1. MULADHARA or Root Chakra or Base Chakra
The chakra of the physical body is the muladhar. This is the first chakra and it has an integral connection with the physical body. The muladhar chakra has two possibilities. Its first potentiality is a natural one that is given to us with birth; its other possibility is obtainable by meditation.
The basic natural possibility is the sex urge of the physical body. The very question that arises in the mind of the seeker is what to do in regard to this central principle. Now there is another possibility of this chakra and that is brahmacharya, conscious mastery of the chakras, which is attainable through meditation. Sex is the natural possibility and brahmacharya is its transformation. The more the mind is focused upon, and gripped by sexual desire, the more difficult it will be to reach its ultimate potential of brahmacharya.
Now this means that we can utilize the situation given to us by nature in two ways. We can live in the condition that nature has placed us in – but then the process of spiritual growth cannot begin – or we can transform this state.
The only danger in the path of transformation is the possibility that we begin to fight with our natural centre. What is the real danger in the path of the seeker? The first obstacle is that if the meditator indulges in nature’s order of things, s/he cannot rise to the ultimate possibility of their physical body and s/he stagnates at the starting point. On the one hand, there is the need; on the other hand, there is suppression which causes the meditator to fight the sex urge.
Suppression is an obstacle on the path of meditation. This is the obstacle of the first chakra. Transformation cannot come about if there is suppression.
If suppression is an obstruction, what is the solution?
Understanding will solve the matter. Transformation takes place within as you begin to understand sex. There is a reason for this.
All elements of nature lie blind and unconscious within us. If we become conscious of them, transformation begins. Awareness is the alchemy; awareness is the alchemy of changing them, of transforming them. If a person awakens their sexual desires with all their emotional and intellectual faculties, then brahmacharya will be generated within them in place of sex.
Unless a person reaches brahmacharya in their first body, it is difficult to work on the potentiality of other centres (chakras).
2. SWADHISTHANA or Sacral Chakra
The second body is the emotional or etheric body. The second body is connected to the second chakra – the swadhishthana chakra. This also has two possibilities. Basically, its natural potential is fear, hate, anger, and violence. If a person stagnates at the second body, then the directly opposite conditions of transformation – love, compassion, fearlessness, friendliness – cannot be created. The obstacles on the meditator’s path in the second chakra are hate, anger, and violence, and the question concerns their transformation.
Here too, the same mistake is made. One person can give vent to their anger; another can suppress their anger. One can just be fearful; another can suppress their fear and make a show of courage. But neither of these will lead to transformation. When there is fear, it has to be accepted; there is no use hiding or suppressing it. If their is violence within, there is no use in covering it with the mantle of pseudo-gentleness.
Shouting pacifist slogans will bring no change in the state of violence within. It remains violence. It is a condition given to us by nature through the second body. It has its uses just as there is meaning to sex. Through sex alone, other physical bodies can be given birth. Before one physical body perishes, nature has made provision for the birth of another.
Fear, violence, anger, are all necessary on the second plane; otherwise man could not survive, could not protect himself. Fear protects him, anger impels him to struggle against others, and violence helps him to save himself from the violence of others. All these are qualities of the second body and are necessary for survival, but generally, we stop here and do not go any further. If a person understands the nature of fear, she attains to fearlessness, and if she understands the nature of violence, she attains non-violence – ahimsa. Similarly, by understanding anger, we develop the quality of forgiveness.
In fact, anger is one side of the coin, forgiveness is the other. They each hide behind the other – but the coin has to be turned over. If we come to know one side of the coin perfectly, we naturally become curious to know what is on the other side – and so the coin turns. If we hide the coin [repression and suppression] and pretend we have no fear, no violence within, we will never be able to know fearlessness and real non-violence. Those who accept, for example, the presence of fear within themselves and who investigate it fully, will soon reach a plane where they will want to find out what is behind fear.
The curiosity will encourage them to seek the other side of the coin – in this example fearlessness.
The moment we turn it over, we become fearless. Similarly, violence will turn to compassion. These are potentials of the second body. Thus, the meditator has to bring about a transformation in the qualities given to them by nature. And, for this, it is not necessary to go around asking others; one has to keep seeking and asking within oneself.
