... guys at Ectoplasm Arcade are offering Astral Projection Tours." "Really?" says Golden Buffalo-Grass, puffing madly. "What does it say?" "It says," replies Butterfly, "if you are an average occult freak off the street, you are probably pretty good at popping out of your body and staring at yourself. Like acid, man -- you only do it so many times, then you get...

... bored. "Wouldn't it be great if you could put your ability to some greater use than just hanging out in Nowhere's-Ville? How about a trip to the divine Deep-Space Disco, or the Big Dipper Dance Hall?" Coughing on his reefer, Butterfly reads on, "Now we introduce Astral Projection Tours. We get you to those far-out scenes where the physical body just can't make it. Pop out of your...

...-out. I'm packing right now. I'm gonna drop my body and tune into the Cosmos!" "Hey, man!" shouts Butterfly, in a cloud of smoke, "where are you going?" "Going? I'm halfway there!" shouts Buffalo-Grass, swallowing his reefer and standing on his head. "I'm gonna take my astral ass and jog with Jesus, mule ride with Mohammed, and go bowling with Buddha!" Big...

... AFFLICTIONS SOMEHOW, AND ARRIVE ON THE PATH OF LIBERATION, EVEN IF YOU ASCEND TO THE RANK OF SOVEREIGN OF A NATION, GREAT MINISTER, DEITY, SPIRIT, OR WIZARD, IT IS STILL EVANESCENT AS LIGHTNING AND MORNING DEW, LASTING ONLY FOR A WHILE. WHEN CONDITIONS MEET, EVERYTHING SURELY SEEMS TO EXIST; BUT WHEN THE CONDITIONS DISINTEGRATE -- EMPTINESS. THIS BODY IS GAINED THROUGH THE RELATIONSHIP OF FATHER AND MOTHER...

..., AND COMES FROM THEIR CONDITIONS. SOLIDITY BECOMES SKIN, FLESH, LIGAMENT, AND BONE; FLUIDITY BECOMES SPITTLE, TEARS, PUS, AND BLOOD; HEAT BECOMES WARMTH AND FLEXIBILITY; AIR BECOMES BREATH AND MOVEMENT. WHEN THESE FOUR CONDITIONS SUDDENLY ARE EXHAUSTED, THE BODY GETS COLD AND THE BREATH STOPS -- THERE IS NOTHING CALLED "ME." AT THAT TIME THIS BODY IS REALLY NOT OUR OWN; IT IS ONLY A...

... whatever you want to, because death will come. And it comes to everyone, the saint and the sinner, in a similar way; it does not make any categories. THIS BODY IS GAINED THROUGH THE RELATIONSHIP OF FATHER AND MOTHER. This type of thing can be told only by a teacher. Everybody knows this body is gained through the relationship of father and mother. And then more stupid things he goes on saying: ... AND...

... philosophy! And he is talking as if he is stating some scientific discoveries. WHEN THESE FOUR CONDITIONS SUDDENLY ARE EXHAUSTED, THE BODY GETS COLD AND THE BREATH STOPS. Great contemplation! THERE IS NOTHING CALLED "ME." AT THAT TIME THIS BODY IS REALLY NOT OUR OWN; IT IS ONLY A TEMPORARY INN. HOW CAN WE BE SO GREEDILY ATTACHED TO THIS TEMPORARY INN THAT WE IGNORE ETERNITY? CONTEMPLATING THESE...

... skinbag, and cruise to outta-sight places and meet strange beings. "Astral Projection Tours offers individual or group tours to the seven hells of Horowitz. Experience the mindless wanderings of Baba Rum-Raisin and space out for fun on Allah-Hoo Bandstand! -- all for only twenty dollars." "Wow, man! This is cool," shouts Buffalo-Grass, lighting another reefer. "This sounds far...

... all the way up. "Thank God!" sighs Pinky, eyeing Mrs. Foster. "Welcome home, girls! Anybody got a cigarette?" Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Be silent. Mind you have thrown out. Close your eyes. Feel the body to be completely frozen. Look inwards. At the very center of your being, is the door of the buddhas. Deeper ... and deeper. Without any fear, go...

... in as far as you can. You will not meet anybody on the way except yourself. And meeting with oneself is the meaning of being a buddha. One who has encountered himself, realized himself, has become centered into himself, is a buddha. This is the potential of everyone. Just a little going in. The way is very short: from mind to no-mind. To make it clear, Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Relax. Feel the body...

... kundalini awakening; that passage is not used. They use other passages, passages that do not even belong to the etheric body. Astral passages can be used. The astral body, the third body, has its own passage. The mental body, the fourth body, has its own passage. All of the seven bodies have their own passages. There are many yogas that have nothing to do with kundalini. Only hatha yoga uses kundalini as...

... not concerned with it. Kundalini has its own methodology; if you are working with a zen method, you should not be concerned with kundalini. But sometimes, even in working with another method, kundalini comes, because the seven bodies penetrate one another; they are interlinked. So if you are working with the astral body, the third body, the second body may begin to work. It may get a spark from the...

... physical body, the first body, is working for the etheric, the second body. In the same way, the etheric works for the astral, the third body, and the astral works for the mental, the fourth body. Your physical body is the door for the second body. The second body is so subtle that it cannot be concerned with the material world directly, so first your physical body transmutes every material into vital...

... traditions have developed. Buddhists talk of nine chakras, Hindus talk of seven, Tibetans talk of four - and they are all right! The root of kundalini, the passage through which kundalini passes, is also different with each individual. The more you go in, the more individual you are. For instance, in your body your face is the most individual part, and in the face the eyes are even more individual. The...

... face is more alive than any other part of the body; that is why it takes on an individuality. You may not have noticed that with a particular age - particularly with sexual maturity - your face begins to assume a shape that will continue, more or less, for the whole life. Before sexual maturity the face changes much, but with sexual maturity your individuality is fixed and given a pattern, and now...

... the face will be more or less the same. The eyes are even more alive than the face, and they are so individual that every moment they change. Unless one attains enlightenment, the eyes are never fixed. Enlightenment is another kind of maturity. With sexual maturity the face becomes fixed, but there is another maturity where the eyes become fixed. You cannot see any change in Buddha's eyes: his body...

... intellectual effort to understand beforehand; no pre-notion is needed. Not only is it not needed, but it is positively harmful. And another thing: kundalini and the chakras do not belong to your anatomy, to your physiology. Chakras and kundalini belong to your subtle body, to your sukshma sharira, not to this body, the gross body. Of course, there are corresponding spots. The chakras are part of your sukshma...

... sharira, but your physiology and anatomy have spots that correspond to them. If you feel an inner chakra, only then can you feel the corresponding spot; otherwise you can dissect the whole body, but nothing like chakras will be found. All the talk and all the so-called evidence and all the scientific claims that your gross body has something like kundalini and chakras is nonsense, absolute nonsense...

.... There are corresponding spots, but those spots can only be felt when you feel the real chakras. With the dissection of your gross body nothing can be found; there is nothing. So the question is not of anatomy. One thing more: it is not necessary to pass through chakras. It is not necessary; one can just bypass them. It is also not necessary that you will feel kundalini before enlightenment. The...

... resists; then I will feel the movement more. And in a vacuum I will not feel the movement at all - so it is relative. Buddha never talked about kundalini. It is not that there was no kundalini in his body, but the passage was so clear that there was no resistance. Thus, he never felt it. Mahavira never talked about kundalini. Because of this, a very false notion was created, and then Jainas, who...

... followed Mahavira, thought that kundalini was all nonsense, that there was nothing like it. Thus, because Mahavira himself did not feel kundalini, twenty-five centuries of Jaina tradition has continued to deny it, claiming it does not exist. But Mahavira's reason for not talking about it was very different. Because there were no blocks in his body, he never felt it. So it is not necessary for you to feel...

... that; it has been done, it is not impossible, but it is futile. Thirty years of training just to control the movement of the blood is meaningless and stupid because with the control comes nothing. The blood circulation is nonvoluntary; your will is not needed. You take food and the moment it goes in, your will is not needed: the body machinery, the body mechanism, has taken over, and it goes on doing...

... whatever is needed. Your sleep is not voluntary, your birth is not voluntary, your death is not voluntary. These are nonvoluntary mechanisms. Kundalini is still deeper, deeper than your death, deeper than your birth, deeper than your blood, because kundalini is a circulation of your second body. Blood is the circulation of your physiological body; kundalini is the circulation of your etheric body. It is...

... was not the case at all. The biological, natural flow is downward; the spiritual flow is upward. And the whole organism is meant for the downward flow. You may begin to feel many changes in the body, but the first changes will come in the subtle body. Meditation is just the means to create a bridge from the gross to the subtle. When I say "meditation" I mean only that: if you can jump out...

... of your gross body - that is what is meant by meditation. But to take this jump you will need the help of your gross body; you will have to use it as a stepping stone. From any extreme point, you can take the jump. Fasting has been used to take one to an extreme. With long, continuous fasting, you come to the verge. The human body can ordinarily sustain a ninety-day fast, but then, the moment the...

... body is completely exhausted, the moment the reservoir that has been accumulated for emergencies has been depleted - at that moment, one of two things is possible. If you do nothing, death may occur, but if you use this moment for meditation, the jump may occur. If you do not do anything, if you just go on fasting, death may occur. Then it will be a suicide. Mahavira, who experimented more deeply...

... the only man - the only one - who has said that if you have the courage, even suicide can be used for your spiritual progress. From any verge point the jump is possible. Sufis have used dancing. A moment comes in dancing when you begin to feel unearthly. With a real Sufi dancer, even the audience begins to feel unearthly. Through body movements, rhythmic movements, the dancer soon begins to feel...

... that he is different from the body, separate from the body. One has to begin the movement but soon a nonvoluntary mechanism of the body takes over. You begin, but if the end is also yours then the dancing was just ordinary dancing. But if you begin and by the end you feel as if somewhere in between the dancing was taken over by a nonvoluntary mechanism, then it has become a dervish dance. You move so...

... fast that the body shakes and becomes nonvoluntary. That is the point where you can go crazy or you can jump. You may go mad, because a nonvoluntary mechanism has taken over your body movement. It is beyond your control: you cannot do anything. You may just go mad and never be able to come back again from this nonvoluntary movement. This is the point where there is either madness or, if you know the...

... meditation can happen. It always happens on the verge; that is why mystics have always used the term "the sword's edge." Either madness may happen or meditation may happen, and every method uses your body as a sword's edge from which either one or the other is possible. Then what is the technique to jump into meditation? I have talked about two: fasting and dancing. All techniques of meditation...

... located in the physical body. They belong to the etheric body, but they have corresponding points within the physical body. It is like when you feel love and you put your hand on your heart. Nothing like "love" is there, but your heart, your physical heart, is a corresponding point. When you put your hand on your heart, you are putting your hand at the chakra that belongs to the etheric body...

