Acharya Prashant clarifies that nirvikalpa samadhi is not a conceptual state of choicelessness derived from books, but a state where the ego has entered into an inexorable friendship and stable love affair with the truth. It is a condition where being disturbed is no longer attractive and one is perfectly at peace with peace itself. He explains that most people are uncomfortable with silence and peace, often revolting with noise when faced with stillness. In nirvikalpa samadhi, the ego is so fully surrendered to the absolute that it gains absolute freedom; it may act as if bonded or free, but its actions no longer stem from a place of lack or fear. This state is characterized by a timelessness and a surrender that is no longer revoked. Addressing the relationship between death and samadhi, Acharya Prashant notes that death pertains to the physical body, whereas the one in samadhi has already allowed the ego to die long before the body's demise. He describes death as absolute liberation and a resumption of the beginning rather than a mere end. He further explains that the emergence of the ego from the center is not a threat. Just as Shri Krishna participates in the world without being affected by it, a person in nirvikalpata remains centered even if the ego manifests. This state acts as a vaccination, allowing one to engage with the world without being corrupted by it. Finally, he encourages the ego to revolt openly rather than hiding in silence, as an ego out in the open reveals its own limitations and immaturity. Regarding the permanence of nirvikalpa samadhi, he explains that it cannot be lost in the way a physical object is lost. Because the truth is what holds the individual rather than something the individual holds, one is free to 'lose' or forget it without ever truly being apart from it. He urges the questioner to drop mental models that treat truth as an objective attainment, as the truth is the very container of the universe and the self.