We all know that anger and fear are impediments – because how can a coward seek truth? They will go begging for truth; they will wish that someone should give it to them without their having to go into unknown lands.
3. MANIPURA or Solar Plexus Chakra
The third is the astral body. This also has two dimensions. Primarily, the third body revolves around doubt and thinking. If these are transformed, doubt becomes trust and thinking becomes vivek, awareness. If doubts are repressed, you never attain shraddha, trust, though we are advised to suppress doubts and to believe what we hear.
Those who repress their doubts never attain trust because doubt remains present within, though repressed. It will creep within like a cancer and eat up your vitality. Beliefs are implanted for fear of skepticism. We will have to understand the quality of doubt, we will have to live it and go along with it. Then, one day, we will reach a point where we will begin to have doubt about doubt itself. The moment we begin to doubt doubt itself, trust begins.
We cannot achieve clarity of discrimination without going through the process of thinking. There are people who do not think and people who encourage them not to think. They say, “Do not think; leave all the thoughts.” Those who stop thinking land themselves in ignorance and blind faith.
This is not clarity. The power of discrimination is gained only after passing through the most subtle processes of thinking. What is the meaning of vivek, discrimination? Doubt is always present in thoughts. It is always indecisive. Therefore, those who think a great deal never come to a decision. It is only when they step out of the wheel of thoughts that they can decide. Decision comes from a state of clarity which is beyond thoughts.
Thoughts have no connection with decision. Those who are always engrossed in thoughts never reach a decision. That is why it invariably happens that those whose life is less dominated by thoughts are very resolute, whereas those who think a great deal lack determination. There is danger in both approaches to life, at their extremities. Those who do not think go ahead and do whatever they are determined to do, for the simple reason that they have no thought process to create doubt within.
The dogmatists and the fanatics of the world are very active and energetic people; for them there is no question of doubting – they never think! If they feel that heaven is attained by killing one thousand people, they will rest only after killing one thousand people and not before. They never stop to think what they are doing so there is never any decision on their part. People who think too much, on the contrary, will keep on thinking instead of making any decision.
If we close our doors for fear of thoughts, we will be left with blind faith only. This is very dangerous and is a great obstacle in the path of the meditator. What is needed is an open-eyed discretion and thoughts that are clear, resolute, and which allow us to make decisions. This is the meaning of vivek: clarity, awareness. It means that the power of thinking is complete. It means we have passed through thoughts in such detail that all the doubts are cleared. Now only the pure decision is left in its essence.
The chakra pertaining to the third body is manipur . Doubt and trust are its two forms. When doubts is transformed, trust is the result. But remember, trust is not opposed or contrary to doubt. Trust is the purest and most ultimate development of it. It is the ultimate extreme of doubt, where even doubt becomes lost because here doubt begins to doubt even itself and it this way extinguishes itself. Then trust is born.
4. ANAHATA or Heart Chakra
The fourth plane is the mental body, or the psyche, and the fourth chakra, the anahata, is connected with the fourth body. The natural qualities of this plane are imagination and dreaming. This is what the mind is always doing: imagining and dreaming. It dreams in the night and, in the daytime, it daydreams. If imagination is fully developed, it becomes determination, will.
If dreaming develops fully, it is transformed into vision – psychic vision. If a person’s ability to dream is fully developed, he has only to close his eyes and he can see things. He can then see even through a wall. At first, he only dreams of seeing beyond the wall; later, he really does see beyond it. Now he can only guess what you are thinking but, after transformation, he sees what you think. Vision means seeing and hearing things without the use of the usual sense organs. The limitations of time and space are no more for a person who develops vision.
In dreams, you travel far. If you are in Bombay, you reach Calcutta. In vision, also, you can travel distances, but there will be a difference: in dreams, you imagine you have gone, whereas in vision you actually go. The fourth, psychic, body can actually be present there. As we have no idea of the ultimate possibility of this fourth body, we have discarded the ancient concept of dreams in today’s world. The ancient experience was that, in a dream, one of the bodies of man comes out of him and goes on a journey.
There was a man, Swedenborg, whom people knew as a dreamer. He used to talk of heaven and hell and how they can only exist in dreams. But one afternoon, as he slept, he began to shout, “Help! Help! My house is on fire.” People came running, but there was no fire there. They awoke him to assure him that it was only a dream and there was no danger of fire.
He insisted, however, that his house was on fire. His house was three hundred miles away and it had caught fire at that time. On the second or third day, news came of this disaster. His house was burnt to ashes and it was actually burning when he cried out in his sleep. Now, this was no longer a dream but a vision. The distance of three hundred was no longer there. This man witnessed what was happening three hundred miles away.
Scientists also agree that there are great psychic possibilities in the fourth body. Now that man has ventured into space, research in this direction has become all the more important. The fact remains that no matter how reliable the instruments at man’s disposal, these cannot be relied upon completely. If the radio communication is a spaceship ceases to function, the astronauts lose contact with the world for all time. They will not be able to tell us where they are or what has happened to them.
So, today, scientists are keen to develop telepathy and vision of the psychic body to combat this risk. If the astronauts were able to communicate directly with the power of telepathy, it would be a part of the development of the fourth body. Then space travel should be made safe. A lot of work has been carried out in this direction.
Thirty years ago, a man set out to explore the North Pole. He was equipped with all that was necessary for wireless communication. One more arrangement was also made which has not been publicized up until now. A psychic person whose fourth body faculties were functioning agreed to receive messages from the explorer. The most surprising thing was that, when there was bad weather, the wireless failed but the psychic person received the news without any difficulty.
When the diaries were compared later on, it was found that, eighty to ninety-five per cent of the time, the signals received by the psychic person were correct, whereas the news relayed by the radio was not available more than seventy-two per cent of the time because there were many breakdowns. Now a great deal of work is going on in the field of telepathy, clairvoyance, thought projection and thought reading. All these are the possibilities of the fourth body. To dream is its natural quality; to see the truth, to see the real, is its ultimate possibility, Anahata is the chakra of this fourth body.
5. VISHUDDHI or Throat Chakra
The fifth chakra is the vishuddhi chakra. It is located in the throat. The fifth body is the spiritual body. The vishuddhis chakra is connected to the spiritual body. The first four bodies and their chakras were split into two but duality ends with the fifth body.
As I said before, the difference between male and female lasts until the fourth body; after that it ends. If we observe very closely, all duality belongs to the male and female. Where the distance between male and female is no more, at that very point, all duality ceases. The fifth body is indivisible. It does not have two possibilities but only one.
That is why there is not much effort for the meditator to make. Here, there is nothing contrary to develop; here, one has only to enter. By the time we reach the fourth body, we have developed so much capability and strength that it is very easy to enter the fifth body. In that case, how can we tell the difference between a person who had entered the fifth body and one who has not?
The difference will be that he who has entered the fifth body is completely rid of all unconsciousness. He will not actually sleep at night. That is, he sleeps but his body alone sleeps; someone within is forever awake. If he turns in sleep, he knows it; if he does not, he knows it. If he has covered himself with a blanket, he knows it; if he had not, then he also knows it. His awareness does not slacken in sleep; he is awake all the twenty-four hours. For the one who has not entered the fifth body, his state is just the opposite. In sleep, he is asleep and even in his waking hours, one layer of him will be asleep.
People appear to be working. When you come home every evening, the car turns left into your gate; you apply the brake when you reach the porch. Do not be under the illusion that you are doing all this consciously. It happens unconsciously by sheer force of habit. It is only in certain moments, moments of great danger, that we really snap into alertness. When the danger is such that it will not do to go about lacking awareness, we awaken. For instance, if a man puts a knife to your chest, you jump into consciousness. The point of the knife for a moment takes you right up to the fifth body. With the exception of these few moments in our lives, we live like somnambulists [sleep walkers].
The wife does not see her husband’s face properly nor does the husband see his wife’s face. If the husband tries to visualise the wife’s face, he will not be able to do so. The lines of her face will start slipping away and it will be difficult to say whether it was the same face he has seen for the last thirty years. You have never seen, because there must be an awakened person within you to see.
One who is “awake” appears to be seeing but actually she is not – because she is asleep within, dreaming, and everything is going on in this dream state. You get angry, then you say, “I do not know how I got angry; I did not want to.” You say. “Forgive me! I did not want to be rude, it was a slip of the tongue.” You have used an obscenity and it is you who deny the intention of its use. The criminal always says: “I did not want to kill. It happened in spite of me.” This proves that we are going about like automata. We say what we do not want to say; we do what we do not want to do.
In the evening, we vow to be up at four in the morning. When it is four o’clock and the alarm goes off, we turn over, saying there is no need to be up so early. Then we get up at six and are filled with remorse for having overslept. Again, we swear to keep the same vow as yesterday. It is strange that a man decides on one thing in the evening and goes back on it in the morning! Then what he decides at four in the morning changes again before it is six and what he decides at six changes long before it is evening and, in-between, he changes a thousand times. These decisions, these thoughts, come to us in our sleepy state. They are like dreams: they expand and burst like bubbles. There is no wakeful person behind them – no one who is alert and conscious.
So sleep is the innate condition before the beginning of the spiritual plane. Man is a somnambulist before he enters the fifth body and there is the quality of wakefulness. Therefore, after the growth of the fourth body, we can call the individual a buddha, an awakened one. Now such a person is awake. Buddha is not the name of Gautam Siddharth but a name given to him after his attainment of the fifth plane. Gautama the Buddha means Gautam who has awakened. His name remained Gautam, but that was the name of the sleeping person, so gradually, it fell into disuse and only Buddha remained.
The difference comes with the attainment of the fifth body. Before we enter into it, whatever we do is an unconscious action which cannot be trusted. One moment, a man vows to love and cherish his loved one for the rest of his life and the next moment, he is quite capable of strangling her. The alliance which he promised for a lifetime does not last long. This poor man is not to be blamed. What is the value of promises given in sleep? In a dream, I may promise, “This is a lifelong relationship.” Of what value is this promise? In the morning, I will deny it because it was only a dream.
A sleeping person cannot be trusted. This world of ours is entirely a world of sleeping people; hence, so much confusion, so many conflicts, so many quarrels, so much chaos. It is all the making of sleeping people.
There is another important difference between a sleeping person and an awakened one which we should bear in mind. A sleeper does not know who they are, so they are always striving to show others that they are such and such, this or that. This is a lifelong endeavour for the sleeper. They try in a thousand and one ways to prove themselves. Sometimes they climb one of the many social ladders and declare, “I am so-and-so.” Sometimes they build a house and display their wealth, or climb a mountain only to display their strength. They try in all ways to prove themselves to others. And, in all these efforts, they are, in fact, unknowingly trying to find out for themselves just who they are. They know not who they are.
Before crossing the fourth plane, we cannot find the answer. The fifth body is called the spiritual body because there you get the answer to the quest for “Who am I?” The call of the “I” stops once and for all on this fifth plane; the claim to be someone special [inflated egoism of the disconnected ego] vanishes immediately. If you say to such a person, “You are so-and-so,” he will laugh. All claims from his side will now stop because now he knows. There is no longer any need to prove himself.
The conflicts and problems of the individual end on the fifth plane. But this plane has its own hazards. You have come to know yourself and this knowing is so blissful and fulfilling that you may want to terminate your journey here. You may feel like not going on. Up to this point, the hazards were all pain and agony; now the hazards that begin are of bliss. The fifth plane is so blissful that you will not have the heart to leave it and proceed further. Therefore, the individual who enters this plane has to be very wary of clinging to bliss and going no further. Here, bliss is supreme and at the peak of its glory; it is in its profoundest depths. A great transformation comes about within one who has know himself. But this is not all; they have further to go!
It is a fact that distress and suffering do not obstruct our way as much as joy. Bliss is very obstructive. It was difficult enough to leave the crows and confusion of the marketplace, but it is a thousand times more difficult to leave the soft music of the veena in the temple. This is why many meditators stop at atma gyan, self-realization, and do not go up to the Brahma gyan, experience of the Brahman – the cosmic reality.
We shall have to wary of this bliss. We must make an effort not to get lost in this bliss. Bliss draws us towards itself; it drowns us; we get immersed in it completely. Do not become immersed in bliss. Know that this, too, is an experience. Happiness was an experience, misery was an experience; and so is bliss. Stand outside it, be a witness. As long as there is experience, there is an obstacle; the ultimate has not yet been reached. In the ultimate state, all experiences end. Joy and sorrow come to an end, so also does bliss.
Our language, however, does not go beyond this point. This is why we have described God as sat-chit-ananda – truth, consciousness, bliss. This is not the form of the Supreme Self, but this is the utmost that words can express. Bliss is the ultimate expression of mankind. In fact, words cannot go beyond the fifth plane. But about the fifth plane we can say, “There is bliss there; there is perfect awakening; there is realization of the Self there.” All this can be described.
Therefore, there will be no mystery about those who stop at the fifth plane. Their talk will sound very scientific because the realm of mystery lies beyond this plane. Things are very clear up to the fifth plane. I believe that science will sooner or later absorb those religions that go up to the fifth body, because science will be able to reach up to the atman.
When a seeker sets out on this path, their search is mainly for bliss and not truth. Frustrated by suffering and restlessness, they set out in search of bliss. So one who seeks bliss will definitely stop at the fifth plane; therefore, I must tell you to seek not bliss but truth. Then you will not remain long within the fifth body.
A question arises: There is ananda: this is well and good. I know myself: this, too, is well and good. But these are only the leaves and flowers. Where are the roots? I know myself, I am blissful – it is good, but from where does this “I” arise? Where are my roots? From where have I come? Where are the depths of my existence? From which ocean has this wave that I am arisen?
If your quest is for truth, you will wish to travel beyond the fifth body. From the very beginning, therefore, your quest should be for truth and not bliss; otherwise, your journey up to the fifth plane will be easy but you will stop there. If the quest is for truth, there is no question of stopping there.
So the greatest obstacle on the fifth plane is the unparalleled joy we experience – and more so because we come from a world where there is nothing but pain, suffering, anxiety, and tension. Then, when we reach this temple of bliss, there is an overwhelming desire to dance with ecstasy, to be drowned, to be lost in this bliss. This is not the place to be lost. That place will come, and then you will not have to lose yourself; you will simply be lost.
There is a great difference between losing yourself and being lost. In other words, you will reach a place where even if you wish, you cannot save yourself.; You will see yourself becoming lost; there is nothing you can do to prevent it. Yet here also in the fifth body you can lose yourself. Your effort, your endeavour, still works here – and even though the ego is intrinsically dead on the fifth plane, “I-am-ness” still persists. It is necessary, therefore, to understand the difference between ego and “I-am-ness”.
The ego, the feeling of “I”, will die, but the feeling of “am” will not die. There are two things in “I-am”, the “I” is the ego and the “am” is the asmita – the feeling of being. So the “I” will die on the fifth plane, but the being, the “am”, will remain: “I-am-ness” will remain. Standing on this plane, a meditator will declare, “There are infinite souls and each soul is different and apart from the other.” On this plane, the meditator will experience the existence of infinite souls because he still has the feeling of am, the feeling of being which makes him feel apart from others. If the quest for truth grips the mind, the obstacle of bliss can be crossed – because incessant bliss becomes tedious. A single strain of a melody can become irksome.
Bertrand Russel once said jokingly, “I am not attracted to salvation because I hear there is nothing but bliss there. Bliss alone would be very monotonous – bliss and bliss and nothing else. If there is not single trace of unhappiness – no anxiety, no tension in it – how long can one bear such bliss?”
To be lost in bliss is the hazard of the fifth plane. It is very difficult to overcome. Sometimes it takes many births to do so. The first four steps are not so hard to take, but the fifth is very difficult. Many births may be needed to be bored with bliss, to be bored with the self, to be bored with atman.
The quest up to the fifth body is to rid oneself of pain, hatred, violence, and desires. After the fifth, the aim of the search is to be rid of the self. So there are two things: the first is freedom from something; this is one thing and it is completed at the fifth plane. The second thing is freedom from the self and a completely new world starts here.
6. AJNA CHAKRA or Third Eye Chakra
The sixth is the Brahma sharira, the cosmic body, and the sixth chakra is the agya [ajna] chakra. Here, there is no duality. The experience of bliss become intense on the fifth plane and the experience of existence, of being, on the sixth. Asmita – I am – will now be lost. The “I” in this is lost at the fifth plane and the “am” will go as soon as you transcend the fifth. The “is-ness” will be felt; tathata, suchness will be felt. Nowhere will there be the feeling of “I” or of “am”; only that which is remains.
So here will be the perception of reality, of being – the perception of consciousness. But here the consciousness is free of me; it is no longer my consciousness. It is only consciousness – no longer my existence but only existence [chit].
Some meditators stop after reaching the Brahma sharira, the cosmic body, because the state of “I am the Brahman” has finally arrived – of “Aham Brahmasmi,” when I am not and only the Brahman is. Now what more is there to seek? What is to be sought? Nothing remains to be sought. Now everything is attained. The Brahman means the total. One who stands at this point says. “The Brahman is the ultimate truth, the Brahman is the cosmic reality. There is nothing beyond.”
It is possible to stop here, and seekers do stop at this stage for millions of births because there seems to be nothing ahead. So the Brahma gyani, the one who has attained realization of the Brahman, will get stuck here; they will go no further. This stage is so difficult to cross because there is nothing to cross to. Everything has been covered. Does not one need a space to cross into?
If I want to go outside this room, there must be somewhere else to go. But the room has now become so enormous, so beginingless and endless, so infinite, so boundless, that there is nowhere to go. Where will we go to search? Nothing remains to be found; everything has been covered. So the journey may halt at this stage for infinite births.
The Brahman is therefore the ultimate obstacle – the last barrier in the ultimate quest of the seeker. Now, only the being remains but non-being has yet to be realised. The Being, the “is-ness”, is known but that which is not, still remains to be known. Therefore, the seventh plane is the the nirvana kaya , nirvanic body, and its chakra is the sahasrar. Nothing can be said in connection with this chakra. We can only continue talking at the most up to the sixth – and that, too, with great difficulty. Most of it turns out to be misleading – yet we attempt to describe and explain.
Until the fifth body, the search progresses within very scientific parameters; everything can be explained. On the sixth plane, the horizon begins to fade; everything seems meaningless. Hints can still be given but, ultimately, the pointing finger breaks and the hints too are no more because one’s own being is eliminated. So the Brahman, the absolute being, is known from the sixth body and the sixth chakra.
Therefore, those who seek the Brahman will meditate on the agya [ajna] chakra which is between the eyes [eyebrow centre]. This chakra is connected to the cosmic body. Those who work completely on this chakra will begin to call the vast infinite expanse that they witness – “the third eye”. This is the third eye through which they can now view the cosmic, the infinite.
7. SAHASRARA or Crown Chakra
One more journey yet remains – the journey to non-being, non-existence. Existence is only half the story: there is also non-existence. Light is but, on the other side, there is darkness. Life is one part but there is also death. Therefore, it is necessary to know as well, the remaining non-existence, the void, because the ultimate truth can only be known when both are known — existence and non-existence.
Being is known in its entirety and non-being is known in its entirety: then the knowing is complete. Existence is known in its entirety and non-existence is known in its entirety: then we know the whole. Otherwise, our experience is incomplete. There is an imperfection in Brahma gyan, which is that it has not been able to know the non-being.
Therefore, the Brahma gyani denies that there is such a thing as non-existence and calls it an illusion. He says that is does not exist. He says that to be is the truth and not to be is a falsity. There simply is no such thing, so the question of knowing it does not arise.
Nirvana kaya means the shunya kaya, the void from where we jump from the Being into the Non-Being. In the cosmic body, something yet remains unknown. That, too, has to be known — what it is not to be, what it is to be completely erased. Therefore, the seventh plane in a sense is an ultimate death.
Nirvana, as I informed you previously, means the extinction of the flame. That which was “I” is extinct; that which was “am” is extinct. But now we have again come into Being by being one with All. Now we are the Brahman and this, too, will have to be left behind. Those who are ready to take the last jump know existence and also non-existence.
All Barriers are Within Us, understanding is what is required
So these are the seven bodies and the seven chakras and, within them, lie all the means as well as the barriers. There are no barriers outside. Therefore, there is not much reason to inquire outside. If you have gone to ask someone, then do not beg. To understand is one thing, to beg is quite another. Your search should always continue. Whatever you have heard and understood should also be made your search. Do not make it your belief or else it will be begging.
You asked me something; I gave you an answer. If you have come for alms, you will put this in your bag and store it away as your treasure. Then you are not a meditator but a beggar. No, what I told you should become your quest. It should accelerate your search; it should stimulate and motivate your curiosity. It should put you into greater difficulty, make you more restless and raise new questions in you, new dimensions, so that you will set out on a new path of discovery. If you do this you have not taken alms from me and you have understood what I said. And if this helps you to understand yourself, then this is not begging.
So go forth to know and understand; go forth to search. You are not the only one seeking; many others are also. Many have searched, many have attained enlightened. Try to know, to grasp, what has happened to such people and also what has not happened; try and understand all this. But while understanding this, do not stop trying to understand your own self.
Do not think that understanding others has become your own self-realization. Do not put faith in their experiences; do not believe them blindly. Rather, turn everything into questioning. Turn them into questions and not answers; then your journey will continue. Then it will not be begging: it will be your quest.
It is your search that will take you to the last. As you penetrate within yourself, you will find the two sides of each chakra. As I informed you, one side is given to you by nature and the other side you have to discover for yourself. Anger is given to you; forgiveness you have to find, develop and refine. Sex is given to us; brahmacharya [conscious mastery of the sexual energy], we have to develop, nurture, understand. Dreams we have; vision we can consciously evolve.
The search for the opposite will continue up to the fourth chakra. From the fifth will start the search for the indivisible, for the non-dual. We try to continue the search for that which is different from what has come to us in the fifth body. When we attain to bliss, we can try to find out what there is beyond bliss. On the sixth plane, we attain the Brahman but keep inquiring, “What is there beyond the Brahman?” Then. one day, we will step into the seventh body, where being and non-being, light and darkness, life and death co-exist. That is the attainment of the ultimate…and there are no means of communicating this state.
This is why our scriptures end with the fifth body or, at the most, they go up to the sixth body. Those with a completely scientific turn of mind do not talk about what is after the fifth body. The cosmic reality, which is boundless and unlimited, begins from there. But Mystics, like the Sufis, talk of the planes beyond the fifth. It is very difficult to talk of these planes because one has to contradict oneself again and again.
If we go through the text of all that one Sufi has said, we will say that this person is inconsistent with their descriptions. Sometimes she will say one thing and sometimes something else. She may say, “God is” and she may also say, “God is not.” She says, “I have seen it” and in the same breath she says, “How can I see it? It is not an object that the eyes can see!”, and so forth and so on. These Mystics raise such questions that you will wonder if they are asking themselves or others.
Mysticism starts on the sixth plane. Therefore, where there is no mysticism in a religion, know that is has finished on the fifth body. But Mysticism also is not the final stage. The Ultimate is the void — nothingness. The religion that ends with Mysticism, ends with the sixth body. The Void is the ultimate, because after it, there is nothing more to be said.
So the search for adwaita, the non-dual, starts with the fifth body. All search for the opposites, ends with the fourth body. All barriers are within us, and they are useful because these very obstacles, when transformed, become our vehicles for progress.
A rock is lying on the road. As long as we do not understand it, it will remain an obstacle for us. The day we understand it, it will become a ladder instead of a snake. The rock is lying on the road: as long as we do not understand it, we may say, “The rock is in my way. How can I possibly proceed?”