..., and this point is approximately parallel to your physical heart. Kundalini is part of the etheric body, so whatever you achieve as progress on the path of kundalini does not die with your physical body; it goes with you. Whatever is achieved will remain with you because it is not a part of your physical body. If it were a part of your physical body, then with each death it would be lost and you...

... would have to begin from the very beginning. But if someone reaches the third chakra, this progress will remain with him in his next life. It will go with him; it is stored in the etheric body. When I say that the life energy goes through kundalini, I mean kundalini as a passage - the whole passage connecting the seven chakras. These chakras are not in the physical body, so everything that can be said...

... about kundalini is being said about the etheric body. When the life force passes through kundalini, the chakras will begin to vibrate and flower. The moment energy comes to them, they become alive. It is just like when hydro-electricity is created; the force and pressure of the water rotate the dynamo. If there were no pressure and no water, the dynamo would stop; it would not work. The dynamo rotates...

... have their own preparations. Tantric or occult methods are not kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga is only one of so many methods, but it is better to be concerned with just one. The Dynamic Meditation method that I am using is concerned with kundalini. It is easier to work with kundalini because it is the second body that you are concerned with. The more deeply you go - with the third or the fourth body...

... - the more difficult it becomes. The second body is the nearest one to your physical body, and there are corresponding points in your physical body, so it is easier. If you work with the third body, the corresponding points are in the second body. If you work with the fourth, the corresponding points are in the third. Then your physical body is not concerned; you cannot feel anything at all in your...

... physical body. But with kundalini you can feel each step accurately, and you know where you are. Then you are more confident. With the other methods you will have to learn techniques that will help you to feel the corresponding points in the second body or in the third body, and that takes its own time. The other methods will deny kundalini, but their denial is not correct; they deny it because they are...

... third. The opposite is not possible. If you are working with the second body, the third body will not get ignited because the second is lower than the third. But if you are working with the third, you are creating energy that can come to the second without any effort on your part. Energy flows to lower fields. Your second body is lower than the third, so energy generated in the third may sometimes...

... methods will deny kundalini completely. They will say it is nonsense; they will say it is imagination; they will say you are just projecting: "Do not be concerned with it, do not be attentive to it." And if you are not attentive to it and you go on working on the third body, by and by the kundalini will stop. Energy will no longer come to the second body. Then it is better. So if you are...

... because breath, accompanied by prana, the life energy, is concerned with the etheric body, the second body. It, too, is not concerned with your physical body. It is being taken from your physical body, it is being drawn from your physical body, but your physical body is just the door. Prana is concerned with the etheric body. The lungs are doing the breathing, but doing it for the etheric body. Your...

... forms; then these can become food for the second body. Everything taken from the senses gets transformed into vital forms; this then becomes food for the second body. Then the second body transforms this into even more subtle forms, and this becomes food for the third body. It is like this: you cannot eat mud, but in vegetables the elements of the mud are transformed; then it can be eaten. The...

... vegetable world transforms the mud into a living, subtle form; now you can take it in. You cannot eat grass; a cow does it for you. It goes into the cow, and the cow transforms it into milk; then you can take it, you can drink the milk. Just like this your first body takes matter into it, transforming it into vital forms; then the second body takes it. Breath is being taken by your lungs: the lungs are...

... machines, working for the second body. If the second body dies, the lungs remain all right, but there is no breathing; breath has gone. The second body is the master of the first body, and the third body is the master of the second body. Every lower body is a servant to the upper one. So awareness of breathing is helpful in kundalini practice. It generates energy; it conserves energy and helps the life...

... force to go upward. My whole method is concerned with kundalini. Once the method has been grasped, everything can be done by it. Now, nothing more is needed. The last chakra, the sahasrar, can be reached through any method. Sahasrar and brahma randhra are the names given to the seventh chakra in kundalini yoga. If you do not work on kundalini, if you work on the third body, then too you will reach...

... deeper but not thrown out, so that will not help. Once the oxygen is more than the carbon dioxide, one is awake. That's what, chemically, awakening is, so nothing is better than pranayama. So just two or three minutes of exhalation and they will be perfectly awake. [A group member said: And there was a difficulty in astral travelling. The first night I didn't go back into my body and it didn't feel...

... desire is all. So if you are afraid, whenever you try astral travelling again, just give yourself a suggestion that after fifteen minutes of travelling, you will go back into the body, that's all. Repeat it three times and go travelling, and after fifteen minutes you will immediately find yourself back in the body. There is nothing to worry about, but the first time it can be very scarey. Just continue...

... clock, watch, nothing. They simply suggest to themselves that they will awake at three or four o'clock, and that becomes by and by so deep-rooted that it becomes a body alarm. Suddenly you are awake and not only that, but more widely awake, all lethargy gone. So make a suggestion and tell everybody to repeat it as deeply as possible, every night, seven times. The same words have to be repeated and...

... very definite, not hesitantly. If the suggestion is hesitant, it will not help. It has to be an absolute statement. [Osho said that then, on waking, it was good to do pranayama, but without music - which the group had been using up to now. He stressed that it was important to start with exhalation, not inhalation....] When you exhale deeply, the body inhales automatically. A deep inhalation comes...

... nice.] No, it has been good. It happens sometimes that for the first time that you go out of the body, you don't know how to get in and it can create a very panicky state. But there is no problem about it. Just the idea - 'I want to get back into my body' - is the key, nothing else. Just the very desire is enough. We are in the body because of our desire to be in the body. Nothing else is holding us...

... in. That is the whole philosophy of rebirth. When you die, you are so full of desire for the body that you again enter into a womb... again another life. When a Buddha dies, he simply dies. He has no desire to enter into another body again. There is no desire so he goes on floating, far out, and he never comes into another body again. He becomes part of the invisible existence. That's what we call...

... 'nirvana', freedom. But you have desires still, so if sometimes you move out of the body, you wonder about how to enter it again. You get very frightened, but accidents have never happened because the very desire is the key. Next moment you find yourself in the body. Just one moment before it was so difficult. In fact there is no way to enter into the body. There is no gate, no lock, no key. Just the...

... bullets passing, within twenty-four hours they settle; all fear gone. They accept it; they start playing cards and bullets are passing. They drink tea and they enjoy it as they have never enjoyed it before because this may be their last cup. They joke and laugh, they dance and sing. What to do? When death is there, it is there. This is insecurity. Accept it, then it disappears. And continue astral...

... dies. That too is a greater manifestation of the same phenomenon: the incoming breath and the outgoing breath... the day and the night. In all of the seven bodies - the physical, the etheric, the astral, the mental, the spiritual, the cosmic, and the nirvanic, there will be a corresponding incoming and outgoing phenomenon. As far as the mental body is concerned, thought coming in and thought going...

... exists; it is its breath. If you become a witness to it, then you can just laugh. Then there is no enemy and no friend. Then you know it is just a natural phenomenon. If you become aware and become a witness to the second body - to the liking and disliking - then you can know the third body. The third is the astral body. Just like the "influences" of the etheric body, the astral body has...

... Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question: WHAT IS PRANA AND HOW IS IT MANIFESTED IN EACH OF THE SEVEN BODIES? Prana is energy - the living energy in us, the life in us. This life manifests itself, as far as the physical body is concerned, as the incoming and the outgoing breath. These are two opposite things. We take them as one. We say "...

... moment the incoming is just like birth and the outgoing is just like death. In a single moment both things are happening: when you take breath in, you are born; when you throw breath out, you die. In a single moment there is birth and death. This polarity is life energy coming up, going down. In the physical body, life energy takes this manifestation. Life energy is born, and after seventy years it...

... out is the same kind of phenomenon as breath coming in and breath going out. Every moment a thought comes in your mind and a thought goes out. Thought itself is energy. In the mental body the energy manifests as the coming of thought and the going of thought; in the physical body it manifests as breath coming and breath going. That is why you can change your thinking with breathing. There is a...

... correspondence. If you stop your breath from coming in, thought will be stopped from coming in. Stop your breath in your physical body and in the mental body thought will stop. And as the physical body becomes uneasy, your mental body will become uneasy. The physical body will long to breathe in; the mental body will long to take thought in. Just as breath is taken in from the outside and the air exists...

... out, that energy too is prana. In all of the seven bodies, this process exists. I am only talking now of the physical and the mental, because these two are known to us; we can understand them easily. But in every layer of your being the same thing exists. Your second body, the etheric body, has its own incoming and outgoing process. You will feel this process in each of the seven bodies, but you...

... will feel it to be just like the incoming breath and outgoing breath, because you are only acquainted with your physical body and its prana. Then you will always misunderstand. Whenever any feeling comes to you of another body or its prana you will first understand it as the coming in and the going out of breath, because this is the only experience you know. You have only known this manifestation of...

... - the attractive or the repulsive. When you are repulsed or attracted, it is your second body. And every moment the process is going on; it never stops. You are always taking influences in and then throwing them out. The other pole will always be there. If you have loved someone, then in a certain moment you will be repulsed. If you have loved someone the breath has been taken in: now it will be...

... polarities, so a friend is bound to be an enemy - and this will go on. This coming in and going out will happen up to the seventh body. No body can exist without this process - this coming in and going out. It cannot, just as the physical body cannot exist without the incoming and outgoing breath. As far as the physical body is concerned, we never take these two things as opposites, so we are not disturbed...

... about it. Life makes no distinction between the incoming breath and the outgoing breath. There is no moral distinction. There is nothing to be chosen; both are the same. The phenomenon is natural. But as far as the second body is concerned, hatred must not be there and love must be there. Then you have begun to choose. You have begun to choose, and this choice will create disturbances. That is why the...

... physical body is ordinarily more healthy than the second, the etheric, body. The etheric body is always in conflict because moral choosing has made a hell out of it. When love comes to you, you feel a wellbeing, but when hatred comes to you, you feel diseased. But it is bound to come - so a person who knows, a person who has understood the polarities, is not disappointed when it comes. A person who has...

... concerned with this. It says to just be a witness to your incoming and outgoing breath. Just be a witness, and begin from the physical body. The other six bodies are not talked about in Anapana-sati because they will come by themselves, by and by. The more you become acquainted with this polarity - with this dying and living simultaneously, with this simultaneous birth and death - the more you will become...

... aware of the second body. Toward hatred, then, Buddha says, have upeksha. Be indifferent. Whether it is hatred or it is love, be indifferent. And do not be attached to anyone, because if you are attached, what will happen to the other pole? Then you will be at a "dis-ease." Disease will be there; you will not be at ease. Buddha says, "The coming of the beloved one is welcomed, but the...

... going of the beloved one is wept over. The meeting with the one who is repulsive is a misery, and the departing of a repulsive one is bliss. But if you go on dividing yourself into these polarities, you will be in hell, living in a hell." If you just become a witness to these polarities, then you say, "This is a natural phenomenon. It is natural to the 'body' concerned" - that is, one...

