As we have seen earlier, studies in psychoneuroimmunology and quantum physics suggest a deep connection between the cosmos and our bodies. Like a hologram, each of us is a perfect replica of the cosmos, carrying within us all the information necessary for healing. In fact, each cell in our bodies reflects the entirety of the cosmos, along with its intelligence. All we need to do is tap into it—“it” being the principle that upholds all of creation.
Ancient sages were immensely gifted seers who discovered the intricate workings of the cosmos and the body, finding that the latter is indeed a holographic image of the former. As they went into deep meditative states, they unraveled these mysteries and passed on the knowledge through a long-preserved verbal tradition. Eventually, their vast knowledge was compiled into various scriptures and texts that became the basis for the study of life, medicine, mind, arts, and so on.
The most significant discovery of the ancient sages was the discovery of the “it” that powers the macrocosm and the microcosm. They found that the “it” is eternal, blissful, and conscious. Eternal bliss consciousness is the fundamental principle out of which the cosmos is born.
While the default model assumes that consciousness arises out of matter (the brain, for instance), the bliss model is based on the premise that matter arose out of bliss consciousness. Not only does bliss give birth to matter, it also becomes it. It is the substance of every animate and inanimate object in the universe. Thus, eternal bliss consciousness is who we really are. When we discover eternal bliss consciousness as our true identity, we gain access to deep healing and freedom from suffering. How does bliss become matter? Let’s start at the very beginning.
Bliss Becomes Matter
Bliss consciousness is eternal and rests as a vast potential. Creation begins when consciousness becomes aware of itself. This self-awareness is the first throb of activity in the vast potential (such as the big bang), which expands into infinity to create space and time.
Figure 1: Bliss Consciousness Diagram. Bliss consciousness becomes matter, beginning with the self-referencing throb that is infused with intelligence and self-identification (“I”). Self-identification occurs through sattva, rajas, and tamas—the three qualities (gunas) that differentiate into the five elements of ether, air, fire, water, and earth. The elements combine in specific ways to become vata, pitta, and kapha (doshas), the puppeteers of the cosmos and the body-mind.
The self-awareness gives rise to cosmic “I-ness.” This I-ness is the intelligence that knows itself by its three fundamental qualities, known as gunas, which determine the structure and function of the universe. Tamas gives matter its physical structure, rajas provides nature with movement and dynamism, and sattva grants it intelligence. Tamas is heavy and has the quality of inertia; rajas is quick, active, and volatile; and sattva is pure, calm, and sweet.
The throb of self-awareness evolves in loops of ecstatic vibrations forming the five great elements. With each subsequent loop, the vibrations become denser to form ether, air, fire, water, and earth. From the subtle vibrations of the cosmic self-awareness arises the first element, space, or ether. The arising of movement within space gives rise to air. Friction produced by the movement of air gives rise to heat; when particles of heat interact, they combust into the next element, fire. The heat of fire liquefies subtle elements in space, forming water, while solidification of elements in water gives rise to earth. Along with a change in vibration, each element acquires its own unique characteristic of spaciousness, lightness, heat, wetness, and heaviness, these qualities being the result of their differing vibratory frequencies. Quantum physicists agree with the ancient sages that matter is energy, and energy is vibration.
The elements absorb the three qualities of the self-referencing throb. Space, the subtlest of elements, is mainly sattva. Air is predominantly rajas because of its movement, but because of its lightness, it also has sattva. Fire is dynamic, moves quickly, and has rajas; because of its ability to burn everything into uniform ashes without attachment, it also has sattva. Water is also heavy and therefore has tamas; due to its property of flow and movement, it has rajas; and because of its clarity and ability to reflect, it has sattva. Earth is heavy and mainly tamas.
From stars and planets to inanimate substances to us, everything in creation is a combination of the five elements with their corresponding qualities and is governed by awareness. Self-awareness infused with supreme intelligence is responsible for the functioning of the cosmos and controls all natural laws such as gravity, magnetism, force, and velocity. It also drives the functioning of every cellular and sub-cellular structure. It is the force that stimulates a single fertilized cell to divide and differentiate into various types of cells, tissues, organs and organ systems. This intelligence is the reason why stomach cells secrete acid, while bone cells use calcium and heart cells stretch and contract to help pump blood. However, this intelligence is non-personal—as in it doesn’t belong to the “I” that we identify with. For instance, digestion, which is the breakdown of ingested food into nutrients and energy, occurs similarly in all organisms; only the details differ based on the species.
Bliss Becomes I
As we saw in Can We Get Off
the Superhighway?, my I is made up of all the things I like or dislike as well as the labels that I think make up who I am (big nose, not too smart, good cook, hate meat, and so on). Picked up in early life from our caregivers, we adopt these labels as our own, and the default mode network keeps the story of the I going. Repeated activation of the neurohormonal pathways reinforce the likes and dislikes that form the I story. My I feels very different and unique compared to other ones based on their likes and dislikes that arise from their life experiences. My ability to control some of my body movements, such as speech, hands, and legs, further cements my I, along with my unique human ability to say that I am aware. Where does this I come from?
