Categorizing Bhava
It’s simply not possible to draw bright lines around the subject of bhava. Bhava has to do with the spirit. Bright lines and categories have to do with our minds, and the mind cannot comprehend the spirit.
Yet if you go to the Wikipedia article on bhava samadhi, you will read how bhava is a mood, an emotional state, and bhava samadhi is “an advanced spiritual state.” The article suggests that bhava is ordinary but bhava samadhi is reserved for the spiritually advanced, those on the level of Ramakrishna.
Shivabalayogi did not distinguish between bhava and bhava samadhi. His words, even in translation, mixed bhava, bhava samadhi and trance quite freely.
Comparisons with Ramakrishna (another life of Shivabalayogi) can be pushed only so far. As General Hanut wrote in his 1981 biography of Shivabalayogi, Shivabalayogi was unusual in how generously he gave the bhava experience. Swamiji told us that Ramakrishna had power to give bhava samadhi only to a handful of his closest disciples. By comparison, Swamiji said, Swamiji can give the experience to anyone.
People who have shared their own experiences
say that the bhava experience is
different every time. Most describe the experience as completely outside their control.
Even more interestingly, they say they have no idea where they end and bhava begins. In other words, they are in bhava
to some degree all the time — no bright lines.
Many explain that although bhava manifested in the form of various gods and goddesses, they came to understand that it was all Swamiji.
The bhava experience ranges from drowsiness and tingling sensations to complete loss of control over one’s body, to initiation into samadhi and tapas, and everything in between.
It was common knowledge in the early days that the devotees initiated into tapas by Swamiji were meditating in bhava samadhi. Swamiji admitted that his own initiation into tapas was through bhava samadhi.
One could argue that everything Shivabalayogi did was an aspect of bhava — initiation into meditation, blessing vibhuti or prashad, visions in dreams or meditation, and the 90% that he contributes to our meditation efforts. They are all through the presence of astral bodies.
Swamiji repeatedly cautioned against trying to figure it out or trying to control it.
“Swamiji has done tapas for twelve years. He understands this subject. If you want to know this subject, come to Swamiji, sit down for twelve years and do tapas. Then you can understand, but not otherwise.”