... of the seven bodies. "The body exists because of this; otherwise, it cannot exist." And the moment you become aware of it, you transcend the body. If you transcend your first body, then you become aware of the second. If you transcend your second body, then you become aware of the third.... Witnessing is always beyond life and death. The breath coming in and the breath going out are two...

... things, and if you become a witness, then you are neither. Then a third force has come into being. Now you are not the manifestations of prana in the physical body: now you are the prana, the witness. Now you see that life manifests on the physical level because of this polarity, and if this polarity stops the physical body will not be there, it cannot exist. It needs tension to exist - this constant...

... tension of coming and going, this constant tension of birth and death. It exists because of this. Every moment it moves between the two poles; otherwise, it would not exist. In the second body, "love and hate" is the basic polarity. It is manifested in so many ways. The basic polarity is this liking and disliking, and every moment your liking becomes disliking and your disliking becomes liking...

... hatred for our friends. We are suppressing! We allow only one movement, only one pole, but because it comes back again, we are at ease. It returns, so we are at ease. But it is discontinuous; it is never continuous. It never can be. The vital force manifests itself as like and dislike in the second body. But it is just like breath: there is no difference. Influence is the medium here; air is the medium...

... in the physical body. The second body lives in an atmosphere of influences. It is not simply that someone comes in contact with you and you begin to like him. Even if no one comes in and you are alone in the room, you will be liking/disliking, liking/disliking. It will make no difference: the liking and disliking will go on alternating continuously. It is through this polarity that the etheric body...

..., when you have to do something difficult, you will hold your breath in. For example, if you are to lift a heavy stone, you cannot pick it up when the breath is going out. You cannot do it! But when the breath is coming in, or when the breath is held in, you can do it. Your breath corresponds to what is happening in the third body. So when the breath is going out - unless the person has been trained to...

... fool you - that is the moment when his magnetic force is going out; that is the moment to attack. And this is the secret of judo. Even a stronger person than you can be defeated if you know the secret of when he is fearful and powerless. When the magnetic force is out of him, he is bound to be powerless. The third body lives in a magnetic sphere, just like air. There are magnetic forces all around...

...: you are breathing them in and breathing them out. But if you become aware of this magnetic force that is coming and going, then you are neither powerful nor powerless. You transcend both. Then there is the fourth body, the mental body: thought pulling in and thought pulling out. But this "thought coming in" and "thought going out" has parallels, too. When thought comes to you...

... simply dead. But if you become aware of thoughts coming in and thoughts going out, then you can know the fifth body. Up to the fourth body things are not difficult to understand, because we have some experience which can become the basis to understand them. Beyond the fourth, things become very strange - but still, something can be understood. And when you transcend the fourth body you will understand...

... it more. In the fifth body... how to say it? The atmosphere for the fifth body is life - just as thought, as breath, as magnetic force, as love and hatred, are atmospheres for the lower bodies. For the fifth body, life itself is the atmosphere. So in the fifth, the coming in is a moment of life, and the going out is a moment of death. With the fifth, you become aware that life is not something that...

... is in you. It comes into you and goes out from you. Life itself is not in you; it simply comes in and goes out just like breath. That is why breath and prana became synonymous - because of the fifth body. In the fifth body, the word prana is meaningful. It is life that is coming and life that is going. And that is why the fear of death is constantly following us. You are always aware that death is...

... nearby, waiting at the corner. It is always there, waiting. This feeling of death always waiting for you - this feeling of insecurity, of death, of darkness - is concerned with the fifth body. It is a very dark feeling, very vague, because you are not completely aware of it. When you come to the fifth body and become aware of it, then you know that life and death both are just breaths to the fifth body...

... and the death force in the fifth body. Freud said somewhere that he somehow had a glimpse of this. He was not an adept in yoga, otherwise he would have understood it. He called it "the will to die," and he said every man sometimes is longing for life and sometimes is longing for death. There are two opposing wills in men: a will to live and a will to die. To the Western mind it was...

... absolutely absurd: how could these contradictory wills exist in one person? But Freud said that because suicide is possible, there must be a will to die. No animal can commit suicide, because no animal can become aware of the fifth body. Animals cannot commit suicide because they cannot become aware, they cannot know, that they are alive. To commit suicide, one thing is necessary: to be aware of life - and...

.... He knows that you cannot really kill yourself, you can only pretend to. Suicide is just a pose, because really you are neither alive nor dead. Death is on the fifth plane, in the fifth body. It is a going out of a particular energy and a coming in of a particular energy. You are the one in which this coming and going happens. If you become identified with the first, you can commit the second. If...

... you become identified with living, and if life becomes impossible, you can say, "I will commit suicide." This is the other aspect of your fifth body asserting itself. There is not a single human being who has not thought at some time to commit suicide... because death is the other side of life. This other side can become either suicide or murder: it can become either. If you are obsessed...

... you. If you kill so many persons that in the end you commit suicide, it is the projection coming back to you. In the fifth body, with life and death coming to you - with life coming and going - one cannot be attached to anyone. If you are attached, you are not accepting the polarity in its totality, and you will become ill. Up to the fourth body it was not so difficult, but to conceive of death and...

... to accept it as another aspect of life is the most difficult act. To conceive of life and death as parallel - as just the same, as two aspects of one thing - is the most difficult act. But in the fifth, this is the polarity. This is pranic existence in the fifth. With the sixth body, things become even more difficult, because the sixth is no longer life. For the sixth body... what to say? After the...

...;the creative force and the destructive force." In Hindu mythology they call these forces Brahma and Shiva. Brahma is the deity of creation, Vishnu is the deity of maintenance, and Shiva is the deity of the great death - of destruction or dissolution, where everything goes back to its original source. The sixth body is in that vast sphere of creativity and destructivity: the force of Brahma and...

... the force of Shiva. Every moment the creation comes to you, and every moment everything goes into dissolution. So when a yogi says, "I have seen the creation, and I have seen the pralaya, the end; I have seen the coming of the world into being and I have seen the returning of the world into nonbeing," he is talking about the sixth body. The ego is not there: everything that is coming in...

... into existence. And when his breath goes out, everything goes out, everything ceases: a star dies... existence moves into nonexistence. That is why I am saying that in the sixth body it is very difficult. The sixth is not egocentric; it becomes cosmic. And in the sixth body, everything about creation is known - everything that all of the religions of the world talk about. When one talks about...

... creation, he is talking about the sixth body and the knowledge concerned with it. And when one is talking of the great flood, the end, one is talking about the sixth body. With the great flood of Judeo-Christian or Babylonian mythology, or Syrian mythology, or with the pralaya of the Hindus, there is one out breath - that of the sixth body. This is a cosmic experience, not an individual one. This is a...

... cosmic experience; you are not there! The person who is in the sixth body - who has reached to the sixth body - will see everything that is dying as his own death. A Mahavira cannot kill an ant, not because of any principle of nonviolence, but because it is his death. Everything that dies is his death. When you become aware of this, of the creation and the destruction - of things coming into existence...

... every moment and things going out of existence every moment - the awareness is of the sixth body. Whenever a thing is going out of existence, something else is coming in: a sun is dying, another is being born somewhere else; this earth will die, another earth will come. We become attached even in the sixth body. "Humanity must not die!" - but everything that is born must die, even humanity...

... must die. Hydrogen bombs will be created to destroy it. And the moment we create hydrogen bombs, the very next moment we create a longing to go to another planet, because the bomb means that the earth is near its death. Before this earth dies, life will begin to evolve somewhere else. The sixth body is the feeling of cosmic creation and destruction - creation/destruction... the breath coming in/the...

... breath going out. That is why "Brahma's breath" is used. Brahma is a sixth-body personality; you become Brahma in the sixth body. Really, you become aware of both Brahma and Shiva, the two polarities. And Vishnu is beyond the polarity. They form the trimurti, the trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh - or Shiva. This trinity is the trinity of witnessing. If you become aware of the Brahma and...

... Shiva, the creator and the destroyer - if you become aware of those two, then you know the third, which is Vishnu. Vishnu is your reality in the sixth body. That is why Vishnu became the most prominent of the three. Brahma is remembered, but although he is the god of creation, he is worshipped in perhaps only one or two temples. He must be worshipped, but he is not really worshipped. Shiva is...

... Vishnu, the incoming and the outgoing: Brahma is the incoming breath and Shiva is the outgoing one. And Vishnu is the reality in the sixth body. In the seventh body things become even more difficult. Buddha called the seventh body the nirvana kaya, the body of enlightenment, because the truth, the absolute, is in the seventh body. The seventh body is the last body, so there is not even creation and...

... destruction but, rather, being and nonbeing. In the seventh, creation is always of something else, it is not of you. Creation will be of something else and destruction will be of something else, not of you, while being is of you, and nonbeing is of you. In the seventh body, being and nonbeing - existence and nonexistence - are the two breaths. One should not be identified with either. All religions are...

... started by those who have reached the seventh body; and at the end language can be stretched, at the most, to two words: being and nonbeing. Buddha speaks the language of nonbeing, of the outgoing breath, so he says, "Nothingness is the reality"; while Shankara speaks the language of being and says that the Brahman is the ultimate reality. Shankara uses positive terms because he chooses the...

... incoming breath, and Buddha uses negative terms because he chooses the outgoing breath. But these are the only choices as far as language is concerned. The third choice is the reality, which cannot be said. At the most we can say "absolute being" or "absolute nonbeing." This much can be said, because the seventh body is beyond this. Transcendence is still possible. I can say something...

... about this room if I go out. If I transcend this room and reach another room, I can recollect this one, I can say something about it. But if I go out of this room and fall into an abyss, then I cannot say anything about even this room. So far, with each body, a third point could be caught into words, symbolized, because the body beyond it was there. You could go there and look backward. But only up to...

... the seventh is this possible. Beyond the seventh body nothing can be said, because the seventh is the last body; beyond it is "bodilessness." With the seventh, one has to choose being or nonbeing - either the language of negation or the language of positivity. And there are only two choices. One is Buddha's choice: he says, "Nothing remains," and the other is Shankara's choice...

..., cosmic energy, and our first acquaintance with it is in the physical body. It manifests first as breath, and then it goes on manifesting as breath in other forms: influences, magnetism, thoughts, life, creation, being. It goes on, and if one becomes aware of it, one always transcends it to reach to a third point. The moment you reach this third point, you transcend that body and enter the next body...

.... You enter the second body from the first, and so on. If you go on transcending, up to the seventh there is still a body, but beyond the seventh there is bodilessness. Then you become pure. Then you are not divided; then there are no more polarities. Then it is adwait, not two: then it is oneness. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...

... VIBRATIONS FROM EVERYTHING AROUND - THE SUN, MOON, ANIMALS, PLANTS, STONES AND PEOPLE. THEY DEVELOP AS THE CONSCIOUSNESS DEVELOPS. THE WORD 'AURA' COMES FROM THE GREEK WORD 'AVRA', WHICH MEANS BREEZE. It is certainly like a breeze. You cannot see it but you can feel it. THE AURIC FIELDS OF THE ASTRAL AND MENTAL BODIES EXTEND MUCH FURTHER FROM THE PHYSICAL BODY THAN THAT OF THE ETHERIC BODY, WHICH STANDS...

... electrified that even her husband would not touch her. Even her children escaped from home, because whomsoever she would touch would get a great electric shock. She was brought to the hospital: just by holding it in her hand, an electric bulb would start to light up. There was no need of any wiring or any electricity. Her body was too full. This energy of the body radiates about one inch around the body...

..., around every healthy body. The more radiant you are, the bigger the aura around the body becomes. The more sickly you are, the more the aura shrinks. As a man dies the aura disappears. And now, because of Kirlian photography, your photograph can be taken showing the aura. You have seen statues, photographs, paintings of Krishna, Jesus, Buddha; you will always see an aura around their heads. It was...

... through without any doors. Before they bring their new addition to the Museum of Gods, it will be good to know something more about the aura. SURROUNDING THE PHYSICAL BODY IS A PROTECTIVE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC FIELD, COMPOSED OF RADIATIONS FORMED BY ALL THE BODIES OF MAN. THE AURA APPEARS AS A FOUNTAIN OF ENERGY AND WHEN RADIATING COMPETENTLY HAS A DEFINITE AND REGULAR SHAPE. AURAS ARE ABSORBERS, SOAKING UP...

... OUT NO MORE THAN A HALF INCH OR SO. THE UNDULATING FLOW AND RHYTHMICALLY SHIMMERING COLOR OF THE MENTAL AND ASTRAL BODIES GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT THEY ARE MOVED BY A BREEZE. IN PEOPLE, WHEN THE ACTIVITY OF THE BEING IS INTENSIFIED, AS DURING MEDITATION, ITS ENERGIES POUR THROUGH THE FIELDS OF THE MENTAL, ASTRAL AND ETHERIC BODIES, INCREASING THEIR SIZE AND THE BRILLIANCE OF THEIR COLORS. AURAS ARE...

... OFTEN DEPICTED AS A FIELD OF FLAMES SURROUNDING THE PHYSICAL BODY. Now Avirbhava and Anando, bring your mechanism. (SURE ENOUGH, THE MYSTERIOUS BOX ILLUMINATES THE BULBS HELD BY ANANDO AND AVIRBHAVA. THE ASSEMBLY CHEERS THE NEW ADDITION, AND IT IS WHEELED AWAY.) Maneesha has brought these sutras. JOSHU STAYED WITH NANSEN FOR THIRTY YEARS. AFTER HIS ENLIGHTENMENT HE LIVED FOR THIRTY YEARS MORE IN THE...

... and everything will be taken away. That which can be taken away by death is worthless to accumulate. Accumulate something that death cannot destroy. There were times when people were interested only in the immortal. That which dies is already dead; it is only a question of time, whether it is today or tomorrow. The body dies, the mind dies, they are of interest no more. The interest has to go deeper...

...... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) (Drumbeat) Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen. Now look inwards, collecting your whole consciousness - with great urgency, as if this moment is your last moment of life. Only with such urgency can one reach to the center of life. And the center of life is the center of eternal, immortal, universal being. Deeper and deeper, because you are going to...

... make it clear, Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Relax. And just remain watchful, witnessing the body, the mind. You are neither of them. You are only the witness. This witness is metaphorically referred to as the buddha, the awakened one. How cool it feels at the center - a fresh breeze, a new fragrance that you have never experienced. The whole consciousness becomes full of stars. This evening was beautiful...

..., you are on the earth; it is not that your body is really lifted up. But you have three bodies. Your physical body will remain on the earth. And because of meditation your mental body is silent, relaxing. Only the astral body is capable of rising upwards; it is beyond gravitation. Gravitation has no power over it. Light is not under the control of gravitation. That's why the flame of a candle can go...

... upwards. Even if you put the candle upside down, the flame will immediately turn upwards. The flame cannot go downwards because the gravitation has no pull on light. Your astral body is made only of light, of electrons. It is very indicative that you feel that your body is uplifted. Naturally in the beginning you will be gripped by fear: What is happening? But open your eyes. These are the moments when...

... silver cord is joined to is your navel -- and it is very flexible. You can fly higher, and it will stretch without any difficulty. You can come closer. But don't be afraid. Don't start thinking, "How am I going to get into my body again?" You have not come out of the body with your effort. It is your silence, your peace that has helped your astral body move out. The moment you feel like...

.... The exact meaning of the word `psychology' would be the science of the soul. But it is a very weird word. Psychology denies the existence of the soul and still goes on calling itself `psychology'. It accepts only the physical body and its byproduct, the mind. As the physical body dies, the mind also dies; there is no rebirth, there is no reincarnation. Life is not an eternal principle, but just a...

... byproduct of certain physical material things put together. You have to understand the word `byproduct'. Even the idea of a byproduct is not very original. In India, there has been a school of materialists, at least five thousand years old, called charvakas. They describe mind as a byproduct of the body. Their example is very fitting. Remember, it is a five thousand year-old example. We can find modern...

... take the parts apart, and you will not find any soul. That's what charvakas said five thousand years ago: that if there is a soul, then cut a man open and you should find it. Or when soldiers are cut open in the war -- so many souls would be flying upwards. Or when ordinarily a death happens naturally in your house, the soul must leave the body. Charvakas were very stubborn materialists. In five...

... thousand years materialism has not gone even a step further than charvakas. They weighed a dying person, and when he was dead they weighed him again and the weight was the same -- it proves that nothing left the body. Then what was ticking in the body? It was something: a byproduct of the constituents of the body. And the materialists of all ages -- Epicurus in Greece, Karl Marx and Engels in Germany and...

... England -- continued to repeat the same idea: that consciousness is a byproduct. And modern psychology has accepted it as their basic foundation: there is no soul in man; man is only a body. Joseph Stalin was able to kill almost one million Russians after the revolution. Anybody who was unwilling to give up his rights to his property was killed mercilessly. The whole family of the czar which had ruled...

... not feel any prick in his conscience. But the philosophy was supportive of all these murders -- because nothing is murdered, only the physical body. There is no consciousness which is separate from the body. Modern psychology is still behaving stupidly because it is still clinging to the five thousand year-old primitive idea of charvaka, that consciousness is a byproduct. Hence, all that modern...

... -- there is no beach, there are no boundaries to the cosmic consciousness. So wherever you are, you are always in an invisible ocean of consciousness. Modern psychology stops at the mind. Mind is only an instrument, and it is a instrument of the physical body -- so they are not wrong in saying that it is a byproduct. But mind is not all. Mind is only a biocomputer, and the day is not far away when the...

... only with the mind. And there are people called `behaviourists' who say there is no mind either, that man is only a physical organism. In the Soviet Union they don't accept the mind. The Soviet psychology is even more primitive; it accepts only the behavior of your body. There is nothing which you can call mind; hence in the Soviet Union there is nothing parallel to pscyhoanalysis. There is no...

... question: if somebody's mind is behaving in an abnormal way then medicine is needed, not psychoanalysis. Then he has to be hospitalized; he is suffering from a sickness just like any other sickness. At least in the West they have taken the first step beyond the body -- not a very big step, very small, very negligible, but still a step accepting that there is something like mind, that although it is a...

... byproduct, it functions on its own as long as the body is alive. And now it is a great profession: psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists; they are all fixing people's minds -- because everybody's mind is in trouble. There are only two kinds of people in the world: normally mad, and abnormally mad. Normally mad means you are mad, but not beyond limits. You are mad just like everybody else. You...

... too much. They needed unwinding. So just three weeks rest and their mind was unwound. They needed physical work so that the whole energy goes into the body, not in the mind." And these people certainly become interested... without doing anything all the strange and weird things that they had been thinking had disappeared. This is a simple way for sick people to unwind the overloaded mind. For...

... changed my clothes, you can see. So when I am dead, there is no need for any bath or changing of clothes. And these are the orders from your master, so remember: at least a dying man's wishes should not be denied -- and I am not asking much." His disciples said, "We will do as you say. There is nothing much in it." He died, and thousands of disciples were there. When his body was put on...

... I am really with you in case you need me; hence, you feel two hands because it is a very delicate moment. Any accident is possible. Open your eyes and see. You will be surprised, because it will seem as if you are floating above your body and your body is lying down on the floor. But you will see a thin cord as if made of silver, shining, joined with the body lying down on the floor. The point the...

... getting back into the body, you will immediately find yourself back in the body. And those two hands that were close to you will disappear the moment you are back in the body. And just watch my hands closely because these will be the same hands, and naturally you need not be afraid of my hands. My hands have never done any harm to anybody. In fact, I cannot do anything with my hands -- these must be the...

... presence of an other through whom your astral body is hammered, then a third journey begins. So if fifty people meditate here together, it will be much more intensive than if only one person meditated. Because of the longings of fifty persons combined with the vibrations of their intense breathing, an astral atmosphere will pervade this room, and a new kind of electrical light waves will begin to...

... Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1 QUESTIONER: HOW IS INTENSE BREATHING AND THE ASKING OF THE QUESTION "WHO AM I?" RELATED WITH THE PROCESS OF THE AWAKENING OF THE KUNDALINI AND ITS PENETRATION INTO THE VARIOUS CENTERS OR CHAKRAS OF THE BODY? There is a relationship, and a deep relationship at that, between the two processes. In fact, it is the...

... breath that connects the soul with the body; breath forms the bridge between the two. That is why with the cessation of the breath life ceases to be. Life goes on even if the brain is damaged. One can survive even if one's eyes or other bodily limbs are amputated. But if the breath stops, life will come to an end immediately. Breathing really joins the body to the soul. And it is at the junction of the...

... soul and the body, at their meeting point, where the energy known as kundalini resides. Kundalini, or whatever name you give it, is the same energy, and it resides at the junction of the body and soul. Therefore this energy has two forms. When this energy flows towards the body, it becomes sex; and when it flows towards the soul, it becomes kundalini or whatsoever you call it. And this energy is...

... descendent while moving to the body and it is ascendent while moving to the soul. So while kundalini is an ascending energy, sex is a descending one. But the seat of kundalini, the place of its location, is hammered and moved by breathing, deep and fast breathing. You will be surprised to know that you cannot keep your breath tranquil while making love. Love- making brings about an immediate change in the...

.... Breathing hits the kundalini, the basic center of energy. And as your experience will deepen you will clearly see even with closed eyes the exact spot where it is hit by breathing. So it often happens that with the hammering through deep breathing one gets aroused sexually. It so happens because your body is acquainted only with this experience, the experience of sex being aroused through deep breathing...

.... So as a mat ter of habit the body begins to move in the familiar direction of sex whenever you breathe deep and fast. And that is the reason why many seekers - both men and women - have the feeling that deep breathing stimulates their sex center immediately. Quite a number of people had similar experiences in the presence of Gurdjieff, and it was just natural. Many women thought that as soon as...

... question hammers the kundalini with mind energy and deep breathing hammers it with body energy. And if both the hammer strokes are strong enough... Ordinarily there are only two ways of hammering the center - one through breathing and the other through asking "Who am I?" There are other ways as well, but they are a little complicated. Another person can also be helpful in this mat ter. If you...

... do it in my presence the effect will be quicker and greater, because then there will be hammering from a third direction of which you have no idea. That is the astral direction whose hammering is subtler than the physical and mental ones. When you breathe intensely it hammers the center physically. When you ask "Who am I?" it does the same thing mentally. And when you do it in the...

... circulate all around, which will hit you from another direction. But normally you have only two direct ways - one is physical and the other mental. So "Who am I?" is going to hit harder; it will hit harder than deep breathing. But we start with breathing, because it is of the body and is easy to do. Asking "Who am I?" is a little difficult, as it is of the mind. We begin with the body...

... and when the body begins to vibrate fully, it prepares the mind to ask the question "Who am I?" A right situation is needed for this asking. It won't do any good to ask offhand, "Who am I?" any time and every time. In fact, every question needs a right situation when it can be asked. For example, when your whole body begins to shake and tremble, a question arises automatically...

... and you ask of yourself, "What is it all about? How am I doing all this?" And then you know that you are not doing anything, you are neither raising your feet nor turning your head and dancing; and yet dance is happening. And if all this happens without your efforts, your identity with your body begins to loosen. Then a new question arises before you, you want to know who you are. The new...

... question is that if what the body does is not your doing, then who else does it, and who you are. Now a schism, a gap is created between you and your body. This is the right situation, when through this gap the question "Who am I?" can sink deep in you. It is precisely this opportunity when it becomes necessary to ask the question. Really every question has its own right time, right season. And...

.... And he might suddenly begin to scream at a time when we are all laughing, because something may have happened to him which will not happen to the rest of us. So ordinarily there are only two ways of hammering the kundalini. And the third way is an extraordinary way - the way of shaktipat, or transmission of energy. This is an astral way, and it needs a medium, a vehicle. You can achieve intensity in...

... and all of it can be utilized for man's spiritual upliftment. To do it, however, a medium, a vehicle is needed. You can be your own medium, but initially it can be dangerous. The shaktipat, the fallout of energy, can be so powerful that you may not with stand it. It is just possible that some delicate senses of your body are jammed or they break down. Every energy has a measure, a voltage which has...

... am egoless, I am it. If I am not egoless I am not it. Egolessness is not a matter of degrees like body temperature, although we are used to thinking about everything in terms of degrees. All our thinking is like this. If somebody's body temperature is ninety eight degrees fahrenheit, we say that he is okay. But if his temperature rises to ninety nine degrees we say that he has a fever, he is...

...; they are different states as such. They are not concerned with degrees, with quantities. They are not like states of fever and non-fever; they are not to be measured as ninety-eight and ninety-nine degrees. In fact, only in regard to a dead man can we say that he has no fever. As long as there is body heat, whether normal or abnormal, it is fever. It is fever with the difference that ninety eight...

... you. Ego is the only hurdle in the way of attainment. And attainment is the ultimate state after which nothing more remains to be attained. Question 8 QUESTIONER: IS THE SADHANA OR DISCIPLINE OF KUNDALINI PSYCHIC OR IS IT SPIRITUAL? It is just spiritual... You know that eating is physical, but if you don't eat, the soul will soon leave your body. So although food goes into the body, yet it is...

... necessary that the body be in a particular state so the soul stays in it. The same way although the kundalini is psychic it is necessary that the kundalini be in a particular state so that you can reach the soul. If the kundalini is not in a particular state, if it is different from what it should be for you, then it is not possible to reach the soul. So although kundalini is psychic, it serves as a...

... why should he, who wants to dive into the river, stand on it? Why can't he stand in the river itself? But no one can stand in the river with a view to dive into it. One has to take his stand on the board first, and then he can jump into the river. And the board is absolutely different from the river into which one dives. The board is not the river. So it is through the body, through the mind that...

... you can take a jump into the spirit, the soul. And the spiritual is attained only when the jump has been made. For the present you have to prepare for it from where you are at the moment. So the body and mind are your jumping boards. However, when the jump is made you will have reached the spiritual. Question 9 QUESTIONER: IN YOUR EARLIER TEACHING OF MEDITATION YOU ALWAYS ASKED US TO BE RELAXED...

... Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. IN THIS DESPERATE SPIRITUAL SITUATION, HOW CAN WE GET HELP FROM ADVANCED SOULS IN THE ASTRAL WORLD? HOW CAN WE BECOME OPEN TO THE HIGHER? There is an old saying: "When the disciple is ready, the teacher appears." The disciple cannot find the teacher; it is impossible. Only the teacher can find the...

... disciple. Only one who knows himself can know someone else. Then it is easy. When you are ready, the whole universe begins to help you. There is no need to ask for any astral help, there is no need to go anywhere, help is always being given - a need is always fulfilled. But one has to be ready, one has to be in a state of mind where universal forces can help you. So it is not a positive search, because...

... you cannot seek astral help; help depends on your receptivity, your readiness. Higher forces are present everywhere, every moment. This very moment you are surrounded by both higher forces and lower forces, but you are receptive only to the lower. You can either be open to higher forces or you can be open to lower forces; you cannot be open to both. The very mechanism of consciousness is such that...

... completely pure, your ordinary mind will hesitate to believe it. How can it be? He is in his body just as you are - how can he be pure? The ego feels hurt, so you try to rationalize it in every way. You cannot conceive of someone who is purer than you are, so you try to disbelieve it. But if you cannot conceive of someone's being purer than you, you will not be able to grow toward greater purity; then...

... DESPERATE SPIRITUAL SITUATION, HOW CAN WE GET HELP FROM ADVANCED SOULS IN THE ASTRAL WORLD? You can get help this very moment! The help is always there, but your eyes are closed. And not only are your eyes closed, you are emphatically in favor of their remaining closed. If someone tries to open your eyes, you use every argument against it. You say, "This is natural - darkness, sin, and evil are...

... - PSYCHIC AND SPIRITUAL. KINDLY EXPLAIN THIS. In order for you to understand this the structure of the various subtle bodies must be fully elaborated upon. The individual can be divided into seven bodies. The first body is the physical body which we all know. The second is the etheric body, and the third - which is beyond this second - is the astral body. The fourth - which is beyond this - is the mental...

... of fourteen. Now some people stagnate at this stage. Their physical bodies grow but they are stuck with the first two bodies. In the third seven-year period, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, the sukshma sharir, the astral body, develops. In the second body emotion is developed; in the third body reasoning, thinking and intellect are developed. This is why no court of law holds a child...

... can have contact with one another without hindrances from time or place; they can read the thoughts of another without asking or project thoughts into another. Without any external help one can instill a seed of thought into another. A person can travel outside of his body; he can do astral projection and know himself apart from the physical body. There are great possibilities in the fourth body...

... third body of the male - that is the astral body - will again be male, and the fourth or the psychic body will again be female. Just the reverse will be the case in the female. This division of male and female exists only up to the fourth body; the fifth body is beyond sex. Therefore, as soon as the atman is attained there is no male and no female - but not until then. There is another thing that...

... or psychic body; and the fifth - which is beyond this again - is the spiritual body. The sixth is beyond the fifth, and it is called the cosmic body. Then the seventh and the last is the nirvana sharir, or the nirvanic body, the bodiless body. A little more information about these seven bodies will make it possible for you to understand the kundalini fully. In the first seven years of life, the...

... sthul sharir - the physical body alone is formed. The other bodies are in seed form. They have a potential for growth but they lie dormant in the beginning of life. So the first seven years are years of limitation. There is no growth of intellect, emotion or desire during these years. Only the physical body develops within this period. Some people never grow beyond seven years; they stagnate at this...

... stage and are no more than animals. Animals develop only in the physical body; the other bodies remain untouched within them. In the next seven years - that is from seven years to fourteen years - the bhawa sharir, the etheric body, develops. These seven years are years of emotional growth of the individual. This is why sexual maturity, which is the most intense form of emotion, is reached at the age...

... responsible for his actions up to the age of seven, because the child has only the physical body. We treat the child the same way as we would treat an animal; we cannot hold him responsible. Even if a child commits a crime it is assumed that he has committed it under the guidance of someone - that the real criminal is someone else. After the development of the second body a person reaches adulthood. But...

... this is the adulthood of sex. Nature's work is complete with this development, and this is why nature gives its full cooperation up to this stage. But at this stage man is not man in the full sense of the word. The third body, where reason, intellect and the thinking power develop, is an outcome of education, civilization and culture. This is why the right to vote is granted to a person when he is...

... twenty-one years of age. Though this is prevalent all over the world, some countries are debating whether to allow an eighteen-year-old the right to vote. This is natural, because as man is becoming more and more evolved the usual span of seven years for the growth of each body is becoming less and less. All over the world girls reach puberty at the age of thirteen to fourteen years. Since the last...

... thirty years the age for this is becoming less and less. Even a girl of eleven reaches puberty. The lowering of the voting age to eighteen is an indication that man now completes the work of twenty-one years in eighteen years. Normally, however, twenty-one years are required for the growth of the third body, and the majority of people do not develop further than this. Their growth stops short with the...

... development of the third body, and there is no further development for the rest of their lives. What I call the psyche is the fourth body - the manas sharir. This body has its own wonderful experiences. Now a person whose intellect is not developed may not be able to take interest in or enjoy mathematics, for instance. Mathematics has its own charm, and only Einstein can be absorbed in it as a musician is...

... in music or a painter is in colors. For Einstein mathematics was not work but play, but the intellect must reach this peak of development in order to turn mathematics into play. With each body that develops infinite possibilities open before us. One whose etheric body does not develop, who stagnates after the first seven years of development, does not have any interest in life beyond eating and...

... drinking. So the cultures of those civilizations where the majority of people have developed only up to the first body revolve entirely around their taste buds. The civilization where the majority of people have got stuck at the second body will be sex centered. Their personalities, their literature, their music, their films and books, their poetry and paintings, even their houses and vehicles, will all...

... be sex centered: all these things will be completely filled with sex, with sexuality. In the civilization in which the third body develops fully, people will be intellectual and contemplative. Whenever the development of the third body becomes very important in a society or in a nation, many intellectual revolutions take place. In Bihar, the majority of people were of this caliber at the time of...

... all these luminous beings existed within a period of five hundred years. Within those five hundred years the development of the third body in man reached its peak. Generally man halts at the third body. The majority of people do not develop after twenty-one years. There are unusual experiences of the fourth body. Hypnotism, telepathy, clairvoyance, are all the potential of the fourth body. Persons...

..., but we do not normally develop this body as there are many hazards as well as much deception. As things begin to get more and more subtle, the possibilities of deception increase. Now it is difficult to find out whether a man has actually stepped out of his body or not. He can dream that he stepped out of his body and he can actually do so too, and in both the cases there is no other witness than...

