Summary: In conversation with a Catholic priest explains the ancient Indian classifications of the seven centres, the four stages of life, the different sheaths, the nādīs and Indian symbolism. Praises the ancient system of Ayurveda for its holistic approach, and explains the extent of India’s wisdom which has placed her as a World Teacher among nations.

The various centres of consciousness and energy are a world in themselves. For example, you have the emotional centre which deals with the emotions, the emotional world, the emotional consciousness, the emotional part of your consciousness. And so the mental centre the mental consciousness; the vital centre the vital consciousness dealing with your passions and so on. They each are a particular region of your consciousness which makes for a complete consciousness that deals with the totality of your existence, although ordinarily they do not manifest their full potential in people’s lives. And also certain centres are still closed in most people. Most live their lives quite limited.

(To M., an Italian Catholic priest presently visiting the Ashram) Do you know the Caduceus staff? The people who use this symbol do not know what it signifies. In any temple here, and specifically the temples dedicated to the Goddess, you will find the same symbol. Do you know where it originated? One day we will plan a trip around India and I will show you these things. In the West where it is used by the medical fraternity its real significance is not understood. Its origin is here in India and it is still understood here. I will explain the significance to you. It is a symbol of great import. There are the two serpents and there is the staff in the middle with two wing-shaped heads on the top. The two serpents are intertwined crossing at various points; the crossing points each being the different centres of consciousness. The serpents represent energy, prâṇa in its two aspects – the left one, associated with the left nostril and the iḍâ nâḍî or chandra nâḍî, channel, is the moon aspect, the feminine and cool aspect of the energy and life and it connects to the right hemisphere of the brain; while the right serpent associated with the right nostril and pingala nâḍî or sûrya nâḍî, channel, is the sun aspect, the masculine and hot aspect of the energy and life and connects to the left hemisphere of the brain. They reach all the way from the base of the spine where the tails of the serpents meet: the first centre of consciousness, mûlâdhâra, to the middle of the forehead between the eyebrows, the sixth centre of consciousness, âjñâ, finally opening into the top of the head and the seventh centre of consciousness, sahasrâra. The central staff is called merudaṇḍa, the staff of Meru. Meru is a special mountain – our sitting body in meditation posture is this mount Meru which has to be mounted, climbed in consciousness through meditation and sadhana and the process of Yoga with the help of this staff, the merudaṇḍa. The staff is our spine through which runs the most important and special channel, nâḍî, called sushumṇa.

(In a light vein to the Italian priest) They are going to catch you when you get back! He has brought all this information and new scriptures, new studies, and that too from a heathen country! The priests over there are going to get him excommunicated. They are going to catch him! The Vatican is going to excommunicate him, then exorcise him. Maybe even burn him at the stake! What is all this mumbo jumbo? It must be the devil’s work. Verdict passed and stake prepared for the burning of the heretic. He is still writing away, all of which will be evidence and proof used against him! They will be waiting at the airport, Milano airport, when he lands! “Where have you returned from?” they will ask. (Laughing) Every baggage, every book will be confiscated and checked. There will be no explanations accepted and given, yes, like with Joan of Arc and the many others. And Tantra practices? That will complete the ticket to hell! You can even say, “I have brought an Indian goddess with me.” (Uproarious laughter)

F.: That could make things even more difficult!

Yes, that will seal his fate – for sure! So while the western medical fraternity do not understand the significance of the symbol, here if you go to the temples in the villages you will find it carved in stone and worshipped.

The mountain you have to climb is the mount of consciousness in the body called Meru with the staff of the spine. Just as you would climb a mountain physically using a staff as support, there is a staff here to climb the mountain of consciousness in the body, but while the external mountain is climbed physically, this climb is of the consciousness – and mystical. Of course, it includes your physical, it includes all parts of your being, it includes the whole of your consciousness. Using this staff, this daṇḍa, to climb up one passes through all the different centres. The central staff is your spine that keeps this mountain straight and erect, through which this powerful force, energy, Goddess called Kundalini when awakened moves and climbs. And you climb with Her in your consciousness and being, passing every centre, awakening and opening them out. Wonder of wonders – what magic! You experience vast spaces; you experience regions you have never experienced before. She reaches you into the heights and depths of your self and being, deep into every centre, awakening and opening them out and finally reaching you into the skies. Shiva, Shiva! The centres are symbolised as flowers, lotus flowers – it is a very beautiful symbolisation and visualisation. It is wonderful meditation. We do a particular meditation wherein we use these visualisations through our breath to work with each centre and every time you come to a centre you visualise it opening out like a lotus flower. This is Tantra meditation.

So you have the two serpents, two energy flows – left, right – iḍâ, pingala – moon, sun. The breath is moving in one or the other, energising the respective part of your being, the left or the right, left and right, right and left. It keeps shifting. Through the practice of meditation, Yoga, and the grace of the Guru who is awake to this, the awakening happens – the awakening of this force called Kundalini which is the worshipful Goddess. There are the practices in Tantra, in Yoga where She is worshipped in different art forms representing varying manifestations and powers. All forms that you see and don’t see out there are Her and therefore in Hinduism everything is worshipped, for this is the Truth. When She awakens she gives you a new birth in consciousness. That is why She is worshipped as Mother: she gives you new life, a very special new life.

In the symbol, the place where the two serpents face each other on the top is the sixth centre of consciousness, âjñâ. Up to there is the region of duality, of embodied existence and life. When you go above that to the seventh centre, sahasrâra, you enter the realm of Shiva the transcendent, where the feminine aspect and the masculine aspect join and become one, and the unified Reality reached beyond duality. In the embodied aspect Shiva is male, Kundalini is female. Goddess and God join and become one and this is seen in every aspect of life. You have transcended the embodied existence. So She not only opens you out inward to liberation and freedom in embodied existence within, but also carries you upward into transcendence – which is above life and its duality and beyond all bodily existence.

Each time one centre opens you can stand behind it as a being and not be bound by the workings of that centre, rather experience it in freedom. And that is what is meant by opening out, so that at each centre you arrive at your being. For example there is the physical centre: if you open out, there is a physical being or an existence at a physical level in the physical consciousness. Just so you have the emotional centre and the emotional being and the emotional consciousness; so also the mental centre, the mental being and the mental consciousness. It is one being with varying levels to its consciousness. Depending on which level of consciousness and part of being predominates one can be, say, a mental being – a human being but predominantly mental. Or one may be predominantly emotional and therefore an emotional being – or a vital being with a very active vital centre. There is also the psychic being with its psychic centre as Sri Aurobindo calls it – which is the ‘deeper heart’ as we call it.

