The exalted state of self-realization as it relates to an earnest disciple is a state of mental concentration in which he seeks to identify himself with Noble Wisdom. In that effort he must seek to annihilate all vagrant thoughts and notions belonging to the externality of things, and all ideas of individuality and generality, of suffering and impermanence, and cultivate the noblest ideas of egolessness and emptiness and imagelessness; thus will he attain a realization of truth that is free from passion and is ever serene. When this active effort at mental concentration is successful it is followed by a more passive, receptive state of Samadhi in which the earnest disciple will enter into the blissful abode of Noble Wisdorn and experience its consummations in the transformations of Samapatti. This is an earnest disciple's first experience of the exalted state of realization, but as yet there is no discarding of habit-energy nor escaping from the transformation of death.

(The Lankavatara Sutra)