... himself. So there is every possibility of deception. The world that starts from the fourth body is subjective, whereas the world before that is objective. If I have a rupee in my hand, I can see it, you can see it, fifty others can also see it. This is a common reality in which we can all take part, and it can be investigated whether the rupee is or is not. But in the realm of my thoughts you cannot be...

... a partner, nor can I be a partner in the realm of your thoughts. From here the personal world begins with all its hazards; none of our external rules of validity can be used here. So the real world of deception starts from the fourth body. All the deceptions of the preceding three can be seen through. The greatest danger is that it is not necessarily the case that the deceiver is aware of the fact...

... that he is deceiving. He can deceive unknowingly - himself as well as others. Things are so subtle, so rare and personal on this plane, that one has no means to test the validity of his experiences. So he cannot tell whether he is imagining things or whether they are really happening to him. So we have always tried to save humanity from this fourth body, and those who made use of this body were...

... always condemned and slandered. Hundreds of women were branded as witches and burnt in Europe because they used the faculties of the fourth body. Hundreds who practiced tantra were killed in India because of the fourth body. They knew some secrets that seemed dangerous to human beings. They knew what was taking place in your mind; they knew where things were placed in your house without ever having...

... stepped into it. So the realm of the fourth body was looked upon as "black" art all over the world, as one never knew what might happen. We have always tried our best to stop progress from going any further than the third body, because the fourth has always seemed very dangerous. There are hazards, but together with these there are wonderful gains. So instead of stopping, research was...

... film on the screen and the film in his dream were one and the same. He at once pressed the button. Time and again he would press the button, and this proved that he was dreaming. In this way, man is now able to penetrate into the inner dream-world of dumb animals. Meditators too have found ways of testing the experiences of the fourth body from outside, and now it can be proved whether what happens...

... is true or false. The experiences of the kundalini on the fourth body can be psychic, but that does not make them false. There are authentic psychic states and false psychic states. When I say that kundalini could be only a mental experience, it does not necessarily mean that it is a false experience. Mental experiences can be false as well as authentic. You see a dream at night. Now this dream is...

... such a chaos. So to remember a dream and give a true representation of it is a great art. Generally, when we recall a dream we recollect happenings we never dreamed of. We drop a good portion of the actual dream and later most of the rest. Dreams are a happening of the fourth body, and the fourth body has a great potential. Whatever siddhis are mentioned in yoga are attained in this body. Yoga has...

... incessantly warned the meditator not to go into them. The greatest danger is there of going astray. Even if you go into a psychic state it has no spiritual value. So when I said that the kundalini is psychic, what I meant was that it is actually a happening of the fourth body. This is why physiologists cannot discover the kundalini within the human body. So it is only natural that they deny the existence of...

... kundalini and the chakras and call them imaginary. They are the happenings of the fourth body. The fourth body exists, but it is very subtle; it cannot come within our grasp. Only the physical body can be grasped. Yet there are corresponding points between the first body and the fourth body. If we were to place seven sheets of paper one on top of the other, prick a hole through them with a pin so that all...

... the papers are pierced, then even if the hole disappears from the first sheet it will still carry a mark that corresponds to the holes in the rest of the sheets. Then although the first paper does not have the hole, it has the point which will correspond directly with the pinholes on the other sheets when it is placed upon them. So chakras, kundalini, etcetera, do not belong to the first body as...

... such, but there are corresponding points in the first body. So a physiologist is not wrong if he denies them. The chakras and the kundalini are in other bodies, but points corresponding to them can be found on the physical body. So kundalini is the happening of the fourth body and it is psychic. And when I say that this psychic happening is of two kinds - one true and one false - then you will...

... understand what I mean. It will be false when it is a product of your imagination, because imagination is also a characteristic of the fourth body. Animals do not have the power of imagination, so they have very little memory of the past and no idea of future. Animals are free from anxiety as anxiety is always of the future. Animals see many deaths taking place, but they never imagine that they can die...

... also; therefore, they have no fear of death. Among men also there are many who are not bothered by the fear of death. Such a man always associates death with others and not with himself. The reason is that the power of imagination in the fourth body has not developed fully enough to see into the future. This means that imagination can also be true or false. True imagination means that we are capable...

... thing. A madman imagines things which do not exist and which have no relationship with the physical world. The scientist also imagines: he imagines things which are directly related with the physical world. And if it does not seem so at first there is a complete possibility of their being so in the future. Among the possibilities of the fourth body there is always a chance of going wrong. Then the...

... false world begins. This is why it is best if we do not harbor any expectations before entering this body. This fourth body is the psychic body. Now, for instance, if I want to go down to the ground floor of this house I will have to look for a lift or a staircase in order to do so. But if I want to go down in my thoughts there is no need for a lift or a staircase. I can sit right here and go down...

... preconceive, because this change takes place in the world of matter. So, for instance, when the kundalini awakens you cannot take intoxicants; it is impossible. The mental body gets influenced by alcohol very quickly as it is very delicate. This is why - and you will be surprised to know this - when a woman consumes alcohol she becomes more dangerous than a man who does so. This is because her mental body...

... herself as has never been caused by any action by men. In the fourth body the awakening of the kundalini cannot be proved by your telling about the experience, because, as I said before, you can falsely imagine the awakening and experiencing of the kundalini also. It can only be judged by your physical traits: whether any radical transformation has taken place in your personality. No sooner does the...

... and full awareness - will become natural and easy for you. Then know that your experience is authentic. It is psychic, however, but authentic all the same. Now you can proceed further. You can proceed ahead if your path is authentic, but not otherwise. You cannot stay forever in the fourth body because it is not the goal. There are yet other bodies that have to be crossed. We find, as I said, that...

... very few are able to develop the fourth body. That is why there are miracle performers in the world today. If the fourth body in everyone were developed, miracles would vanish from the earth at once. If there were a society of people whose development had stagnated after the fourteenth year of age, then the one who had developed a little further, who could add or subtract, would be thought to be...

... millions of eclipses. It can even forecast the day when the sun will get cold - because these are all calculations. The machine can calculate from the date provided that the quantity of energy the sun emits per day divided by the total energy of the sun gives the number of years the sun will last. But all this does not look like a miracle to us now, because now we are all developed up to the third body...

.... A thousand years ago it was a great miracle if a man prophesied that next year, in this month, on this night, there would be an eclipse of the moon. He would be considered superhuman. The "miracles" that take place nowadays - the magic charms, the ash dropping from picture frames - are all ordinary happenings of the fourth body. But since we do not know it is a miracle for us. It is just...

... body. This is how magic and miracles take place: they are a slight growth of the fourth body. So if we want miracles to end in this world, it will not happen by preaching to the masses. Just as we have given man the education of the third body and made him understand languages and mathematics, we must now give him training for the fourth body. Each man has to be qualified accordingly, because only...

... then will miracles cease; otherwise, someone or other will always take advantage of this. The fourth body develops until the twenty-eighth year - that is, for seven years more. But very few people are able to develop it. The atma sharir - the fifth body, which is called the spiritual body - is of great value. If growth in life continues in the proper manner, then by the age of thirty-five this body...

... should be fully developed. But this is a faraway idea because even the fourth body is only developed in a very few people. This is why the soul and such things are only a topic of discussion for us; there is no content behind the word. When we say atman, it is merely a word; there is nothing behind it. When we say wall, there is not only the word but also the substance behind the word; we know what...

... "wall" means. But there is no meaning behind the word atman, because we have no knowledge, no experience of the atman. This is our fifth body, and only if the kundalini awakens in the fourth body is entrance possible in the fifth; otherwise we cannot enter. We are not aware of the fourth body so the fifth also remains unknown. Very few people have discovered the fifth body; they are those...

... whom we call spiritualists. These people take this to be the journey's end and declare, "To attain the atman is to attain all." But the journey is not yet over. However, these people who stop at the fifth body deny God. They say, "There is no brahman; there is no PARAMATMAN," just as he who stagnates on the first body would deny the existence of the atman. Just as the materialist...

... says, "The body is everything; when the body dies, everything dies," so the spiritualist declares, "There is nothing beyond the atman: the atman is everything; it is the highest state of being." But this is only the fifth body. The sixth body is the brahma sharir - the cosmic body. When a person evolves beyond his atman, when he is willing to lose it, he enters the sixth body. If...

... mankind develops scientifically the natural development of the sixth body would take place at the age of forty-two, and that of the nirvana sharir - the seventh body - at the age of forty-nine. The seventh body is the nirvanic body which is no- body - which is a state of bodilessness, an incorporeal state. This is the ultimate state where only the void remains - not even the brahman, the cosmic reality...

... of the flame. Therefore, Buddha said, nirvana takes place. The state of moksha is experienced in the fifth body. The limitations of the first four bodies are transcended and the soul becomes totally free. So liberation is the experience of the fifth body. Heaven and hell pertain to the fourth body, and he who stops here will experience them. For those who stop at the first, second or third body...

..., life between birth and death becomes everything; there is no life beyond death for them. If a person goes beyond into the fourth body, after this life he experiences heaven and hell where there are infinite possibilities of happiness and misery. If he reaches up to the fifth body there is the door of liberation, and if he reaches up to the sixth there is the possibility of the state of God...

... seventh bodies throughout the remainder of his life, and in the remaining twenty-five years he was expected to attain to the seventh body. Therefore, the age of fifty was looked upon as a crucial year. At this time a man became a wanaprasth, which only means that now he should turn his gaze towards the forest - that now he should turn his eyes away from people, society and the marketplace. The age of...

.... However, the condition was that in one's life as a householder one had to pass through and develop all the seven bodies so that the rest of the journey would become spontaneous and joyful. If this is not done it is very difficult, because with every seven-year cycle a particular state of development is connected. If the physical body of a child does not grow fully in the first seven years of his life...

... are weak it will be difficult - no, impossible - to repair it once the roof is reached. At the foundation stage only could it have been well laid. So in the first seven years, if proper conditions are available for the first body, the body develops properly. Now if the second body and the emotions do not develop fully over the next seven years, a number of sex perversions result. Then it is very...

... difficult to remedy these later. So the period of development for a particular body is most crucial. On each step of life, each body has its predetermined period of development. There may be a slight difference here and there, but that is beside the point. If a child does not develop sexually within fourteen years his whole life becomes a long ordeal. If the intellect does not develop by the time he is...

... twenty-one there is very little chance of its developing at a later period. But so far we are in agreement: we take care of the first body, then we take care to send the child to school to develop his intellect also. But we forget that the rest of the bodies also have their apportioned time which if lost puts us in great difficulties. A man takes fifty years to develop the body he should have developed...

..., he has been to so many places that he has lost sight of the right opening. His wandering now makes it impossible for him to locate the place where he stood at twenty-one and which then needed only a slight push to open. Therefore, a well organized situation is required for children until they reach the age of twenty-five. It should be so well planned that it takes them to the fourth body level...

