Samadhi is of two kinds: one turned outward, one turned inward. The
outward-turned consciousness is always first. You are in the stage of
Samadhi belonging to the outward-turned waking consciousness, when you
can pass beyond the objects to the principles which those objects
manifest, when through the form you catch a glimpse of the life. Darwin
was in this stage when he glimpsed the truth of evolution. That is the
outward-turned Samadhi of the physical body.
This is technically the Samprajnata Samadhi, the “Samadhi with
consciousness,” but to be better regarded, I think, as with
consciousness outward-turned, i.e. conscious of objects. When the
object disappears, that is, when consciousness draws itself away from
the sheath by which those objects are seen, then comes the Asamprajnata
Samadhi; called the “Samadhi without consciousness”. I prefer to call
it the inward-turned consciousness, as it is by turning away from the
outer that this stage is reached.
These two stages of Samadhi follow each other on every plane; the
intense concentration on objects in the first stage, and the piercing
thereby through the outer form to the underlying principle, are
followed by the turning away of the consciousness from the sheath which
has served its purpose, and its withdrawal into itself, i.e., into a
sheath not yet recognised as a sheath. It is then for a while conscious
only of itself and not of the outer world. Then comes the “cloud,” the
dawning sense again of an outer, a dim sensing of “something” other
than itself; that again is followed by the functioning of the nigher
sheath and the Recognition of the objects of the next higher plane,
corresponding to that sheath. Hence the complete cycle is: Samprajnata
Samadhi, Asamprajnata Samadhi, Megha (cloud), and then the Samprajnata
Samadhi of the next plane, and so on.