SAMĀDHI: DIPIRI TŠA MAWATLE

Samādhi was once defined as the transcendent state that is reached during the meditators death in yogi practices.
There are many different phases of Samādhi, but it is universally accepted to be the state of deep medidation or concentration where mind, body and space become one. Where there ceases to exist a singular “I”

“Diphiri Tša MaWatle” translates to “Secrets of the Ocean” from Sepedi and represents the receptive Yin.

During this Yin phase of Samādhi, one learns to let go of any preconceived notions of a self. To become part of a collective “I’. To become one with the source in a process of silence.

This understanding became the starting point of the second half of my inquiry between 2018 and 2019. When I was recovering from a burnout and mostly in a state of psychosis. Isolated from the world. Awake and disenchanted with reality. The existential questions that rattled my mind in 2016 with “Barongwa” still reverberated down the corridors of my mind. Now I wanted to know what this “self” was. The “I” in “I am”.

Most of us live a life of quiet desperation. We hold on tightly to life out of fear of death. We hold on to purity and God, out of a fear of the Devil. My sister used to say to me as a child: “God does not pick sides”. As an adult, I don’t think the Devil picks sides either because God and the Devil are two sides of the same coin. Much like life and death. Light and Dark. Yin and Yáng.