.... After the fourth body the rest is easy. The foundation will then be well laid; now only the fruits remain to grow. The tree is formed up to the fourth body; then fruits begin to appear from the fifth which culminate in the seventh. We may have to make a little allowance here and there, but we should be very mindful of the foundations. In this respect a few more things should be kept in mind. There is...

... a difference between man and woman throughout the first four bodies. For instance, if the individual is a man his physical body is a male body. But his second body - the etheric body, which is behind the physical body - is female, because no negative or positive pole can exist by itself. A male body and a female body, in the terms of electricity, are positive and negative bodies. The woman's...

... physical body is negative; therefore, she is never aggressive in the matter of sex. She can bear the violence of man in this respect, but cannot be violent herself. She can do nothing to a man without his consent. Man's first body is positive - aggressive. He can, therefore, do something aggressive to a woman without her consent; he has an aggressive first body. But by negative is not meant zero or...

... absent. In terms of electricity, negative means receptivity, reservoir. In the woman's body, energy lies in reserve; much energy lies in reserve. But it is not active: it is inactive. This is why a woman does not create anything. She does not compose poetry, nor does she create a great painting, nor does she carry out any scientific research. This is because it is necessary to be aggressive for...

... research or for some work of creation. She can only wait; that is why she can only produce children. Man has a positive body, but wherever there is a positive body there must be a negative body behind it or else it cannot last. Both are present together; then the circle is complete. So the second body of a man is female, whereas the second body of a female is male. This is why - and this is an...

... interesting fact - man looks and is, as far as his physical body goes, very strong. But behind this outward strength stands a weak female body. This is why he manages to show his strength only for a few moments at a time. In the long run he loses at the hands of the female, because the body behind her weak female body is a strong positive body. This is why a woman's power of resistance, her capacity to...

..., beat a pillow perhaps, but he cannot carry a child in his abdomen for nine months, nor bring him up patiently for years afterwards. If it cries all night long he might strangle it. He will not be able to tolerate the disturbance. He has extraordinary strength, but behind him is a frail, delicate etheric body. Because of this he cannot bear pain or discomfort. This is why women fall sick less than men...

... hundred and sixteen males are born to every hundred females. The difference in number at time of birth is sixteen, but later on the number becomes equal. Sixteen males die by the time they reach the age of fourteen and so the number becomes almost equal. More boys die early than girls. This is because the latter have a great power of resistance that comes to them through the second male body. Now the...

... comes to mind in this connection. Since every male has a female body within him and every female has a male body within her, if by coincidence a woman gets a husband who is identical with the male body within her, or if a man marries a woman who is identical with the female body within him, then only is a marriage successful; otherwise not. This is why ninety-nine percent of marriages are failures...

... prostitute or seeks the woman next door. His distress grows day by day, and this misery is bound to increase with the growth of man's intellect. If a person's growth stops at fourteen he will not suffer this agony, because all suffering starts from the growth of the third body. If only the first two bodies are developed the man would be satisfied by sex. So there are two ways: either in the first twenty...

...-five years, during the period of brahmacharya, we should develop the child up to the fourth body, or else encourage child marriages. Child marriage means marriage before the development of intellect so that the person stagnates at sex; then there is no trouble as the relationship is entirely on the animal plane. The relationship of a child marriage is purely a sexual relationship; there is no...

... possibility of love in it. Now in places like America, where education has made great strides and where the third body has developed completely, marriages break. They are bound to, because the third body rebels at a wrong partnership. So divorce results, because it is not possible to drag such marriages along. The correct form of education is that which develops the first four bodies. Right education is...

... that which takes you up to the fourth body. There the work of education is complete. No education can help you enter the fifth; you have to go there by yourself. Right education can easily take you up to the fourth body. After this the growth of the fifth body, which is very valuable and personal, begins. Kundalini is the potential of the fourth body; this is why kundalini is a psychic phenomenon. I...

... hope this is now clear to you. Question 2 IS THERE A POSSIBILITY OF PSYCHIC BINDING BETWEEN THE MEDITATOR AND THE MEDIUM IN SHAKTIPAT? CAN IT BE DETRIMENTAL TO THE MEDITATOR OR IS IT HELPFUL FOR HIM? Ties that bind can never be useful, because ties are bad in themselves. The deeper the attachment, the worse it is. Psychic binding is a very bad thing. If someone ties me in chains only my physical body...

... attachment is dangerous - and even more so the attachment to a guru, because this is a spiritual attachment. The very term spiritual attachment is contradictory. Spiritual freedom has a meaning, but spiritual slavery is meaningless. But in this world other types of slaves are considerably less enslaved than are the slaves of spirituality. There is a reason for this. The fourth body, from where the spirit...

... of freedom arises, remains undeveloped. The majority of human beings have developed only up to the third body. It is seen very often that a high court judge or a vice-chancellor of a university is sitting at the feet of an absolute idiot. Seeing this, others follow suit thinking that if such well known people are sitting at this man's feet... we are nothing in comparison. They do not know that...

... though this judge, this vice-chancellor, has developed his third body to the full, that though he has developed his intellect to a very high level, he remains ignorant so far as his fourth body is concerned. He is equally as ignorant as they are in matters of the fourth body. And his third body - that which has developed intellect and reason - is thoroughly exhausted by constant thinking and debating...

..., begins to imitate them. These people may be very intellectual, but in matters of the fourth body they are just nothing. Therefore, a slight development of the fourth body in any individual will suffice to bring the greatest of intellectuals to his feet, because he has something that the intellectual lacks completely. This sort of binding occurs when the fourth body is not developed. Then the mind wants...

... to hold on to someone whose fourth body is developed, but this will not help you to develop your fourth body. Only by understanding such a person can your fourth body develop. However, in order to avoid the trouble of understanding him you catch hold of his person. Then you will say, "Where is the need to understand? We will hold on to your feet so that when you cross the river of hell we too...

... the guru, and he who is bound today will bind someone else tomorrow because all this is a chain reaction. He who is a disciple today will be a guru tomorrow. How long can he remain a disciple? If he has caught hold of someone today he will see that someone catches hold of him tomorrow. Slavery runs in a series, and the intrinsic reason for all this is the nondevelopment of the fourth body. If you...

... set about developing this body you can be independent. Then there is no bondage. This does not mean that you become inhuman, that you will have no connection with people. Rather, the opposite will be the case: where there is bondage there is no relationship. Between a husband and wife there is bondage. Do we not use the expression "bound in holy matrimony"? We send out invitations reading...

... purities and perfection. For example, if you can move your astral body out of the gross body you can do many things which will be miraculous. You can visit people. They can see you but they cannot touch you. You can even talk to them by your astral projection. You can heal people. If you are really pure, just your touch, laying on of the hands, and there will be a miracle. Just surrounding you will be...

...: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. 43. AUSTERITIES DESTROY IMPURITIES, AND WITH THE ENSUING PERFECTION IN THE BODY AND SENSE ORGANS, PHYSICAL AND MENTAL POWERS AWAKEN. 44. UNION WITH THE DIVINE HAPPENS THROUGH SELF STUDY. 45. TOTAL ILLUMINATION CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED BY SURRENDERING TO GOD. Man is like an iceberg: only a part, a minor part, is visible on the surface; the...

...: Kayendriya siddhih ashuddhih ksyayat tapasah. AUSTERITIES DESTROY IMPURITIES, AND WITH THE ENSUING PERFECTION IN THE BODY AND SENSE ORGANS, PHYSICAL AND MENTAL POWERS AWAKEN. Before you can understand this sutra, many more things have to be understood. The body has been very much misused. You have mistreated your own body. You don't know the mystery of the body itself. It is not just the skin; it is not...

... just the bones; it is not just the blood. It is a great organic unity, a great dynamism. For centuries man thought that blood filled the body as water fills a container. Only just three centuries ago, we came to know that blood does not fill the body, that it is not a stagnant thing -- blood circulates. Only just three centuries ago, we came to know that blood circulates, it is a dynamic force. It...

... does not fill the body, but it circulates -- so silently and so continuously, and the movement is so graceful, without any noise, that we have lived with bodies for millions of lives and we have never come to encounter the reality of the blood, that it circulates. There are many more mysteries which are hidden. This body is just the first layer of many bodies -- in all, seven bodies. If you move deep...

... in this body you will come across new phenomena. Behind this gross body is hidden the subtle body. Once that subtle body awakes, you become very powerful because you attain to certain new dimensional forces. This body can lie down in your bed, and your subtle body can move. For it there is no barrier. The gravitation of the earth does not affect it; there is no barrier of time and space for it. It...

... can move... it can move anywhere. The whole world is open for it. For the gross body that is not possible. In some of your dreams the subtle body actually leaves your physical body. In some of your deep meditations your subtle body leaves your physical body. Many of you, deeply meditating, sometimes have become aware that it feels as if you have risen above the earth, a few inches, a few feet. When...

... you open your eyes you are sitting on the earth. You think you have imagined it. It is not so. The subtle body, in deep meditation, can go a little higher than your gross body. Sometimes that, too, happens -- that the gross body also follows the subtle body. There is a woman in Europe; she has been investigated by all the scientific methods. In deep meditation she rises four feet above the earth...

...; not only in the subtle body, but the gross body also. It has been found to be a fact. This is said in the oldest yoga treatises: that in deep meditation it happens that with the subtle body the gross body can go above the ground -- and, exactly, it says it can go four feet very easily. And the gross body is just the surface body, the skin of other bodies. Then behind the subtle there are subtler...

... bodies -- in all, seven bodies. They all belong to seven different planes of being. The more you enter in your own being, the more you become aware that this body is not the all. But you will encounter the second body only if this body has become pure. Yoga does not believe in torturing the body, it is not a masochistic affair -- but it believes in purifying it. And, sometimes, purifying it and...

... torturing it may look alike. A distinction has to be made. A man can fast, and he may be only torturing. He may be just against his own body, suicidal, masochistic. But then another man can fast and he may not be a torturer, and he may not be a masochist, and he may not be trying to destroy the body in any way. Rather, he may be trying to purify it. Because in deep fasting, body attains to certain...

... purities. You continuously go on eating every day; you never give any holiday to the body. The body goes on accumulating many dead cells -- they become a load. Not only are they a load and a burden, they are toxins, they are poisonous. They make the body impure. When the body is impure you cannot see the hidden body behind it. This body needs to be clean, transparent, pure; then suddenly you become aware...

... of the second layer, the subtle body. When the subtle body is pure then you become aware of the third body, and the fourth, and so on. Fasting helps tremendously, but one needs to be very much aware that one is not destroying the body. No condemnation should be in the mind; and there is the problem because almost all religions have condemned the body. Their original founders were not condemners...

...; they were not poisoners. They loved their bodies. They loved the body so much that they always tried to purify it. Their fasting was a purification. Then came blind followers, unaware of the deep science of fasting. They started fasting, blindly. They enjoyed, because mind is violent. It enjoys being violent with others, it enjoys a power, because whenever you are violent with others you feel...

... powerful; but to be violent with others is risky because the other will retaliate. Then there is a simple way: to be violent with your own body. Then there is no risk. The body cannot retaliate. The body cannot harm you. You can go on harming your own body; there is nobody to react. This is simple. You can torture and enjoy power -- that now you control your body; the body doesn't control you. If this...

... fasting is aggressive, violent, if there is anger and destructiveness; then you miss the point. You are not purifying the body; you are in fact destroying it. And to clean a mirror is one thing and to destroy the mirror is another. To clean the mirror is totally different, because when the mirror is clean of all dust, pure, you will be able to look into it -- it will reflect you. But if you destroy the...

... mirror, then there is no possibility to look into it. If you destroy the gross body you lose all possibility of contact with the second, the subtle body. Purify it, but don't be destructive. And how does fasting purify? Because whenever you are on a fast the body has no more work of digestion. In that period the body can work in throwing out dead cells, toxins. It is just as one day, Sunday or Saturday...

..., you are on a holiday and you come home and you clean the whole day. The whole week you were so engaged and so busy you couldn't clean the house. When the body has nothing to digest, you have not eaten anything, the body starts a self cleaning. A process starts spontaneously and the body starts throwing out all that is not needed, which is like a load. Fasting is a method of purification. Once in a...

... while, a fast is beautiful -- not doing anything, not eating, just resting. Take as much liquid as possible and just rest, and the body will be cleaned. Sometimes, if you feel that a longer fast is needed, you can do a longer fast also -- but be deep in love with the body. And if you feel the fast is harming the body in any way, stop it. If the fast is helping the body, you will feel more energetic...

...; you will feel more alive; you will feel rejuvenated, vitalized. This should be the criterion: if you start feeling that you are getting weaker, if you start feeling that a subtle trembling is coming into the body, then be aware -- now the thing is no longer a purification. It has become destructive. Stop it. But one should learn the whole science of it. In fact one should do fasting near somebody...

... who has been fasting for long and who knows the whole path very well, who knows all the symptoms: if it becomes destructive what will start happening; if it is not destructive then what will happen. After a real, purifying fast you will feel new, younger, cleaner, weightless, happier; and the body will be functioning better because now it is unloaded. But fasting comes only if you have been eating...

... wrongly. If you have not been eating wrongly there is no need for fasting. Fasting is needed only when you have already done the wrong with the body -- and we all have been eating wrongly. Man has lost the path. No animal eats like man; every animal has its chosen food. If you bring buffaloes in the garden and leave them, they will eat only a particular grass. They will not go on eating everything and...

... does not know what is in resonance with his body and what is not. He is completely confused. Man, naturally, should be a vegetarian, because the whole body is made for vegetarian food. Even scientists concede to the fact that the whole structure of the human body shows that man should not be a nonvegetarian. Man comes from the monkeys. Monkeys are vegetarians -- absolute vegetarians. If Darwin is...

... digestion has been done by the animal. Now you are eating the animal's meat. It is already digested -- no long intestine is needed. Man has one of the longest intestines: that means man is a vegetarian. A long digestion is needed, and much excreta will be there which has to be thrown out. If man is not a nonvegetarian and he goes on eating meat, the body is burdened. In the East, all the great meditators...

... -- Buddha, Mahavir -- they have emphasized the fact. Not because of any concept of nonviolence -- that is a secondary thing -- but because if you really want to move in deep meditation your body needs to be weightless, natural, flowing. Your body needs to be unloaded; and a nonvegetarian's body is very much loaded. Just watch what happens when you eat meat: when you kill an animal what happens to the...

... body -- violence, anguish, agony spreads. The whole body becomes full of toxins, poisons. All the body glands release poisons because the animal is dying very unwillingly. And then you eat the meat -- that meat carries all the poisons that the animal has released. The whole energy is poisonous. Then those poisons are carried in your body. And that meat which you are eating belonged to an animal body...

.... It had a specific purpose there. A specific type of consciousness existed in the animal's body. You are on a higher plane than the animal's consciousness, and when you eat the animal's meat your body goes to the lowest plane, to the lower plane of the animal. Then there exists a gap between your consciousness and your body, and a tension arises, and anxiety arises. One should eat things which are...

... natural -- natural for you. Fruits, nuts, vegetables -- eat as much as you can. And the beauty is that you cannot eat these things more than is needed. Whatsoever is natural always gives you a satisfaction, because it satiates your body, saturates you. You feel fulfilled. If some thing is unnatural it never gives you a feeling of fulfillment. Go on eating ice cream: you never feel that you are satiated...

.... In fact the more you eat, the more you feel like eating. It is not a food. Your mind is being tricked. Now you are not eating according to the body need; you are eating just to taste it. The tongue has become the controller. The tongue should not be the controller. It does not know anything about the stomach. It does not know anything about the body. The tongue has a specific purpose to fulfill: to...

... taste food. Naturally, the tongue has to judge, that is the only thing, which food is for the body -- for my body -- and which food is not for my body. It is just a watchman on the door; it is not the master. And if the watchman on the door becomes the master, then everything will be confused. Now advertisers know well that the tongue can be tricked, the nose can be tricked. And they are not the...

... two have become the controllers. Now they know: whether ice cream is nutritious or not is not the point. It can carry a flavor, it can carry some chemicals which fulfill the tongue but are not needed for the body. Man is confused -- more confused than buffaloes. You cannot convince buffaloes to eat ice cream. Try! A natural food... and when I say "natural" I mean that which your body needs...

... becoming angry. There is no reason. You are massaging the man and suddenly he starts feeling angry. If you press the jaw, persons become angry again. They carry accumulated anger. These are the impurities in the body: they have to be released. If you don't release them the body will remain heavy. Yoga exercises exist to release all sorts of accumulated poisons in the body. Yoga movements release them...

...; and a yogi's body has a suppleness of its own. Yoga exercises are totally different from other exercises. They don't make your body strong; they make your body more flexible. And when your body is more flexible, you are strong in a very different sense: you are younger. They make your body more liquid, more flowing -- no blocks in the body. The whole body exists as an organic unity, in a deep rhythm...

... of its own. It is not Like noise in the market; it is like an orchestra. A deep rhythm inside, no blocks, then the body is pure. Yoga exercises can be tremendously helpful. Everybody is carrying much rubbish in the stomach, because that is the only space in the body where you can suppress things. There is no other space. If you want to suppress anything it has to be suppressed in the stomach. If...

... you want to cry -- your wife has died, your beloved has died, your friend has died -- but it doesn't look good, looks as if you are a weakling, crying for a woman, you suppress it: where will you put that crying? Naturally, you have to suppress it in the stomach. That is the only space available in the body, the only hollow place, where you can force. If you suppress in the stomach.... And everybody...

... release their energy. You are afraid. Every body is afraid to move in the stomach. Every child, when born, breathes through the belly. Look at a child sleeping: the belly goes up and down -- never the chest. No child breathes from the chest; they breathe from the belly. They are completely free now, nothing is suppressed. Their stomachs are empty, and that emptiness has a beauty in the body. Once the...

... stomach has too much suppression in it, the body is divided in two parts, the lower and the higher. Then you are not one; you are two. The lower part is the discarded part. The unity is lost; a duality has entered into your being. Now you cannot be beautiful, you cannot be graceful. You are carrying two bodies instead of one -- and there will always remain a gap between the two. You cannot walk...

... beautifully. Somehow you have to carry your legs. In fact if the body is one, your legs will carry you. If the body is divided in two then you have to carry your legs. You have to drag your body. It is like a burden. You cannot enjoy it. You cannot enjoy a good walk, you cannot enjoy a good swim, you cannot enjoy a fast run -- because the body is not one. For all these movements, and to enjoy them, the body...

... suppressed, there will be constipation. Constipation is more a mental disease than a physical one. It belongs to the mind more than it belongs to the body. But remember, I am not dividing mind and body in two. They are two aspects of the same phenomenon. Mind and body are not two things. In fact to say "mind and body" is not good: "mind-body" will be the right expression. Your body is a...

... psychosomatic phenomenon. Mind is the subtlest part of the body, and body is the grossest part of the mind. And they both affect each other; they run parallel. If you are suppressing something in the mind, the body will start a suppressing journey. If the mind releases everything, the body also releases everything. That's why I emphasize catharsis very much. Catharsis is a cleansing process. These are all...

... austerities: fasting; natural eating; deep, rhythmic breathing; yoga exercises; living a more and more natural, flexible, supple life; creating less and less suppressed attitudes; allowing the body to have its own say, following the wisdom of the body. "Austerities destroy impurities...." These I call austerities. "Austerities" does not mean to torture the body. It means to create a...

... living fire in the body so that the body is cleansed. As if you have thrown gold into the fire -- all that was not gold is burned. Only pure gold comes out. "Austerities destroy impurities, AND WITH THE ENSUING PERFECTION IN THE BODY AND SENSE ORGANS, PHYSICAL AND MENTAL POWERS AWAKEN." When the body is pure, you will see tremendous new energies arising, new dimensions opening before you, new...

... doors suddenly opening, new possibilities. Body has much hidden power. Once it is released, you will not be able to believe it, that the body carried so many things in it, and so close. And every sense has a hidden sense behind it. Eyes have a hidden eyesight, an insight behind them. When the eyes are pure, clean, then you don't see things only as they are on the surface. You start seeing their depth...

.... A new dimension opens. Right now when you see a person you don't see his aura; you just see his physical body. The physical body is surrounded by a very subtle aura. A diffused light surrounds the body. And everybody's body is surrounded by a different color aura. The moment your eyes are clean you can see the aura; and by seeing the aura you know many things about the man that you cannot know in...

... the healing power -- wherever you will move, healing will happen automatically. Not that you do it. The very purity... you have become a vehicle of the infinite forces. But one has to move withinwards, one has to search one's own innermost core. "Austerities destroy impurities, and with the ensuing perfection in the body and sense organs, physical and mental powers awaken." And the...

... greatest power that awakens in you is the feeling of deathlessness. Not that you have a theory, a system, a philosophy that you are immortal, no. Now you have a feeling, now you are grounded in it -- now you know it. It is not a question of any theory: it has become your knowing that there is no death. This body will disappear into its elements, but your consciousness cannot disappear. The mind will...

... disintegrate, the thoughts will be released, the body will go into the elements -- but you, the witnessing self, will remain. You know it because now you can see your body from the far, faraway space. You can see your body separate from you. You can come out of the body and look at it. You can move around your own body. Now you know that the body will be left when you will die, but not you. Now you can see...

... the mind functioning as a mechanism, as a biocomputer. You are the seer, not the mind. Now the body and mind go on functioning, but you are not identified. This is the greatest miracle that can happen to a man: that he comes to know that he is deathless. Then the fear of death disappears, and with the fear of death all fears disappear. And when fears disappear, love arises. When there is no fear...