The mysteries of the seven bodies

Question 1

To seek and to ask are two different things. Actually, only he who does not want to seek asks. To seek and to ask are not one and the same; rather, they are contradictory. He who wants to avoid seeking asks. The process of seeking and the process of begging are very different. In asking the attention is centered on the other - on the giver; in seeking the attention is centered on oneself - on the receiver. To say that there are obstacles in the path of spiritual growth means there are obstacles within the seeker himself. The path too lies within and it is not very difficult to understand one's own hindrances. It will have to be explained at length what obstacles are and how they can be removed. Yesterday I told you about the seven bodies. We shall talk in greater detail about these and it will become clear to you.

As there are seven bodies, so there are also seven chakras, energy centers, and each chakra is connected in a special way with its corresponding body. The chakra of the physical body is the muladhar. This is the first chakra and it has an integral connection with the physical body. The muladhar chakra has two possibilities. Its first potentiality is a natural one that is given to us with birth; its other possibility is obtainable by meditation.

The basic natural possibility of this chakra is the sex urge of the physical body. The very first question that arises in the mind of the seeker is what to do in regard to this central principle. Now there is another possibility of this chakra, and that is brahmacharya, celibacy, which is attainable through meditation. Sex is the natural possibility and brahmacharya is its transformation. The more the mind is focused upon and gripped by sexual desire, the more difficult it will be to reach its ultimate potential of brahmacharya.

Now this means that we can utilize the situation given to us by nature in two ways. We can live in the condition that nature has placed us in - but then the process of spiritual growth cannot begin - or we transform this state. The only danger in the path of transformation is that there is the possibility that we may begin to fight with our natural center. What is the real danger in the path of a seeker?

The first obstacle is that if the meditator indulges only in nature's order of things he cannot rise to the ultimate possibility of his physical body and he stagnates at the starting point. On the one hand there is a need; on the other hand there is a suppression which causes the meditator to fight the sex urge. Suppression is an obstacle on the path of meditation. This is the obstacle of the first chakra.

Transformation cannot come about with suppression.

If suppression is an obstruction, what is the solution? Understand-ing will then solve the matter.

Transformation takes place within as you begin to understand sex. There is a reason for this.

All elements of nature lie blind and unconscious within us. If we become conscious of them, transformation begins. Awareness is the alchemy; awareness is the alchemy of changing them, of transforming them. If a person becomes awake toward his sexual desires with his total feelings and his total understanding, then brahmacharya will begin to take birth within him in place of sex.

Unless a person reaches brahmacharya in his first body it is difficult to work on the potentiality of other centers.

The second body, as I said, is the emotional or the etheric body. The second body is connected to the second chakra - the swadhishthan chakra. This too has two possibilities. Basically, its natural potential is fear, hate, anger, and violence. All these are conditions obtained from the natural potential of the swadhishthan chakra. If a person stagnates at the second body, then the directly opposite conditions of transformation - love, compassion, fearlessness, friendliness - do not take place. The obstacle on the meditator's path in the second chakra is hate, anger and violence, and the question is of their transformation.

Here too the same mistake is made. One person can give vent to his anger; another can suppress his anger. One can just be fearful; another can suppress his fear and make a show of courage. But neither of these will lead to transformation. When there is fear it has to be accepted; there is no use hiding or suppressing it. If there is violence within there is no use in covering it with the mantle of nonviolence. Shouting slogans of nonviolence will bring no change in the state of violence within. It remains violence. It is a condition given to us by nature in the second body. It has its uses just as there is meaning to sex. Through sex alone other physical bodies can be given birth. Before one physical body falls, nature has made provisions for the birth of another.

Fear, violence, anger, are all necessary on the second plane; otherwise man could not survive, could not protect himself. Fear protects him, anger involves him in struggle against others and violence helps him to save himself from the violence of others. All these are qualities of the second body and are necessary for survival, but generally we stop here and do not go any further. If a person understands the nature of fear he attains fearlessness, and if he understands the nature of violence he attains nonviolence. Similarly, by understanding anger we develop the quality of forgiveness.

In fact, anger is one side of the coin, forgiveness is the other. They each hide behind the other - but the coin has to be turned over. If we come to know one side of the coin perfectly we naturally become curious to know what is on the other side - and so the coin turns. If we hide the coin and pretend we have no fear, no violence within, we will never be able to know fearlessness and nonviolence. He who accepts the presence of fear within himself and who has investigated it fully will soon reach a place where he will want to find out what is behind fear. His curiosity will encourage him to see the other side of the coin.

The moment he turns it over he becomes fearless. Similarly, violence will turn into compassion.

These are the potentials of the second body. Thus, the meditator has to bring about a transformation in the qualities given to him by nature. And for this it is not necessary to go around asking others; one has to keep seeking and asking within oneself. We all know that anger and fear are impediments - because how can a coward seek truth? He will go begging for truth; he will wish that someone should give it to him without his having to go into unknown lands.

The third is the astral body. This also has two dimensions. Primarily, the third body revolves around doubt and thinking. If these are transformed doubt becomes trust and thinking becomes vivek, awareness. If doubts are repressed you never attain to shraddha, trust, though we are advised to suppress doubts and to believe what we hear. He who represses his doubts never attains to trust, because doubt remains present within though repressed. It will creep within like a cancer and eat up your vitality. Beliefs are implanted for fear of skepticism. We will have to understand the quality of doubt, we will have to live it and go along with it. Then one day we will reach a point where we will begin to have doubt about doubt itself. The moment we begin to doubt doubt itself, trust begins.

We cannot reach to the clarity of discrimination without going through the process of thinking. There are people who do not think and people who encourage them not to think. They say, "Do not think; leave all thoughts." He who stops thinking lands himself in ignorance and blind faith. This is not clarity. The power of discrimination is gained only after passing through the most subtle processes of thinking. What is the meaning of vivek, discrimination? Doubt is always present in thoughts. It is always indecisive. Therefore, those who think a great deal never come to a decision. It is only when they step out of the wheel of thoughts that they can decide. Decision comes from a state of clarity which is beyond thoughts.

Thoughts have no connection with decision. He who is always engrossed in thoughts never reaches a decision. That is why it invariably happens that those whose life is less dominated by thoughts are very resolute, whereas those who think a great deal lack determination. There is danger from both.

Those who do not think go ahead and do whatever they are determined to do, for the simple reason that they have no thought process to create doubt within.

The dogmatists and the fanatics of the world are very active and energetic people; for them there is no question of doubting - they never think! If they feel that heaven is attained by killing one thousand people, they will rest only after killing one thousand people and not before. They never stop to think what they are doing so there is never any indecision on their part. A man who thinks, on the contrary, will keep on thinking instead of making any decision.

If we close our doors for fear of thoughts we will be left with blind faith only. This is very dangerous and is a great obstacle in the path of the meditator. What is needed is an open-eyed discretion and thoughts that are clear, resolute, and which allow us to make decisions. This is the meaning of vivek: clarity, awareness. It means that the power of thinking is complete. It means we have passed through thoughts in such detail that all the doubts are cleared. Now only pure decision is left in its essence.

The chakra pertaining to the third body is manipur. Doubt and trust are its two forms. When doubt is transformed trust is the result. But, remember, trust is not opposed or contrary to doubt. Trust is the purest and most ultimate development of it. It is the ultimate extreme of doubt, where even doubt becomes lost because here doubt begins to doubt even itself and in this way commits suicide. Then trust is born.

The fourth plane is the mental body or the psyche, and the fourth chakra, the anahat, is connected with the fourth body. The natural qualities of this plane are imagination and dreaming. This is what the mind is always doing: imagining and dreaming. It dreams in the night and in the daytime it daydreams. If imagination is fully developed, that is to say if it is developed to its fullest extent, in a complete way, it becomes determination, will. If dreaming develops fully it is transformed into vision - psychic vision. If a man's ability to dream is fully developed he has only to close his eyes and he can see things. He can then see even through a wall. At first he only dreams of seeing beyond the wall; later he actually sees beyond it. Now he can only guess what you are thinking, but after the transformation he sees what you think. Vision means seeing and hearing things without the use of the usual sense organs. The limitations of time and space are no more for a person who develops vision.

In dreams you travel far. If you are in Bombay you reach Calcutta. In vision also you can travel distances, but there will be a difference: in dreams you imagine you have gone, whereas in vision you actually go. The fourth, psychic body can actually be present there. As we have no idea of the ultimate possibility of this fourth body, we have discarded the ancient concept of dreams in today's world. The ancient experience was that in dream one of the bodies of man comes out of him and goes on a journey.

There was a man, Swedenborg, whom people knew as a dreamer. He used to talk of heaven and hell and that they can only exist in dreams. But one afternoon, as he slept, he began to shout, "Help! Help! My house is on fire." People came running, but there was no fire there. They awoke him to assure him that it was only a dream and there was no danger of fire. He insisted, however, that his house was on fire. His house was three hundred miles away and it had caught fire at that time. On the second or third day news came of this disaster. His house was burnt to ashes, and it was actually burning when he cried out in his sleep. Now this is no longer a dream but a vision.

The distance of three hundred miles was no longer there. This man witnessed what was happening three hundred miles away.

Now scientists also agree that there are great psychic possibilities of the fourth body. Now that man has set out in space, research in this direction has become all the more important. The fact remains that no matter how reliable the instruments at man's disposal, these cannot be relied upon completely. If the radio communication in a spaceship ceases to function the astronauts lose contact with the world for all time. They will not be able to tell us where they are or what has happened to them. So today scientists are keen to develop telepathy and vision of the psychic body to overcome this risk. If the astronauts were able to communicate directly with the power of telepathy it would be a part of the development of the fourth body. Then space travel can be safe. A lot of work has been carried out in this direction.

Thirty years ago a man set out to explore the North Pole. He was equipped with all that was necessary for wireless communication. One more arrangement was also made which has not made known up until now. A psychic person whose fourth body faculties were functioning was also made to receive the transmission from the explorer. The most surprising thing was that when there was bad weather the wireless failed, but this psychic person received the news without any difficulty.

When the diaries were compared later on it was found that eighty to ninety-five percent of the time the signals received by the psychic person were correct, whereas the news relayed by the radio was not available more than seventy-two percent of the time, because there were many breakdowns.

Now Russia and America are both very eager, and a great deal of work is going on in the field of telepathy, clairvoyance, thought projection and thought reading. All these are the possibilities of the fourth body. To dream is its natural quality; to see the truth, to see the real, is its ultimate possibility.

Anahat is the chakra of this fourth body The fifth chakra is the vishuddhi chakra. It is located in the throat. The fifth body is the spiritual body.

The vishuddhi chakra is connected to the spiritual body. The first four bodies and their chakras were split into two. The duality ends with the fifth body.

As I said before, the difference between male and female lasts until the fourth body; after that it ends. If we observe very closely all duality belongs to the male and the female. Where the distance between male and female is no more, at that very point all duality ceases. The fifth body is nondual.

It does not have two possibilities but only one.

This is why there is not much effort for the meditator to make: because here there is nothing contrary to develop; here one has only to enter. By the time we reach the fourth body we develop so much capability and strength that it is very easy to enter the fifth body. In that case how can we tell the difference between a person who has entered the fifth body and one who has not? The difference will be that he who has entered the fifth body is completely rid of all unconsciousness. He will not actually sleep at night. That is, he sleeps but his body alone sleeps; someone within is forever awake. If he turns in sleep he knows it; if he does not he knows it. If he has covered himself with a blanket he knows it; if he has not then also he knows it. His awareness does not slacken in sleep; he is awake all the twenty-four hours. For the one who has not entered the fifth body, his state is just the opposite. In sleep he is asleep, and in the waking hours also one layer of him will be asleep.

People appear to be working. When you come home every evening the car turns left into your gate; you apply the brake when you reach the porch. Do not be under the illusion that you are doing all this consciously. It happens unconsciously by sheer force of habit. It is only in certain moments, moments of great danger, that we really come into alertness. When the danger is so much that it will not do to go about lacking awareness, we awaken. For instance, if a man puts a knife at your chest you jump into consciousness. The point of the knife for a moment takes you right up to the fifth body. With the exception of these few moments in our lives we live like somnambulists.

Neither has the wife seen the husband's face properly nor has the husband seen the wife's face. If the husband tries to visualize the wife's face he will not be able to do so. The lines of her face will start slipping away and it will be difficult to say whether it was the same face he has seen for the last thirty years. You have never seen, because there must be an awakened person within you to see.

One who is "awake" appears to be seeing but actually he is not - because he is asleep within, dreaming, and everything is going on in this dream state. You get angry, then you say, "I do not know how I got angry; I did not want to." You say, "Forgive me! I did not want to be rude, it was a slip of the tongue." You have used an obscenity and it is you who deny the intention of its use. The criminal always says, "I did not want to kill. It happened in spite of me." This proves that we are going about like an automaton. We say what we do not want to say; we do what we do not want to do.

In the evening we vow to be up at four in the morning. When it is four o'clock and the alarm goes off we turn over saying there is no need to be up so early. Then you get up at six and are filled with remorse for having overslept. Then you again swear to keep the same vow as yesterday. It is strange that a man decides on one thing in the evening and goes back on it in the morning! Then what he decides at four in the morning changes again before it is six, and what he decides at six changes long before it is evening, and in between he changes a thousand times. These decisions, these thoughts, come to us in our sleepy state. They are like dreams: they expand and burst like bubbles. There is no wakeful person behind them - no one who is alert and conscious.

So sleep is the innate condition before the beginning of the spiritual plane. Man is a somnambulist before he enters the fifth body, and there the quality is wakefulness. Therefore, after the growth of the fourth body we can call the individual a buddha, an awakened one. Now such a man is awake.

Buddha is not the name of Gautam Siddharth but a name given him after his attainment of the fifth plane. Gautama the Buddha means Gautam who has awakened. His name remained Gautam, but that was the name of the sleeping person so gradually it dropped and only Buddha remained.

This difference comes with the attainment of the fifth body. Before we enter into it, whatever we do is an unconscious action which cannot be trusted. One moment a man vows to love and cherish his loved one the whole life and the next moment he is quite capable of strangling her. The alliance which he promised for a lifetime does not last long. This poor man is not to be blamed. What is the value of pro-mises given in sleep? In a dream I may promise, "This is a lifelong relationship." What value is this promise? In the morning I will deny it because it was only a dream.

A sleeping man cannot be trusted. This world of ours is entirely a world of sleeping people; hence, so much confusion, so many conflicts, so many quarrels, so much chaos. It is all the making of sleeping men.

