... Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1: CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN BY DREAMS? We have seven bodies: the physical, the etheric, the astral, the mental, the spiritual, the cosmic, and the nirvanic. Each body has its own type of dream. The physical body is known in Western psychology as the conscious, the etheric body as the unconscious, and the astral body as the collective...

..., there are fragments of the etheric or astral. In the first body, the physical, you can travel in neither time nor space. You are confined to your physical state and to the particular time it is - say, ten o'clock at night. Your physical body can dream in this particular time and space, but not beyond it. In the etheric body you can travel in space but not in time. You can go anywhere, but the time is...

... still ten o'clock at night. In the astral realm, in the third body, you can travel not only in space but also in time. The astral body can trespass the barrier of time - but only toward the past, not toward the future. The astral mind can go into the whole infinite series of the past, from amoeba to man. In Jungian psychology, the astral mind has been called the collective unconscious. It is your...

... not dreaming on the physical plane. It is astral dreaming. And astral dreaming has much meaning, much significance. But the third body can dream only about the past, not about what is to be. The fourth body is the mental. It can travel into the past and into the future. In an acute emergency, sometimes even an ordinary person can have a glimpse of the future. If someone near and dear to you is dying...

... fifth mind, the spiritual body. The fifth mind can dream about them. The more you penetrate inward, the more the dream comes nearer and nearer to reality. Physiological dreaming is not so real. It has its own reality, but it is not so real. The etheric is much more real, the astral is even more real, the mental approximates the real and finally, in the fifth body, you become authentically realistic in...

... it does not create a hypnotic effect in you, then you will know the real as far as the etheric is concerned. In the third body, the astral, it is even more difficult to know the difference because the two have come even closer. If you have known the real astral body and not just astral dreaming, then you will go beyond the fear of death. From here, one knows one's immortality. But if the astral is...

... a dream and not real, then you will be crippled by the fear of death. This is the point of distinction, the touchstone: the fear of death. A person who believes that the soul is immortal and goes on repeating and repeating it, convincing himself, will not be able to know the distinction between what is real in the astral body and what is an astral dream. One should not believe in immortality, one...

... what is to be sought, without knowing what will be found, without any preconceptions or prejudices - if you are just seeking in a vacuum, then you will know the difference. So people who believe in the immortality of the soul, in past lives, those who accept them on faith, may just be dreaming on the astral plane and not knowing the real. In the fourth body, the mental, dream and reality become...

... unconscious. The physical body creates its own dreams. If your stomach is upset, a particular type of dream is created. If you are unhealthy, feverish, the physical body creates its own type of dream. One thing is certain: the dream is created out of some dis-ease. Physical discomfort, physical dis-ease, creates its own realm of dreams, so a physical dream can even be stimulated from the outside. You are...

... sleeping. If a wet cloth is put around your legs, you will begin to dream. You may dream you are crossing a river. If a pillow is put on your chest, you will begin to dream. You may dream that someone is sitting on you, or a stone has fallen on you. These are dreams that come through the physical body. The etheric body - the second body - dreams in its own way. These etheric dreams have created much...

... confusion in Western psychology. Freud misunderstood etheric dreams for dreams caused by suppressed desires. There are dreams that are caused by suppressed desires, but these dreams belong to the first body, the physical. If you have suppressed physical desires - if you have fasted for instance - then there is every possibility that you will dream of breakfast. Or, if you have suppressed sex, then there...

... is every possibility that you will have sexual fantasies. But these dreams belong to the first body. The etheric body is left out of psychological investigation, so its dreams are interpreted as belonging to the first body, the physical. Then, much confusion is created. The etheric body can travel in dreams. There is every possibility of it leaving your body. When you remember it, it is remembered...

... as a dream, but it is not a dream in the same sense as the dreams of the physical body. The etheric body can go out of you when you are asleep. Your physical body will be there, but your etheric body can go out and travel in space. There is no space limiting it; there is no question of distance for it. Those who do not understand this, who do not recognize the existence of the etheric body, may...

... interpret this as the realm of the unconscious. They divide man's mind into conscious and unconscious. Then physiological dreaming is called "conscious" and etheric dreaming is called "unconscious." It is not unconscious. It is as conscious as physiological dreaming, but conscious on another level. If you become conscious of your etheric body, the dreaming concerned with that realm...

... velvet of that particular shade. The velvet was then used to create etheric dreams in others as well. So when someone goes deep in meditation and sees colors, and experiences perfumes and sounds and music absolutely unknown, these too are dreams, dreams of the etheric body. So-called spiritual visions belong to the etheric body; they are etheric dreams. Gurus revealing themselves before their disciples...

... technicality, a trick. Nothing is unconscious, but everything that is conscious on a deeper level is unconscious on the previous level. So for the physical, the etheric is unconscious; for the etheric, the astral is unconscious; for the astral, the mental is unconscious. Conscious means that which is known. Unconscious means that which is still not known, the unknown. There are also astral dreams. In astral...

... dreaming you go into your previous births. That is your third dimension of dreaming. Sometimes in an ordinary dream, part of the etheric or part of the astral may be there. Then the dream becomes a muddle, a mess; you cannot understand it. Because your seven bodies are in existence simultaneously, something from one realm can pass into another, can penetrate it. So sometimes, even in ordinary dreams...

..., transforms something. Each body has its own symbology so every time a dream passes from one body to another it is translated into the symbology of that body. Then, everything becomes confused. If you dream in the fourth body in a clear-cut way - not through another body but through the fourth body itself - then you can penetrate into the future, but only into your own future. It is still individual; you...

... cannot penetrate into another person's future. For the fourth body, the past is as much the present as the future is the present. Past, future and present become one. Everything becomes a now: now penetrating backward, now penetrating forward. There is no past and no future, but there is still time. Time, even as "the present," is still a flowing of time. You will still have to focus your...

.... The fifth body, the spiritual body, crosses the realm of the individual and the realm of time. Now you are in eternity. The dreaming is not concerned with you as such, but with the consciousness of the whole. Now you know the entire past of the whole existence, but not the future. Through this fifth body, all myths of creation have been developed. They are all the same. The symbols differ, the...

... your dreaming. This is the way to know reality. To call it dreaming is not adequate. But in a way it is dreaming, because the real is not objectively present. It has its own objectivity, but it comes as a subjective experience. Two persons who have realized the fifth body can dream simultaneously, which is not possible before this. Ordinarily there is no way of dreaming a common dream, but from the...

... fifth body onward, a dream can be dreamt by many persons simultaneously. That is why the dreams are objective in a way. We can compare notes. That is how so many persons, dreaming in the fifth body, came to know the same myths. These myths were not created by single individuals. They were created by particular schools, particular traditions working together. So the fifth type of dreaming becomes much...

... less fantastic, less imaginary - more objective, more real, more authentic. All theological concepts are created by the fifth body. They differ in their language, their terminology, their conceptualization, but they are basically the same. They are dreams of the fifth body. In the sixth body, the cosmic body, you cross the threshold of conscious/unconscious, matter/mind. You lose all distinctions...

.... The sixth body dreams about the cosmos. You cross the threshold of consciousness and the unconscious world also becomes conscious. Now everything is alive and conscious. Even what we call matter is now part of consciousness. In the sixth body, dreams of cosmic myths have been realized. You have transcended the individual, you have transcended the conscious, you have transcended time and space, but...

... of positive existence, not in terms of non-existence. There is still a clinging to existence and a fear of non-existence. Matter and mind have become one, but not existence and non-existence, not being and nonbeing. They are still separate. This is the last barrier. The seventh body, the nirvanic, crosses the boundary of the positive and jumps into nothingness. It has its own dreams: dreams of non...

...-existence, dreams of nothingness, dreams of the void. The yes has been left behind, and even the no is not a no now; the nothingness is not nothing. Rather, the nothing is even more infinite. The positive must have boundaries; it cannot be infinite. Only the negative has no boundaries. So the seventh body has its own dreams. Now there are no symbols, no forms. Only the formless is. Now there is no sound...

... but the soundless; there is absolute silence. These dreams of silence are total, unending. These are the seven bodies. Each of them has its own dreams. But these seven dimensions of dreams can become a hindrance in knowing the seven types of realities. Your physiological body has a way to know the real and a way to dream about it. When you take your food, this is a reality, but when you dream that...

... you are taking food, it is not a reality. The dream is a substitute for the real food. So the physiological body has its own reality and its own way of dreaming. These are two different ways in which the physiological functions, and they are very far apart from one another. The more you go toward the center - the higher the body you are in - the nearer dream and reality are to one another. Just like...

... lines drawn from the periphery toward the center of a circle come nearer as they approach the center, and are further apart as they go toward the circumference, so too dream and reality come nearer and nearer as you go toward your center and they become further and further apart as you go toward the periphery. So as far as the physiological body is concerned, dreaming and reality are far apart. The...

... distance between them is great. Dreams are just fantasy. This separation will not be so great in the etheric body. The real and the dream will come nearer, so to know what is real and what is a dream will be more difficult than in the physiological body. But still, the difference can be known. If your etheric travel has been real travel, it will happen while you are awake. If it has been a dream it will...

... happen when you are asleep. To know the difference, you will have to be awakened in the etheric body. There are methods to be aware in your etheric body. All methods of inner working such as japa - the repetition of a mantra - disconnect you from the outside world. If you fall asleep, the constant repetition can create a hypnotic sleep. Then, you will dream. But if you can remain aware of your japa and...

... should know it. But before knowing, one must have doubts about it, uncertainty about it. Only then will you know whether you really know it or whether you have just projected it. If it is your belief that the soul is immortal, the belief may penetrate your astral mind. Then you will begin to dream, but it will just be a dream. But if you have no belief, just a thirst to know, to seek - without knowing...

... neighbors. Their faces are so alike that there is every possibility that one will be judged to be the other. The mental body can have dreams that are as realistic as the real. And there are methods to create such dreams - yogic, tantric and other methods. A person who is practicing fasting, loneliness, darkness, will create the fourth type of dreams, mental dreams. They will be so real, more real than the...

... reality that is surrounding us. In the fourth body, the mind is totally creative - unhindered by anything objective, unhindered by material boundaries. Now it is totally free to create. Poets, painters, all live in the fourth type of dreaming; all art is produced by the fourth type of dreaming. A person who can dream in the fourth realm can become a great artist. But not one who knows. In the fourth...

... body, one must be aware of any type of mental creation. One should not project anything; otherwise it will be projected. One should not wish anything; otherwise there is every possibility that the wish will be the fulfillment. Not only inwardly, even outwardly the wish can be fulfilled. In the fourth body, the mind is so powerful, so crystal clear, because the fourth body is the last home for the...

... mind. Beyond this, no-mind begins. The fourth body is the original source of the mind, so you can create anything. One must constantly be aware that there is no wish, no imagination, no image; no god, no guru. Otherwise they will all be created out of you. You will be the creator! It is so blissful to see them that one longs to create them. This is the last barrier for the sadhaka, the seeker. If one...

... crosses this, he will not face a greater barrier. If you are aware, if you are just a witness in the fourth body, then you know the real. Otherwise you go on dreaming. And no reality is comparable to these dreams. They will be ecstatic; no ecstasy is comparable. So one must be aware of ecstasy, of happiness, of blissfulness, and one must constantly be aware of any type of image. The moment there is an...

... image, the fourth mind begins to flow into a dream. One image leads to the next, and you go on dreaming. The fourth type of dreaming can only be prevented if you are a witness. Witnessing makes the difference, because if dreaming is there you will be identified with it. Identification is dreaming as far as the fourth body is concerned. In the fourth body, awareness and the witnessing mind are the path...

... toward the real. In the fifth body the dream and the real become one. Every type of duality is cast off. There is no question of any awareness now. Even if you are unaware, you will be aware of your unawareness. Now dreaming becomes just a reflection of the real. There is a difference, but no distinction. If I see myself in the mirror, there is no distinction between me and the reflection, but there is...

... reflection, and the mirrorlike image will be taken as the real. As far as the fifth body itself is concerned, there is no real danger if this happens, but it is a danger as far as the sixth body is concerned. If you have seen yourself only in the mirror, then you cannot cross the boundary of the fifth and go to the sixth. You cannot pass any boundary through a mirror. So there have been persons who have...

...; gurus, scriptures; Christianity, Hinduism; Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Mahavira.... One should be alone now; otherwise anything that is present will become a mirror. Buddha will become a mirror now. Very dear, but very dangerous. If you are absolutely alone, there will be nothing in which you can be reflected. So meditation is the word for the fifth body. It means to be totally alone, free from every...

... type of mentation. It means to be with no mind. If there is any type of mind it will become a mirror and you will be reflected in it. One should now be a no-mind, with no thinking, no contemplation. In the sixth body there is no mirror. Now only the cosmic is. You have been lost. You are no more; the dreamer is not. But the dream can still exist without the dreamer. And when there is a dream without...

... everything has become part of the formless, when everything has come back to the original source, then everything is and at the same time is not. The positive is the only factor remaining. It must be jumped over. So if, in the sixth body, the positive is lost, you penetrate into the seventh. The real of the sixth is the door of the seventh. If there is nothing positive - no myth, no image - then the dream...

... nothingness, but the nothingness remains the same. If I dream about you it is illusory. If I see you it is real. But if I dream about your absence or I see your absence, there is no difference. If you dream about the absence of anything, the dream will be the same as the absence itself. Only in terms of something positive is there a real difference. So up to the sixth body there is a difference. In the...

... seventh body only nothingness remains. There is an absence even of the seed. This is nirbeej samadhi, seedless samadhi. Now there is no possibility of dreaming. So there are seven types of dreams and seven types of realities. They penetrate one another. Because of this, there is much confusion. But if you make a distinction between the seven, if you become clear about it, it will help much. Psychology...

... be known. But do not take what I have said as a theory, a system. Just make it a starting point, and begin to dream with a conscious mind. Only when you become conscious in your dreams can the real be known. We are not conscious even of our physical body. We remain unaware of it. Only when some part is diseased do we become aware. One must become aware of the body in health. To be aware of the body...

... in disease is just an emergency measure. It is a natural, built-in process. Your mind must be aware when some part of the body is diseased so that it can be taken care of, but the moment it becomes alright again you become sleepy about it. You must become aware of your own body: its workings, its subtle feelings, its music, its silences. Sometimes the body is silent; sometimes it is noisy...

...; sometimes relaxed. The feeling is so different in each state that it is unfortunate we are not aware of it. When you are going to sleep, there are subtle changes in your body. When you are coming out of sleep in the morning, there are changes again. One must become aware of them. When you are going to open your eyes in the morning, do not open them right away. When you have become aware that sleep is over...

..., become aware of your body. Do not open your eyes yet. What is going on? A great change is taking place inside. The sleep is leaving you and the awakening is coming. You have seen the morning sun rising, but never your body rising. It has its own beauty. There is a morning in your body and an evening. It is called sandhya: the moment of transformation, the moment of change. When you are going to sleep...

..., silently watch what is happening. The sleep will come, it will be coming. Be aware! Only then can you become really aware of your physical body. And the moment you become aware of it, you will know what physiological dreaming is. Then in the morning you will be able to remember what was a physiological dream and what was not. If you know the inner feelings, the inner needs, the inner rhythms of your body...

..., then when they are reflected in your dreams you will be able to understand the language. We have not understood the language of our own bodies. The body has its own wisdom; it has thousands and thousands of years of experience. My body has the experience of my father and mother and their father and mother and so on, centuries and centuries during which the seed of my body has developed into what it...

... is. It has its own language. One must understand it first. When you understand it, you will know what a physiological dream is. And then, in the morning, you can separate the physiological dreams from the non-physiological dreams. Only then does a new possibility open up: to be aware of your etheric body. Only then, not before. You become more subtle. You can experience more subtle levels of sounds...

..., perfumes, lights. Then when you walk, you know that the physiological body is walking; the etheric body is not walking. The difference is crystal clear. You are eating. The physical body is eating, not the etheric body. There are etheric thirsts, etheric hungers, etheric longings, but these things can only be seen when the physical body is known completely. Then by and by, the other bodies will become...

... talked about. The third body is the astral body. It has its own tensions. They are concerned not only with this life but with your previous lives. Tension in the third body is because of the accumulation of everything you have been and of everything you have been longing for. Your total longing, thousands and thousands of lives and their repetitive longings, are in the astral body. And you have always...

... been longing! It does not matter for what. The longing is there. The astral body is a storehouse of your total longings, your total desires. That is why it is the most tense part of your being. When you go into meditation you become aware of astral tensions, because meditation starts from the third body. People who have begun to be aware of these tensions through meditation come to me and say, "...

... itself is the tension. We are never without the desire for something or other. There are even people who desire desirelessness. It becomes a total absurdity. In the third body, the astral body, you can desire to be desireless. In fact, the desire to be desireless is one of the strongest desires. It can create one of the biggest gaps between what is and what you want to be. So accept your desires as...

... they are, and know that you have had so many desires throughout so many lives. You have desired so much, and the whole thing has been accumulated. So for the third body - the astral body - accept your desires as they are. Do not fight with them; do not create a desire against desires. Just accept them. Know that you are full of desires, and be at ease with it. Then you will become non-tense in the...

... astral body. If you can accept the infinite crowd of desires within you without creating a desire against these desires; if you can be in the crowd of desires - they are your whole accumulated past - and accept them as they are; if this acceptance becomes total, then, in a single moment, the whole crowd disappears. They are no longer there, because they can exist only against a background of desiring...

... desires evaporate; nothing has to be done with them. The astral body becomes at ease; it comes to a state of positive well-being. Only then can you proceed to the fourth body. The fourth body is the mental body. Just as there are desires in the astral body, in the mental body there are thoughts: contradictory thoughts, a whole crowd of them, each thought asserting itself as the whole, each thought...

.... There is nothing to be tense about; you are at ease with yourself. You are in the Tao. To me, if there is no gap you are religious; you are in the dharma. The gap can have many layers. If the longing is physical, the tension will be physical. When you seek a particular body, a particular shape - if you long for something other than what you are on a physical level - then there is tension in your...

... physical body. One wants to be more beautiful. Now your body becomes tense. This tension begins at your first body, the physiological, but if it is insistent, constant, it may go deeper and spread to the other layers of your being. If you are longing for psychic powers, then the tension begins at the psychic level and spreads. The spreading is just like when you throw a stone in the lake. It drops at a...

... experience is neither for the future nor for the past; it is neither from the future nor from the past. The moment itself has become eternity, and everything comes from it. It is a flowering. This flowering will have seven layers, just like tension has seven layers. It will exist in every body. For example, if it happens on the physiological level, you will become beautiful in quite a new sense. This...

... beauty is not of form but of the formless, not of the visible but of the invisible. And if you can feel this non-tense moment in your body, you will know a well-being that you have not known before, a positive well-being. We have known states of well-being that are negative: negative in the sense that when we are not ill we say we are healthy. This health is simply a negation of disease. It has nothing...

... positive about it; it is just that disease is not there. The medical definition of health is that if you are not ill then you are healthy. But health has a positive dimension also. It is not just the absence of illness; it is the presence of health. Your body can be non-tense only when you are living a moment-to-moment existence. If you are eating and the moment has become eternity, then there is no past...

... and no future. The very process of eating is all that is. You are not doing something; you have become the doing. There will be no tension; your body will feel fulfilled. Or if you are in sexual communion and the sex is not just a relief from sexual tension but, rather, a positive expression of love - if the moment has become total, whole, and you are in it completely - then you will know a positive...

... well-being in your body. If you are running, and the running has become the totality of your existence; if you are the sensations that are coming to you, not something apart from them but one with them; if there is no future, no goal to this running, running itself is the goal - then you know a positive well-being. Then your body is non-tense. On the physiological level, you have known a moment of...

... non-tense living. And the same is true with each of the seven bodies. To understand a non-tense moment in the first body is easy because we already know two things that are possible in the body: disease, a positive illness; negatively defined well-being, an absence of illness. This much we have already known, so we can conceive of a third possibility, that of positive well-being, health. But to...

... understand what non-tension is in the second body, the etheric, is a bit more difficult, because you have not known anything about it. Still, certain things can be understood. Dreams are basically concerned with the second body, the etheric. So ordinarily when we talk about dreams what we are talking about are dreams of the etheric body. But if your physical body has been living in tension, then many...

... dreams will be created by it. For example, if you have been hungry or on a fast, then a particular type of dream is created. This is physiological dreaming. It is not concerned with the etheric body. The etheric body has its own tension. We know the etheric body only in dreams, so if the etheric body is tense, the dream becomes a nightmare. Even in your dream you will be tense now; the tension will...

... follow you. The first tension in the etheric body is concerned with the fulfillment of your desires. We all have dreams about love. Sex is physiological; love is not. Love has nothing to do with the physical body, it is concerned with the etheric body; but if it is not fulfilled, then even your physical body may suffer because of it. Not only does your physical body have needs that have to be fulfilled...

..., but your etheric body also has needs. It has its own hungers; it also needs food. Love is that food. We all go on dreaming about love, but we are never in love. Everybody dreams about love - how it should be, with whom it should be - and everyone is frustrated in it. Either we are dreaming about the future or, in frustration, about the past; but we are never loving. There are other tensions in the...

... etheric body as well, but love is the one that can be most easily understood. If you can love in the moment, then a non-tense situation is created in the etheric body. But you cannot love in the moment if you have demands, expectations, conditions for your love, because demands, expectations and conditions are concerned with the future. The present is beyond our specifications. It is as it is. But you...

... you to objects also. Even when you are alone, when no one is there, you are loving. It is just like breathing. If I take an oath that I will breathe only when I am with you, only death can follow. Breathing is not relationship; it is not tied to any relationship. And for the etheric body, love is just like breathing. It is its breath. So either you are loving, or you are not loving. The type of love...

... that humanity has created is very dangerous. Even disease has not created as much nonsense as this so-called love has created. The whole humanity is diseased because of this wrong notion of love. If you can love and be loving, irrespective of whom, then your second body can have a sense of well-being, a positive at-easeness. Then there are no nightmares. Dreams become a poetry. Then something happens...

... in your second body, and the perfume of it not only pervades you but others also. Wherever you are, the perfume of your love spreads. And of course it has its own response, its own echoing. Real love is not a function of the ego. The ego is always asking for power, so even when you love - because your love is not real, because it is just a part of the ego - it is bound to be violent. Whenever we...

... some point you begin to love your enemy. Love is never possible as a relationship but only as a state of mind. If love comes to you as a state of mind, then your second body - the etheric body - becomes at ease, non-tense. It is relaxed. There are other reasons for tension in the second body, but I am talking about the one that can be most easily understood. Because we think we know love, it can be...

...;Since I started meditating, tensions have increased." They have not increased, but you have become aware of them now. Now you know something that you were not aware of before. These are astral tensions. Because they are essences of so many lives, they cannot be described by any particular word. Nothing can be said about them that can be understood. They can only be lived, and known. Desiring...

... possessing you as if it were the whole. So the tension in the fourth body is created by thoughts. Being without thoughts - not asleep, not unconscious, but a thoughtless consciousness - is the health, the well-being of the fourth body. But how can one be conscious and thoughtless? Every moment, new thoughts are being created. Every moment something of your past is coming into conflict with something of...

... themselves to you because you have discarded them, but they will remain there, waiting for their chance. And the chance will come. Even in a period of twenty-four hours, there will be a moment when you will be a communist again and then again you will be a Catholic. This will go on and on, back and forth, and the total effect will be confusion. So for the mental body, tension means confusion...

... now a new confusion has been added. You meet this guru, then that, then the next, and each guru brings new confusion to you. The old confusion will be there, and a new one will be added. You will be a madhouse. This is what happens in the fourth body, the mental body. There, confusion is the tension. How can one cease to be confused? You can cease to be confused only if you do not deny one...

... awareness - unidentified with the mind. The difficulty with the fourth body, the mental body, is that we are identified with our minds. If your body becomes ill and someone says you are ill, you do not feel offended; but if your mind becomes ill and someone says, "Your mind is ill; you seem to be going insane," then you are offended. Why? When someone says, "Your body seems to be ill,"...

...; you feel that he has sympathized with you. But if someone says something about mental illness - that as far as your mind is concerned, you seem to be derailed; you are neurotic - then you are offended because there is a deeper identification with the mind than with the body. You can feel yourself to be separate from the body. You can say, "This is my hand." But you cannot say, "This...

... is my mind," because you think: "My mind means me." If I want to operate on your body you will allow me, but you will not allow me to operate on your mind. You will say, "No, this is too much! My freedom will be lost!" Mind is much more deeply identified. It is us. We do not know anything beyond it, so we are identified with it. We know something beyond the body: the mind...

.... That is why the possibility of being nonidentified with the body exists. But we do not know anything beyond the mind. Only if you become aware of thoughts can you come to know that mind is nothing but a process, an accumulation: a mechanism, a storehouse, a computer of your past experiences, your past learning, your past knowledge. It is not you; you can be without it. The mind can be operated on. It...

... much potentiality. A new humanity may be born out of it. We can be aware of the mind because the mind is not us; it is not "me." My mind is as much a part of my body as my kidney is. Just as I can be given a new kidney and I will still be the same person, with nothing changed, so too I can go on living with a transplanted mind with nothing changed. I can go on being the old self I was, but...

... with a new mind added to me. Mind too is a mechanism. But because of our identification with it, tension is created. So with the fourth body, awareness is health and unawareness is disease; awareness is non-tension and non-awareness is tension. Because of thoughts, because of your identification with them, you go on living in your thoughts and a barrier is created between you and your existential...

... it. Then you will claim, "If I have not heard you, how can I reproduce it?" But a tape recorder does not hear me. Your mind can go on working just like a machine. You may be present, or you may not be. You are not needed. You can go on thinking and still be listening. The mind - the fourth body, the mental body - has become a barrier. Between you and that which is, there is a barrier. The...

... moment you come to touch, you move away from the experience. The moment you come to look, you move away. I take your hand in my hand. This is an existential thing. But it may be that you are not there. Then you have missed. You have known - you have touched and experienced - but you were in your thoughts. So at the fourth body one must be aware of one's thought process, taken as a whole. Not choosing...

..., not deciding, not judging; just aware of it. If you become aware, you become nonidentified. And nonidentification with the mechanism of the mind is non-tension. The fifth body is the spiritual body. As far as the spiritual body is concerned, ignorance of oneself is the only tension. All the time you are, you know perfectly well that you do not know yourself. You will pass through life, you will do...

..., Know Thyself, were concerned with the fifth body. They were working on it. Socrates continuously repeated: Know Thyself. He was concerned with the fifth body. For the fifth body, atma gyana, self-knowledge, is the only knowledge. Mahavira said, "By knowing oneself, one knows all." It is not so. One cannot know all by knowing oneself. But the antithesis is correct. By not knowing oneself...

..., one cannot know anything. So to balance this, Mahavira said, "By knowing yourself, you will know all." Even if I know everything, if I do not know myself, what is the use? How can I know the basic, the foundational, the ultimate, if I have not even known myself? It is impossible. So with the fifth body, the tension is between knowing and ignorance. But remember, I am saying knowing and...

... from ourselves. Others are significant to us because they help us to escape. That is why we are all other-oriented. Even if one becomes religious, he creates God as the other. He becomes other-oriented again; the same fallacy is repeated. So at the fifth stage, one has to be in search of oneself from within. This is not a search, but a "being in search." Only up to the fifth body are you...

... needed. Beyond the fifth, things become easy and spontaneous. The sixth body is cosmic. The tension is between you - your feelings of individuality, of limitation - and the unlimited cosmos. Even in the fifth stage you will be embodied in your spiritual body. You will be a person. That "person" will be the tension for the sixth. So to achieve a non-tense existence with the cosmos, to be at...

... one with the cosmos, you must cease to be an individual. Jesus says, "Whoever loses himself will find himself." This statement is concerned with the sixth body. Up to the fifth it cannot be understood, because it is completely anti-mathematical. But from the sixth, this is the only mathematics, the only rational possibility: to lose oneself. We have been enhancing ourselves, crystallizing...

... ourselves. Up to the fifth body the crystallization, the selfhood, the individuality can be carried. But if someone insists on being an individual, he remains with the fifth. So many spiritual systems stop with the fifth. All those who say that the soul has its own individuality, and the individuality will remain even in a liberated state - that you will be an individual, embodied in your selfhood - any...

... system that says this, stops with the fifth. In such a system, there will be no concept of God. It is not needed. The concept of God comes only with the sixth body. "God" means the cosmic individuality, or, it would be better to say, the cosmic no-individuality. It is not that "I" am in existence; it is the total within me that has made it possible for me to exist. I am just a point...

...;I" will be the tension at the sixth. How can you lose the "I" how can you lose your ego? You will not be able to understand right now, but if you achieve the fifth, it will become easy. It is just like a child who is attached to a toy and cannot conceive of how he can throw it. But the moment childhood is gone, the toy is thrown. He never goes back to it. Up to the fifth body the...

... ego is very significant, but beyond the fifth it becomes just like a toy that a child has been playing with. You just throw it; there is no difficulty. The only difficulty will be if you have achieved the fifth body as a gradual process and not as a sudden enlightenment. Then, to throw the "I" completely in the sixth becomes difficult. So beyond the fifth, all those processes that are...

... gained. It is not really that the drop has lost itself. It has become the ocean now. The seventh body is the nirvanic. The tension in the seventh body is between existence and non- existence. In the sixth, the seeker has lost himself, but not existence. He is - not as an individual, but as the cosmic being. Existence is there. There are philosophies and systems that stop with the sixth. They stop with...

.... Wholeness is nothingness, and nothingness is the only wholeness - for the seventh body. So these are the tensions in the seven bodies, beginning with the physiological. If you understand your physiological tension, the relief of it and the well-being of it, then you can very easily proceed to all seven bodies. The realization of at-easeness in the first body becomes a stepping stone to the second. And if...

... you realize something in the second - if you feel a non-tense etheric moment - then the step toward the third is taken. In each body, if you start with well-being, the door to the next body opens automatically. But if you are defeated in the first body it becomes very difficult, even impossible, to open up further doors. So begin with the first body and do not think of the other six bodies at all...

.... Live in the physical body completely, and you will suddenly know that a new door has opened. Then continue on further. But never think of the other bodies or it will be disturbing and will create tensions. So whatever I have said - forget it! Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...

..., first you have to understand that you have not only this body of flesh and bones and blood, not only this brain which is part of the body. Behind the brain you have a mind -- that mind is abstract -- and behind the body you have an astral body. The word 'astral' comes from stars; it means a light.... Instead of flesh or bones, only a body made of light. This body of light, the astral body, has the...

... mind in it. When you die, your physical body and your physical mind are left behind. But the astral body travels with you, with the mind, with all the remembrances of the past life and the body, remembering all the scars and the wounds that have happened to the physical body. This abstract phenomenon travels with you; hiding within it is your ultimate, existential center. Until you know the center...

..., you will have to travel continuously from one body to another body. You have been traveling already for thousands of lives, gathering more and more memories in your astral mind, more and more memories in your astral body. Although your center is unaffected, it is surrounded by the astral body, and the astral body goes on from womb to womb, from grave to grave. That is your individuality; it has a...

... continuum. But the continuum comes to an end when you become a buddha. When you penetrate deeply to the center, you are also cutting the astral body apart, making a way through the mind, beyond the mind, through the astral body and beyond the astral body, to the center of your being. Once you have reached to the center of your being, the continuum of your individuality stops. Now begins the universal...

...... and flowers start showering on you with a fragrance you have never known. At the very center of your being you will find yourself -- not the way you have known up to now, but in a totally new way. You will find yourself one of the buddhas, alert, awakened. And the buddha has only one quality: witnessing. Now witness: the body is not you, the mind is not you -- even the astral body is not you...

... the greatest day of your life. The continuum of your birth and death will disappear. You will be enlightened. And when you will drop this body, this mind... with this body and this mind you will also drop your astral bodies, your inner mind. You will become just a dewdrop -- either disappearing in the ocean, or the ocean disappearing in the dewdrop. This is the ultimate peak of human evolution. The...

... even a small disturbance in the dust. Question 1: Maneesha has asked a question: OUR BELOVED MASTER, I HAVE UNDERSTOOD THAT THE WITNESS IS PURE CONSCIOUSNESS, UNAFFECTED BY THE BODY AND MIND IT TAKES TEMPORARY RESIDENCE IN. SO, FIRST: HOW DO PERSONALITY TRAITS AND CONDITIONING PERSIST FROM ONE LIFE TO ANOTHER? AND SECOND: DOES NOT THAT WHICH MAKES US UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS HAVE A CONTINUUM? Maneesha...

... your eyes... Feel your body to be completely frozen. This is the right moment to look inwards, with your total consciousness, with your total life energy, and with an urgency as if this is your last moment on the earth. Go deeper and deeper, penetrating every layer. As you go deeper, you will find deep silence descending on you. Deeper... a great peace that passeth understanding. Still more, deeper...

... other is subtle and hence it cannot be seen. Beyond the etheric is the astral body. It is a subtler form of ether. Science has not yet reached there, but it has reached a conclusion that if we analyze matter, what ultimately remains is energy. This energy can be called ether. If ether is further broken up into more subtle components, what will remain is the astral - and this is subtler than the subtle...

... dimension, and this has its own possibilities. There is no gap between the first and the second body. The third or the astral body is even more subtle. It is the subtlest of the subtle. If we break the ether into atoms - which still seems improbable, because we have barely unfolded the physical atom, so to experiment with ether will still take a long time. when the ether atoms are known we will find that...

... they are the particles of the body that comes next - namely, the astral body. When we broke the physical atom its most subtle particles were found to be etheric. Similarly, if we break the etheric atom the most subtle particles will be that of the astral body. So we shall find a connection between them. These three bodies are clearly joined to one another and it is for this reason that photographs of...

... that the atoms that are spread out come closer and form an outline. This can be caught by a camera. Thus, our second body that is etheric is much more influenced by the mind than the physical body. The latter too comes under the influence of the mind, but not to that extent. The more subtle the body, the more it is affected by the mind and the nearer it will be to the mind. The astral body is even...

... more influenced by the mind. This is why astral traveling is possible. A man can be asleep in this room but he can reach any part of the world with his astral body. You must have heard stories of a man being seen in two or three places at the same time. This is possible. His physical body will be in one place and his astral body in another. It is a matter of a little practice and this can be brought...

... the etheric and the still more subtle part of the etheric is the astral. Then comes the fourth body - the mental body. Until now we were under the impression that mind is one thing and matter another. Mind and matter were considered as two separate things. In fact, there was no way of defining them. If we were to ask, "What is mind?" we would be told, "That which is not matter,"...

... there will be very few waves reported, because such a person hardly thinks. If an intellectual is made to stand before it the machine takes over all the vibrations of his thoughts. So what we know as the mind is the subtle form of the astral. As we go more and more within the layers get more and more subtle. Science has reached the etheric body but even now it insists on calling it the atomic plane or...

.... So the mental body is the subtle form of the astral body. Thus, as you can see, there is no gap between these four bodies. Each is a more subtle form of the preceding body. A lot of work is being done on the mental body. Scientists are working in the field of psychology and especially parapsychology, and the strange and wonderful rules of mental energy are slowly coming within their grasp. Religion...

... Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1 IN YESTERDAY'S TALK YOU SAID THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR SCIENCE TO ENTER THE FIFTH OR SPIRITUAL BODY. THEN YOU TALKED OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF SCIENCE IN THE FOURTH BODY. KINDLY TELL US ABOUT THE POSSIBILITIES OF SCIENCE IN THE FIFTH BODY. What we call the physical body and what we call the soul are not two things that are...

... different and apart. There is no break between them; there are links. We have always thought that the body is separate and the soul is separate, and that there is nothing to connect them. Also, we have been thinking not only that they are apart but that they are the opposite of each other. This idea separated religion from science. Religion was supposed to search for that which is other than the body...

..., whereas science was that which dis-covered everything about the body - all except the atman, the soul. So it is only natural that each should deny the other. Science was engrossed in the physical body and so it asked, "The body is true, but where is the soul?" Religion searched for the inner and called it the soul. It said, "The spirit is real but the physical is an illusion."...

...; Therefore, when religion reached its peak it described the body as an illusion, a fantasy, maya, and said that in actuality it did not exist. It proclaimed the atman as truth and the body as illusion. When science reached its heights it disclaimed the atman. It said, "The concept of the soul is false; it is a lie. The body is everything." This error is the cause behind the concept that the body...

... and the atman are two opposite things. I have talked about the seven bodies. If the first body is the physical and the last is the spiritual, then if we do not consider the five bodies in between there will be no bridge between these two. It would be just as if you were to climb a ladder and then discard all the intervening rungs between the last and the first. Then there is no connection between...

... first body is the physical body; the second is the etheric body - the emotional body. It is only the subtle form of the physical and it is not nonmaterial. It is just that it is so subtle that it has not yet been fully grasped by physical means. But now the physicists do not deny the fact that physical matter becomes more and more rarified and nonphysical in its subtle form. For instance, modern...

... if we look upon the etheric body as the atomic body it will not be wrong - because in this case also we only see the effects and not the etheric body itself. Because of the effects we have to admit its existence. This second body is the subtle form of the first; hence there is no difficulty in connecting the two. They are, in a way, joined to each other. One is gross and so it can be seen; the...

.... Science has not yet reached the astral but it will. Until recently science only accepted matter and denied the existence of the atom. Until yesterday, almost, it said that matter is solid. Today it says that there is nothing like solid substance and everything is nonsolid. Now they have proved that even a wall, which appears solid, is not so solid. It is porous and things can pass back and forth through...

... ghosts have been taken. A ghost does not have a physical body. Its veiling starts with the etheric body. It has been possible to photograph ghosts, because when the etheric body condenses a sensitive camera can catch its reflection. Another thing about ether is that it is so subtle, that it is easily influenced by the psyche. If the spirit of a dead person wishes to appear it can condense its form so...

... and dim because it has to pass through seven layers. In this way our life energy becomes very dim by the time it reaches the physical body. This is why we do not seem to have much control over the physical body. But if someone begins to travel within, his control over his physical body becomes more and more, exactly in proportion to the depth of his inner journey. The subtle form of the physical is...

...; and vice versa. If we were to ask, "What is matter?" there was no other definition. And this is how we have always been thinking about them - as being different and apart. Now, however, we know that mind also is a more subtle form of matter. Conversely, we can say that matter is the condensed form of mind. When atoms of the astral are broken they become thought waves. There is a close...

... the plane of atomic energy. But science has reached down to the second body of matter. It will not take long to reach the third plane, because now it has become necessary to do so. Work is being done on the fourth plane also but from a different dimension. As mind was considered to be apart from the body, some scientists are working only upon mind; they have left the body completely out. They have...

... experienced a lot of things about the fourth body. For instance, we are all, in a way, transmitters. Our thoughts spread all around us. Even when I am not talking to you my thoughts reach you. A lot of work is in progress in Russia in the field of telepathy. One scientist, Fayadev, has been successful in transmitting thoughts to a person at a distance of a thousand miles just as is done in radio...

... around you should fall off. The day you are rid of them all, what remains of you will be absolutely pure. Nirjara means the falling off of the atoms of actions. When you are angry it is an action, then this anger remains with you always in its atomic form. That is why when the physical body falls these atoms do not disintegrate - because they are very subtle. They come along with you in the next birth...

... out of the object. This is why graves and samadhis came to be constructed. Yesterday I told you that in India we have the custom of burning our dead, but not our dead sannyasins. An ordinary man's body is burned so that his soul does not go on hovering around him. But the sannyasin is not cremated because his soul had already stopped hovering around his body while he was still alive. Now there need...

... be no fear of his soul having any attachment to his body. We wish to conserve his body, because the body of a man who has spent years in experiencing the divine will diffuse the same thought waves for thousands of years. His burial spot will be meaningful; it will yield results. The body is dead, but this body has been so close to this soul that it absorbed a great deal of the vibrations that had...

... spread from it. Thoughts have infinite possibilities, but they are physical all the same. Therefore, be very careful what you think, because the subtle thought waves will remain with you even after the body falls. Your physical age is quite short compared to the age of these subtle waves. Scientists have now come to the conclusion that if there have been people like Jesus and Krishna, in the near...

... developed another formula based on stopping certain bodily secretions. When we are in anger a particular chemical process takes place within the body, because anger is a physical happening. When there is anger within it is absolutely necessary for certain chemical substances to be secreted within the body. Thus, the formula of science is this: these secretions can be stopped from forming and then there...

... presently under investigation. All this shows that there are no longer many difficulties in the path of science to reaching the fourth body. The only problem is that a very large part of science is engaged in research for war purposes. That is why this kind of research is not given primary consideration; it remains a secondary matter. Yet there has been great progress and unusual results have been...

... of the body changes; that is all there is to it. The nutrition that the body should have had is denied to it and all of the body's reserve is used up. Fat melts and the nonessential elements undergo destruction while the essential ones are saved. In this way the whole chemical arrangement of the body undergoes a complete change. Science says, "Where is the need to undergo such hardship for one...

... hard breathing? It is only that the ratio of carbon and oxygen within you will change - but this can be brought about by external means also. There is no need to make you labor for half an hour. The ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide in this room can be changed and all those sitting here will experience peace and calm and will feel joyous. Thus, science has entered the fourth body from all sorts of...

... is always two-sided. Science has reached the fourth plane within man. Within the next fifty years - rather, within the next thirty years - it will penetrate deeper into the fourth body. Perhaps you may not know that whatever has been undertaken during a particular century reaches its climax at the end of the century. Every century completes its work by the time it comes to its end. This century has...

... taken very many works upon itself which will be completed in thirty years' time. Its greatest task is the entrance into man's psyche, and this will be completed. The fifth - the spiritual body - is even more subtle than the fourth. Here there are not only vibrations of thought but also vibrations of the being. If I sit absolutely silent without a single thought within, even then my being creates...

... begin to arise within him. The energy vibration of the fifth body is the subtlest form of energy in the whole knowledge of man. So it has happened in many cases, as in the case of Mahavira, that he did not speak. That is, he either spoke very little or he did not speak at all; he just sat. People came, sat before him, understood him and went back. This was possible in his time, but not so now. It is...

... very difficult now because you will only experience the deep waves of the spiritual body if you are ready to be in the no-thought state yourself, and not otherwise. If you are filled with the noise of your own thoughts you will miss these subtle vibrations. They will just pass through you and you will not be able to grasp them. If the vibrations of existence come within one's grasp, if there is a no...

... beings are reached by the vibrations of the fifth body. There is a wonderful phenomenon in the life of Mahavira: it is said that even animals attended his gatherings. Jaina monks have been unable to explain this phenomenon and they never will. Now an animal does not understand human language but it understands the language of being very well. If I sit in a no-thought condition near a cat, the cat is...

... already in the state of no-thought. With you, however, I will have to talk. To take you to the cat's state of no-thought is a very long journey. Animals, plants and even stones understand the vibrations that begin from the spiritual body; there is no difficulty in that. So this body is also accessible, but only after the fourth body. The fourth body has been penetrated from many fronts, and science will...

... accept the spiritual state readily. But after this there is some difficulty. So when I said that things can be made very scientifically clear up to the fifth body but after the fifth body difficulties begin, there are reasons for this. If we understand science well it is a specialization in a particular direction; it is a particular selection. So science can only go deeper when it restricts its search...

... to as few things as possible and tries to know as much as possible only about them. The aim of science is to know more and more about less and less. Its work is twofold: it tries to know more about as small a thing as possible. It makes the subject of its inquiry as small as possible and increases its knowledge about it. The doctors of old were knowledgeable about the whole body, but the doctor of...

... an important case in itself. The aim of science is to concentrate its focus of attention to such a pinpoint that it can penetrate to the greatest depth. This is how science can come to know a great deal. So, as I said before, science will reach up to the fifth body, because up to the fifth the individual still exists; hence he can come within its focus. From the sixth the cosmic starts, and this is...

... beyond the focus of science. The cosmic body means the total: science cannot enter there, because science goes from the small to the smallest. So it can only grasp the individual; it will find it very difficult to grasp the cosmic. Religion alone can grasp the cosmic. Hence, up to the atman, the self, science will have no trouble. Difficulties start with the Brahman - the cosmic self. I do not think...

... science will ever be able to grasp the Brahman, because then it will have to leave its specialization. And the moment it leaves its specialization it no longer remains science. It will then be as generalized and vague as religion. So with the help of science we can travel along to the fifth body. At the sixth science will be lost, and the seventh is impossible for it because all of its search is focused...

... only upon life. Actually, our center of existence is life. We want to be less ill and more healthy; we want to live longer, more happily, more comfortably. The aim of science is to make life more deeply happy, satisfying, healthy and enjoyable. But the seventh body is the acceptance of death: it is the ultimate death. Here, the meditator goes beyond the search for life. He says, "I want to know...

... is why the physical body first comes into being in the mother's womb and the other bodies follow later. So the first body is the beginning of life and the last body, the nirvanic body, is from where death comes. So he who clings onto the physical body is very much afraid of death, and he who is afraid of death will never ever know the seventh body. Thus, as we gradually become more and more...

... detached from the physical body, a time comes when we accept death also. Then only do we know. And he who knows death is liberated in the true sense of the word, because then life and death become two parts of the same thing and one is beyond both. So there is no hope of science reaching to the seventh body, though there is a possibility of its going up to the sixth. The doors of the fourth body have...

... opened to science, and now there is actually no difficulty for it to go up to the fifth body. But such persons are required who have scientific minds and religious hearts. Once they appear, entry into the fifth will not be difficult. This combination is very difficult though, because the training of the scientist bars him from becoming religious from several directions. Also, in the same way, religious...

... instead of solving the mystery of the world it became a mystery in itself. It is now impossible to solve this problem." A few topmost scientists of modern times are hovering around the periphery of religion. Such possibilities now occur in science because it has crossed the second body and is approaching the third, and as it nears the third body the echoes of religion become unavoidable. It is of...

... by us and around us, but we cannot hear them because our field of hearing is very limited. Even many loud sounds cannot be heard. We cannot hear sounds above or below the hearing capacity of our ears. When a star falls the tremendous sound of its falling spreads out all around us but we cannot hear it. If the situation were otherwise we would become deaf. Similarly, the range of our body heat is...

... limits because they too exist. Science has begun to accept their existence. Once there is acceptance the quest for where and what these things are begins. All this can be known, all this can be recognized, and it is for this reason I said it is possible for science to reach up to the fifth body. Question 2 WHO KNOWS NONBEING AND ON WHAT BASIS CAN IT BE KNOWN? The question itself is wrong. This question...

... o'clock, or until eight o'clock I knew I was awake, but I do not know anything after eight. Then I know of having awakened at six. There is a gap between eight and six during which time I was asleep." This is by way of example. You will know what is until the sixth body. When you plunge into the seventh body and come out again into the sixth you will be able to say "Aha! I have been elsewhere...

.... I have experienced nonbeing." This account is given only in the sixth body, and so many did not speak after reaching the seventh plane. There was a reason: why say that which cannot be said? Recently there was a man named Wittgenstein, and he has made some rare statements. One of them is: "That which cannot be said must not be said." Many persons have said what cannot be said and...

... before which I was." That line of boundary is the boundary of the sixth body. The Vedas, The Bible, the Upanishads, the Gita, go up to the sixth body. The seventh is that which is inexpressible and cannot, in fact, be expressed. Up to the sixth there is not much difficulty and up to the fifth it is very easy to express. But at the seventh plane, neither the knower remains nor the knowledge. In...

... experience, no knowledge. And the 'I' too was not: the ego was not. Nor was there the world or its maker. There was nothing there." This is the boundary line of the sixth body. What was there? You will remain silent, because it is inexpressible. News about the Brahman has been reported, but what is conveyed beyond it is bound to be negative - as was that which was told by Buddha. Buddha tried his...

... indicate the seventh plane - a word which has no meaning, which would mean nothing. Take, for instance, the word aum: it has no meaning; it is a meaningless word, and we have used it in connection with the seventh body. Until the fifth body we can talk, but when someone insists on talking about the seventh we say, "Aum." Therefore, when a scripture was completed the words aum shanti were...

... carefully, you will see that it is made up of three parts which are the symbols a, u and m. This picture requires deep research; it is not an ordinary picture. Research upon it has been carried out from the fourth body and not from the physical plane. Actually, when a person enters the fourth body and is in the no-thought state, the notes of a-u-m begin to resound within him and their combination makes up...

... seventh, the swastika is the symbol of the first. Therefore, the picture of the swastika is dynamic. Its branches spread out and give the effect of motion; it is rotating all the time. The ordinary world means that which is moving all the time. So the swastika was made the symbol of the first body, and aum that of the last. There is no movement in aum. It is absolutely still; there is total silence...

.... Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1: YOU SAID WE HAVE SEVEN BODIES: AN ETHERIC BODY, A MENTAL BODY AND SO ON. SOMETIMES IT IS DIFFICULT TO ADJUST THE INDIAN LANGUAGE TO THE TERMS OF WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY. WE HAVE NO THEORY FOR THIS IN THE WEST, SO HOW CAN WE TRANSLATE THESE DIFFERENT BODIES INTO OUR LANGUAGE? THE SPIRITUAL IS NO PROBLEM, BUT THE ETHERIC? THE ASTRAL? The...

... attention will now be in two realms, two dimensions. The moment you are inside the second body you will be outside the third, the astral. As far as the astral is concerned, there is no need even of any will. Just the wish to be inside is enough. There is no question of totality now. If you want to go in, you can go in. The astral body is a vapor like the second body, but it is transparent. So the moment...

... you are outside, you will be inside. You will not even know whether you are inside or outside because the boundary is transparent. The astral body is the same size as the first two bodies. Up to the fifth body, the size is the same. The content will change, but the size will be the same up to the fifth. With the sixth body the size will be cosmic. And with the seventh, there will be no size at all...

... I have said I have said in your terminology. I have used only one word that is not part of Western terminology: the nirvanic. The other six terms - the physical, the etheric, the astral, the mental, the spiritual and the cosmic - are not Indian. They belong to the West as well. In the West the seventh has never been talked about, not because there were no persons who knew about it, but because the...

... Adler's terms can be used. What they know as the conscious is the first body. The unconscious is the second - not exactly the same, but near enough to it. What they call the collective unconscious is the third - again, not exactly the same but something approximate to it. And if there are no common terms in usage, new terms can be coined. That is always better, in fact, because new terms have no old...

... connotations. When a new term is used, because you have no previous association with it, it becomes more significant and is understood more deeply. So you can coin new words. The etheric means that which is concerned with the sky and with space. The astral means the minutest, the sukshma, the last one, the atomic, beyond which matter ceases to exist. For the mental there are no difficulties. For the...

... and everywhere mean the same thing. So for the seventh body you will have to use 'nirvanic', because there is no better word for it. Words in themselves have no meaning at all. Only experiences have meaning. Only if you have experienced something of these seven bodies will it be meaningful to you. To help you, there are different methods to be used on each plane. Begin from the physical. Then every...

... other step opens for you. The moment you work on the first body, you have glimpses of the second. So begin from the physical. Be aware of it moment to moment. And not only outwardly aware. You can become aware of your body from the inside also. I can become aware of my hand as I have seen it from the outside, but there is an inner feeling to it too. When I close my eyes the hand is not seen, but there...

... is still an inner feeling of something being there. So do not be aware of your body as seen from the outside. This cannot lead you inward. The inner feeling is quite different. When you feel the body from within, you will know for the first time what it is to be inside the body. When you see it only from the outside you cannot know its secrets. You know only the outer boundaries, how it looks to...

... others. If I see my body from the outside, I see it as it looks to others, but I have not known it as it is for me. You can see my hand from the outside and I can see it. It is something objective. You can share the knowledge of it with me. But my hand, looked at in that way, is not known inwardly. It has become public property. You can know it as well as I. Only the moment I see it from within does it...

... become mine in a way that is unsharable. You cannot know it; you cannot know how I feel it from within. Only I can know it. The body that is known to us is not our body. It is the body that is objectively known to all, the body that a physician can know in a laboratory. It is not the body that is. Only private, personal knowing can lead you inward; public knowledge cannot. That is why physiology or...

... psychology, which are observations from without, have not led to a knowledge of our inner bodies. It is only the physical body that they know about. So many dilemmas have been created because of this. One may feel beautiful from within, but we can force him to believe that he is ugly. If we are collectively agreed upon it, he may also come to agree. But no one feels ugly within. The inner feeling is always...

... that everyone shares. That is why there is ugliness and beauty, otherwise not. If we all become blind, no one will be ugly. Everyone will be beautiful. So the feeling of the body from within is the first step. In different situations the body will feel different from within. When you are in love, you have a particular inner feeling; when you experience hate, the inner feeling is different. If you ask...

... you are feeling active. When you are sleepy, there is a difference. These differences must be distinctly known. Only then do you become acquainted with the inner life of your body. Then you know the inner history, the inner geography of yourself in childhood, in youth, in old age. The moment one becomes aware of his body from within, the second body automatically comes into view. This second body...

... will be known from the outside now. If you know the first body from the inside, then you will become aware of the second body from the outside. From outside the first body you can never know the second body, but from inside it you can see the outside of the second body. Every body has two dimensions: the outer and the inner. Just like a wall has two sides - one looking outward and the other looking...

... inward - every body has a boundary, a wall. When you come to know the first body from the inside, you become aware of the second body from the outside. You are now in between: inside the first body and outside the second. This second body, the etheric body, is like condensed smoke. You can pass through it without any hindrance, but it is not transparent; you cannot look into it from the outside. The...

... first body is solid. The second body is just like the first as far as shape is concerned, but it is not solid. When the first body dies, the second remains alive for thirteen days. It travels with you. Then, after thirteen days, it too is dead. It disperses, evaporates. If you come to know the second body while the first is still alive, you can be aware of this happening. The second body can go out of...

... your body. Sometimes in meditation this second body goes up or down, and you have a feeling that gravitation has no pull over you; you have left the earth. But when you open your eyes, you are on the ground, and you know that you were there all the time. This feeling that you have risen comes because of the second body, not the first. For the second body there is no gravitation, so the moment you...

... know the second you feel a certain freedom that was unknown to the physical body. Now you can go outside of your body and come back. This is the second step if you want to know the experiences of your second body. And the method is not difficult. Just wish to be outside your body and you're outside it. The wish itself is the fulfillment. For the second body no effort has to be made because there is...

... no gravitational pull. The difficulty for the first body is because of the gravitational force. If I want to come to your house, I will have to fight with the gravitational force. But if there is no gravitation, then the simple desire will be enough. The thing will happen. The etheric body is the body that is put to work in hypnosis. The first body is not involved in hypnosis; it is the second body...

.... That is why a person with perfect vision can go blind. If the hypnotist says that you have gone blind, you become blind just by believing it. It is the etheric body that has been influenced; the suggestion goes to the etheric body. If you are in a deep trance, your second body can be influenced. A person who is alright can be paralyzed just by suggesting to him that "you are paralyzed." A...

... hypnotist must not use any language that creates doubt. If he says, "It appears that you have gone blind," it will not work. He must be absolutely certain about it. Only then will the suggestion work. So in the second body just say: "I am outside the body." Just wish to be outside it, and you will be outside it. Ordinary sleep belongs to the first body. It is the first body - exhausted...

... by the day's labor, work, tension - relaxing. In hypnosis, it is the second body that is put to sleep. If it is put to sleep, you can work with it. When you get any disease, seventy-five percent of it comes from the second body and spreads to the first. The second body is so suggestible that first year medical students always catch the same disease that is being studied. They begin to have the...

... symptoms. If headache is being discussed, unknowingly everyone goes inside and begins to ask, "Do I have a headache? Do I have these symptoms?" Because going inward affects the etheric body, the suggestion is caught and a headache is projected, created. The pain of childbirth is not of the first body; it is of the second. So through hypnosis, childbirth can be made absolutely painless - just by...

... suggestion. There are primitive societies in which women do not feel labor pains because the possibility has never entered their minds. But every type of civilization creates common suggestions that then become part and parcel of everybody's expectations. Under hypnosis there is no pain. Even surgery can be done under hypnosis without any pain because if the second body gets the suggestion that there will...

... be no pain then there is no pain. As far as I am concerned, every type of pain, and every type of pleasure too, comes from the second body and spreads to the first. So if the suggestion changes, the same thing that has been painful can become pleasurable, and vice versa. Change the suggestion, change the etheric mind, and everything will be changed. Just wish totally and it will happen. Totality is...

... the only difference between wish and will. When you have wished something totally, completely, with your whole mind, it becomes willpower. If you wish totally to go outside of your physiological body, you can go outside it. Then there is a possibility of knowing the second body from within, otherwise not. When you go outside your physical body, you are no longer in between: inside the first and...

... outside the second. Now you are inside the second. The first body is not. Now you can become aware of your second body from the inside, just as you became aware of your first body from the inside. Be aware of its inner workings, its inner mechanism, the inner life. The first time you try it is difficult, but after that you will always be within two bodies: the first and the second. Your point of...

... not even the cosmic. The fourth body is absolutely wall-less. From inside the third body, there is not even a transparent wall. It is just a boundary, wall-less, so there is no difficulty in entering and no need of any method. So one who has achieved the third can achieve the fourth very easily. But to go beyond the fourth, there is as much difficulty as there was in going beyond the first, because...

... now the mental ceases. The fifth is the spiritual body. Before it can be reached there is again a wall, but not in the same sense as there was a wall between the first body and the second. The wall is between different dimensions now. It is of a different plane. The four lower bodies were all concerned with one plane. The division was horizontal. Now, it is vertical. So the wall between the fourth...

... and the fifth is bigger than between any two of the lower bodies - because our ordinary way of looking is horizontal, not vertical. We look from side to side, not up and down. But the movement from the fourth body to the fifth is from a lower plane to a higher plane. The difference is not between outside and inside but between up and down. Not unless you begin to look upward can you move into the...

... fifth. The mind always looks downward. That is why yoga is against the mind. The mind flows downward just like water. Water has never been made the symbol of any spiritual system because its intrinsic nature is to flow downward. Fire has been the symbol of so many systems. Fire goes upward; it never goes downward. So in moving from the fourth body to the fifth body, fire is the symbol. One must look...

... even inward vision happens. If you turn your eyes upward, then your vision too goes upward. Raja yoga begins with the fourth body. Only hatha yoga begins with the first body; other yogas begin from somewhere else. Theosophy begins from the second body, and other systems begin from the third. As civilization goes on progressing to the fourth body, many persons will be able to begin from there. But...

... last body that it is possible to begin from. There are four yogas: hatha yoga for the first body, mantra yoga for the second, bhakti yoga for the third, and raja yoga for the fourth. In ancient days, everybody had to begin with the first body, but now there are so many types of people: one has worked up to the second body in a previous life, another up to the third, et cetera. But as far as dreaming...

... is concerned, one must begin from the first body. Only then can you know the whole range of it, the whole spectrum of it. So in the fourth body, your consciousness must become like fire - going upward. There are many ways to check this. For example, if the mind is flowing toward sex it is just like water flowing downward, because the sex center is downward. In the fourth body one must begin...

... with the third body and the transcendence of it. The coolness of the perfume, and the particular spot where it is placed, becomes an upward attraction, a remembrance of the third eye. If you close your eyes and I place my finger at your third eye spot, I am not really touching your third eye itself, but you will still begin to feel it. Even this much pressure is enough. Scarcely a touch, just a...

... gentle fingering. So the perfume, the delicate touch of it and its coolness, is enough. Then your attention is always flowing from your eyes to the third eye. So to cross the fourth body there is only one technique, one method, and that is to look upward. Shirshasan, the headstand, the reverse position of the body, was used as a method to do this because our eyes are ordinarily looking downward. If you...

... changes direction they will feel uncomfortable. When they begin to stand on their heads they will feel at ease again, because the flow of energy will again be moving downward. But it will not really be moving downward. In relation to your centers, your chakras, the energy will still be moving upward. So shirshasan has been used as a method to take you from the fourth body to the fifth. The main thing to...

... outside and looking inside; standing outside and looking upward. Your whole system must be in harmony. If you have not known your physical body from the inside, then your consciousness should be facing downward. That will be healthy; the adjustment is right. You must never try to turn the outward moving mind upward or schizophrenia, division, will be the result. Our civilizations, our religions, have...

... been the basic cause for humanity's split personality. They have not been concerned with the total harmony. There are teachers who teach methods to move upward to persons who are not even inside their own physical body. The method begins to work and part of the person remains outside his body while a second part moves upward. Then there will be a split between the two. He will become two persons...

...: sometimes this, sometimes that; a Jekyll and Hyde. There is every possibility that a person can become seven people simultaneously. Then the split is complete. He has become seven different energies. One part of him is moving downward, clinging to the first body; another is clinging to the second; another to the third. One part is going upward; another is going somewhere else. He has no center in him at...

...; you know the way. In a moment, they come before you. You recognize them - and you have passed them! Then you can go further. So my insistence is always to begin from the first body. For everyone! To move from the fourth body is the most significant thing. Up to the fourth body you are human. Now you become superhuman. In the first body you are just an animal. Only with the second body does humanity...

... come into being. And only in the fourth does it flower completely. Civilization has never gone beyond the fourth. Beyond the fourth is beyond the human. We cannot classify Christ as a human being. A Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna, are beyond the human. They are superhuman. The upward look is a jump from the fourth body. When I am looking at my first body from outside it, I am just an animal with the...

... possibility of being human. The only difference is that I can become human and the animal cannot. As far as the present situation is concerned, we are both below humanity, subhuman. But I have a possibility to go beyond. And from the second body onward, the flowering of the human being happens. Even someone in the fourth body looks superhuman to us. They are not. An Einstein or a Voltaire looks superhuman...

..., but they are not. They are the complete flowering of the human being and we are below human, so they are above us. But they are not above the human. Only a Buddha, a Christ or a Zarathustra is more than human. By looking upward, by raising their consciousness upward from the fourth body, they have crossed the boundary of the mind; they have transcended the mental body. There are parables worth our...

... upward, the spot feels fiery, as if everything is burning. Because of that burning, you are transformed. The lower being is burnt, it ceases to be, and the upper being is born. That is the meaning of "passing through fire." After the fifth body you move into still another realm, another dimension. From the first body to the fourth body the movement is from outside to inside; from the fourth...

... body is there a center: a unity, oneness. But the center becomes the ego. Now this center will be a hindrance for further progress. Every step that was a help becomes a hindrance for further progress. You have to leave every bridge you cross. It was helpful in crossing, but it will become a hindrance if you cling to it. Up to the fifth body, a center has to be created. Gurdjieff says this fifth...

... center is the crystallization. Now there are no servants; the master has taken charge. Now the master is the master. He is awakened; he has come back. When the master is present, the servants subside; they become silent. So when you enter the fifth body, crystallization of the ego happens. But now, for further progress, this crystallization must be lost again. Lost into the void, into the cosmic. Only...

... one who has can lose, so to talk about egolessness before the fifth body is nonsense, absurd. You do not have an ego, so how can you lose it? Or you can say that you have many egos, every servant has an ego. You are multi-egoistic, a multi-personality, a multi-psyche, but not a unified ego. You cannot lose the ego because you do not have it. A rich man can renounce his riches, but not a poor one. He...

... has nothing to renounce, nothing to lose. But there are poor people who think about renunciation. A rich person is afraid of renunciation because he has something to lose, but a poor one is always ready to renounce. He is ready, but he has nothing to renounce. The fifth body is the richest. It is the culmination of all that is possible for a human being. The fifth is the peak of individuality, the...

... barrier to it. It goes on and on, and goes beyond. So from the fifth body the question is not of upward, downward, sideways, inside, outside. The question is whether to be with an ego or without an ego. And the ego is the most difficult thing of all to lose. The ego is not a problem up to the fifth body because progress is ego-fulfilling. No one wants to be schizophrenic; everyone would prefer to have a...

... crystallized personality. So every sadhaka, every seeker, can progress to the fifth body. There is no method to move beyond the fifth body because every type of method is bound with the ego. The moment you use a method, the ego is strengthened. So those who are concerned with going beyond the fifth, talk of no-method. They talk of methodlessness, of no-technique. Now there is no how. From the fifth, there is...

... no method possible. You can use a method up to the fifth, but then no method will be of use because the user is to be lost. If you use anything, the user will become stronger. His ego will go on crystallizing; it will become a nucleus of crystallization. That is why those who have remained in the fifth body say there are infinite souls, infinite spirits. They think of each spirit as if it were an...

... atom. Two atoms cannot meet. They are windowless, doorless; closed to everything outside themselves. Ego is windowless. You can use a word of Leibnitz: 'monads'. Those who remain in the fifth body become monads: windowless atoms. Now you are alone, and alone, and alone. But this crystallized ego has to be lost. How to lose it when there is no method? How to go beyond it when there is no path? How to...

... is to be saved and the bottle also. So what to do?" This is the question of the fifth body. When there is no way out and the goose is growing, when the crystallization has become consolidated, what to do now? The seeker goes inside a room, closes the door and begins to puzzle over it. What to do? Only two things seem to be possible: either to destroy the bottle and save the goose, or to let...

...!" The teacher never asks how, because the whole thing is just nonsense. So to move from the fifth body, the problem becomes a Zen koan. One should just be aware of the crystallization - and the goose is out! A moment comes when you are out; there is no "I." The crystallization has been gained and lost. For the fifth, crystallization - the center, the ego - was essential. As a passage...

..., as a bridge, it was a necessity; otherwise the fifth body could not be crossed. But now it is no longer needed. There are persons who have achieved the fifth without passing through the fourth. A person who has many riches has achieved the fifth; he has crystallized in a way. A person who has become president of a country has crystallized in a way. A Hitler, a Mussolini, are crystallized in a way...

.... But the crystallization is in the fifth body. If the four lower bodies are not in accordance with it, then the crystallization becomes a disease. Mahavira and Buddha are crystallized too, but their crystallization is different. We all long to fulfill the ego because of an innermost need to reach the fifth body. But if we choose a shortcut, then in the end we will be lost. The shortest way is through...

... West, they are the masters of the world; they have everything. But the ego has become crystallized through the wrong process. It has not developed through the transcendence of the first four bodies. So Zen has become appealing to the West but it will not help because the crystallization is wrong. Gurdjieff is much more helpful to the West because he works from the first body to the fifth. He is not...

... almost meaningless in Japan. The reason is that Japan has become absolutely Western. Once the Japanese were the most humble people, but now their humbleness is just a show. It is no longer part of their innermost core. So Zen has been uprooted in Japan and is popular now in the West. But this popularity is only because of the false crystallization of the ego. From the fifth body to the sixth, Zen is...

... very helpful. But only then, neither before nor beyond. It is absolutely useless for the other bodies, even harmful. To teach university level courses in the primary school not only does not help; it may be harmful. If Zen is used before the fifth body you may experience satori, but that is not samadhi. Satori is a false samadhi. It is a glimpse of samadhi, but it is just a glimpse. As far as the...

... fourth body - the mental body - is concerned, satori will make you more artistic, more aesthetic. It will create a sense of beauty in you; it will create a feeling of well-being. But it will not be a help in crystallization. It will not help you to move from the fourth body to the fifth. Only beyond crystallization is Zen helpful. The goose is out of the bottle, without any how. But only at this point...

... long effort. Labor and effort are necessary; they are needed. But they have a limitation. They are needed up to the fifth body, but they are useless from the fifth to the sixth. You will go nowhere; the goose will never be out. That is the problem with Indian yogis. They find it difficult to cross the fifth because they are method- enchanted, method-hypnotized. They have always worked with method...

... and doing nothing! It is inconceivable. A Gandhi cannot conceive of it. He says, "I will spin my wheel. Something must be done. This is my prayer, my meditation." Non-doing to him means doing nothing. Non-doing has its own realm, its own bliss, its own adjustment, but that is from the fifth body to the sixth. It cannot be understood before that. From the sixth to the seventh, there is not...

... cannot be lost, even in the seventh. The seventh is total nonbeing: nirvana, emptiness, non-existence. There is no possibility of any continuity in moving from existence to non-existence. It is just a jump, uncaused. If it were caused there would be a continuity, and it would be just like the sixth body. So to move from the sixth body to the seventh cannot even be talked about. It is a discontinuity, a...

... gap. Something was, and something now is - and there is no connection between the two. Something has just ceased, and something has just come in. There is no relationship between them. It is as if a guest has left from one door and another guest has entered from the other side. There is no relationship between the going of one and the coming of the other. They are unrelated. The seventh body is the...

... seventh body. No teacher can say he has known about the seventh because the moment you say it you lose touch with it. Once you have known it, you cannot say. Up to the sixth body symbols can be expressive, but there is no symbol for the seventh. It is just an emptiness. There is a temple in China that is totally empty. There is nothing in it: no image, no scriptures, nothing. It is just bare, naked...

... you can cross into the seventh by and by. Begin from the physical and work through the etheric. Then the astral, the mental, the spiritual. Up to the fifth you can work and then, from the fifth on, just be aware. Doing is not important then; consciousness is important. And finally, from the sixth to the seventh, even consciousness is not important. Only is-ness, being. This is the potentiality of...

... is known as the subtle body. That second body is just a body behind this body, and Indian psychology says - and Indian yoga has experimented for centuries and has come upon many, many facts - that in a deep dream your subtle body can move out of your body. It can go, it can move, it can travel. Now in the West also, astral traveling has become a prominent thing to be studied. Astral projection...

... - how to project your astral body, how to move out from your body - is now an accepted fact of parapsychology. But only now is it accepted - and that too, not universally; only parapsychologists accept it - that a subtle phenomenon, a subtle body can go out from this body, and move, and travel. This sutra says that dreaming is concerned with the second body, not with this body which is known to us...

... Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. URGED BY THESE ACTS DONE IN PREVIOUS BIRTHS, THE JIVA AGAIN COMES BACK FROM THE DEEP SLEEP TO THE DREAM OR THE WAKEFUL STATE. THE JIVA, EMBODIED SOUL, THUS BORN IN THE THREE CITIES - GROSS, SUBTLE, AND CAUSAL BODY; FROM WHERE ALL DIVERSITIES HAVE SPRUNG UP. WHEN THESE THREE BODIES HAVE DISSOLVED COMPLETELY, ONLY THEN THIS SOUL BECOMES FREE FROM MAYA, AND...

... pushed the button, and the anger is on. You are behaving in a mechanical way, not aware of what is happening; not aware that anger is coming to you, that anger is surrounding you, that anger is taking charge of your mind, of your body; that now you will be pulled and manipulated by your anger - no, not even aware. You are not aware; it just happens and you go on following a mechanical trend. This so...

... your dreaming. That is meaningful; that shows your real face. Indian psychology says that dreaming is the second state of the human mind. And it is not only a state, but it corresponds to a body also. The first state, the awake, corresponds with the gross body; it is part of the gross body, the material body that we know as the body. The second state, dreaming, corresponds to the second body, which...

.... The second body is the dreaming body; second state is dreaming, and the second body is subtle. Then there is a third state of the mind: deep sleep, or dreamless sleep - total sleep, not even a dream. This corresponds to a third body which is known as the causal body. You live in the outward world with your gross body; you live in a dream world, in a subtle world, with your subtle body. And you move...

... from one body to another, from one birth to another, from one life to another through your causal body - the third body. The causal body means the basic body. And beyond the causal is your real self. These are three bodies only, three surrounding bodies, three concentric bodies. And behind these three, and beyond them, is the center, the self, the consciousness. This sutra says that unless one is...

... situation in which you can witness all these three bodies - standing outside them - is meditation. But here, by meditation is meant training the consciousness of each body in mindfulness. Buddha has used this word "mindfulness" for meditation. He says, "Walk, but mindfully; don't just walk. Eat, but mindfully. Think, but mindfully." What is meant when I say, "Think, but mindfully...

... the doer. Go on witnessing - ANY process. Thoughts are moving in the mind - look at them, observe them and remember; remember that you are observing your thoughts. Then thoughts are somewhere like clouds in the sky, moving, and you are an observer. This observation, this witnessing, this awareness is the technique to transcend any body. But first, always begin with the gross, the waking state. If...

... you succeed in that, then you can succeed in the second; then you can become aware of your dreams. You can dream and be simultaneously aware that a dream is floating, that a dream is unfolding, that a dream is going on. And if you become aware of your dream process, then you have transcended the second body, the subtle body. And then the last and most arduous is to penetrate into deep sleep with...

... so we will start feeling the movements of the second body. When you have a clear knowledge of the working of both this very fact will create a harmony between the two. Then there is the third body - the astral body. Its movements are definitely more subtle - more subtle than fear, anger, love and hatred. It is difficult to grasp its movements unless the knowledge of the second body is complete. It...

... house we do not hear any sound. The phenomenon of the third body is yet more subtle. It can only be grasped if we begin to grasp the emotions fully. When emotions get condensed they become action. And astral vibes are subtler than the waves of emotions. That is why I will not know that you are angry with me unless you show your anger, because I can only see it when it becomes an action. But you can...

... see it well in advance. You can feel it rising in your etheric body. Now this anger that has risen has its own atoms that come from the etheric body. If these atoms do not arise you cannot be angry. You can call the astral body a collection of vibrations. You will be able to understand the different conditions of this body better with an example. We can see water and we can see hydrogen and oxygen...

... separately: there is no trace of water in oxygen; there is no trace of oxygen in water. Neither oxygen nor hydrogen has any property of water, but these two combine to form water: each has a hidden quality that manifests when they combine. Anger and love are not seen in the astral body; nor are hatred or fear. But they have vibrations which become manifested when combined with the second body. So when you...

... you break any matter into its components, ultimately what remains is electrical energy. The different combinations of these energy vibes bring about formations of different substances. All these substances are different on the surface; deep down they are all one. If you wake up to the etheric body and follow the emotions to their origin you will suddenly find yourself in the astral body. There you...

... itself, it experiences fear, it can attack or hide and it can move. In man the third, astral body is activated. Therefore, not only does he move bodily but also with the mind: he can travel with his mind. He travels in the past as well as in the future. There is no future for the animal, and for this reason it is never worried, never tense, because all anxiety is of the future. What will happen...

... tomorrow is our greatest worry. But for animals there is no tomorrow; today is everything for them. Even today does not exist for them in a way, because what does today mean to one for whom tomorrow has no meaning? What is, is. In man a more subtle movement has taken birth - the movement of the mind. It comes from the third, astral body. Now he can think of the future with the help of the mind. He can...

..., ETHERIC AND ASTRAL BODIES FOR THE EVENT? The very first thing to be understood in this connection is that complete harmony in the first, second and third bodies is absolutely essential. If there is no harmonious connection between these three bodies kundalini awak-ening can prove harmful. There are a few things which are very necessary in order to bring about this harmony, this relationship. Firstly, as...

... long as we are unaware and insensitive towards the physical body, this body cannot establish harmony with other bodies. By insensitiveness I mean we are not fully aware of the body. When we walk we are hardly conscious of the fact that we are walking. When we stand we are hardly conscious of the fact that we are standing. When we eat we are hardly conscious of the fact that we are eating. Whatever...

... activity we do with the body we do in unawareness, like a somnambulist. If we are unaware about this body we must be doubly unaware towards the other inner bodies, because they are more subtle. If we are unaware of this gross body which is visible to the eye, the question of being aware of the invisible subtle bodies does not arise. It is impossible to be aware of them. Harmony cannot be without...

... awareness. Harmony is possible only in a state of awareness. In a state of unawareness all harmony is broken. So the first thing is to be aware of the body. With whatever small action the body performs remembering is absolutely necessary. There should be mindfulness with all that we do. As Buddha used to say, "When you walk along the road be aware that you are walking. When you lift the right leg...

... of what I am doing. Now as the hand lifts, I am fully aware that it is being lifted and that it is going in the direction of my neck to drive the fly away. That time I was talking to you; hence my action was mechanical. I committed a sin against my body." If we begin to do all our physical acts with full awareness, then the identification with the physical becomes broken. If you lift one hand...

... upward with full attention you will feel yourself apart from the hand - because the one who lifts is different from that which is lifted. The feeling of being apart from the physical body is the beginning of the awareness of the etheric body. Then, as I said before, you should be fully aware towards this second body also. Suppose there is an orchestra playing. Many types of instruments are played in an...

... there will be less sound and more silence in it - because the notes are very small compared to the silence that joins them. The sounds have only one use - to give a hint of the emptiness, the silence, and then to depart. The deeper you move in music, the deeper will become your sense of silence. The purpose of our physical body is only that it gives us a perception of our more subtle bodies, but we...

... never use it to this end. We remain fixed only at the physical body because of our sleepy identification with it. We are asleep; and thus we live in the body in a very unconscious manner. If you become aware of each and every action of this body you will begin to feel the presence of the second body. The second body too has its own activity, but you will not know the etheric until you have become...

... fully aware of the activities of the physical body, as the etheric is more subtle. If you are fully aware of the activities of the physical body you will begin to feel the movements of the second body. Then you will be surprised that there are etheric vibrations within you that are active all the time. A man becomes angry. Anger is born in the etheric body but it manifests in the first body. Basically...

..., anger is the activity of the second body; the first body is used as a medium for expression. Therefore, you can stop anger from reaching the first body if you wish. This is what is done in repression. Suppose I am filled with anger: I feel like beating you with a stick but I can stop myself. Beating is an activity of the first plane. Basically, there is anger but now there is no manifestation of anger...

.... I can withhold myself from the act of beating; I can even smile at you if I wish. But within anger has spread throughout my second body. So in repression what happens is that we hold back on the plane of manifestation, but it is already present at its original source. When you begin to be aware of the processes of the physical body you will begin to understand the movements of love, anger and...

... hatred within you; you will become aware of their presence. Until you grasp the movements of these emotions that rise from the second body, all you can do is repress them. You cannot be free from them because you only become aware of them when they have reached the first body - and not even then many times: often you only become aware of them when they have reached another person's body. We are so...

... insensitive that not until your slap reaches someone's cheek do you realize what you have done. After the slap you come to know that something has happened. All emotions rise from the etheric body. Therefore, I also call the second, etheric body the emotional body. It has its own momentum; it has its own movements for anger, love, hatred, restlessness. You will come to know these vibrations. In fear the...

... etheric body shrinks. The process of shrinking we feel in fear does not belong to the first body. The first body remains just the same; there is no change in it whatsoever. But the effect of this contraction of the etheric body becomes evident in the person's walk, in the way he sits. He looks subdued all the time. He will not stand straight. When he speaks he will stammer. His legs will shake when he...

... walks; his hands will tremble when he writes. Now anyone can recognize the difference between the handwriting of a man and a woman; it is not at all difficult. A woman's handwriting will never be straight. No matter how symmetrical and well formed, there will always be signs of trembling in it. This is a very feminine characteristic and it comes from a woman's body. A woman is fearful all the time...

...; her personality has become stricken with fear. So without any difficulty one can recognize the handwriting of a woman from a man's. Also, we can find out how fearful a man is from his handwriting. There is no difference between the fingers of a man or a woman, nor in the way they hold the pen. As far as the first body goes there is no difference between the two, but on the plane of the second body...

.... The state of fear is on the plane of the etheric. I have told you to be aware of each happening in the gross body, but you should likewise be aware of the processes of the etheric body. When you are in love you feel as if you have expanded. The freedom experienced in love is because of this expansion. Now there is someone before whom you need not be fearful. There is no cause for fear near a person...

... you love. Really speaking, to love means to be free of fear in the presence of a person before whom one can blossom to one's full capacity, no matter what one is. Therefore, a feeling of expansion is experienced in moments of love. The physical body remains the same, but the etheric body within flowers and expands. In meditation there are always experiences of etheric body. One meditator may feel...

... that his body has expanded - so much so that it has filled the room. However, his physical body remains the same. When he opens his eyes he is shocked: the body is just the same. But the feeling of the experience follows him and makes him realize that what he had felt was not false. The experience was clear - that he had filled the whole room. This is a happening of the etheric body; the...

... possibilities of its expansion are limitless. It also expands and contracts according to the emotions. It can expand so that it can fill the earth; it can contract so that there is enough place for it in an atom. So you will start noticing the movements of the etheric body - its expansions and contractions, in which situations it contracts and in which situations it expands. If the meditator begins to live in...

... those processes in which it expands a harmony will be created. If he begins to live in the conditions that make it shrink harmony will not be established between the two bodies. Expansion is its innate nature. When it has expanded to its full capacity, when it blossoms fully, it is connected to the first body by a bridge. When it becomes fearful and shrinks, all its contacts with the first body break...

... and it lies separate in a corner. There are other processes of the second body which can be known by other methods. For instance, you see a man perfectly healthy, perfectly normal. Now if someone tells him he has been given a death sentence he will turn pale at once. No change has taken place in his first body but there is an immediate change in his etheric body. His etheric body is ready to leave...

... the physical body. If the owner of a house comes to know that he has to vacate the house immediately all joyfulness and lightness will disappear; everything will be disturbed. The second body has broken its connections with the first, in a sense. The execution is to take place after some time or maybe not at all, but his connection with the first body is broken. A man attacks you with a gun or a...

... lion attacks you in the jungle: even though nothing has yet happened to the physical body, the etheric body promptly makes arrangements to leave it and a great distance is created between the two. So you can observe the workings of the second body in a subtle way, and this can be done without difficulty. The difficulty lies in this, that we fail to observe the processes of the physical also. If we do...

... is difficult even to understand the third body from the first body because the gap is now greater; we are unconscious on the first plane. The second body is nearer the first so we can understand a few things about it. It is just as if the second body is our neighbor: sometimes we hear the clatter of pots or the crying of a child next door. But the third body is the neighbor's neighbor from whose...

... are completely aware of the second body, when you are completely alert about your anger, then you will know that some reactions have taken place before the advent of anger. In other words, anger is not the beginning. It is the next part of a happening that has already taken place elsewhere. A bubble rises from the bottom of a lake and begins to travel upwards. When it rises from the sand at the...

... down. Then it came nearer the surface from where we could see it although it was still very small. Then it swam to the surface where we could see its totality - but then it burst. So the bubble of anger develops fully and bursts by the time it reaches the first body. When it comes to the surface it reveals itself. You can stop it at the second body if you so desire but that would be suppression. If...

... you look into your etheric body you will be surprised to find that it has already traveled some distance. But in its place of origin it is in the form of energy vibrations. As I told you before there are no different types of matter; rather, there are different combinations of the same energy particles. Coal and diamond are the same: the difference is only in the combination of energy particles. If...

... conflicting emotions in the third body. A man comes and touches my feet in the morning and hails me as the blessed one - beloved master. The same man comes in the evening, abuses me and says, "This man is the devil himself." The next morning he again comes and addresses me as beloved master and touches my feet. Then others come and advise me not to pay any attention to his words as sometimes he...

... what he means. It is possible that this man has fever and the room feels cold to him though it is not at all cold. Therefore, until this man knows the condition of his body temperature his assessment of the temperature of the room is meaningless. So we can say, "Do not comment upon whether the room is hot or cold. Just say what is the temperature of the room." The degree gives no indication...

... of hot or cold; it only informs you what the temperature is. If the temperature is less than your body temperature you will feel cold; if it is more you will feel hot. The same is true for light and darkness: it depends upon our ability to see. The night seems dark to us but not to the owl. The owl finds the day very dark. It must be wondering, "How strange a creature man is! He keeps awake in...

... trunk of the tree. Then he will laugh at his stupidity for trying to destroy one in order to keep the other. But then he did not know that this was impossible and that deep down the tree was the same. But only after awakening to the second plane can the third plane be known, because the third body has very subtle vibrations. There, there are no emotions - only vibrations. If you come to understand the...

... vibrations of the third body you will begin to have a unique experience. Then you will be able to tell directly on seeing a person what vibrations surround him. Because you are not aware of your own vibrations it is not possible for you to recognize those of another person; otherwise, the vibrations emanating from the third body are gathered around every person's head. The halo depicted in pictures of...

... Buddha, Mahavira, Rama and Krishna is the aura seen around their heads. These have special colors which have been detected. If you have the right experience of the third body you will begin to see these colors. When you begin to see these colors you will see not only your own but those of others as well. In fact, the deeper we begin to see ourselves, the deeper we begin to see inside others also - to...

... the same extent. Because we know only our own physical body we know only the physical bodies of others. The day we come to know our own etheric body we will begin to be aware of the etheric bodies in others. Before you become angry you can know well in advance that you are going to be angry. Before you express love it can be easily predicted that you are making preparations for love. So what we call...

... getting to know the feelings of others is not such a great thing after all. By becoming aware of one's own emotional body it becomes easy to grasp the feelings of others, because we begin to see all its variations. By awakening into the third plane things become very clear, because then we can see the colors of the personality also. The colors of the clothes of sadhus and sannyasins were chosen by the...

... color seen from the third body. The choice was different in each case according to which body was emphasized. For instance, Buddha chose yellow because he stressed the seventh body. The aura around the person who has attained to the seventh plane is yellow; therefore, Buddha chose the color yellow for his bhikkhus. It was because of this color that Buddhist bhikkhus found it difficult to remain in...

... of the aura of the sixth body: it is the color of the rising sun. The Jainas chose white, which is the color of the fifth body - the spiritual body. The Jainas insist on leaving God alone - on leaving God out of discussion and on leaving nirvana out of discussion - because scientific discussions are possible only up to the fifth body. Mahavira was a scientifically- minded man. Therefore, he talked...

... you give a hint of what is happening within your third body. Now it is an interesting fact that if the color that emanates from your third body is grasped, and if your preference of color is then tested, it will turn out to be the same color: you will choose a color similar to the color emanating from your third body. Colors have wonderful meanings and uses. It was not known previously that colors...

... about a harmony between them. Then shaktipat of any kind will not be able to bring harmful results. The energy of shaktipat will enter your fourth body through the harmonious layers of the first three bodies; this will be the highway along which it will travel. If this path is not ready there can be many dangers. For this reason I said that the first three bodies should be strong and fit; then only...

.... Therefore, a piece of iron looks dead. Take a plant: its first body has become active, its physical body; therefore, we get the first glimpse of life in plants. Then there is the animal: his second body has become activated. Movement which does not exist in plants starts in animals. The plant puts down its roots and stays in one place always. It is not mobile because for that the second body must be...

... activated - the etheric body from which all movements come. If only the physical body is awakened it will be immobile, fixed. The plant is a fixed animal. There are some plants that move a little: that is a state between plant and animal. In many muddy areas of Africa there are certain plants that slide a distance of twenty to twenty-five feet in a year. By means of their roots they can clutch the ground...

... and let it go and thus perform movement. This is the revolutionary link between the plant and the animal. The second body has also begun to work in the animal. This does not mean that the second body has reached awareness; it only means it has become activated. The animal has no knowledge of it. Because of the second body being activated it experiences anger, it can express love, it can run, defend...

... also worry about what will be after death - where he will go, where he will not go. He also reflects upon where he was before birth. The fourth body is active in a few persons, not in all. If a person dies after his fourth body is activated he is born on the plane of the devas, the gods, where there are many possibilities for the activation of the fourth body. If the third body remains active, only...

... then does a man remain as a man. From the fourth body birth on higher planes begins. With the fourth there will be a difference that must be understood. If the fourth body is activated there is less possibility of acquiring a physical body again and more possibility of a bodiless being. But as I said, remember the difference between activation and consciousness. If the fourth body is merely activated...

... and one is not conscious we call it the plane of the pretas, evil spirits; if it is activated as well as fully conscious we call it the plane of the devas, godly spirits. This is the only difference between pretas and devas. An evil spirit is not aware that its fourth body is activated whereas a godly one is. Therefore, the preta can cause a great deal of harm both to itself and to others with the...

... activity of its fourth body, because unconsciousness can only bring harm. The deva will be the cause of many good deeds both to itself and to others, because awareness can only be beneficial. He whose fifth body becomes active goes beyond the existence of devas. The fifth is the spiritual body. On the fifth plane activation and awareness are one and the same. No one can reach the fifth plane without...

... this is the spiritual body and unawareness is meaningless so far as self is concerned. Atman means consciousness; therefore, the other name of atman is consciousness. Here unconsciousness has no meaning. So from the fifth body activation and awareness are one and the same thing, but before that the two ways are separate. The difference between male and female is there until the fourth; the difference...

... between sleeping and waking is there until the fourth. As a matter of fact, duality and conflict are there only up to the fourth body. From the fifth the nondual begins - the undivided. Unity starts from the fifth. Before this there is diversity, difference. The potential of the fifth comes neither from the plane of pretas nor from the plane of the devas. This should be understood. The fifth body is not...

... possible for pretas because theirs is an unconscious existence. They do not have that body which is necessary for awareness, and they do not have the first body which is the first step toward awareness. For this reason the preta has to return to a human form. Therefore, the human existence is in a sense at a crossroads. The plane of the devas is above it but not beyond it, because to go beyond it is...

.... The man who attains the fifth body, however, has not to go anywhere. He enters a state in which there is no longer any birth through the womb; he is not reborn through the womb of any mother. He who attains the self has ended his journey in a sense. The state in the fifth body is a state of liberation. But if he feels satisfied within himself, he can stop at this plane for an infinite number of ages...

... beginning, he can escape the danger of getting stuck in the fifth body. So if you know the full science of the seven bodies you will know that the inquiry should be complete and ultimate from the very beginning. If you start with a goal of stopping midway, then when you reach the fifth you will feel you have come to the end, to your destination, and you will miss the point. So the man of the fifth body...

... disappears in the fifth body and thus the strongest link in the chain of bondage falls. But the feeling of I-ness remains - free, independent, boundless and without any attachments. But the I-ness has its own limits. All other boundaries fade away except the boundary of I-ness. At the sixth this too drops or is transcended. The sixth is the cosmic body. The question of being born in a womb ends with the...

... fifth body, but birth still must be taken. This difference should be properly understood. One birth is from within the mother's womb and one birth is from within oneself. This is why in this country we call the brahmin, dwij - twiceborn. This term was actually used for the brahma gyani, one who knows the Brahman - the cosmic reality. To call an unenlightened person a brahmin is unnecessary. When a...

... second birth of an entirely different kind was gone through a person was called dwij - twiceborn; an enlightened person was called a brahmin. So one birth is from the womb of another and one is from one's own self. Once the fifth body is attained you cannot be born to another. Now you will have to be born through the fifth body into the sixth body. This is your journey, your own inner pregnancy, your...

... own inner birth. Now there is no connection with an external womb or with any external means of creation. Now you have no father or mother; you are the father, you are the mother, and you are the child. This is entirely an individual journey. So when a person enters the sixth body through the fifth he can be called twiceborn and not before that. He is born without the external means of creation...

... and there is no external obstruction to stop us. The cover itself is so lovable that we cannot leave it. Therefore, the rishi says, "Remove the golden covers and open the womb that makes a person twiceborn." So Brahma gyanis were called twiceborn, and by Brahma gyani is meant one who has attained the sixth body. From the fifth to the sixth the journey is one of being twiceborn. The womb is...

... and father: you obtained a body, an apparatus that will run for seventy to a hundred years. After a hundred years this instrument will not work. The day it will stop working is predestined from the moment of birth. It is not so important when it will fall; what is important is that it will fall. With birth it is decided that you will die. The womb which brought you your birth brought along your...

... death also. You have brought them both along together. In fact, death lies hidden in the birthgiving womb; there is only an interval of a hundred years. In these hundred years you will complete your journey from one end to the other and go back exactly to the place from where you came. The death of your body is received from another at the time of your birth; therefore, death is also from another. So...

... neither are you born, nor is it you who dies. In birth there was a medium and in death too the same will be the case. When you enter the sixth, cosmic body from the fifth, the spiritual body, you will be born for the first time. Then you will be self-born: your birth will be without a womb. But then self-death will at the same time await you - a wombless death also awaits you. Wherever this birth takes...

..., and those who have the slightest feel of such persons cannot place them anywhere lower than bhagwan, the blessed one. Bhagwan they are: there is nothing lacking in their being Bhagwan because they have attained the sixth, cosmic body. In this very life it is possible to enter the sixth plane through the fifth. Whenever anyone enters the sixth in this life we call him a Buddha or a Mahavira or a Rama...

... recognize that Buddha had become the master of an infinite kingdom. Those who had the eyes to see looked upon such people as a tirthankara, Bhagwan, or the son of God. They will make use of some such word to address people of the sixth body. The seventh body is never attained in this body. In this body we can at the most stand on the boundary line of the sixth body from where we can see the seventh. That...

... jump, that void, that abyss, that eternity, is visible from there, and there we can stand. Therefore, in the life of Buddha two nirvanas have been mentioned. One nirvana he attained under the bodhi tree on the banks of the river Niranjana: that was forty years before his death. This is called nirvana. That day he stood on the periphery of the sixth body - and he remained there for forty long years...

... all activities cease, where all happening ceases, that is called mahaparinirvana." As long as something keeps happening in the sixth body it is the existence; beyond this is the nonexistence. So when Buddha is not, nothing will remain. In a sense you may say he never was. He will fade away like a dream, like a line drawn on the sand, like a line drawn on water that disappears as it forms. He...

... say that there is bliss or peace; one cannot say that there is truth or falseness, light or darkness. Nothing can be said. This is the state of the seventh. Question 3 IF THE FIFTH PLANE IS ATTAINED IN THE PHYSICAL BODY, IN WHICH FORM IS THE PERSON REBORN AFTER HIS DEATH? To attain the fifth body and to be awakened is one and the same thing. Then you no longer need the initial bodies. Now you can...

... work from the fifth plane; now you are an awakened person. Hence, there is no difficulty. The initial bodies are required only up to the fourth body. If the fourth is activated and awakened the person becomes a deva - a heavenly soul. If the fourth lies idle and asleep the person enters the realm of the pretas - the evil spirits. You will have to return to the human form from both of these states...

.... Question 4 WHEN A PERSON ENTERS THE FIFTH FROM THE FOURTH PLANE, DOES HE NOT ACQUIRE A PHYSICAL BODY AGAIN AFTER DEATH? No. Question 5 IF A TIRTHANKARA DESIRES TO BE BORN, CAN HE TAKE A PHYSICAL BODY? Now this is a different matter altogether. If a tirthankara wishes to be reborn a very interesting happening takes place: that is, before death he does not discard his fourth body. There is a way and a...

... method of doing this, and that is by having the desire to be a tirthankara. So when the fourth body is falling away one desire has to be kept alive so that the fourth body does not drop. If the fourth drops birth in the physical form is impossible. Then the bridge, the connection through which you came, is no more. So the desire to be a tirthankara has to be kept alive through the fourth body. Not all...

... desire, and if it slips the matter is over. So the seed of desire that "I want to teach others" must be very strong. One must feel, "I will show others the way; I will explain to others, I must come back for others." Then the tirthankara can descend into a physical body. But this means that the fourth body has not been left yet. He steps onto the fifth but he fastens a peg in the...

... fourth body. This peg can be quickly uprooted; hence, it is a very difficult task to maintain it there. There is a process of making tirthankaras: they are made in mystery schools, it is not an individual happening. In the same manner that a school functions, a group of seekers meditate. Then from among them they find one who shows full promise of becoming a tirthankara; he can express what he knows...

..., he can impart what he knows, and he can communicate it to others. So the whole school begins to work on his fourth body. He is told to concentrate on his fourth body so that it should not disintegrate because it will be useful in the future. Thus, he will be taught ways and means of saving his fourth body. And more labor and hard work goes into saving this body than in discarding it. It is so easy...

... to let go and allow the fourth body to dissolve. When all the anchors are pulled up, when the sails are all drawn and filled with the wind, when the vast ocean calls and there is bliss and bliss everywhere, you can imagine how difficult it must be to guard one small peg. It is for this reason that when we address a tirthankara we say: "You are most compassionate." This was the only reason...

... fourth body, but all efforts failed. Other persons had a hand in this effort. There were also the hands of higher souls behind this - of persons of the sixth and the fifth planes, and awakened ones of the fourth plane. Thousands took part in it. Krishnamurti was chosen as well as a few other children who showed promise of becoming tirthankaras, but the opportunity passed away without bearing fruit. The...

... human body. A roseflower: you can pluck a petal and Kirlian can say which petal has been taken out -- his photograph will show the missing petal's electric aura. So what is happening to you is that as you become silent, you start becoming aware of your inner being -- which is surrounded by a light. The ancients have called it the astral body, the body of light, the body made of starlight -- that is...

... is the mental body. The third body is the astral body. One becomes enlightened when one transcends the mental body. The astral body consists only of pure light, just a flame with no smoke around it. Secondly, you are right: I am ready to take all the poison in the world that is driving people crazy and to drink it -- because that poison cannot make me crazy. I can relieve people from their poisons...

.... The ancientmost scriptures in the world are the VEDAS. They describe the master as death, but a death which opens the door to the divine, certainly a death which happens only to the blessed ones. It is no ordinary death, it is not the death of your body; it is the death that transforms you. Everything remains the same -- the body, the world -- yet nothing remains the same because your vision, your...

... you that the same eyes which have not found anything outside will find inside everything, a constant hallelujah. Question 3: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME? I AM OPENING MORE AND MORE, AND I HAVE THE FEELING THAT THE SHADOWS IN MY BODY ARE GRADUALLY DISAPPEARING. WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES I CAN SEE MORE LIGHT IN THE BODY. IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL, AND I FEEL SO MUCH FOR YOU -- MORE THAN I EVER FELT...

... with what your mind is saying, but to explore the new that is arising. You are feeling light. All shadows are disappearing, and a luminous body is arising within you, a body of light. The mind can accept a skeleton; it cannot accept a body of light. Mind is very primitive; it still believes in matter. Physicists have come to the conclusion that there is no matter at all; only energy exists. But the...

... you could feel the gap, the other wing of the fan would have come in and you would not feel anything, the fastness of speed would make it a solid thing. All that looks solid only looks solid. But mind is very primitive. The heart is neither primitive nor contemporary. The heart is eternal; it knows no divisions of time. So the heart can see without any doubt the body of light. In fact, that body is...

... truer than the solid body that we see -- because the body of light means the body of electrons, pure electricity. It happened after the second world war: a soldier came back home. He had been away from home for five years, and naturally he was in a hurry to meet his wife. As he hugged his wife he got a shock -- such an electric shock, he fell flat on the ground. He said, "My God, what has...

... said, "First take this bulb in your hand." He gave the woman a five-candle bulb to put in her hand, and the bulb lit up. That was the first happening of its type. The whole woman was throbbing with electricity. Because of her, research started into human electricity, and now it is an established fact that every human body has electricity. If your eyes are very perceptive, you can see the...

... electric aura around the body. As you have seen around the photos of Nanak, Kabir, Krishna, Rama, Buddha -- those circles around the faces are not fictions, they are not the imaginations of the painters; they have been seen by disciples, by meditators. And now in the Soviet Union, there is a photographer who even takes photographs.... He has developed very sensitive plates. His name is Kirlian, and...

... because of his name, his photography has become known as Kirlian photography. He has become world famous. If he takes your photo, it will not just be you but also surrounding your whole body an aura of light. And strangely enough, if somebody's hand has been cut off in an accident and Kirlian takes a photograph, the hand is not there in the photograph but the aura of the hand is still there. The...

... electrical body is still intact -- nothing has been disturbed, only the physical part has dropped. One of your fingers has been cut off for some reason, some accident; but in the photograph four fingers will show a darker photo of the physical finger with a lighter shade around it, and one finger will be simply the lighter electric shade. But the shade will still be there. And this is not only with the...

... what `astral' means. Just remember that it is not in the area of mind, and tell the mind, "This is none of your business. You do your thing." And there are many more things. Existence is not limited to the mind, it is far bigger, far more mysterious. You have all the possibilities that any mystic has ever experienced anywhere in the world, but you will have to silence your mind; otherwise...

... both sides. I would like all distinctions to disappear. Everybody should be allowed everything that is naturally possible to the person whether he is a man or a woman. And we would have a richer world consisting of richer people. Question 5: BELOVED OSHO, MAY I ASK YOU A TIBETAN QUESTION? LORD BUDDHA'S THIRD BODY HAS NOW DISAPPEARED INTO YOU. IS IT NOT CALLED THE MENTAL BODY? DOES IT MEAN THAT THE...

... WHOLE MENTAL HERITAGE OF BUDDHA, ALL HIS TEACHINGS OF MEDITATION AND INITIATION -- HIS WHOLE SYSTEM -- HAS DISSOLVED INTO YOU? DOES IT ALSO MEAN THAT YOU FREE THIS EARTHLY GLOBE FROM ALL SYSTEMS, BY SWALLOWING THEM INTO YOUR LOVE AND FRIENDLINESS? PLEASE TELL A JOKE. JAYESH IS GOING MAD! First, Jayesh, the third body does not mean the mental body. The first body is the physical body. The second body...

... angry if somebody insults you. You will talk, you will answer questions which have been taught to you before this calamity, this scientific calamity happened to you. This whole body has to be understood as a robot. Behind it is another body referred to in the esoteric schools as the astral body. The heart is part of the astral body. That's why love is such a nourishment. That's why love makes you so...

... alive. That's why love gives your legs a dance - and if you allow it to fill your robot, for the first time you will feel what life is. And behind the astral body is your real being, your immortal body. You are asking, Prabhati, if you have some spiritual passion of the heart that needs to drop away.... Don't jump ahead of yourself. All that you have to do is to drop out of your mind - and that does...

...: BELOVED MASTER, IS THERE SOME SPIRITUAL PASSION OF THE HEART THAT NEEDS TO DROP AWAY AS HAS THE DRIVING FORCE OF BODY PASSIONS? THERE IS ESSENTIALLY SUCH LONGING TO REACH MY FELLOW TRAVELERS. WHEN IT DOES NOT HAPPEN - THE NEARER THE FRIEND IS TO MY HEART, THE MORE I FALL OFF CENTER INTO AN ANGUISH THAT FEELS LIKE SOMETHING DYING IN MY HANDS OR SOMETHING LEFT UNBORN. SEEING PARADISE LOST, THE DREAM OF...

... GROWING AND SOARING UP TOGETHER WITH ANOTHER - IS THAT MY SOUL'S AGONY TO GO ASTRAY? Prem Prabhati, all passion is of the body - there is no passion of the heart. Yes, there is compassion of the heart and there is a tremendous difference between the two. Passion is lust and ugly; compassion is love, beautiful, spiritual. But people go on living in fallacies, they go on thinking their body lust is their...

... love. Mind knows nothing of love, because it does not appear in the curriculum of any university. It is not part of mathematics or physics or chemistry or geography. Love simply does not exist for the mind. Love exists in the heart. But you never reach to the heart, you remain in the body, dominated by the mind. The body has only lust; it is nothing spiritual, it is very earthly. It is simply a...

... is made so that your whole energy moves into the head and remains closed there. It never blossoms like a flower. Everybody has a heart, and certainly a right education will be divided into three parts: Education for the body - because the body has a mystery of its own. Education for the mind - because the mind has its own great strength as far as inquiry about objects is concerned. And education...

... the pumping station. The heart is part of the body, but just behind the pumping station... an invisible force. All forces are invisible. Nobody has seen electricity. Have you seen electricity? Perhaps you will think you have seen it. You have seen only the expression of electricity. It happened... The man who worked the most on the subject of electricity was Thomas Alva Edison. He had gone for a...

.... Energies cannot be seen. You can see only their effects." Edison laughed. He said, "Don't be worried. Don't look so worried. My name is Thomas Alva Edison." They said, "You are Edison? You have created so many electrical devices and you are asking this question?" He said, "I am asking because I myself have not seen what electricity is." Love is not part of your body...

... system. Love is a hidden source in the body of pure energy which can make anybody rejoice, can quench the thirst. And unless your energy called the heart, blossoms, you are not perfectly alive, you are just a robot. Mind is a computer. Just the other day I received the news that for fifteen years in Japan they have been keeping the head of a monkey without the body, wired with all kinds of nourishment...

... not mean that you have to cut your head off. That simply means the energy that you are continuously giving to the mind, you need to change its route and divert it towards the astral, the heart. The heart has no passion, but it has tremendous compassion. I am using the word 'compassion' because 'love' has been contaminated. People have used the word 'love' almost synonymously with 'lust'. Just say to...

... still in the electric body - which is the subtlest thing in you: what religions have been calling the astral body. The word ASTRAL comes from the word for star; ASTRAL means the star body, made of the light of it means the electric body. That's why the science of stars is called astrology. Now Kirlian has developed a very scientific device to predict diseases, and he predicts a hundred per cent...

... correct; and when he says: THIS disease is coming, nobody can believe it; no physician can check it anywhere, it is nowhere - because the physician can check at the most the body, and no psychiatrist can check it anywhere because he can check only the mind; it is still deeper, unmanifest, in the astral. And Kirlian says it can be treated there, and then it will never come. This seems to have a very very...

... great potentiality for the future. Some day or other every hospital is going to be experimenting with the astral body. Then only can diseases disappear completely, because they will be treated before they ever come to you, before you ever become aware that they are there. This is what Lao Tzu is saying about the innermost phenomena of your being. There also the same thing is happening. If you slow...

... ultimate, one day or other you will come to the wide river where all that you have done, all that you can do, all that you have possessed, all that you can posses, all that you have been, all that you can be: all is taken by the wide river - it moves with the flow slowly towards the ocean; and you are left totally alone, with no possession, with no body, with no mind. In that aloneness flowers the flower...

... cured but it will take time. It could have been prevented if you had become aware before it became manifest. In Soviet Russia a new photography is developing every day, a photography of very very great potential. They call it Kirlian photography. Kirlian has developed very sensitive films which can take photos of your aura, of your electric body. Through those photographs it has become possible to see...

... if you are going to be ill within six months; the photograph will show, right now today, that after six months you are going to become a victim of T.B. or something else. You are not aware of it at all, no physician could say that you are going to be ill, you may appear perfectly healthy. The disease is not yet manifest. It has not come to the physical body, it has not even come to the mind, it is...

... down the process you can see: anger is coming - you can see it. Anger has three stages: anger is there first in the seed, in the astral; if you are very very alert you can feel the coming of the storm; it has not come, it is knocking at the doors; the knock is very subtle, but it can be heard. You don't hear it because you are such a crowd within: such noise, chattering, that the subtle noise cannot...

... PRANA because it is the most foundational life; without it you cannot exist. First comes breathing - that is the first act that happens. Then many things follow. And then the last act is also with the breath - when the breath leaves the body. Birth begins with breath, life ends with breath - the circle is complete. If you can watch the breath you will become transcendental to birth and death both. The...

... love, and if she is she is not a woman, she must have more male hormones in her body than are necessary for her. A woman waits. Even if she falls in love with someone she never says so. She never takes the initiative, she never goes and says: I love you. She waits. When the person says, I love you, even then she will not be too eager to say yes, because that is not feminine. That's why poets say...