Life is a dance of Shiva and Parvati, the Being and Energy. That is why you see Shiva’s figure is with one foot grounded, the other one lifted in the infinite dance of life. The grounding is in the being and the other is uplifted indicating movement, meaning the play of life forces – an infinite dance of life mudrâs, forms. And it will always represent two sides like birth and death – just so the two serpents representing energy.

When the first white missionaries came to India they were horrified like in the film yesterday, they had no understanding of such concepts. You saw those temples, so beautiful, they are all temples to Shiva and Vishnu. There are very ancient temples in Cambodia like Angkor Wat. They were discovered I think in the last century or the century before by an English explorer, in the middle of an overgrown forest as if time had stood still for the temples while the forest had grown around them. All of a sudden he came upon these amazing temples. What a marvel it must have been! In ancient India Cambodia was called Khamboj and there was a direct civilizational link to the Indian civilization which extended far into the East just as it did in the West and North.

Like many things that have come to us from the past, people do not understand the Caduceus staff anymore. It has become a meaningless symbol. The merudaṇḍa is the spine through which runs sushumṇa, the most important nâḍî; that is, in the spine there is a subtle nerve channel, nâḍî, which is called sushumṇa. So in this symbol you have the serpent-like iḍâ and pingala intertwined with the sushumṇa staff in the middle – straight, straight as your spine. In Tantra and Yoga these three nâḍîs, nerve channels, are the most important nâḍîs, and to them all other nâḍîs – thousands of them – are connected for the energy to move to every part of the body as flow-feed, thereby keeping it energetic and in perfect health – therefore is Caduceus the symbol of health!

Because of this knowledge, Ayurveda, the Indian system of medicine has a different approach to health and treatment, working with the body and being even at subtle levels as opposed to the western system which is gross and imperfect because it treats the symptom and not so much the causes, leave alone know and understand anything of the subtle system of body and being. They only see it in purely physical terms of whatever is physically visible to them. Broadly speaking Ayurveda deals with your complete being; they see you as a person, not as an illness or a particular disease and therefore treat the person and not just the illness. They do not attack the pathogen, rather treat the root cause in your system, in your way of life and your lifestyle. Having treated the cause the symptoms go away of their own accord and health is restored. And they have an amazing way of diagnosis. Through checking the beat of your pulse they can tell what is wrong with you, it is amazing. You do not have to tell them anything. They will just check your pulse: by the movements of the pulse they will tell you what is wrong with you, by the movements of the flow of energy through your pulse. If you are unwell there is a change in the energy flow which they can detect and then diagnose what is wrong with you and where. They have the accumulated knowledge from ancient times about the different centres of consciousness, nerve centres, physical body and the functioning of the various organs and nerves, the subtle body and the flow of energy through the various nâḍîs with all the pulse and pressure points; and such elaborate understanding that by just checking the pulse they can tell where you have the problem, whether in your kidneys, your head or elsewhere.

Just as you have three guṇas, quality-constituents of nature, prakṛiti – tamoguṇa, rajoguṇa, sattvaguṇa, the three modes of inertia, activity and harmony – there are three substances, fluids or humors that have to be in harmony for perfect health, physically and psychologically. They are called vâta, pitta and kapha. Vâta is wind, pitta is heat, kapha is phlegm or mucus that keep your body in health and balance. If they are in harmony, if they are in balance, in order, you will be in perfect health. If there is an imbalance, if one or the other is in excess then you will have some illness and this will show up in the beat of the pulse in very subtle ways which the practitioner can detect.

Much of this knowledge was lost in India surviving only in pockets. There are only a few real complete knowers of Ayurveda now because it was discouraged and sidelined, and if anything, forced to exist behind the scene through the machinations of the British colonisers and thus lost importance and was gradually forgotten by the larger mass of the Indian people. When the British came, in their racial arrogance they enforced their own system and forced Ayurveda, the homegrown, highly effective, inexpensive, widely endemic and complete system of health, to fall into disrepute. They did that by changing the educational system. They transplanted their own educational system and materialistic mindset onto the Indians making them embarrassed of their own traditional wisdom, history and roots. So this wisdom amongst the Indian people started to get lost, remaining only in pockets and in Tibet where it is still used as it has been from the beginning when it reached there from India. There are Tibetan healer doctors who still have this wisdom. I know of one such case where they managed to heal a person who had leukaemia – deficiency in red blood cells – and required regular blood transfusion, who failed to find a cure in various parts of the world through the modern medicine system. But ever since the Tibetan doctors took up his case and healing, he has not required blood transfusions – and it is now quite a few years. So in a way, here is a cure for something that is otherwise still considered incurable according to the modern system. Immensely impressed and grateful, the mother of this boy now organises seminars for these doctors at various places. While modern medicine is still struggling to find a cure for these things, this ancient wisdom holds amazing secrets available to those who would want to seek and learn through a more complete understanding of Ayurveda.

In ancient times in India the children at a very young age went to live at the gurukula, the Guru’s community-ashram for their education, where they were given the complete education which had for its foundation the science of the Self, the spiritual and the mystical with the knowledge of the various centres of consciousness, the different aspects, movement and activity of the breath and prâṇa, and the subtle and the physical bodies with their various nâḍîs, nerves, plexuses and organs and their functions; the basis of Ayurveda, the knowledge of life, for Ayurveda deals with the physical not disconnected from the subtle and the spiritual. Otherwise your treatment would be incomplete. All this came within that learning.

Sometime back I told you the story about Shivapuri Baba, Govindananda Bharati who lived long, one hundred and thirty-six years to be exact. He passed away in 1962. He travelled around the world most of which was on foot after the successful completion of his sadhana because there is this tradition in India that after self-realisation, enlightenment and God-realisation, one is to disseminate and share one’s realisation and wisdom with the people everywhere for the welfare of the world through widespread travelling – like Bodhidharma did when he travelled to China with the teachings of the Buddha and martial arts. This is how Buddha’s teaching spread worldwide and continues to spread and so it has been down the ages with Yoga, Tantra, Mantra, and Ayurveda. That is why India has always been acknowledged as the World Teacher since the hoary past by the learned thinkers, philosophers, rulers and administrators worldwide, who were greatly influenced by her realisations and wisdom, and in recent times generally and pervasively by multitudes from all over the world who even see her as the Mother, from whom they will have a new birth in spirit and consciousness. If India did not exist with her wisdom the world would self-destruct because the world would lose its soul.

With Tibet, and through Tibet with China also, being next door there was so much interaction and exchange. There were so many of these Seers and sages travelling into Tibet and China. There were no borders, no restrictions. China used to look upon India as the elder brother then and India was seen by the people of Tibet as the Guru. The Dalai Lama still reiterates this even now at every public forum. These sages used to travel very far. They reached Greece and it is known that much of Greek thought, not to mention the Far East, has been influenced by India – and that is why these symbols are there, though the understanding of it is forgotten and lost. It is a historical fact that Alexander wanted his journey to end in India and was asked by people in Greece to bring back a wise brahmana from here.

Shivapuri Baba in the last century decided to travel around the entire world as was his grandfather’s wont, most of which was on foot – eighty per cent of it – after his realisation. He left home when he was a young boy, no more than thirteen or fourteen, with his grandfather to go into the forest for God-realisation, a living tradition in India which still is followed to a large extent.

In India life was organised into four stages called âúramas inspired by the accumulated wisdom of the Seers of the society, the Ṛishis: the learning and education stage, brahmacharya; the social responsive stage, gṛihastha; the social renouncing and isolation for sadhana stage, vânaprastha; and finally constant God-finding and God-living in freedom stage, saṃnyâsa.

The first stage is wherein you spend your time in education, learning and nothing else. Nowadays brahmacharya is only taken to mean celibacy while actually it had a larger context which meant to keep and direct all of one’s energies, attention, learning and living so that you are seeking Brahman – God and Reality – the final goal. It is common sense that when you are learning in school it is preferable that you keep your energies focused and intact. And if you get involved in other things, especially romanticising, then you will not have much time for learning because romance is such a thing that it takes up all of your time and energy with very little returns to either! (Great laughter) So simply speaking, celibacy was one of the things to be followed so that one would maintain one’s energy and focus for learning. Therefore the first period of life, âúrama, is called brahmacharya, the entire time of which you spent with the Guru at the gurukula learning the various subjects and arts while simultaneously practising Yoga and meditation for God-realisation. You can see in Mahâbhârata how Krishna too spends his educative years at the gurukula of Guru Sandipani at Ujjain. Yesterday we were talking about Gurus. Krishna supposedly requires no Guru – but he still follows the tradition not simply for tradition’s sake but for establishing righteousness and maintenance of dharma in society, just as Jesus gets baptised by John the Baptist – to keep to tradition for the sake of righteousness. That is why while being baptised He says, “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.”

From the first stage one can directly move to the last stage of saṃnyâsa and exclusively and prominently develop the inner life or follow the normal course to it through the other âúramas, the gṛihastha and the vânaprastha wherein with children having grown up and responsible and you having finished with your responsibilities, you go away into the forest for sadhana and inner life, which is the third âúrama.

Gṛihastha, the second stage of life and âúrama means home-dweller or householder living a life in the world with family, relationships, pleasures and displeasures, working and participating in the social setup with all its responsibilities and ramifications whatever they may be while yet practicing and progressing in Yoga and meditation and keeping the final goal in view. Then in time to handover and relinquish one’s properties and societal responsibilities to the next generation and to enter the third stage or âúrama of life, the vânaprastha.

Vana in vânaprastha means forest and prastha means to depart to. So either alone or with wife, or romantic partner – the romance hopefully by now is all over, anyway one does not have energy left for it anymore by that time (laughing) – you were supposed to consciously leave all aside and go into the forest, otherwise you might as well continue to live a life in the world. Why go to the forest with all its hardships and take to the inner life, meditation and Yoga? In the Indian tradition the wife follows the man. So she goes wherever he goes, (laughter) hopefully for the better! Well, the reality is different of course! This is the hope that the man lives in. Man always lives in hope but each time he is confronted with reality and his hopes are dashed to the ground. Each time he picks himself up hoping for the next time and so it carries on hopelessly. Anyway that is how it is. Of course we are talking in terms of the ideal situation, not the reality that affects most people.

Like for example Dronacharya and his wife who were Ṛishis. They had a son called Ashvathama born with great powers and the grace of Lord Shiva – although he misuses these powers and is condemned by Krishna. Ṛishis are Seer-sages who live a life of enlightenment, revelation and illumination of increasing Truth and Divine manifestation. Living with or without family they spend all the time in a way that is furthering of the inner and the spiritual life, in pursuit of knowledge, wisdom and illumination because the Ṛishi manifests predominantly the sattvaguṇa. The nature of the sattvaguṇa is such that it will automatically bring in you the inclination and attitude for pursuing wisdom, knowledge – and you will find pleasure in that. The sattvic person seeks pleasure in knowledge, wisdom, and that will be his way of life. This is predominantly natural to this temperament; while say a rajasic person seeks also pleasure, but may seek pleasure in some activity or the other, not necessarily knowledge – in looking into the eyes of the partner for example. Not that the sattvic man cannot! (Laughing) But the sattvic man seeks knowledge even in pleasure. So whenever he looks into the eyes of his partner he sees more than what the rajasic man sees. At the utmost the sattvic man sees the self, the spirit, so transcends the body – the person as a body and the psychological personality – and enters into the realm of the spiritual. So in their embrace there is the spirit. And as a result they may even have an offspring.

There are three guṇas, sattva, rajas and tamas in all, with one predominant or the other, and therefore is the nature and temperament broadly speaking, just to give an idea for it is a vast subject. And besides every individual has his own unique variations of personality. Now because of the play and shift of the guṇas, for example, one may sometimes feel so romantic you cannot do without your partner, while sometimes you just do not want to deal with the partner at all! (Laughter) And the partner wants to know why, because he/she at that time may be in a very romantic mood due to a guṇa shift and personality mood so to speak while you are not. And then the troubles begin: ‘You do not love me enough. What is wrong with you? You have changed so much since I first met you. Maybe you are seeing somebody else.’ While really you are just having a good meditation but it is difficult to convince the partner. Problems and more problems! For man life is full of problems mostly of his own making. If you have the wisdom and the understanding of how these things work and why, you would have understood each other – then no problem! So you keep shifting: when you are in the mood then the other one is not in the mood; when the other one is in the mood you are not in the mood. Of course when you are both in the mood – wow, bliss. Life could not be better! But all this is temporary says the Ṛishi; fine, know it, live it if need be – but know that you are beyond this. These are the becomings but there is the being which transcends all this. Krishna is a good example. I do not think you can ever find a more romantic person with sixteen thousand one hundred and eight wives. Can you imagine? How busy He must have been with so many partners. Even one can be a handful with a lifetime of troubles but He managed sixteen thousand one hundred and eight wives!

I think M. is getting interested. (Uproarious laughter) So looks like we will still manage by the time he leaves here to have an Indian goddess with him! Although when he arrives in Milano with his Indian goddess he will be crucified or burnt at the stake. Actually Krishna’s wives are symbolic: Krishna is the being, symbolically male and the sixteen-thousand one hundred and eight wives are the nerve channels, nâḍîs, through which the various forms of energy, symbolic of being female and therefore wives, move. The being is nothing without energy. As you can see in life too a man is nothing without his wife. Everything in his life is motivated by his wife directly and indirectly and any man will vouch for this at least in front of his wife. So you see it is just as true in the objective world as it is subjectively, and therefore the realistic symbolism. This is reality. Before he can do anything he has to have the approval of his wife. How much ever he may be a lion or a tiger outside with others in the case of his wife he has to acquiesce and submit every time. That is why V. was looking behind when I mentioned the ‘ideal situation’. Obviously for him it is not enough to agree to something unless it has the stamp of approval from the other half, better or otherwise. That is why he was confirming with his wife by turning to her. In India the symbolisms of even the profound were so pithy and beautiful and so very easy to understand because they were taken from actual down-to-earth reality. So Shiva and Parvati – they represent this whole play of life. Radha and Govinda together make for the dance of life.

The third âúrama is vânaprastha when you go away to the forest. It means you go away and spend all your time and energy for meditation because you have finished and done with everything else now. All the temporary pleasures and events of life you have lived to the fullest and left behind and now it is time to live the inner life to the fullest. It did not mean that meanwhile, in pursuit of the temporal, the inner life was abandoned, rather it was pursued side by side and formed the basis of all actions and life’s livings. This was the learning one received in the gurukula from the Ṛishi, from the Guru, from the Seer that moulded your character and life-vision. It continued through generations, age after age, handed down as a continuous legacy lifting and illuminating the society as a whole. This legacy was the life-breath, the prâṇa of the individual, family, community and the society and was all pervasive. Today it has gotten almost lost and surely much diluted because of which it has lost all rigour and vigour. There are still some who follow this system even today and Rishikesh is one such special place besides others where they fulfil this stage in their life, while some rare few like Shivapuri Baba even go into the deep forest, find refuge in a cave or some simple shelter or make a grass hut, kutir, and live out their life in meditation. Rishikesh itself was dense forest at one time and known for its wild animals, Ṛishis and sadhus involved in sadhana. They seek alms or beg for food and live on the bare minimum for their bodily needs.

Having become accomplished in the third âúrama through sadhana and meditation you qualified for the fourth âúrama, saṃnyâsa. In saṃnyâsa you depend on nothing and no one but self and God. You can travel anywhere, be anywhere, but you never stay for more than three days although you will find variations to this. You keep nothing, you depend on nothing, there is nothing you keep for the next moment. You live in the moment – no money, no food for the next moment or next day – nothing for the morrow. Whatever one obtains for one’s immediate need is accepted and nothing more; while good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant is taken in one’s stride and with equanimity. If nothing is obtained even that is to be accepted as God’s will. Total freedom from dependence on anything or any situation, even for the body’s upkeep, is the basis of saṃnyâsa, the ultimate âúrama of life, having been prepared through the previous âúramas. You may pass through cities, you may pass through forests, everywhere is your home – the whole wide world is your home. It is a very powerful life and this power comes from the freedom, inner freedom. You may be guest to the king, you may be guest to a pauper – there is no difference, because you are a king yourself, a true king, king of freedom like claimed by Jesus to Pontius Pilate. You are a master of life, a totally free person. That is saṃnyâsa. It is a life which has no attachments.

In Shivapuri Baba’s time when he was a boy, this living tradition was followed more diligently. His family belonged to the caste of priests, the brahmins. Even amongst the priests there are various lineages, sub-castes and a hierarchy. He belonged to the caste of priests that are considered the highest even amongst the brahmins – same caste of brahmins as Adi Shankaracharya was born in, besides being from the same state of Kerala in South India. Of course Shankaracharya was many hundred years before Shivapuri Baba who was born only in the early nineteenth century and lived until just over the mid-twentieth century for a phenomenal hundred and thirty-six years.

When He was a young boy in his early teens, and when boys are interested and involved in playing and boy’s things, his grandfather decided to take to the third âúrama, vânaprastha, for it was time, having I am sure impeccably passed through the previous two stages. Shivapuri Baba decided to join him. In fact the grandfather who was an accomplished astrologer had predicted at His birth that a great saṃnyâsin was born in the family and it was proving to be true. So grandfather and grandson depart to the forests of central India along the mighty Narmada river for a life of meditation. Narmada is no ordinary river but a living goddess to the Indian people just like the great Ganga. The entire area on either side with deep forests along the banks from source to end is considered sacred and is a retreat for sadhana for many resident sadhus and yogis in life-long meditation, just as it is along the Ganga. Narmada has a very important place in the Indian tradition. People do regular parikrama – circumambulation with deep reverence – of the entire stretch of the Narmada from source to sea. Many ashrams large and small exist on the banks as well as single person kutirs and people in meditation residing deep in the forests populated with all sorts of wild animals, herbivores and carnivores. Definitely an ideal place for the third stage, âúrama, of life, vânaprastha. So they go into the forest where there are no human beings, only wild animals like tigers, leopards and bears. No cooked food, just living like the animals do – taking of the forest. The grandfather passed away after a few years in their forest retreat. Then the boy came back and took saṃnyâsa – officially getting initiated into what is called the saṃnyâsa tradition – where they wear the saffron cloth, the cloth of fire, disconnecting themselves from any obligation to the world, with a vow to spend their entire life in pursuit of the Immortal and the Eternal. At the initiation He was given a new name, Govindananda Bharati.

New name meaning a new birth with a different world-view and living of life, pledged to a life of freedom and wisdom and not of slavery and ignorance. A new life, new birth with a new name, leaving the old life, view and relationships behind forever. There are ten lineages in the dashnami (ten-named) saṃnyâsa tradition. One of them is Bharatî, so Bharatî is like a family name. Dashnami means ‘ten names’: for there are ten lineages or ten families to whom you would belong through your specific lineage of the Guru from whom you receive the initiation into his family. So you get a name, a family name, besides your own calling name. The ten lineages are Bharatî, Girî, Purî, Saraswatî, Âúrama, Vana, Parvata, Tirtha, Âraṇya and Sâgara. Shivapuri Baba was initiated with the name Govindananda in the family lineage of Bharatî while still in his youth. After getting initiated into the saṃnyâsa tradition, He once again disappeared into the forest – into the same forest where he had gone with his grandfather – and for twenty odd years he lived without seeing a single human being, spending his time in meditation and search for God. He arrived at self-realisation and then God-realisation. Having realised the ultimate objective of life, as per His grandfather’s wish he started his journey around the world for the sharing of his realisation and wisdom with the different people of the world. It is called parikrama – it means to go around in sacredness, reverence and devotion. This is an ancient tradition in India carried out by Seers, sadhus, sages and men of enlightenment and realisation who would travel around India sharing their realisation and wisdom. This has been going on for thousands of years, since time immemorial. The Buddha too after enlightenment, like many others before him, travelled all over India but he never left the shores of India. For four to five decades He was travelling and teaching. But Shivapuri Baba travelled around the world, making a full circle – and eighty per cent of that journey was on foot! He crossed the great Sahara on foot, truly an impossible task for the ordinary. He reached England and for a good few years was a guest of Queen Victoria who wanted him to enlighten her about afterlife and God and was reluctant to let him go. Before that passing through Europe He was guest to the various royalties sharing with them his realisation and God-consciousness. Crossing over to America He was guest of President Roosevelt. Then He went to South America, from South America to the Far East, Japan and then back to India – Varanasi, also called Benares, Kashmir and finally Nepal.

He was one hundred and twelve years of age when he arrived in Nepal settling down for the rest of his life. For many years He lived high up in the forests on the mountain called Shivapuri near Kathmandu from where he got his more popular name from the local people, Shivapuri Baba, and the legend, ‘the four-hundred years old Baba who lives with tigers’ and this is how I came to know about him from a local boy while climbing the same mountain with a couple of my friends in 1983-84. According to the boy the Baba was still very much alive and so we trekked all the way up to his place on the top of the mountain only to find no sign of anyone. Later we did come to know after our return from Nepal that the story about the Baba was no myth but a true one when we miraculously found a book about him written by J. G. Bennett, a disciple of Gurdjieff. He had actually met the Baba and interviewed him at Dhruvasthali near Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu to where he had finally retired after his many years stay on the Shivapuri Mountain, alone and in solitude just before passing away, not four-hundred years old but only at the not so ripe age of one hundred and thirty-six! This is the stuff of legends and how they are made. We could not find Him obviously because he had passed away twenty odd years ago in 1962. His place with his kutir and the swing is still there and there is his samadhi. People go there and meditate.

When He was living there in the last years of his life, he would not give darshan to everybody. He was reclusive. He used to say, “In this life I have only come to meet a few people.” So He would not give darshan to anybody and everybody. The king of Nepal was one of His devotees who used to visit him, and so too the President of India at that time, Dr Radhakrishnan. While living there He developed cancer of the jaw for which he disappeared into the forest of the Shivapuri Mountain once again. After some time He returned with the cancer completely cured; modern science is still trying to find the cure while yogis like him have found it.

There is still some ancient knowledge and wisdom left in the world; hopefully it will not get lost. For example, the symbol of the Caduceus staff – most people do not know what it signifies, what it really means. So, like it, there is much in the world come down to us from ancient times wherein only the symbol remains, but what it signifies, what it means is lost. It is like a body without a soul. The other day I was talking about prayer: it should have soul, it should have life. The word without the breath in it, the breath of life, is just a body without a soul, a prayer without substance.

When the Islamic, Persian and Mongol hordes invaded India they found much spiritual and mystical art, art like we saw in yesterday’s film and temples like Angkor Wat. But by their religion, as in Christianity, all this was satanic, worshipping of the idol, idolatry. So they destroyed much of what they found because they could not comprehend what it meant. Even as art it was not appreciated, like the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan few years back. If now in this age these things are happening imagine the scale of destruction in the distant past. It is a loss to everybody, whichever community may have made them. It belongs to the world: it is a world heritage. It belongs to every one of us. It belongs to the whole of humanity.

So also when Cortez went to South America, he destroyed everything of the civilization there in the name of Christianity – the Mayan and the Inca – because for him they were the work of Satan. So all the manuscripts, all their accumulated knowledge and symbols of wisdom and experiences were burnt, razed to the ground and turned to dust. He had found the Mayan sacred book, Popol Vuh, and there was information about Jesus in it. For him this could only be the work of Satan because how could information of Jesus already be here? So they burnt it, destroyed it and with it everything of the civilization.

Now the Christian faith stands with the Caduceus staff without understanding its significance! If the Christian pontiff arrives in India today and sees as a common sight in villages temples dotted all over India this great symbol of Yoga, the Caduceus staff cast in sculpture – the Christians will say this is the work of Satan and would want to destroy it if they could. Of course this may not be possible today, although they would ridicule it or consider it a handout by Christian missionaries for: ‘Only we can have it and it is ours for we are the advanced race’, while the truth is rather that it is they who are in ignorant superstitious awe of it and it is from here that the handout has gone and India still understands its significance.

And coming back to what we were talking about – I told you a whole story in the meanwhile, it is nice to hear stories. Life too is an unfolding story with many paths, diversions, bifurcations, crossroads, byroads, parallel roads, cul de sacs, ups and downs, humps, bumps and of course dumps. There are the pañcha mahâbhûtas, the five great elements of material existence: pṛithvî-earth, agni-fire, âpas-water, vâyu-wind and âkâúa-space, and there are seven centres of consciousness. The first is at the base of your spine, between your anus and your genitalia. It is called mûlâdhâra; mûl means ‘root’, âdhâra means support, so root support, foundation of existence. It is represented by the element earth, pṛithvî. And it is there that the Mother-Force, Goddess Kundalini, abides like a coiled serpent. She is Shakti, she is Energy, she is Power – power behind and of all manifestation, creation and creation’s Creatrix. That is why the serpent in universal symbolism represents energy, the Chinese dragon included. I am sure it would be a very interesting revelation to go into the origins of the Chinese dragon culture.

From kuṇḍala in Sanskrit which means round, comes Kundalini. The earring, the round earring is called kuṇḍala. Shiva wears it in his ears. In India not only the female but males also used to wear earrings and in Rajasthan and some other parts of India they very much still do. Kuṇḍala, Kundalini, she is the coiled force, the coiled energy, the coiled serpent at the base of your spine, asleep ordinarily but awake in the yogis. So Lord Shiva is shown wearing earrings indicative of the awakened Kundalini as an ornament of his yogic mastery, lordship, prowess and power. He is the Lord of Yoga and Master of the awakened Kundalini. Ordinarily very little of its emanating energy is used in life and its activities, but if awakened, tremendous power, force, enhancement and scope of activities are experienced with deepening and heightening of consciousness and greater and greater realisations and unfolding of the Reality. Everything gets exemplified and strong (laughing) – even romance!