There is another important difference between a sleeping man and an awakened man which we should bear in mind. A sleeping man does not know who he is, so he is always striving to show others that he is this or he is that. This is his lifelong endeavor. He tries in a thousand ways to prove himself. Sometimes he climbs the ladder of politics and declares, "I am so and so." Sometimes he builds a house and displays his wealth, or he climbs a mountain and displays his strength. He tries in all ways to prove himself. And in all these efforts he is in fact unknowingly trying to find out for himself who he is. He knows not who he is.

Before crossing the fourth plane we cannot find the answer. The fifth body is called the spiritual body because there you get the answer to the quest for "Who am I?" The call of the 'I' stops once and for all on this plane; the claim to be someone special vanishes immediately. If you say to such a person, "You are so and so," he will laugh. All claims from his side will now stop, because now he knows. There is no longer any need to prove himself, because who he is is now a proven fact.

The conflicts and problems of the individual end on the fifth plane. But this plane has its own hazards. You have come to know yourself, and this knowing is so blissful and fulfilling that you may want to terminate your journey here. You may not feel like continuing on. The hazards that were up to now were all of pain and agony; now the hazards that begin are of bliss. The fifth plane is so blissful that you will not have the heart to leave it and proceed further. Therefore, the individual who enters this plane has to be very alert about clinging to bliss so that it does not hinder him from going further. Here bliss is sup-reme and at the peak of its glory; it is in its profoundest depths. A great transformation comes about within one who has known himself. But this is not all; there is further to go also.

It is a fact that distress and suffering do not obstruct our way as much as joy. Bliss is very obstructive.

It was difficult enough to leave the crowd and confusion of the marketplace, but it is a thousand times more difficult to leave the soft music of the veena in the temple. This is why many meditators stop at atma gyan, self-realization, and do not go up to brahma gyan, experience of the Brahman - the cosmic reality.

We shall have to be alert about this bliss. Our effort here should be not to get lost in this bliss. Bliss draws us towards itself; it drowns us; we get immersed in it completely. Do not become immersed in bliss. Know that this too is an experience. Happiness was an experience, misery was an experience; bliss too is an experience. Stand outside of it, be a witness. As long as there is experience there is an obstacle: the ultimate end has not been reached. At the ultimate state all experiences end. Joy and sorrow come to an end, so also does bliss. Our language, however, does not go beyond this point. This is why we have described God as sat-chit-ananda - truth-consciousness-bliss. This is not the form of the supreme self, but this is the ultimate that words can express. Bliss is the ultimate expression of man. In fact, words cannot go beyond the fifth plane. But about the fifth plane we can say, "There is bliss there; there is perfect awakening; there is realization of the self there." All this can be described.

Therefore, there will be no mystery about those who stop at the fifth plane. Their talk will sound very scientific because the realm of mystery lies beyond this plane. Things are very clear up to the fifth plane. I believe that science will sooner or later absorb those religions that go up to the fifth body, because science will be able to reach up to the atman.

When a seeker sets out on this path his search is mainly for bliss and not truth. Frustrated by suffering and restlessness he sets out in search of bliss. So one who seeks bliss will definitely stop at the fifth plane; therefore, I must tell you to seek not bliss but truth. Then you will not remain long here.

Then a question arises: "There is ananda: this is well and good. I know myself: this too is well and good. But these are only the leaves and the flowers. Where are the roots? I know myself, I am blissful - it is good, but from where do I arise? Where are my roots? From where have I come?

Where are the depths of my existence? From which ocean has this wave that I am arisen?"

If your quest is for truth you will go ahead of the fifth body. From the very beginning, therefore, your quest should be for truth and not bliss; otherwise your journey up to the fifth plane will be easy but you will stop there. If the quest is for truth, there is no question of stopping there.

So the greatest obstacle on the fifth plane is the unequaled joy we experience - and more so because we come from a world where there is nothing but pain, suffering, anxiety and tension.

Then, when we reach this temple of bliss, there is an overwhelming desire to dance with ecstasy, to be drowned, to be lost in this bliss. This is not the place to be lost. That place will come, and then you will not have to lose yourself; you will simply be lost. There is a great difference between losing yourself and being lost. In other words, you will reach a place where even if you wish you cannot save yourself. You will see yourself becoming lost; there is no remedy. Yet here also in the fifth body you can lose yourself. Your effort, your endeavor, still works here - and even though the ego is intrinsically dead on the fifth plane, I-am-ness still persists. It is necessary, therefore, to understand the difference between ego and I-am-ness.

The ego, the feeling of 'I', will die, but the feeling of 'am' will not die. There are two things in "I am,"

the 'I' is the ego and the 'am' is asmita - the feeling of being. So the 'I' will die on the fifth plane, but the being, the 'am', will remain: I-am-ness will remain. Standing on this plane, a meditator will declare, "There are infinite souls and each soul is different and apart from the other." On this plane the meditator will experience the existence of infinite souls, because he still has the feeling of am, the feeling of being which makes him feel apart from others. If the quest for truth grips the mind the obstacle of bliss can be crossed - because incessant bliss becomes tedious. A single strain of a melody can become irksome.

Bertrand Russell once said jokingly, "I am not attracted to salvation, because I hear there is nothing but bliss there. Bliss alone would be very monotonous - bliss and bliss and nothing else. If there is not a single trace of unhappiness - no anxiety, no tension in it - how long can one bear such bliss?"

To be lost in bliss is the hazard of the fifth plane. It is very difficult to overcome. Sometimes it takes many births to do so. The first four steps are not so hard to cross, but the fifth is very difficult. Many births may be needed to be bored of bliss, to be bored of the self, to be bored of the atman.

So the quest up to the fifth body is to be rid of pain, hatred, violence and desires. After the fifth the search is in order to be rid of the self. So there are two things: the first is freedom from something; this is one thing and it is completed at the fifth plane. The second thing is freedom from the self, and so a completely new world starts from here.

The sixth is the brahma sharira, the cosmic body, and the sixth chakra is the agya chakra. Here there is no duality. The experience of bliss becomes intense on the fifth plane and the experience of existence, of being, on the sixth. Asmita will now be lost - I am. The I in this is lost at the fifth plane and the am will go as soon as you transcend the fifth. The is-ness will be felt; tathata, suchness will be felt. Nowhere will there be the feeling of I or of am; only that which is remains. So here will be the perception of reality, of being - the perception of consciousness. But here the consciousness is free of me; it is no longer my consciousness. It is only consciousness - no longer my existence, but only existence.

Some meditators stop after reaching the Brahma sharira, the cosmic body, because the state of "I am the Brahman" has come - of "Aham Brahmasmi," when I am not and only the Brahman is. Now what more is there to seek? What is to be sought? Nothing remains to be sought. Now everything is attained. The Brahman means the total. One who stands at this point says, "The Brahman is the ultimate truth, the Brahman is the cosmic reality. There is nothing beyond."

It is possible to stop here, and seekers do stop at this stage for millions of births, because there seems to be nothing ahead. So the Brahma gyani, the one who has attained realization of the Brahman, will get stuck here; he will go no further. This is so difficult to cross because there is nothing to cross to. Everything has been covered. Does not one need a space to cross into? If I want to go outside of this room there must be some place else to go. But the room has now become so enormous, so beginningless and endless, so infinite, so boundless, that there is nowhere to go.

So where will we go to search? Nothing remains to be found; everything has been covered. So the journey may halt at this stage for infinite births.

So the Brahman is the ultimate obstacle - the last barrier in the ultimate quest of the seeker. Now only the being remains, but nonbeing has yet to be realized. The being, the is-ness, is known, but the nonbeing has yet to be realized - that which is not still remains to be known. Therefore, the seventh plane is the nirvana kaya, nirvanic body, and its chakra is the sahasrar. Nothing can be said in connection with this chakra. We can only continue talking at the most up to the sixth - and that too with great difficulty. Most of it will turn out to be wrong.

Until the fifth body the search progresses within a very scientific method; everything can be explained. On the sixth plane the horizon begins to fade; everything seems meaningless. Hints can still be given but ultimately the pointing finger breaks and the hints too are no more because one's own being is eliminated. So the Brahman, the absolute being, is known from the sixth body and the sixth chakra.

Therefore, those who seek the Brahman will meditate on the agya chakra which is between the eyes. This chakra is connected to the cosmic body. Those who work completely on this chakra will begin to call the vast infinite expanse that they witness the third eye. This is the third eye from where they can now view the cosmic, the infinite.

One more journey yet remains - the journey to nonbeing, nonexistence. Existence is only half the story: there is also nonexistence. Light is, but on the other side there is darkness. Life is one part, but there is also death. Therefore, it is necessary also to know the remaining nonexistence, the void, because the ultimate truth can only be known when both are known - existence and nonexistence.

Being is known in its entirety and nonbeing is known in its entirety: then the knowing is complete.

Existence is known in entirety and nonexistence is known in its entirety: then we know the whole; otherwise our experience is incomplete. There is an imperfection in brahma gyan, which is that it has not been able to know the nonbeing. Therefore, the brahma gyani denies that there is such a thing as nonexistence and calls it an illusion. He says that it does not exist. He says that to be is the truth and not to be is a falsity. There simply is no such thing, so the question of knowing it does not arise.

Nirvana kaya means the shunya kaya, the void from where we jump from the being into the nonbeing.

In the cosmic body something yet remains unknown. That too has to be known - what it is not to be, what it is to be completely erased. Therefore, the seventh plane in a sense is an ultimate death.

Nirvana, as I told you previously, means the extinction of the flame. That which was I is extinct; that which was am is extinct. But now we have again come into being by being one with the all. Now we are the Brahman, and this too will have to be left. He who is ready to take the last jump knows the existence and also the nonexistence.

So these are the seven bodies and the seven chakras, and within them lie all the means as well as the barriers. There are no barriers outside. Therefore, there is not much reason to inquire outside.

If you have gone to ask someone or to understand from someone, then do not beg. To understand is one thing, to beg is another. Your search should always continue. Whatever you have heard and understood should also be made your search. Do not make it your belief or else it will be begging.

You asked me something; I gave you an answer. If you have come for alms you will put this in your bag and store it away as your treasure. Then you are not a meditator but a beggar. No, what I told you should become your quest. It should accelerate your search; it should stimulate and motivate your curiosity. It should put you into greater difficulty, make you more restless and raise new questions in you, new dimensions, so that you will set out on a new path of discovery. Then you have not taken alms from me, then you have understood what I said. And if this helps you to understand yourself, then this is not begging.

So go forth to know and understand; go forth to search. You are not the only one seeking; many others are also. Many have searched, many have attained. Try to know, to grasp, what has happened to such people and also what has not happened; try and understand all this. But while understanding this, do not stop trying to understand your own self. Do not think that understanding others has become your realization. Do not put faith in their experiences; do not believe them blindly. Rather, turn everything into questioning. Turn them into questions and not answers; then your journey will continue. Then it will not be begging: it will be your quest.

It is your search that will take you to the last. As you penetrate within yourself you will find the two sides of each chakra. As I told you, one is given to you by nature and one you have to discover.

Anger is given to you; forgiveness you have to find. Sex is given to you; brahmacharya you have to develop. Dreams you have; vision has to evolve.

Your search for the opposite will continue up to the fourth chakra. From the fifth will start your search for the indivisible, for the non-dual. Try to continue your search for that which is different from what has come to you in the fifth body. When you attain bliss try to find out what there is beyond bliss. On the sixth plane you attain the Brahman, but keep inquiring, "What is there beyond the Brahman?"

Then one day you will step into the seventh body, where being and nonbeing, light and darkness, life and death, occur together. That is the attainment of the ultimate... and there are no means of communicating this state.

This is why our scriptures end with the fifth body, or at the most they go up to the sixth body. Those with a completely scientific turn of mind do not talk about what is after the fifth body. The cosmic reality, which is boundless and unlimited, begins from there, but mystics like the Sufis talk of the planes beyond the fifth. It is very difficult to talk of these planes because one has to contradict oneself again and again. If you go through the text of all that one Sufi has said you will say this person is mad. Sometimes he says one thing and sometimes something else. He says, "God is"

and he also says, "God is not." He says, "I have seen him" and in the same breath he says, "How can you see him? He is not an object that the eyes can see!" These mystics raise such questions that you will wonder if they are asking others or asking themselves.

Mysticism starts with the sixth plane. Therefore, where there is no mysticism in a religion, know that it has finished on the fifth body. But mysticism also is not the final stage. The ultimate is the void - nothingness. The religion that ends with mysticism ends with the sixth body. The void is the ultimate, nihilism is the ultimate, because after it there is nothing more to be said.

So the search for adwaita, the nondual, starts with the fifth body. All search for the opposites ends with the fourth body. All barriers are within us and they are useful, because these very obstacles when transformed become your means to go ahead.

A rock is lying on the road. As long as you do not understand it will remain an obstacle for you.

The day you understand it will become a ladder for you. The rock is lying on the road: as long as you did not understand you shouted, "The rock is in my way. How can I go ahead?" When you have understood you will climb over the rock and go ahead, thanking the rock with the words, "You have blessed me very much, because after climbing over you I have found myself on a higher plane. Now I am proceeding along on a higher level. You were a means and I took you to be a barrier," you will say. The road is blocked by this boulder. What will happen? Cross over it and know. In this way, overcome anger; cross over it and reach forgiveness which is on a different level. Cross over sex and attain brahmacharya which is an entirely different plane. Then you will thank sex and anger for being the stepping stones.

Every rock on the path can be a barrier as well as a medium. It depends entirely on what you do with it. One thing is certain: Do not fight with the rock, because then you will only break your head and the rock will not be helpful. If you fight with the rock, the rock will bar your way, because wherever we fight we stop. We have to stop near the person or thing we fight with; we cannot possibly fight from a distance. That is why if someone fights sex he has to be involved with sex just as much as another who indulges in it. In fact, many times he is closer to sex, because the one who indulges in it can get out of it someday, can transcend it. But the one who fights cannot get out of it; he keeps going around and around.

If you fight anger you will become angry yourself. Your whole personality will be filled with anger and each fiber of your body will vibrate with it. You will emanate anger all around you. The stories we read of sages and ascetics like Durwasa being very angry happen because they fought with anger; thus, they could think of nothing but cursing. The personality of such a person turns into fire.

These are people who have fought with rocks and are now in difficulty. They have become what they struggled against.

You will read of other rishis that celestial maidens descended from heaven and corrupted them in a moment. Strange! This is only possible if a man has fought with sex; not otherwise. He has fought and fought and thus weakened himself. Then sex is secure in its own place; it is just waiting for him to break down. This sex can now burst forth from anywhere. There is little possibility of an apsara actually coming down from heaven - are such maidens on contract to harass rishis and munis?

When sex is suppressed with a heavy hand, an ordinary woman becomes a celestial being. The mind projects dreams at night and thoughts in the day and it becomes completely filled with these thoughts. Then a thing which is not at all fascinating becomes bewitching.

So the seeker has to beware of the tendency to fight. He should try his utmost to understand, and by trying to understand is meant understanding that which is given to him by nature. Through that which has been given to you, you will attain that which is yet to be attained. This is the starting point. If you run away from that which is the very beginning it is impossible to reach the goal. If you run away from sex in fright how will you ever reach brahmacharya? Sex was the opening given by nature and brahmacharya is the quest that has to be undertaken through this very opening. If you see in this perspective there is no need to beg from anywhere; understanding is what is required.

All of existence is there for the purpose of understanding. Learn from anybody, hear everyone, and, finally, understand your own self within.

Question 2

Do not bother about this. It serves no purpose; it is meaningless. Even if I tell you, you have no means to verify it. As much as possible, avoid comparing and evaluating individuals because it serves no purpose; it has no meaning. Drop such concerns.

Question 3

Yes, it is true. One who attains the fifth or the sixth body before death is reborn in the highest celestial realm, and there he lives on the plane of the devas. He can stay in this realm as long as he likes, but to attain nirvana he has to come back to the human form. After attaining the fifth there is no birth in the physical body, but there are other bodies. In fact, what we call devas or gods signifies the kind of body that is obtained. This type of body is obtained after reaching the fifth body. After the sixth body, even these will not be there. Then we shall obtain the form of what we call ishwar, the supreme being.

But all these are still bodies. What type is a secondary matter. After the seventh there are no bodies.

From the fifth onwards the bodies become more and more subtle until they reach the bodiless state after the seventh.

Question 4

There is every likelihood. Many things are possible. In reality, the difference between shaktipat and grace is great. Fundamentally, only grace is useful and without a medium it is at its purest, because there will be no one in between to make it impure. It is just like when I see you directly with my own eyes: your image will be the clearest. Then I put on a pair of spectacles: vision will not be that pure, because now a medium has come in between. Now there could be many varieties of mediums - pure, impure. A pair of spectacles could be colored, another transparent, and the quality of the lens itself will vary.

So when we obtain grace from a medium there are bound to be impurities and they will be of the medium. Therefore, the purest grace is that which is received directly when there is no medium.

Now, for instance, if we could see without the eyes it would mean purer vision, because even the eyes are a medium and are bound to cause some hindrance. Someone may have jaundice, someone may have weak eyesight, someone may have some other eye trouble - so these are the difficulties. One whose eyesight is weak will find the medium of a particular pair of glasses very helpful. It may perhaps give him a clearer vision than his unaided eyesight, and so the spectacles will have become one more medium. There are now two mediums, but the second medium compensates for the weakness of the first.

In exactly the same manner the grace that reaches a person through another gathers impurities along the way. Now if these impurities are such that they have a reverse effect upon the impurities within the seeker, these both will compensate each other. Then what will happen will be nearest to grace. But this will have to be decided separately in each case.

Therefore, my preference is for direct grace. Do not bother about a medium. If at some time it is necessary in the course of life the glimpse can come through a medium also, but the seeker should not worry or be anxious about this. Do not go begging, because as I said, then the giver is bound to turn up. Then the more dense the medium the more adulterated will be the effect. The giver should be such that he is not conscious of giving; then shaktipat can be pure. Even then it is not grace.

You will still need to receive grace directly without a medium. There should be no one between you and God; there should be no one between the divine and you. And this should always be in your mind. This should be your longing and this should be your search. Many happenings will take place on the way, but you are not to stop anywhere; that is all that is required of you. And you will feel the difference. There are bound to be qualitative as well as quantitative differences, and the reasons will be many.

Shaktipat can take place through a medium who has attained the fifth body, but it will not be as pure as that which would come through a person of the sixth body, because his asmita, his am-ness is still intact. The I is dead, but the am still remains. Now this am will still feel self-pleasure. In a person of the sixth body the am also has disappeared; there is only the Brahman. Then the shaktipat will be purer. Yet some illusion remains, because the state of nonbeing has not yet been reached even though the state of being has been. This being is also a very subtle veil - very fragile, very transparent; all the same, it is there.

So shaktipat through a person of the sixth body will be better than that which comes through a person of the fifth body, and it will be very near to direct grace. However close it may be, the slightest distance is, after all, a distance. And the more priceless a thing, the more even the slightest distance becomes a great distance. So invaluable is the realm of grace that even the most subtle veil of being proves to be a barrier.

Now the shaktipat obtained from a person who has attained the seventh plane would be the purest - but still it will not be grace. The purest form of shaktipat descends through the seventh body - the purest. Here shaktipat will reach its ultimate state, because there is no veil as far as the medium is concerned: he is one with the void. But as far as you are concerned, there are barriers. You will consider him as a human being all your life; your veil will cause the ultimate barrier. He is one with the void; he is without any barriers - but you will look upon him as an individual.

Now suppose I reach the seventh plane: I would know that I have attained the void, but what about you? You will look upon me as a person, and this notion of an individual will become the final veil.

You can only get rid of this conception when the happening occurs through the formless. In other words, then you cannot point out from where and how the happening took place. When you will be unable to find the source this notion will drop. The happening must be sourceless. If sunrays are coming you will think that the sun is a person. But when a ray comes from nowhere, when the rain falls without any cloud, then the final veil that is formed by personification falls.

As you continue on the distances will become more and more subtle, and the final happening of grace will take place when there is no one in between. Your very thought that there is someone in between is barrier enough. As long as there are two, there is a lot of obstruction: you are there and the other is there. Even when the other is no more, you are, and because you are the other's presence is also felt. The grace which descends without any source, without any origin anywhere, will be the best. The individual in you will flow away in this grace that comes from the void. If another person is present he serves the purpose of saving your individuality despite the fact that he is working for you.

If you go to the seashore you experience greater peace, if you go to the forest you experience greater peace, because the other is not present there and so your I remains firm and strong. If two men sit in a room, there are waves and counter waves of tension there even though these two may not be fighting or quarreling or even talking. So even when they are silent the I of each is constantly working. Aggression and defense are there in full swing. These things can go on silently also and there is no need for a direct encounter. The mere presence of two people and a room is filled with tension.

If you were to gain full knowledge of all the currents that come out from you, you would see clearly that a room containing two persons has been divided into two and each individual has become a center. The energy vibrations from both stand facing each other like armies on a battlefield. The presence of the other strengthens your I. When the other leaves, the room will become a different place altogether. You relax. The I that was on edge will let itself go. It now leans against the cushion and rests, it now breathes freely because the other is not there. Hence, the significance of solitude is to relax your ego and to help it to let go. It is for this reason that you are more at ease near a tree than in the company of another person.

This is why, in countries where tensions between man and man are becoming deeper, people tend to live with pets. It is easier to live with animals than with men, because they have no I. Tie a collar to a dog, and he goes about happily. We cannot tie a collar to a man in this way, though we try very hard. The wife ties the husband, the husband the wife, and they both go about happily - but these collars are subtle and cannot be seen openly. Yet each tries to shake off the collar and be free - but the dog walks happily along wagging his tail. So the pleasure the dog gives no other man can give, because another man at once brings your ego to your attention, and then the trouble starts.

Gradually man tries to break his relationship with others and establish relationships with objects because they are easier to handle. So the bulk of objects is increasing day by day. There are more articles in the house than people. People bring disorder and confusion; objects give no bother. The chair remains where I place it. If I sit on it, it creates no trouble. The presence of trees, rivers, mountains, is not troublesome; therefore, we feel at peace near them. The reason is only this: the I is not standing in full strength before us; therefore, we too feel relaxed. When the other is not there, where is the need for the I? Then the I too is not. But the slightest inkling of the other, and the I jumps to attention. It is worried about its security, about its lack of information as to what the next moment may bring; hence, it has to be ready all the time.

The ego always remains alert until the very last moment. Even if you meet a person of the seventh plane, the ego is alert. Sometimes it becomes excessively alert before such a person. You are not so much afraid of the ordinary man, because even if he hurts you the injury is not very deep. But a man who has reached the fifth body or beyond can inflict deep surgery that reaches up to the same body of yours that he has reached. Thus, your fear becomes more, because "God knows what he might do." You begin to feel something unknown as if unfamiliar forces are watching at you through him, so you become wary. You see an abyss all around him. You become alert and on guard. You begin to feel the experience of the deep valley, and you are caught by the fear that if you go within him you will fall into this abyss.

That is why when men like Jesus, Krishna and Socrates are born we kill them: their very presence causes great confusion among us. To go near them is to go willfully near danger. Then when they die we worship them because now there is no fear. Now we can cast their image into gold and stand with folded hands before them calling them our beloved master. But in their lifetime we treat them differently. Then we are very much afraid of them and this fear is of that which is unknown to us:

you do not know for certain what is the matter. The deeper a man goes within himself, the more he becomes like an abyss to us. Then it is just like when someone is afraid to look down into a valley because it makes his head reel. Similarly, to look into the eyes of such a person will also create fear:

our heads are sure to reel.

There is a beautiful story about Moses. After Hazrat Moses had the vision of God he never kept his face uncovered. All his life he went about with a veil drawn over his face, because to look at his face became dangerous. Whosoever did so escaped. There was an infinite abyss in his eyes. So Moses moved about with his face covered because people were frightened of his eyes. His eyes seemed to draw them like a magnet towards that unknown abyss within. They became struck with fear because they did not know where his eyes would take them and what would happen to them.

The man who has reached the seventh and the last plane also exists so far as you are concerned, but you will try to protect yourself from him and a barrier will remain in between. Therefore, shaktipat in this case also cannot be pure. It can be pure if you give up the thought of such a one being a person - but this can only happen when your I is lost. When you reach the stage where you are completely unaware of the ego you will be able to obtain shaktipat from anywhere, because then there is no question of its coming from anybody; it will have become sourceless, it will have become grace.

The greater the crowd, the harder and more condensed is your ego. Therefore, it has long been a practice to get out of the crowd and try to drop the ego in solitude. But man is strange: if he stays under a tree for long he will begin to talk to it and address it as 'you'. If he stays near the ocean he will do the same. The 'I' in us will go to any length to keep itself alive. It will create the other no matter where you go, and it will establish sentimental relationship even with inanimate objects and will begin to look upon them as individuals.

When a person approaches the last stage he makes God the other so that he can save his 'I'.

Therefore, the devotee always says, "How can we be one with God? He is he and we are we. We are at his feet, and he is God." The devotee is saying nothing but this, that if you want to be one with him you will have to lose your ego. So he keeps God at a distance and he begins to rationalize. He says, "How can we be one with him? He is great, he is absolute. We are wretched outcastes so how can we be one with him?" The devotee is saving the 'thou' in order to save his 'I'. Therefore, the bhakta, the devotee, never rises above the fourth plane. He does not even go up to the fifth plane:

he gets stuck at the fourth. Instead of imagination, on the fourth plane visions come to him. He discovers all the best possibilities of the fourth body. So many happenings take place in a devotee's life that are miraculous, but the bhakta remains on the fourth plane all the same.

The atma sadhak - one who is searching for the self - the hatha yogi - the yogi who goes through austerities - and many others who undergo similar practices, reach the fifth plane at the most. Such a sadhak's intrinsic desire is to attain bliss, to attain liberation and freedom from suffering. Behind all of these desires stands the 'I': he says, "I want liberation" - not liberation from the I, but liberation of the I. He says, "I want to be free, I want beatitude." His I stands condensed, so he only reaches to the fifth plane.

The raja yogi reaches up to the sixth plane. He says, "What is there in the 'I'? I am nothing; he alone is - not I, but he, the Brahman, is everything." He is ready to lose the ego but he is not prepared to lose his being. He says, "I shall remain as part of the Brahman; I am one with him. I am the Brahman. I shall let myself go, but my inner being within me will remain merged in him." Such a seeker can go up to the sixth body.

A meditator like Buddha reaches the seventh plane because he is ready to give up all - even the Brahman. He is ready to lose himself and lose everything. He says, "Let what is remain. On my part I do not desire anything to remain: I am ready to lose my all." He who is prepared to lose everything is entitled to gain all.

The nirvanic body is attained only when we are prepared to be nothing. Then there is a readiness to know even death. For knowing life many are ready. Therefore, he who wants to know life will stop at the sixth plane. But he who is ready to investigate death also will be able to know the seventh plane.

Question 5

Three or four things have to be understood in connection with this. The first thing is that many of these facts have been revealed by persons such as these, of the fourth plane. For instance, there is very little difference between the age of the earth as shown by these men and as shown by the scientists, and as yet it cannot be said that science is correct. Scientists do not themselves claim to be absolutely correct.

Secondly, there is even less difference in the information given by each of these two categories about the shape and measurement of the earth. Besides, even in connection with this matter it is not necessarily the case that those who have reached the fourth plane are wrong in their estimate.

The shape of the earth is forever changing. The distance between the earth and the sun is not the same as it was in ancient times, and the same is the situation between the moon and the earth.

Africa is not where it used to be; once upon a time it was joined with India. Thousands of changes have occurred and are still occurring, and many changes take place constantly. Keeping in mind these constant changes you will be surprised to know that people of the fourth plane have long ago revealed many of the discoveries that science is making today.

It should also be understood that there is a fundamental difference between the language of expression of the man of the fourth plane and the scientist. This is a very great difficulty. The man of the fourth plane has no mathematical language. He has the language of vision, images and symbols. He has the language of signs. As there is no language in dreams, in vision too there is no language. If we understand thoroughly we will know that if we were to dream at night what we did throughout the day we would have to choose the medium of symbols and signs, because there is no language there. If I am an ambitious person who wants to be above everybody else, I will dream I am a bird flying high in the skies over and above other birds. In dreams I will not be able to express verbally that I am ambitious, so the whole language changes in dreams. In the same manner, the language of vision is not of words but of pictures.

Dream interpretation began to develop after Freud, Jung and Adler. Now we can find out the meaning of a dream. In the same manner, whatever persons of the fourth plane have said still awaits interpretation. As yet we have not even been able to explain the phenomenon of dreams thoroughly; explanation of psychic visions is an altogether different matter. We must know the meaning of what has been seen in visions and of what people of the fourth plane are saying.

For example, when Darwin said that man has evolved from the animal he spoke in a scientific language. But if we were to read the story of the Hindu incarnations we would find that this is nothing but the same story told thousands of years ago in symbolic form. The first incarnation was not a man, he was a fish. Darwin also says that man's first form was that of a fish. Now, when we say that the first incarnation was matsya avatar - a fish, this is symbolic. This is not the language of science: an incarnation and a fish! We denied this statement. But when Darwin said that the first element of life came in the form of the fish and then other forms followed, we readily agreed because it seemed reasonable to us. Darwin's method and search is scientific.

Now those who saw visions saw the divine first taking birth as a fish. The visionary speaks the language of parables. Then the second incarnation is a tortoise. This creature belongs both to the land and water. Obviously, the transition of life from water to land could not be sudden. There had to be an intermediary state. So whatever creature evolved must have belonged both to land and water. Then gradually the descendants of the tortoise began to live on land, and then there must have been a marked separation from life in the water.

If you read through this story of the Hindu incarnations you will be surprised to note that we had discovered long ago what Darwin discovered thousands of years later, and in the right chronological order. Then, before the final metamorphosis, there is the half-man, half-animal avatar - narsinh avatar. After all, animals did not become human at one stroke; they too must have had to pass through the intermediate phase where there were half men and half animals. It is impossible that an animal gave birth to a human being. There is a missing link between animal and man which could be narsinh - half man and half animal.

If we understand all these stories we will know that what Darwin said in scientific terms people of the fourth plane said long ago in the language of the Puranas. But up to now these Hindu mythological scriptures have not been properly explained. The reason for this is that the Puranas have fallen into the hands of ignorant, illiterate people. They are not in the hands of scientists.

Another difficulty is that we have lost the key to decipher the code of the Puranas. We do not have the deciphering code; hence, the difficulty. Now science says that man can exist on earth at the most for another four thousand years. The forecast in many Puranas is that this world cannot last for more than five thousand years. Science speaks a different language. It says the sun will cool down, its rays will diminish, its heat will diffuse, and in four thousand years it will get cold. Then life on earth will cease together with it.

The Puranas speak a different language. And if the Puranas give a time of five thousand years and not four thousand as the scientists say, it should be kept in mind that it is yet not decided whether science is absolutely correct. It can be five thousand - and I believe that it will be, because there can be a mistake in the calculation of science but there is never a mistake in vision. Science, therefore, improves upon itself day by day. It says one thing today and another tomorrow and yet another the day after. It has to change every day. Newton says one thing, Einstein says something else.

Every five years science changes its theories because it comes upon better solutions. It cannot be decided whether the ultimate in science will be different from the visions of the fourth plane. And if these do not coincide with each other it is not necessary to make hasty decisions on the grounds of what we know now through science and through what is told by the visionaries. Life is so profound that only an unscientific mind makes a hasty decision. If we examine the discoveries of science over the last hundred years we will find that all discoveries that are a hundred years old read like Puranic tales: no one is ready to be-lieve them any more because other and better things are discovered in the course of time.

The code that revealed the truth in the Puranas is lost. Now, for example, if there is a third world war, the first outcome of it will be that all of the educated, civilized class of people will be destroyed.

It is strange that only the uneducated, uncultured people will remain. Some primitive tribes in India in the faraway mountains and jungles will go unscathed. No one will be spared in Bombay or New York. Whenever there is a world war it is always the best communities that are destroyed, because it is they who are attacked. Some aboriginal in Bastar, India, might survive. He might tell his children of the planes in the skies though he will not be able to explain them. He had seen them flying and that is a truth, but he cannot explain the how and why of it as he does not have the code. The code was with the people of Bombay, but now they are dead.

For a generation or two the children might believe in their elders, but later on they will ask in doubt, "You have seen them?" And the elders will reply, "So we have heard, so our fathers said - and they in turn were told by their fathers - that planes flew in the skies. Then came the big war and everything was destroyed." By and by the children will question, "Where are the planes? Show us some indication, some sign." After two thousand years the children will say, "This is all the imagination of our forefathers. No one ever flew in the skies."

Such events have taken place. In this country the knowledge that was obtained by the psychic mind was destroyed in the battle of the Mahabarata. It is now only a story. Now we are suspicious of whether Rama could have flown in a plane from Sri Lanka. It is all a matter of doubt because when not even a bicycle remains from that age, then the airplane seems to be an impossibility. And there is no mention of it in any book. In fact, the entire knowledge that existed before the Mahabharata was destroyed in this war. That which could be retained in the memory was all that could be saved.

Therefore, the names of the ancient branches of knowledge were smriti - traditionally remembered and written down later; and shruti - traditionally heard and then written down. These are collections of knowledge which were remembered and which were told; they are not an account of proven and tested facts. Someone told someone, then he told someone else, and all these things we have gathered and kept in the form of these scriptures. But now we cannot claim to prove anything from them.

Remember also that the intelligentsia of the world consists of a very small number of people. If an Einstein dies it will be difficult to find another to explain the theory of relativity. He himself said that there were not more than ten to twelve people who understood this theory. If these twelve died we would have books on relativity but not a single man who understands it. Similarly, the Mahabharata destroyed all the proficient people of those times. Then what remained became just stories. Now, however, investigations are going on for their verification, but we in India are unfortunate because we ourselves are doing nothing in this direction.

Recently, a place has been discovered that is about four to five thousand years old and which seems to have been an airport. There is no other possible reason for such a place. Such constructions have been found which could not have been possible without machines. Really, the stones that were lifted up the pyramids are as yet beyond the capacity of our largest cranes. These stones have been placed there - that much is clear - and they have been lifted by men. Either these people had elaborate machinery at their disposal or they made use of the fourth body.

For example, I shall tell you an experiment which you may try. Let one man lie down on the ground.

Now four others should gather around him. Two should place their fingers on his knees one on each side, and the other two similarly under his shoulders. Let them put only one finger each. Then each should make a firm resolve to lift him only with his finger. They should breathe hard for five minutes, then hold the breath and lift the man. They can succeed in lifting this man with their fingers only.

So the boulders of the pyramids were either lifted by giant cranes or by some psychic force. The ancient Egyptians might have utilized some such method; there is no other way. The rocks are there and they have been placed there: this cannot be denied.

Another thing to note is that psychic force has infinite dimensions. It is not absolutely necessary that a person who has attained the fourth plane should know about the moon. It is possible he is not interested to know; he may not consider it worth knowing. Such persons were interested in knowing other things - things which were more valuable according to them - and they have completed their search in these directions. For instance, they were eager to know if spirits were an actuality or not - and they have known. Now science has discovered that spirits are there. Those who had reached the fourth body were eager to know where people go after death and how.

Those who reached the fourth plane had hardly any interest in the material world. They did not care about the diameter of the earth. To expect them to be interested in such matters is like children telling a grownup, "We do not consider you wise because you cannot tell us how a doll is made. The boy next door knows all about it. He is all-knowing." They are right in their own way, because they are interested in knowing what is inside the doll, whereas the elders cannot be.

The inquiry of a man of the fourth plane changes dimensions. He wants to know other things. He wants to know about the journey of the soul after death: where a man goes when he dies, what paths he travels, what the principles of the journey are, how he is born again, and whether his birth and birthplace could be foretold. This man is not interested in man going to the moon: that is irrelevant for him. He is eager to find ways for man's enlightenment, because that alone is meaningful for him. Such a man was always anxious to know how the atman entered the womb when a child was conceived, whether an atman could be helped to choose the right womb, and how long it takes for an atman to enter the embryo.

There is a Tibetan book called The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Everyone in Tibet who attained the fourth body has worked on one project: how a person can best be assisted after death. Suppose you are dead: I love you, but I cannot help you after death. But in Tibet there is a full arrangement to guide and assist a man and to encourage him to take a special birth and enter a special womb.

Science will still take time to discover this, but it will discover it, there is no difficulty. And the Tibetans have found ways and means to test the validity of these happenings also.

In Tibet, when the Dalai Lama dies he tells beforehand where he will take birth next and how the others should recognize him. He leaves symbols behind for his recognition. Then after he dies the search starts all over the country. The child that tells the secret of the symbol is taken to be the incarnation of the dead lama, because he alone knows the secret. The present Dalai Lama was discovered in this manner. The Dalai Lama preceding him had left a symbol. A special saying was proclaimed in every village, and the child who could explain it was understood to be the one in whom the former lama's soul had taken entry. The search took long, but finally the child was discovered who could explain the code. It was a very secret formula, and only the authentic Dalai Lama could know its meaning.

So the curiosity of a man of the fourth plane is entirely different. Infinite is the universe and infinite are its mysteries and secrets. Do not think that we have discovered all that is to be discovered by present-day scientific research. A thousand new sciences will come to light because there are thousands of different directions and dimensions. And when new sciences develop people will call us nonscientific people, because we will not have known what they will know. But we should not call the ancient people nonscientific; it is only that their curiosity was of a different nature. The possible dimensions for inquiry are so diverse and so many.

We can very well ask that as we have found cures to many illnesses, why did these people of the fourth plane not find them? You will be shocked to know the number of herbal remedies prescribed in the Ayurvedic and Yunanic branches of medicine. How could these people, without the aid of research in laboratories, discover the proper cures for every illness? There is every possibility that this was brought about by the use of the fourth body.

There is a well known story about Vaidya Lukman which tells that he would go up to each plant and ask what were its uses. Now, this story has become meaningless in the world of today. It seems to be a failure of logic to expect plants to talk. It is also a fact that until the last fifty years plants were not supposed to have life. But now science admits there is life in plants. Thirty years ago we did not believe that plants also breathe; now we admit that they do. Fifteen years ago we did not believe that plants could feel, but in the last fifteen years we have had to admit that they do. When you approach a plant in anger its psychic state changes, and when you approach it in love then again it changes.

So it will not be out of place if we discover in the next fifty years that we can talk to plants also - but this will be a gradual development.

However, Lukman proved it long ago. But this mode of conversation could not have been the same as ours. To become one with plants is a quality of the fourth body. Then they can be questioned. I believe this story, because there is no mention of any laboratory huge enough in those days where Lukman could have carried out his research on the millions of varieties of herbs he brought into use.

It is improbable, because each herb would require a lifetime to reveal its secret if done scientifically, whereas this man talked of unlimited herbs. Now science admits the efficiency of many of these herbal cures in illness and they are still used. All of the research of the past is the research of the men of the fourth plane.

Now we treat thousands of illnesses, which is very unscientific. The man of the fourth plane will say, "There are no illnesses at all. Why are you treating them?" Now science understands this and allopathy is using new methods of treatment. In some hospitals in America they are working on new methods. Suppose there are ten patients suffering from the same ailment. Five are given water injections and the other five are given the regular medicinal treatment. Then the findings show that the patients of each group respond to their treatment equally. This proves that those treated with water were not really ill but had an illusion of illness. If these people were given the regular treatment for this illness it would have poisoned their systems and brought about contrary results.

They required no treatment.

Many illnesses are born out of unnecessary treatment and then they are difficult to cure. If you have no real illness - only a phantom illness - the medicine for that illness will have to act in some way even though the necessary conditions of the illness are not within you. It will create poisons within for which you will have to undergo new treatments. The phantom illness will go on giving way to some actual malady. According to science, ninety percent of illnesses are psycho-somatic. Fifty years ago modern science refused to believe this, but now allopathy admits it as fifty percent. I say they will have to admit to forty percent more, because that is the reality.

There is now no one to define what the man on the fourth plane knew; no one has tried to interpret him. There is no man who can put his knowledge in the right perspective in today's scientific terms; this is the only difficulty. Once this can be done there will be no problem. But the language of parables is very different.

Today science says that the sun's rays pass through a prism and break into seven parts, and in this way they become distributed into seven colors. The rishis of the Vedas say, "The sun god has seven horses of seven colors." Now this is the language of parables. "The sun has seven horses of different colors and he rides them" means that the sun's rays break into seven parts. The latter is a parable and the former is the scientific version. We will have to understand the language of parables just as we understand the language of science today. There should not be any difficulty.

People with parapsychic faculties predict things much earlier and science understands them much later. But then predictions are all in a symbolic language. It is only when science proves the same facts that they are put down in the normal day-to-day language. Before that there is no language. You will be surprised to know, if you investigate in all directions, that science is just a recent arrival and language and mathematics came much earlier. Those who discovered language and mathematics, what statistics could they have used? What means could they have had - what measure? How did they come to know that the earth goes around the sun once a year? It is this one revolution of the earth around the sun that has been taken as one year. Now, this is a very old discovery - very much before science; the same is the case with the fact that there are three hundred sixty-five days in a year. But there does not seem to have been any scientific means behind the ancient seers.

Therefore, psychic vision is the only alternative answer.

A very strange fact came to light. A man in Arabia has in his possession a map of the world which is seven hundred years old. This is an aerial view of the world which could not possibly have been conceived of on land. There are only two solutions: either there were airplanes seven hundred years ago - and this does not seem possible - or some person lifted himself that high in his fourth body and then drew the map. One thing is certain: there were no airplanes then. But this aerial map of the world was made seven hundred years ago. What does this mean?

If we were to study Charak and Sushrut, two ancient masters of the science of herbs, we would be shocked to know that they have described everything about the human body which scientists came to know by dissection. There could be only two means of knowing. One possibility is that surgery had become so subtle that there could be no evidence of surgery being carried out - because no surgical instruments or books on surgery have been discovered. But there are descriptions of very minute parts of the human body - parts so minute that science could discover them only much later, parts which only twenty-five years ago scientists refused to accept as being present. But these have been described by these ancient physicians. There is a second possible way by which they could have known: a person in a state of vision may have entered the human body and seen these things.

Today we know that x-rays can enter the human body. If a man said that he could photograph our bones a hundred years ago we would not have believed him. Today we have to believe because it is so. But do you know: the eyes of a man in the fourth body can see even more deeply than an x-ray, and that a picture of your body can be made which is more complete than that which is made as a result of dissection. Surgery developed in the West because there they bury their dead. In a place like India where the body is burned this was not possible. And you will be surprised to know that this research came about with the help of thieves, so they would steal the dead bodies and sell them to the physicians for research and studying.

The custom of cremation was also the idea of psychic persons, because they believed that the soul had difficulty in taking a new birth if the body of the previous life still remained. It then hovered around the old body. If the body is burned to ashes the soul will be rid of this encumbrance - because once it sees the body turning to ashes, in the next body it will perhaps realize that what it considered to be its own was after all only a destructible thing.

So there was cremation in India, and hence no way of dissecting the human body. In the West thieves had stolen the bodies from burial grounds and sold them to scientists for their research.

There were court cases and many other difficulties for these people, because stealing a corpse and dissecting it were both considered crimes.

So what we have come to know by countless dissections, books three thousand years old reveal without any dissection. This only proves that there is another method by which things can be known besides scientific experimentation. Sometime I shall talk in detail on this subject so that you may understand better.