: समरास; IAST

IAST

The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by the Sanskrit language.-Popularity:...

: samarāsa; synonymous with IAST

IAST

The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by the Sanskrit language.-Popularity:...

: ekarāsa; ; ) is a concept that denotes literally "one-taste" "one-flavour" or "same-taste" means equipoise in feelings, non-discriminating, the mind at rest.

Dzogchen

Vajranatha (1996: p.332) in his glossary of The Golden Letters, an annexure to his translation of, and commentary upon, the 'Three Statements' of Garab Dorje

Garab Dorje

Garab Dorje was the semi-historical first human teacher of the Ati Yoga or Great Perfection teachings according to Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Prior to Prahevajra, the Nyingma hold that the Dzogchen teachings had been expounded only in celestial realms and the 'pure lands' of the Buddhas,...

, defines thus:

ro-gcig single taste, single flavour, the state of being a single taste, ekarasa
ro-snyoms same taste, the process of making everything into the same taste, samarasa

Buddhadharma

Nalanda Translation Committee (1982: p.223) render a work on Marpa

Marpa Lotsawa

Marpa Lotsawa , sometimes known fully as Lhodak Marpa Choski Lodos or commonly as Marpa the Translator, was a Tibetan Buddhist teacher credited with the transmission of many Buddhist teachings to Tibet from India, including the teachings and lineages of Vajrayana and Mahamudra.-Biography:Born as...

, the famed Tibetan Yogi

Yogi

A Yogi is a practitioner of Yoga. The word is also used to refer to ascetic practitioners of meditation in a number of South Asian Religions including Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.-Etymology:...

 and define samarasa thus:

"...equal taste (S: samarasa; T: ro-mnyam) The yogic practices and visualization exercises of Buddhist tantra are extremely complex, but underlying them is a single experience of things as they are. This realization or state of mind is sometimes called equal taste, meaning that all extremes of good and bad, awake and sleep, and so on have the same fundamental nature of emptiness and mind itself."

Natha

Samarasa is one of four principal keywords and teachings of the Natha Tradition

Nath

The Sanskrit word nāthá or नाथ, is the proper name of a Hindu initiatory tradition and the word itself literally means "lord, protector, refuge"...

, the other three being 'svecchachara

Svecchachara

Svecchācāra is a Sanskrit word and important in the Nath Sampradaya. 'Svecchācāra' means: acting as one likes, arbitrariness, acting without restrain....

' (Sanskrit: स्वेच्छाचार), 'sama' (Sanskrit: सम), and 'sahaja

Sahaja

Sahaja is a term of some importance in Indian spirituality, particularly in circles influenced by the Tantric Movement...

' (Sanskrit: सहज).

In International Nath Order cite Mahendranath (1911 - 1991) in the provision of an introduction to samarasa:

This unique word, completely absent from Vedic texts, is found again and again in Tantra, Upanishads, and all the best of non-Vedic literature. In one short chapter of the Avadhuta Gita

Avadhuta Gita

Avadhuta Gita is a Hindu text based on the principles of Advaita Vedanta . The singer of the Avadhuta Gita is Dattatreya, an Avadhuta, and according to the Nath Sampradaya, the work was heard and transcribed by two of Dattatreya's disciples—Swami and Kartika...

, it occurs more than forty times. This whole Gita would be impossible to read and understand without the knowledge of this word.



The Tantrik or non-Vedic teachers used the word Samarasa in its mundane meaning to suggest higher truth. Samarasa can mean the ecstasy attained in sexual intercourse at the moment of orgasm. Using this, as they did of many other worldly things—to draw an analog between the moment of sexual bliss and the spiritual bliss of realization—men and women, it was thought, would understand absolute concepts better from the examples of relative life.



Going higher, it means the essential unity of all things—of all existence, the equipoise of equanimity, the supreme bliss of harmony, that which is aesthetically balanced, undifferentiated unity, absolute assimilation, the most perfect unification, and the highest consummation of Oneness.


To Dattatreya

Dattatreya

Dattatreya or Datta is a Hindu deity encompassing the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, collectively known as Trimurti. The name Dattatreya can be divided into two words - "Datta" and "Atreya" referring to the sage Atri, his physical father.Various Hindu sects worship him differently...

, it meant a stage of realization of the Absolute Truth, where there was no longer any distinction to be felt, seen or experienced between the seeker and the sought. Gorakshanath

Gorakshanath

Gorakshanath was an 11th to 12th century Hindu Nath yogi, connected to Shaivism as one of the two most important disciples of Matsyendranath, the other being Caurangi. There are varying records of the spiritual descent of Gorakshanath. All name Adinath and Matsyendranath as two teachers preceding...

, who wrote the first texts of the Nathas, explains Samarasa as a state of absolute freedom, peace, and attainment in the realization of the Absolute Truth. He placed it on a higher level than samadhi

Samadhi

Samadhi in Hinduism, Buddhism,Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools is a higher level of concentrated meditation, or dhyāna. In the yoga tradition, it is the eighth and final limb identified in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali....

.



Samarasa implied the joy and happiness with perfect equanimity and tranquility, maintained after samadhi had finished, and continued in the waking or conscious state. In this sense, it is a form of permanent ecstasy and contemplation which the saint maintains at all times."