In Sanskrit, samadhi means that equal to the Creator. sama means equal and adhi means beginning (Creator). Jivan mukthas (Liberated beings) are always in sahaja samadhi. Sahaja means naturally spontaneous. Though jivan mukthas are in sahaja samadhi, they also give up their mortal coir once the purpose of their incarnation is over. This is called as maha samadhi.
Mahaan Sri Seshadri Swamigal decided to attain maha samadhi after living in Tiruvannamalai for about 40 years. Once he asked Subbulakshmi Ammal, “Should I continue like this or build a new house and practice yoga there? What is your suggestion?” He was indirectly asking her consent for attaining maha samadhi since the purpose of coming was over. But Subbulakshmi Ammal didn’t quite understand the meaning of this question. She ridiculed this question but Swamigal didn’t leave her. He kept on asking the same for the next couple of days. She got little scared and started thinking that there was something in it. She told him to build the new house and practice yoga. Immediately Swamigal said that he also thought the same and left the place happily for the answer given by Subbulakshmi Ammal. Swamigal treated every woman as the embodiment of Parashakthi and hence he was looking for the final decision to come from the Parashakthi.
Few days passed. Suddenly, some shiva devotees from Tiruvannamalai wanted to do abhishekam to Swamigal in the month of Karthika 1928. Swamigal initially opposed that he would get fever but they ignored his warning. They made him cleanly shaved and wore a new cloth and started pouring water on his head from various wells and tanks. On seeing this, Tiruvannamalai local people saw a great opportunity to get punya (good merits) and they also brought pots of water and poured water. After this abhishekam event, Swamigal got a very high fever with shivering cold but he was going around the city as usual. The fever lasted for about 40 days continuously and Swamigal’s body emaciated and finally lied down in the verandah of Chinna Kurukkal’s house.
The news went to the entire city and other parts of India like wildfire. Lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of devotees of started coming to the city to have a darshan of Swamigal. Subbulakshmi Ammal also came to see him. Swamigal asked her, “Have you seen this?” She started crying rolling on the ground uncontrollably. She said she didn’t realise this was the meaning for his question.
Swamigal’s attained maha samadhi on 04th January 1929. During this day, planets such as Moon, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus were in the same position as they were during the time of his birth.