Samadhi as the Natural State — Not Achievement But Recognition
The deepest teaching of the Yoga Sutras is that Samadhi is not a state to be achieved through effort but the natural state of consciousness — always already present, temporarily obscured by the vrittis, and revealed by their stilling.
Sutra 1.3 — 'tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam' — when the vrittis are stilled, the Seer abides in its own nature — contains the key insight: the Seer's own nature is already samadhi. The Seer does not need to achieve a new state; it needs only to be recognized as what it always already is. All yoga practice is therefore not a creation but a removal — not the building of something new but the dismantling of the obscurations that prevent recognition of what is already the case. This is why the Yoga Sutras is simultaneously a highly technical practice manual and a teaching on grace: the techniques are real and necessary, but their ultimate function is to reduce the ego's interference with a recognition that is ultimately given, not achieved. The entire system of Ashtanga Yoga is, in this light, not a ladder to a new destination but a progressive removal of the clouds that temporarily obscure the sun that was never absent.
Then the Seer abides in its own essential nature.
Sri Ramana Maharshi's teaching 'The Self is always realized; there is nothing new to realize' — combined with his prescription of the inquiry 'Who am I?' as the direct path to recognition — perfectly embodies sutra 1.3: the Seer's own nature is already samadhi, and the inquiry removes the mistaken identification that obscures this recognition.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali