What meditators do not realize is that most "masters" in the world today are samadhi masters rather than enlightened. In other words, they have cultivated one of the four dhyana (samadhi) but have not yet pierced through the entire barrier of delusion created by thoughts to reach the fundamental state beneath thoughts and all things…the fundamental substrate, essence or original nature we call God. In cultivating samadhi, they are still cultivating thought states rather than abandoning their involvement with thoughts.

To reach the stage of spiritual realization called enlightenment or the Tao, and which is also called "Self realization" because you are realizing your true Self  original nature, you have to abandon clinging to thoughts. In fact, you have to abandon the idea of being an ego or individual because an ego does NOT exist — it's just a thought. When you reach THAT point in your cultivation of abandon the belief in an ego because you experince that state, we call it "seeing the Tao."

But that's just the beginning of the spiritual path. From then on, there's more work to be done. That's just initial enlightenment or awakening.

The problem is that most masters who teach today have not seen the Tao but have only achieved one of the samadhi ranks of attainment. To meet an enlightened master is very rare — you can go for many lives without ever meeting one.

So what does samadhi have to do with the spiritual path?

Buddha taught people to realize the Tao directly. If they could not, he taught thm how to cultivate the samadhi stages as training grounds or practice grounds to help them approach the Tao progressively until they were mature enough to let go of thoughts altogether. Most of the people you see cultivating superpowers and chi and inner martial arts today are cultivating kungfu (gongfu) and samadhi, or pre-samadhi stage of attainment rather than the Tao.

That's a BIG distinction.