When we have understood, we will climb over the rock and continue with our journey, thanking the rock with kind words and blessings, “O rock! You have blessed me very, very mucho, because after climbing over you, I am now on a higher level. Now I can proceed to higher and higher levels. Thank you rock! I thought that you were an unmoving enemy, but you have turned out to be a mighty teacher, without whose lesson I could not continue. You were the means, and I mistook you for a barrier.”
The road is blocked by this boulder. What will happen? Cross over it and know. In this way, overcome anger, cross over it and reach the cool and infinite pool of forgiveness, which we could say is “on an entirely different level”. Cross over sex and attain to brahmacharya [conscious mastery of sexual energy], which is again “on an entirely different level.” Then we will thank sex, and anger, and fear, and greed, and jealousy, etc…, for being the necessary stepping stones and transformational teachers. They are our “Transcendental Trainers”.
Every rock on the path can be a barrier as a well as a “medium”. It does depend entirely on what we do with them and how we perceive these “rocks”. One thing is for certain: do not fight with a rock, because then we will only break our heads and the rock will not help us at all.
If we fight with a rock, the rock will bar our way onwards, because wherever we fight, we stop. We have to stop near the person or thing we fight with; we cannot possibly fight from a distance. That is why if someone fights sex, they have to be involved with sex just as much as another who indulges in it. In fact, many times the fighter is closer to sex because the one who indulges in it can get out of it some day, they can transcend it! But the one who continually fights with it, cannot get out of it; they keep going around and around, like a dog chasing its own tail.
To transcend, to go beyond, we must go through, with conscious awareness, and this is not difficult in today’s information rich societies. The paths are strewn with petals, refreshments, ornamentation and much support, but first one must want to take the first step. That is the choice we all must make.
If we fight anger, we will become angry ourselves – continually angry. Our whole personality will soon be filled with anger [or any of the other “rocks”] and each fibre of our bodies will vibrate with these “blocked rocks”.
The stories we read of sages and ascetics like Durwasa being very angry happen because they fought with anger; thus, they could not think of nothing but cursing, the same with many members of Priesthoods and other organizations that based their teachings and transformational techniques upon repression and suppression! The personality of the repressed inner fighters often turn into fire, ice, or sludge. These are the people who have fought with the rocks and are now in grave difficulty. They have become what they have struggled against.
This is very common when people fight their “enemies”, they often become very similar to their “foes” – thus all the “great” tyrants, dictators and military leaders and the constant “radical revolutions”, that merely replace one dictatorship with another.
We may also read of other rishis and saints whom were visited by celestial maidens from heaven and corrupted them [sexually] in a moment. Strange! This is only possible if a person has fought with sex, otherwise not possible. That person has fought and fought and thus weakened themselves. Then sex is secure in its own place, untransformed, repressed, maybe corrupted through constant suppression, and it is just awaiting that person to break down.
Then this sex can burst forth from deep within that persons psyche and erupt anywhere and anytime. Thus so much corruption and defilement for so many people who followed repressive paths in the past. When sex is suppressed with such a heavy hand, an ordinary man or woman may appear to the suppressor as a celestial maiden. The mind may project images in dreams at night and produce similar thoughts during the day and become completely swamped by the subject material. Then a thing which is not that much fascinating becomes a bewitchment, a hypnosis on an otherwise balanced mind.
So the seeker has to beware of the tendency to fight. They should try their utmost to understand and by trying to understand is meant understanding that Inspecting, observing and understanding with conscious awareness that which was previously dark and bringing the light to these areas of our lives.
Through that which has been given to us, we can attain that which is yet unknown. This is the starting point. If we run away from that which is the very beginning, it is very difficult to reach our goal. If we run away from sex or anger, for example, how will we ever understand and transcend these natural qualities? These “rocks” are the openings given by nature which we can transcend.
If you look at life from this perspective, there is no need to importune anyone; understanding is what is required.
All of existence is there for the purpose of understanding.
Learn from anybody, hear everybody, and, finally, understand your own self within.
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