holding the thoughtless thought and entering the Samadhi   is impossible without the thought of thoughtlessness. How can one enter the Samadhi without the thought of thoughtlessness?   He does not know the Gnanic truth if he says thoughtlessness is the perfect stage of self.

When thoughts are stilled, it is not the Self that is found. It is only mind. Thus Yogic Samadhi is not Gnana and therefore yogi does not know highest truth. Yoga is good to give peace and concentration, but only in order to start reasoning, i.e. thinking again to find truth.

Yogic Samadhi is not the goal but a means to an end, i.e. Gnana. Samadhi in itself is useless, because the mind is withdrawn and there is no memory of it until after it is over and one returns to waking experience.  Yogi who attains Samadhi: it is only sleep.

Yogi who is said to experience non-duality in his ecstasy must still come back to normal state and see the world confronts him, after his ecstasy. And then he will find that world separates from him because he has ignored it and not tried to understand it. Only the Gnani can say of the external world, "This is Brahman, Mind." and prove his statement, and that it is none other than the innermost-self.

Many yogis are largely pretenders or self-deluded. They think they are masters who can lead the whole humanity. They set themselves up as different from others. Many yogis promise blessings etc. to those who surrender their wealth or person to them. Many here live questionable lives with women disciples.  They seek influence over others, or wealth, by thus differentiating themselves.  They market their yogic product in spiritual super market.  A Gnani never does this.

If a yogi says "I feel Bliss" who is having the experience? His 'I' is the ego. Hence that is not the highest Gnana.  If one carefully examines the experiences of mystics, than he finds that they do differ. It is superficial to say that yogis and mystics all have the same experience.

In dream one knows that the dream figures are also mind, not different from it; similarly when one knows that everything is consciousness, there is no need for yogic control of mind. Control presupposes second, a duality. Hence yoga is in the sphere of duality and is unnecessary to one who knows non-duality.

Self-Knowledge requires the mind to be active in order to examine the world and discriminate. Hence nondual wisdom means knowing that there are no ideas different from the inner most self, which is in the form of consciousness, as the dream mountain is not different from Mind, knowing which they automatically the mind reaches stillness. This is different from Yogic Samadhi, which is only deep sleep.

The Yogis and Mystics want meditation, sitting still, etc. only because it gives them pleasure: the satisfaction is for their own selves only, not others; hence it is something sought by the ego and cannot get ultimate truth or Brahman in consequence.

The Yogi wants to do something, some action, even that of sitting still, to control this or concentrate that. This means he is still attached to his physical body. He wants his physical body to be quiet. He is still thinking of illusory physical body. He does not know that, the physical body is part of the mirage. On the contrary, he takes it for a reality.

The world must be seen before one can know its true nature in Gnana. The yogi, who shuts it out, thereby deprives himself of the opportunity to achieve Gnana.

The yogi must go to the ashram, some special place, some cave or other. Whoever must sit in a posture is attached to the body.

Inquiry must begin with duality, i.e. with a world to inquire into. It will end with unity. The yogi tries to avoid this duality by ignoring the universe. Hence he gets a false unity only.

The seekers of truth will inquire and practice discrimination.  The ultimate truth has to be attained not by intuition but by reason, which is superior to it. Not even a combination of intellect and intuition will find truth.

Yoga will only let one know what he imagines. Self-Knowledge is the sum of all sciences. Scientists think only of the external world, the seekers of truth the inner self. Both are needed. Answers to prayers are imagination, due to chance.  Religion and Yoga are useful from utilitarian view points, but from point of view of seeking truth they are useless.  Yoga belief is a self-mesmeric condition out of which it is extremely difficult to escape. 
 

Yoga has its place rather than its value and that its value is for a certain type of mindset.  Yoga will remove restlessness, receptiveness, but never Truth because it ignores the external world.  Yoga cannot remove ignorance. It is only a step. It removes obstructions. 
 

Yoga can yield only duality because everything that one can do or practice becomes a vanishing 'known.' It yields relative truth, i.e. true from a particular viewpoint, not ultimate truth.

Yoga implies duality! Yoga = joining two things, a something to which the yogi is to be joined. He thinks I want to know God, I want to attain Union. So he has the ego and cannot attain. Whereas the first thing in path of truth is to question the ‘I’ until its illusory nature is perceived and the seeker no longer says "I want to attain ultimate truth." One has nothing to get for the self, as it has vanished on inquiry, not even will he say I will work for the sake the humanity.

The ordinary yogi follows yoga, wants to sit in a place and think "I’ am shutting my eyes, ‘I’ am sitting in a room, ‘I’ am meditating." This egoistic yoga has nothing to do with Gnana. (This has been pointed out even in Mandukya Upanishad - p.229-30)

The yogi is always thinking in terms of me and mine. He always thinks of what he is to get from his practice; whereas in pursuit of truth the seeker  first examine and get rid of this ‘I’ by inquiry for he wants truth, not something for the self.  The yogi says "I’ want to gain Samadhi”. A Gnani wants to gain nothing for he knows, ‘I’ is mind. And mind is in the form of   the whole universe.  The universe appears as waking or dream and diapers as deep sleep.  The formless substance and witness of the three states is the consciousness, which is the inner most self. The inner most self is ultimate truth and ultimate truth is Brahman.

Suppose one says the self is the energy than he has to become aware of that energy, which is cause of   the universe and its contents without the forms and names. When one becomes one’s body and his experience of the universe itself is mere mirage created out of energy than he will become aware of the fact there is no other energy other than consciousness. The consciousness is ultimate truth.  The ultimate truth is the innermost self.  The inner most self is Brahman or god.

Yoga and religion are egocentric. Egocentricity is individuality.  Individuality is cause of duality. Duality is cause ignorance. Ignorance is cue of experiencing illusion as reality. Yoga basis itself on the ego and does not kill it. The Gnani alone can conquer the ego which he does by penetrating to the understanding of its illusory nature.

All ecstasy, exalted feeling is reality within the illusion. And illusion is something known. Whatever is known is and objects. The subject is formless substance and witness of   the object. Thus universe is an object.  Thus one has to find the formless subject in order to unfold the mystery of the universe.

Yoga practice is that it temporarily suppresses ego. What the yogi does not understand is that while he talks of experiencing bliss in trance, he reveals the presence of an ego which is the experiencer.  Thus his experience of the bliss and trace is individual whereas the self is not individual it pervades in everything and everywhere in all the three states. To transcend bliss and to transcend trance, one must have gone into, through and out of Yoga.

Yoga lulls the ego to sleep but it will reappear when the practice is ended, the only way to overcome the ego is to realize ‘What is mind? ‘What is the substance of the mind?’ and ‘What is the source of the mind?’.

It is not enough to see a mere nothingness. One has to see consciousness as the universal self, which pervades in everything and everywhere in all the three states. One is free from ignorance not when he sees nothing at all, as in Yoga but only when he sees this entire universe as consciousness, which is the true self. Hence seeker must ask the question “What is this universe?” in order to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman.