10
SURVIVING THE STORM
SAVITRI TRUSTED RAMANA, but as the hours grew long, once again she began to worry about the time. Her mind was filled with a vision of Satyavan’s strong body turned cold and lifeless with a glance from Yama. I would lose everything, she thought.
Ramana turned to her. “Does that make you afraid, to lose everything?” He seemed to have no trouble reading her thoughts.
“Of course,” Savitri said miserably.
Ramana pointed up ahead. Alongside the path was a rustic shrine that someone had erected in the forest. The pine boughs of the altar sheltered an image of Vishnu. Knowing that Vishnu was the aspect of God that sustains life, she quickly ran ahead, gathering some wildflowers to offer at the altar. This must be a sign, she thought. Ramana hung back, as with bowed head Savitri begged Vishnu to help her. I will do anything, she implored.
When she raised her eyes, the god Vishnu was actually standing before her. Savitri was awestruck. “You will do anything for me if I save your husband?” he asked. Fervently Savitri said yes. “Then go to the river and fetch me a drink of water,” said Vishnu.
Savitri ran off to do as she was bade. Ramana was nowhere to be seen, but she remembered passing the river and knew it was close by. Kneeling beside it, she wondered what she could carry water in when her eye caught sight of someone else along the bank. It was Satyavan! Overjoyed, Savitri ran to him, bursting into tears. Satyavan embraced her and asked what was wrong.
In between sobs Savitri told him the danger he was in. “Then we shall not return home at all,” Satyavan declared. He took Savitri tenderly by the hand. They walked along the river until they spied a boatman tied up to shore.
The boatman greeted them cordially and said that he had been out fishing. He pointed to an island in the middle of the river. “That’s my home,” he said. Quickly Satyavan made a bargain with the boatman to become his helper. He and Savitri were carried to the island, where they began a new life.
Savitri became sublimely happy, for after a few days it was apparent that Yama had not pursued them. Her husband learned to be a fisherman, and together they lived in peace on the island. Years passed. They had two children, which were the joy of their hearts. Then one night a great storm crashed down on the island. The winds howled, and the river rose higher than it ever had. By morning everything had been washed away. Savitri had been saved by tying herself to a tree with a rope. At sunrise, she saw that Satyavan, their house, and their children had been swept away into the river.
She managed to find a boat and rowed to shore, but Savitri was so devastated that all she could do was lie on the sand moaning. Suddenly she felt a shadow looming over her. She looked up to see Lord Vishnu. “Did you remember my drink of water?” he asked.
Savitri looked down and was amazed to see she was wearing the same sari as the day years ago when Vishnu first appeared to her. As she bent to get him some water, her reflection showed her the same young woman. “What happened?” she asked in bewilderment.
Vishnu replied, “With me there is no time, for I am beyond death. Time is the field of gain and loss. As long as you are in time, it is an illusion to think that you can prevent loss, which is just another word for change.”
“Then Satyavan may still be alive!” Savitri exclaimed. “Can he be saved?”
Vishnu was already beginning to fade away. Savitri grasped at his image, but all she held was air. When she turned around, she saw Ramana standing behind her on the path.
“You see,” Ramana said, “whatever you are afraid to lose is unreal. Death cannot touch what is real. In a way that is a gift from Death.”
“I don’t see that,” Savitri said dejectedly.
“When you die, you will be forced to lose everything, yet something will remain. It is the soul, which is real. Therefore you should celebrate loss. The trappings of existence can fall away at any time; the essence will always remain. And that essence is you.”
LIVING BEYOND BOUNDARIES
The afterlife is not just a mystery to be solved. It’s an opportunity to expand life beyond boundaries. As the rishis described it, awareness begins in an unbounded state with pure consciousness and then cascades, plane by plane, until it reaches the physical world. Each level is in you. At any given moment you could place yourself anywhere; the choice of boundaries—or unboundedness—is yours alone. Therefore journeys to heaven and hell are daily occurrences, not far-off possibilities. This is hard for many people to accept, because they want a fixed, reliable “me” that will bring stability to an unstable world. But there is no separation between observer and observed. The inner and outer worlds are changing constantly.
After death experience shifts to the subtle realm, which presents its infinite variety. Yet we are already touching on subtle experiences every day. Here are some of the labels we apply to our voyages in the subtle world:
Dreams
Imagination
Myths
Archetypes
Epiphanies
The “shadow”
Collective consciousness
Numinous creation (angels, demons, saints, bodhisattvas, deities)
Sacred visions
Desires and wishes
Inspiration
Somewhere on this list falls everything the rishis called “consciousness filled with subtle objects.” You cannot see yourself as a complete person without taking these subworlds into account. They are destinations in the future but are also in the here and now. The “shadow” may be an unfamiliar term; it refers to hidden forces that influence us as if beyond our will. The shadow self in Jungian psychology is a region of the unconscious where we store energies that become our version of dark, evil, shameful, or adversarial beings. It’s hard to imagine how the shadow can occupy the same space as beings of light, which are numinous and include angels and deities. We’re tempted to allot separate places for each, but there are no physical divisions in the subtle domain and therefore no barriers between heaven and hell, light and shadow. Access to the entire subtle world is always open. If you can imagine and dream, you can also experience departed spirits, angels, or gods.
Therefore, the first step for anyone who wants to enter the subworlds of consciousness is to drop one’s inflexible rules about what is real and unreal. Many cultures have viewed the barrier between life and death as permeable. We insist on making it into a wall, and behind this insistence lurks a good deal of unspoken fear. We equate the entire subtle domain with the realm of death, which is far from the case.
“My son died when he was just twenty-two,” a woman told me recently. “It was a brain tumor, and I was staying at his home the day he passed away. With me were his sister and his new wife. Tom’s passing was peaceful, and that evening we three women stayed up late talking about him. We must have talked too late, because we fell asleep together by the fire.
“The next morning his wife was quite excited and told us that Tom came to her in a dream and reassured her that he was all right. His sister blurted out that Tom had also come to her in a dream saying the same thing. They turned to me, and yes, I had had the same dream. We all felt that Tom was so vividly present that it had not seemed like a dream—it was really him.”
In this example one sees a bleed-through between several levels of the subtle world: dreams, departed spirits, and collective consciousness. In this case “collective” means an awareness shared by three people, although the term can be expanded much, much further. This kind of blending is more common than we think. Boundaries, after all, are arbitrary. Einstein, whose reputation rests upon rational thought, declared that the germ of the theory of relativity came to him while daydreaming. Shall we call that a dream, a vision, or inspiration? Shall we call Tom’s reassurance to his family real or illusory, inspiring or merely a projection of grief that needed an outlet?
Sorting out the subtle world was a project that the Vedic rishis set for themselves. By going deeper into their explanations we can begin to navigate this level of reality that is closest to the soul. We have arrived at the suburbs of immortality, as it were, which are not quite eternal yet not bound by time and space, either.
The Five Koshas
Near-death experiences, Tibetan Buddhism, and the Book of Revelation agree on one thing: when we die we will look beautiful. The “golden body” of the Tibetan Bardo and the perfect body rising from the grave at Judgment Day are untouched by age and decay. When people are visited in dreams by the departed, they usually appear in the prime of life, somewhere around thirty, rather than as children or disembodied ghosts. Apparitions of the Virgin Mary never seem to be of someone in old age but of a luminous, lovely young woman. On the other hand, in near-death accounts of hell (much rarer than going into the light), the damned never look young and healthy. They are old, withered, sick, scarred, deformed, or some wretched combination. Visions of reward and punishment deliver totally opposite images.
The rishis weren’t satisfied with such simple, idealized images. Seeing the entire subtle world as a projection of consciousness, they focused on the Koshas, or divisions of pure consciousness. Kosha translates to mean sheath, layer, or envelope, but it’s easiest to think of pure consciousness as a point that wraps five bodies around itself like layers of an onion. (One can also think in terms of vibrations, moving from grossest to highest.) The five layers are:
The five Koshas, operating in unison, give rise to the self, or to put it more accurately, the self system. You and I are multilayered because we are inseparable from our five Koshas. The fact that each sheath has its own rules provides us with a structure for the subtle world. The afterlife is a journey only in the sense that a dream is—in both cases we are taking our attention away from one Kosha and placing it on another. Our travels remain within the self system.
The Koshas are also shared. The universe has its own layers. Experiencing an angel or departed spirit, for example, is made possible by the countless generations that helped create that subworld. Shared reality isn’t mystical. You claim your physical body as uniquely your own, but even that is shared—the air you breathe today contains millions of atoms of oxygen that were breathed out in China, for example, just a few days ago. You absorb ideas floating around in the mass media, and at moments you may have an inspiration only to discover that someone else has had the same idea simultaneously. (As a writer I am ruefully familiar with the occasions when a brilliant book or script idea was anticipated by two or three other writers within days of one another.)
So the analogy of the onion built up in layers breaks down at a certain point. A Kosha isn’t an individual possession. It’s a dynamic realm with its own laws and experiences, a realm we can enter alone or with others.
Annamaya Kosha (physical body): The physical body is the most separate aspect of the self system. At birth most babies are very much alike physiologically, but by age seventy no two people’s bodies are remotely alike. Time has made each of us unique. This material fact underlies a great deal of the separation in the world, as people struggle to grab their share of food, money, possessions, and status. They want to promote the well-being of their physical body, to enhance its charm and beauty, and to protect it from the threat of injury and death.
At this level first consciousness is biology. It operates silently, without a voice, as it organizes the myriad functions of the body. Yet even here, if we look at what is happening at the cellular level, it turns out that consciousness transcends boundaries. Cells cooperate, communicate, exchange functions, perform acts of self-sacrifice, remain in balance, keep aware of their environment, adapt to change, and know that they survive by being part of a greater whole.
Every Kosha reveals wholeness and separation at the same time. If we look upon Annamaya Kosha as the physical world, it’s obvious that our bodies are isolated from one another, which keeps us in separation by giving rise to the illusion that we must struggle and compete with every other isolated body. Yet this Kosha brings us closer to wholeness through cooperation, physical security in social groups, and shared desires for food, shelter, sex, and physical comfort.
Pranamaya Kosha (subtle breath or life force): Prana means vitality. In the individual, Prana is the breath that sustains life by rhythmically joining us to Nature. We inhale all that is necessary to remain alive, then exhale it back to wherever it is needed next. There is no equivalent in the West for Prana, except a tradition called vitalism that centers on the “life force.” Whatever name you give it, a subtle, flowing intelligence sustains, the physical body.
At this level consciousness is the binding force that keeps Nature intact. Humans recognize that we are united with all living things. Consciousness doesn’t recognize higher or lower levels of life; it orchestrates diversity into a wholeness. When you feel connected to the life-forms enveloped in the ecosystem—to pets, an old shade tree, the full moon, a thunderstorm—you are feeling the flow of vitality that binds Nature together. When you become aware of the incredible intelligence that knits every cell in the body, it is no longer possible to say “I own this.” You cannot own life, yet you cannot help but be at its center also. Yet in this level separation still seems to dominate over wholeness, which is why human beings continue to depredate the ecosystem without realizing that they are destroying part of their own self system.
This Kosha keeps us in separation through imbalance, a disrupted ecosystem, pollution, and urban overcrowding.
This Kosha brings us closer to wholeness through vitality, kinship with other living things, balance in the ecosystem, and empathy.
Manomaya Kosha (mind): The root of the mind is individual ideas and thoughts. You know who you are by what you think. This is the level where you process the raw data of the world to make it meaningful. Mind includes emotions, sensations, memories, and other uses of the brain. The rishis understood that mind is organized into its own invisible body, a body of personal memories and beliefs that we guard from harm as fiercely as we guard our physical bodies.
At this level consciousness finds itself at play in the cosmos without boundaries, for the mind can fly anywhere, imagine anything. Your mind is free to interpret the world any way it wants, and unfortunately some of those ways include ignorance of the self. It is impossible to restrict the mind, yet many people fear its gift of freedom. At this level we come up against the self-created boundaries of belief, fear, and prejudice. Blake’s “mind-forged manacles” create separation and repression where none need exist.
Mind is more collective than individual. I may say “my mind,” meaning my unique thoughts and memories, but 90% of our thoughts are picked up from society and its many outlets. A great many memories are shared, and the very stuff of thought—language—is a collective creation. Therefore the rishis say that mind is the first Kosha where wholeness dominates over separation.
This Kosha brings us closer to wholeness through shared beliefs, social conditioning, religion, received opinions, and common values.
This Kosha keeps us in separation through divisive beliefs in politics and religion, prejudice, “us versus them” thinking, nationalism, and arbitrary mental boundaries made of fear and hatred.
Vigyanmaya Kosha (ego and intellect): This is the level of identity dominated by “I, me, and mine.” Society places positive value on someone with high ego drive and will to succeed, but in spiritual circles the ego’s reputation is low. Spiritual seekers often feel it is their duty to “kill the ego” and control its impulses. However, if we look at “I-ness” without prejudice against the ego, this level of the self brings identity into being, not all the external things that ego drive makes us pursue.
Identity isn’t a blank slate for long. It becomes filled with attachments and associations depending on what we choose to identify with. Vigyanmaya Kosha is that level where myth and archetypes operate, giving us stories and models to identify with. The gods play out our primal desires, quests, wars, and loves. Ego also gives us knowledge about identity itself, what it means to be human: I cannot know who I am without family and society.
At this level consciousness is self-centered, brought to a focus upon “I.” Nothing is more universal, yet ego drives separate us when one person’s desires clash with another’s. To be fair, this clash develops in the mind, not in the ego itself. When we say ego, we usually mean the ego-personality, which is full of individual desires, dreams, beliefs, likes, and dislikes. Vigyan is closer to unity than that. At this level wholeness dominates over separation, as can be seen from the world’s shared archetypes and myths.
This Kosha brings us closer to wholeness through a sense of one humanity, heroic quests and mythic exploits, and the need for self-respect, dignity, and inner worth.
This Kosha keeps us in separation through personal alienation, separation anxiety, loneliness, and repressed emotions that give rise to shame and guilt.
Anandamaya Kosha (body of bliss): To the rishis bliss was more than a feeling of ecstasy. It was the basic vibration, or hum, of the universe, the ground state from which all diversity springs. It’s possible to imagine an afterlife where one no longer has a body, where there is no need for breath, where the mind doesn’t process data anymore. But there must be a faint sense of both ego and bliss. Ego says, “This is happening to me.” Bliss says, “I feel the spark of creation.” Ananda is the possibility for creation to manifest, and as long as you inhabit the body of bliss, bliss is an intense, dynamic experience and not just a potential.
At this level consciousness is the joy of being. Instead of focusing on anything in the external world, our attention comes to rest on the numinous presence that has been described as a golden light suffusing every particle of Nature. In bliss you perceive that separation is only a thin veil. Behind the veil shines the light of pure consciousness. Devotional practices that increase a person’s sense of joy can reach as deep as the level of ecstasy. But bliss itself is far from the feeling of happiness or even joy, though in diluted form it can be experienced as both. It is the vibratory connection that allows pure consciousness to enter into creation.
This Kosha reveals wholeness so entirely—through love, joy, and ecstasy—that separation no longer holds any attraction. One could say that Anandamaya Kosha is pure Being mixed with just a touch of individuality, just enough to allow someone to live in physical form, and whatever form the afterlife takes. Without this gossamer sheath you would dissolve into Being and become bliss itself, without an experiencer.
It’s not difficult to see yourself in multidimensions once the Koshas are described.
The physical dimension contains action. You live here whenever you see yourself as a body separate in time and space.
The Pranic dimension connects you to other living things. You live here when you see yourself as part of the web of life, a creature of Nature.
The mental dimension organizes reality through thought. You live here when you see yourself as the sum of your thoughts, desires, wishes, dreams, and fears.
The ego dimension defines your unique identity. You live here when you see yourself in terms of “I, me, and mine.”
The dimension of bliss holds out ultimate fulfillment through love and joy. You live here when you see yourself blending into everything through the power of love, or when you have no other sensation than ecstasy.
Making these dimensions more familiar doesn’t automatically bring them together, however. Each Kosha, as we saw, can pull you closer to wholeness or increase your tendency to remain separate and isolated. The rishis considered wholeness to be the only reality, compared to which every experience in separation is a dream. The goal of life is to find unity, or Yoga, and this can be accomplished, they said, by focusing on each Kosha.
Physical body: Yoga uses physical postures (called Asanas) that combine balance, strength, and body awareness to bring us to physical consciousness.
Pranic body: Yoga uses exercises in soft, self-aware breathing (Pranayama) to bring us to consciousness of the flow of Prana.
Mental body: Yoga uses the whole field of discrimination (Viveka) to bring us to consciousness of how the mind works. Manomaya Kosha is therefore the level of evolution in consciousness, both for you and me and for human beings as a whole. We carve out individual niches in collective consciousness, and as a wave of evolution passes through humanity, each of us can decide to catch the wave or ignore it, to embrace it or defend against it.
Ego: Yoga uses mindfulness in all its various forms, such as contemplation and meditation (Dhyana), to bring a person to consciousness of the “I am” that underlies all experience.
Body of bliss: Yoga uses sustained periods in a deep state of silence (Samadhi) to bring the subtle vibration of bliss to the surface of the mind, making a person conscious that the “hum” of the universe is present in every experience.
I’ve outlined very briefly the contours of yoga as a way of life, but a typical modern person cannot be expected to suddenly shift his or her allegiance so drastically. This makes the “after” in the afterlife too far away to work with; we must create more unity in the “now.” Yoga was not meant to be specifically Indian or to belong primarily to ancient times, but, unfortunately, this is how things transpired, leaving us with a new challenge. How do we take the fact that we live in five worlds and use it to redefine life as a whole?
At Home in Consciousness
You and I may seem to live primarily in the physical world, yet our awareness began in pure consciousness, and as we traveled into this life layer by layer through different dimensions, each one gave us a new sense of self. We possess an entire self system. The rishis studied this system and came to various conclusions:
If we follow these principles, we can gain the same mastery enjoyed by the sages, or at least a fair share of it.
I posted opinions on the Internet to this effect, saying that basing one’s life on consciousness is the best route to mastering the physical world. Responders were quite skeptical, however. Many said, in effect, “Talk about consciousness all you want, but we have to get people to stop destroying the planet.” Or “Consciousness is all well and good, but it won’t end war and terrorism.” Or “Good luck using consciousness to stop a bullet.” In other words, they were putting the physical Kosha first, assuming that material things can only be influenced through direct action.
How can one prove that the best way to change reality is through consciousness? On the physical level action seems separate from consciousness. The Buddhist concept of nondoing seems quite mystical until you realize that it means “action in consciousness.” Action in consciousness takes many forms. The passive resistance of Gandhi was an outward form of nondoing that had a huge effect on consciousness; it brought an entire historical era to an end. Powerful ideas are also in consciousness, and there is no doubt that have changed the world, from the Greek invention of democracy to modern theories of relativity. As we move to subtler Koshas, all action takes place in consciousness.
Let me simplify things by making some suggestions about action in each of the five Koshas:
Annamaya Kosha, the physical body: Nourish and respect your body. Appreciate its incredible inner intelligence. Do not fear it or taint it with toxins. Take time to really be in your body. Take it outside and let it play.
Pranamaya Kosha, the vital body: Go out into Nature and sink into the feeling that this is your home. Respect and nourish the ecosystem. Do not harm other living things. See Nature without fear or hostility. Reverence for life is the key here.
Manomaya Kosha, the mental body: Develop positive uses of the mind. Read and appreciate what is finest in human expression. Become aware that you are a wholeness, and allow ideas to come in that support wholeness over separation. Resist us-versus-them thinking. Examine your automatic reactions and secondhand beliefs. Find every opportunity to welcome signals from your higher self.
Vigyanmaya Kosha, the ego body: Find a vision; go on a quest. Fit yourself into the larger pattern of growth. Seek ways to evolve personally. Celebrate the vast traditions of spirit and wisdom that unite cultures. Be as humane as you can in every way, following the dictum “The world is my family.”
Anandamaya Kosha, the body of bliss: Develop your own practice for transcending and finding bliss. You already know the phrase “Follow your bliss”; now put it into practice through some kind of “alpha wave” exercise like meditation and deep relaxation. Devote yourself to discovering what Samadhi, the silence of deep awareness, is really like. Experience your own being as a reason to be here.