Yes, because the next centre is svâdhishṭhâna, the lower vital and sexual centre, and Kundalini abides very close to that and when awakened she makes for strong activity there. The centre is at the root of your genitalia. It is represented by the element water, âpas, jal. The third centre is at the navel, lotus in the navel, nâbhi padma, maṇipûra. It is called the gem centre – maṇi means gem, pûra means city, town, centre of gems. It is the main vital centre and represented by the element fire, agni. Then the fourth centre in the middle of the chest represented by the element wind, vâyu, is the anâhata, the heart centre, hṛit-padma – the emotional centre, having also in its depth the soul centre, the seat of the soul. The fifth centre represented by the element space, âkâúa, is at the throat called viœuddha, which means pure, pure as the sky.

In India before the priests do their daily rituals and prayers they take a bath and if living by a river, and especially by the Ganga, they will take dips reciting the Gayatri even in winter and then mark with sandal paste all the centres on the body. It is a worship to energise and awaken them. They will make sandal paste marks on all the centres touching each specific spot in reverence with their finger moving upwards and downwards, one by one, reciting mantras. It is a meditation on the centres and acceptance of their sacredness.

F.: Why is the name of the fifth centre viœuddha chakra, meaning ‘pure’?

It is pure like space. Space is pure, nothing can touch it, affect it. In a way that is where you start to get a real sense of spaciousness of being. It is not that in the other centres when they open out you do not have the spaciousness of the being in their own way – you do. But here it is markedly experienced in a very specific way. That is why they call it viœuddha.

Then you have the sixth, the centre of vision, dynamic thought and will, called âjñâ: the centre of insight, foresight, hindsight – the third eye of Shiva. Therefore Lord Shiva is always pictured with the third eye. He is shown in meditation with the two eyes shut or almost shut indicating his unconcern with the mundane, while the third eye, that is the sixth centre, is awake and open indicating wakefulness to Self and Reality. And you see, He is wearing earrings, the kuṇḍala, signifying the awakened Kundalini as his ornamentation, for he is the master of it and is at ease with it. It is beautiful symbolism, and so you will find many sadhus also wearing earrings in meditative imitation and hope. There is a sect of sadhus called the Nâths – Nâth yogis, who wear thick rings, not on the earlobe but in the cartilage. Also in another symbolism Lord Shiva is always shown sitting at ease with Goddess Parvati, meaning she is always awake in him and he is awake to her in perfect harmony. He is the Godhead; Master of Self, in harmony with his Divine energy. She is always awake in Him. Shiva is the Soul, Lord and Master of himself; and Parvati, Goddess Kundalini is his awakened Energy and Consort with whom he abides in total ease.

The third eye is the wisdom eye. The sixth centre is always shown as an open third eye in the awakened yogi indicating the possessing of Divine sight, will and vision. And Lord Shiva is the Master and God of Yoga and therefore always depicted with the open third eye indicating the open and awakened sixth centre, the âjñâ chakra. When the Christian colonisers and missionaries arrived they were horrified to see such forms and ideas of God, calling them demonical because they could not comprehend their true significance and besides they had the arrogance of belief that their God or idea of God alone was true: ‘Oh, these are heathens, worshipping strange gods with three eyes, and even many heads and many arms!’ They just could not understand. Heads represent dimensions, directions and levels in physical and subtle domains and of consciousness, while arms represent power and attributes. This is sublime and profound art poignant with great depth, significance and meaning, but it was too much for the materialistic minded and gross sighted invaders. So in frenzy they proceeded to destroy all they saw and found, and replace profundity with perfidy – even as the Islamic hordes had done earlier razing everything that was beautiful and profound and a celebration of God in whatever artistry, symbol and form they found it, turning to dust thousands of years of experience and realisations of the most ancient of civilizations. They destroyed the temples of worship and the faith of the people and replaced it with their own as the ultimate conquest of a defeated and broken people.

In Khajuraho they must have been even more horrified! Maybe we should take M. there. When you come again I must show you India, and Khajuraho temples will be your special treat. You can enter then into what is called the realm of kâma – as in the Kâmasûtra – the Yoga of kâma, Yoga of desire. It is a surprising quirk of fate that the invaders left those temples untouched and intact for they would have been amongst the first to be given the rubble treatment. They probably were undetected by them otherwise they would surely have been broken and put to dust. God Shiva in the inner sanctum is surrounded by the walls outside having depictions of sexual intimacy in different postures which many would consider profane especially on a temple wall – intimate postures between men and women and really explicit. Is this mystical symbolism of the dance of the male and female principle, Shiva and Parvati or simply the realistic depiction of the profanities existent in consciousness? So explicit as to be pornographic – cast in stone. Maybe you will need glasses! (Laughter) India is an ancient civilization advanced in all forms of life-thought, expression and activity.

F.: The day you will take him to see these things…!

There is a risk because in my presence everything becomes extra strong and extra attractive. You got that, M.? When he goes back to Milano, he is going to be speaking a different language, and everybody will say, “Where has this guy been?” “To a heathen land,” will be their refrain. (Laughter)

Next is the seventh centre, sahasrâra, at the top of the head – also called Shiva’s seat, just as the mûlâdhâra at the base of the spine is Shakti’s seat. It is symbolised by a lotus with infinite number of petals. Sahasrâra means thousand, many, multi or even infinite. When the force reaches the head you will feel sensations and a lot of activity in the top of the head with the opening into vastness of infinite space. It is the place of union of Shiva-Parvati: the Goddess Kundalini rising upwards to meet and unify with her beloved, Lord Shiva. This union brings to one the realisation of the transcendent non-dual timeless Reality. You have arrived at the premier goal of your life, but it is not finished. It is a process and there is no end to it. The process of the upward ascent and downward descent of the Mother-Force is an ongoing continuous one, ad infinitum, bringing about increasing manifestation and transformation of the body-mind-soul organism unto Godhead. That is why I call it the process of illumination and God manifestation. She rises up passing through all the different centres and then descends, ascending and descending in a repeating cycle – the whole process continues raising your consciousness, raising your being, bringing you increasingly to the whole experience of consciousness: upwards, downwards, inwards, outwards – in a rhythm. I call it the rhythm of the being. This individual rhythm is connected with the universal rhythm. Your breath is connected to the universal breath at the macro level, through which the universe breathes: the same rhythm is happening in the universe, it is the same force at the cosmic level. That which is in you at the micro level is out there at the macro level, breathing as the universe, moving as the universe. So by knowing yourself, by coming to the fullest awakening in yourself, you can become one with and know the universe, affect and even alter things out there.

These powers come to you through this process as you advance in sadhana. You will know what is happening out there because your rhythm is the rhythm of the universe at the macro level. This is the highest Yoga – not merely some body acrobatics as people believe today: they are âsanas, postures to keep your energy moving, your body healthy, while you are awakening to This. At the micro level you are an embodied existence and at the same time you are the universe at the macro level. Through this process there are many realisations that follow and so much to know – but so many people die away, pass away, knowing very little of themselves, having wasted much of their lives in the mundane.

There is a beautiful example wherein Krishna shows his universal cosmic form to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra when Arjuna in a weak moment loses faith and confidence in himself and is confused as to the right action to be taken in that trying circumstance. Krishna does this to reveal the Reality and bring clarity of thought and faith back to Arjuna. Krishna is Divine and has the power to give such an experience. Giving the teaching that is the Gîtâ to stabilise him in the faith again, He shows him his Universal Form. It is a very special moment, wherein all – even the result of the battle which is yet going to take place stands revealed – the past and the future stand revealed.

Do you understand what I am saying? Some event is taking place or yet to take place at a certain level, while at another level you already see the consequences of that event. At one level you are part of that situation which is yet to happen wherein you may play an individual part; at another level that is all within you and you already know what the consequences are. For this you need to be in a consciousness that has many more dimensions than you are used to as an embodied existence; a multi-dimensional consciousness that is a knowing of past, present and future all at once.

In the Indian traditional iconography of worship therefore you will see many forms of gods with multiple heads and arms portraying dimensions, multi-dimensions and powers. This is highly advanced iconography expressing truths of real experience of the manifoldness and multiplicity of the one Reality. This is divine devotional art of profoundly sublime beauty, expressive of a highly advanced and refined noble culture rooted in its vast and expansive realisations of the immortal Reality. But for the barbaric Islamic hordes and the Christian missionaries with their narrow and superficial understanding of things divine, this was profane idolatry and an insult to God, to be ridiculed, destroyed and supplanted with their own childish versions. They just did not have the subtlety of mind, honesty of motive and refinement of high culture, least of all the realisation and consciousness to understand the significance underlying the multi-headed and multi-armed iconography. The lack lay in their own professed religion’s arrogant narrow view.

When you see Goddess Durga with many arms – the arms represent powers, multiple powers. Somebody who has even a little intelligence can see it, but they did not have any. They had religious dogmas and no understanding – so on their conquest they destroyed by the thousands such beautiful works of Truth-art, actual symbols of real experience and realisation of the Reality. Still India cannot be hurt. She is the Mother, she absorbs everything – all the pranks of the children – and she moves on. She is the most ancient civilization and she continues to still give of her wisdom.

So I have said and continue to say: there is no end to enlightenment.

Today the word enlightenment is not only much reduced and misunderstood in its meaning and experience but even misrepresented by fraudulent claimants and profiteers with suspect vested interests and fertile self-delusional imaginations. Giving some of these the benefit of the doubt, maybe something has opened within and there is even a feel of some energy. To such a person it then feels: ‘This is it. There is no further. This is enlightenment.’ So today they bracket him as enlightened and put everybody in the same category, wherever they feel something. But in truth that is only one of the initial events in the process of enlightenment – one of the many events and openings made in the self-discovering journey of enlightenment.

So seven centres. But below the first centre there are others, the centres of the nether regions: the centres in the subconscious, the consciousness submerged in darkness and obscurity all the way down to the inconscient as Sri Aurobindo calls it. Very strange things are there: creepies and crawlies, the netherworlds – all kind of spiders, tarantulas, black widows, venomous snakes… putting it mildly! Just as there are regions above your head, there are regions below. There are regions above your head as high as you can go, as also regions below as far as you can go. In the Indian tradition the varied dark regions of the submerged consciousness below are given names like atala, vitala, sutala, rasâtala, talâtala, mahâtala, pâtâla. So when the awakening happens, one actively descends to these regions coming in contact with whatever is there, even nightmares!

Sorry! You were just starting to enjoy it! In India there is a saying, ‘kabaab me haddi’. Kabaab is a portion of boneless meat cooked as a delicious savoury. You just put it in your mouth and you enjoy it. While haddi means bone and ‘kabaab me haddi’ means a bone in the kabaab. But in a kabaab you do not expect a piece of bone! When you put it in your mouth to eat there is no hesitation to chew and savour but if there is a bone in the kabaab then that can be an unpleasant surprise not to mention the possibility of broken teeth! Therefore the phrase, ‘kabaab me haddi’, means an unpleasant intrusion in a pleasant expectation. That is why I said ‘kabaab me haddi’, for just when you were starting to enjoy the discourse I bring in talâtala, rasâtala, pâtâla, etc. – the nether regions, the subconscious and the nightmares that you may face in your journey.

When you go up it is all light and wide and open but as you go down it gets more and more like a prison and it gets darker and darker and darker. That is what you see when people are down: you see the darkness on the faces! Like the faces I see each morning (laughing) of which I have had many years of experience. That is why there is a saying that everybody has his or her own hell! Finally even the subconscious is to be taken up in the sadhana to open to the light of God. And this is a required transformation – wherein your body and your embodied being goes through a process of transformation which includes the subconscious. But it is a process – a long process.

Just as you have your individual prâṇa and life breath and the universal prâṇa and breath connected through a common rhythm – so also you have your individual subconscious connected to the universal subconscious. There are different realms, worlds that form part of both the individualised consciousness and the universal – the subconscious world, the vital world, the emotional world, the mental world, etc., included. They are realms and worlds in themselves, but they all together form the complete consciousness, the complete world, the complete universe.

The microcosm-macrocosm: micro (small) cosmos is the individual, and macro (great) cosmos is the universal. When you know the individual micro-cosmos you will know through that the macro-cosmos too, and through working with your micro-self you can work with the macro-self. These are powers and realisations that come to one through sadhana. Through yourself you can affect people, things and situations even at the other end of the planet – nay, even so the stars! But we need not get into this now and get too far ahead of ourselves for I know where it will lead – to all kinds of imaginations, boiling coffee with one’s finger and such-like… or even: which world do I come from and which distant star? New-age illusions! (Laughing) This is new-age imaginings. I do not want to get into it! It is all very self-delusional. Better to stick with genuine sadhana and work within limits of the body and self first – so let us be grounded in the earth first before thinking of heading to the stars. Before you learn and know how to fly, do not try to fly! There will be crash landing! A very hard one at that and painful. Let us be grounded in the earth as we learn to fly. Let us know ourselves, the being and embodied existence – then from there everything follows. Everyone is unique in that way, and the process works uniquely in each and every one.

And that is the beauty of the Reality that even though One, it manifests itself uniquely as each individual and everything known and unknown – that is its omnipotency. It is omnipotent – if it could not manifest manifold uniqueness it would be lame, this omnipotency. It is omniscient, it is omnipresent, and it is omnipotent. And you are That in everything and everywhere: Tat Tvam Asi. This process brings you to the realisation of that which you are – the whole Reality in everything and everywhere. And that is what we seek: not some part, not some space. We want to know and realise what we are, in its entirety. So there is no such thing as instant enlightenment. You can have a radical opening, a radical experience, a radical realisation – but it is only one such thing in the whole process that is enlightenment, which is the realisation of what you are. Enlightenment and illumination is an ongoing process with complete transformation as income, and increasing manifestation as outcome.

You may be radically touched by God, and especially so as was the case with Prophet Muhammad when God’s word in the form of the Koran was revealed to him. It was a very radical opening at a high level, but still He is only a messenger of God, the prophet prophesising God’s word. He is the instrument of God. He is not yet all of God so he cannot be Allah. He is only the prophet of Allah, the messenger of Allah. He is a prophet – yes, he is a prophet. Christ too is a prophet although he admits of being God when he says, “I am He” which was the excuse for his crucifixion – but the journey to Godhead is not necessarily over for them. Of course, if they wanted it to be over and end wherever they are with God or enlightenment in their journey, fine. The choice is theirs; it is an individual choice. I do not believe in that limitation. That is why I keep saying I will keep coming back.

Prophet Muhammad had a very radical opening, obviously of the spiritual. One can have this, and it does bring subjective transformation with it for sure, whether in part or as a whole progressively. He becomes an instrument of God and prophet for the welfare of humankind and humanity’s evolution, and for that established a religion.

I will give you another example – there are many examples in the world including scientists with their eureka moment. Depending from which level of consciousness it comes, what it is, will be its effect on the world and its effect on themselves. And this is quite common in human history. J.K. Rowling was writing her books on Harry Potter. She is a writer, but the plot and story she says, came to her ready-made. It is like it is ‘coming, dropping in’ from somewhere. It is not written from the thought-construct of the mind. Before as a writer she used to write from the mind. Then she opened to ‘this thing’ and ‘it just came down, ready-made’. Also she knew the future book in the same way. It is kind of the same with Prophet Muhammad. Now, of course, there is a vast difference between Paigambar Muhammad and J.K. Rowling for one is spiritual and in touch with the Divine while the other is temporal and from an altogether different level of consciousness. But I am giving you this example for your understanding, as this is how it happened with the Paigambar too although altogether from a different level and content. And then of course, it can work for you too as a consequence of pressure of sadhana – it can start the process of transformation – and you can continue to build upon it and open yourself to a greater and greater, higher and higher mind, consciousness and Reality.

And that is why these centres, they represent the different levels of mind and consciousness. The Ṛishis of old knew this. Sri Aurobindo has put all this in place: the mind, the higher mind, the intuitive mind, the overmind and the supermind. They all represent stages and levels of your existence which you are presently not open to but through this process of awakening you can rise and open yourself to these regions.

And there are five bodies – not just one, the physical – and four states, jâgṛiti, svapna, sushupti and turîya and even a fifth, the unspeakable, a non-state state beyond all states, turîyâtîtam. So you have pañchakoœa, five koœas – five sheaths, five bodies. You have the physical or gross body, sthûlaœarîra – annamayakoœa. Anna is food, and koœa is sheath or body. So annamayakoœa means the body of food, the body dependent and made from gross food which is the physical body.

Then you have prâṇamayakoœa, sometimes also called the ‘astral body’ by some. It is a very ambiguous term, while the Indian tradition is very specific: it is the energy body, body of life-force and vitality. Prâṇa is energy in its subtle form and breath at its most physical, koœa again is sheath or body. Prâṇamayakoœa is therefore body of prâṇa, body of energy, body of breath – your vital body, wherein and wherefrom is your life force, the vital energy which gives life to and moves all things physical. It is that which gives the breath of life to your being, energises it.

Then is the manomayakoœa: body of the mind, mental sheath, your thinking and reasoning body.

Next is vijñânamayakoœa – the wisdom sheath, body of wisdom – body of enlightenment. This is the body of light – full light, all wisdom. Other bodies have a mixture of light and darkness but this body is all light, all wisdom. Here you see the Truth as it is in all its completeness without any distortion, while for example in the mental sheath level you have to labour to see the light of things and most times it is some hits and many misses, sometimes right and most times wrong! You have to think and reason things out in the mental sheath – there is effort, and even then only a partial truth is known, while in the wisdom sheath all is seen and revealed instantly in all completeness with no effort. There is no concealing of the Truth even partially for all is illumination, all is light at any given instant.

Finally ânandamayakoœa, the body of bliss, where one connects to the inherent blissfulness of all existence – all is bliss, all is bliss.

All this makes for the whole of your being and embodied existence but ordinarily you only experience and live the first three bodies: the sthûla and sûkshma œarîras, the gross and the subtle bodies – the physical, annamayakoœa, the mental, manomayakoœa, and the conjunct of the two, the vital, prâṇamayakoœa. The other two koœas, vijñânamaya and ânandamaya which correspond to the causal body, the kâraṇaœarîra, may be experienced to some extent in deep sleep, sushupti state, if at all and only in very small measure. That is why deep sleep can be so restful, refreshing and rejuvenating. That is why the yogis rest in yoganidrâ – they can sit for twenty-four hours if need be, they do not necessarily need to sleep for rest like people do ordinarily because they have their conscious connection to the body of bliss and body of wisdom. They are continuously connected, open and awake to it.

Now you have a whole Bible, M.! So three guṇas, four âúramas, four avasthâs, states, and one which is unspeakably beyond, and the five koœas. What a science! Then the elements: the five elements, pañchamahâbhûta, are also there and the seven centres of consciousness and of course not to forget the sixteen thousand one hundred and eight wives – nâḍîs! When M. goes back and talks to his other friends, the priests…

F.: M. says all that you said just flows into him.

Your prayers have been answered, M., when you came here. I am sure he must have sincerely prayed, and the result is coming to India and Uttarkashi. Because the Truth is Truth: it does not matter whether you achieve it in a church, in a temple, in a mosque or here with us. It is all within the realm of God – and God exists everywhere. The Truth is everywhere.

Arya Vihar

22 Jul 2005