Like everything else in the cosmos, the I is also powered by the intelligence of the self-aware throb. Bliss powers each one of our trillions of cells to do their immensely complex work of exchanging information, adapting to the environment, responding to stimuli, digesting food and data, and keeping us alive. This intelligence descends in a top-down fashion into the fetus in early pregnancy, corresponding with the development of the heartbeat. Entering through the soft part of the skull, bliss descends down the spine, creating millions of pathways that carry its energetic currents to every cell.
When a baby is born, she does not see herself as separate from her mother and lacks the sense of I. As she approaches her second birthday, she begins to learn about her separateness from those around her. She learns her name, what she’s good at, what she must do, and where she belongs, and with this she begins to assert herself with “mine” and “me.” This is why this stage is known as the “terrible twos.” Bliss that had descended down the spine and until then had been unobscured begins to become veiled by the rapidly forming superhighways that form the story of the I. Although bliss powers the whole process, it becomes ignorant of its own nature. This is like an actor who gets so in character that he forgets who he really is.
In the “Where am I?” exercise in the previous chapter, we came to see that the I doesn’t reside anywhere in the physical body, including the brain. We discovered that we will not find you in your brain cells either. So where exactly does this identity reside?
The Three Bodies Powered by Bliss
According to the bliss model, we have not one but three bodies that determine our particular body-mind traits. The physical body is sustained by food. Everything we consume is digested and assimilated into the trillions of cells forming the various organ systems, as we will see in The Fire of Life.
The subtle body is made up of energy, mind, and intellect. This is where the sense organs and organs of action are registered—the external world is brought in through the sense organs (eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and skin), and our response is sent out through the organs of action (hands for working, tongue for speaking, legs for walking, anus and urethra for excreting, and sex organs for reproducing). The subtle body is made up of the countless channels that run throughout the body and carry prana, the intelligent life force that powers the body and the mind. These channels converge at various points throughout the body, forming chakras (wheels of blissful energy).
Figure 2: Three Main Channels. The three main channels in the subtle body run along the spine. The central channel, the sushumna, runs in the center of the spine from the perineum to the top of the head, and the “hot” and “cold” channels lie on the sides, periodically wrapping around to the other side. The side channels correspond to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.
Of the millions of unseen channels that crisscross the subtle body, three are most important and run parallel to the spine and look remarkably like the caduceus, the symbol of medicine.
The central channel (sushumna) forms the staff of the caduceus and runs in the center of the spine from the perineum to the top of the head. Running along this staff are the “hot” and “cold” channels (pingala and ida) that periodically wrap around to the other side and correspond to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. However, while the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems power opposite functions of the body, the hot and cold channels fuel the dualistic tendencies of the mind, such as pain/pleasure and likes/dislikes.
Ordinarily, prana switches between the hot and cold channels several times over the course of the day. This periodic switching is the hallmark of the dualistic tendencies of the ordinary mind, marked by constant vacillation between likes and dislikes and the attraction and aversion related to the push and pull of sense objects. As prana switches between the hot and cold channels, it briefly enters the central staff when the breath is even between the nostrils and the mind is quiet. This is easily observed with the breath.
Exercise: Become Aware of Your Breath
Try this at various times during the day.
- Place your index finger horizontally under your nostrils and breathe normally. You will notice that the breath is prominent in one nostril. Make note of what you are doing and how you are feeling.
- Notice which nostril is prominent when you wake up or when you’re hungry, agitated, peaceful, tired, or sleepy.
- There will be times when the breath is perfectly even in both nostrils. What is your state of mind when this happens?
The subtle body powers the physical body and is in turn fed by the causal body. The causal body is made of impressions and drives the physical and subtle bodies as actions, choices, and thoughts. Impressions are the likes and dislikes that are facilitated by the limbic system and make up the labels and beliefs of the I, which veil the bliss of our true nature. As we have seen, these impressions are formed from past experiences and lock us into habitual thoughts and actions. They bridge our long-gone pasts with our nonexistent futures and keep us in a constant state of war with what is. Without conscious work, impressions turn us into helpless victims of our pasts, our culture, our upbringing and circumstances. They keep us bound in linearity and suffering. The type of impressions we have and how they will affect the quality of our lives is determined by our gunas.
Gunas and the Three Bodies
Recall that arising from the cosmic self-referencing throb of awareness, the three gunas (qualities) make up the basis of all of creation. On the level of the individual, gunas arise from the impressions of the causal body and determine the quality of our minds, bodies, lives, and experiences.
Just as gunas in particular combinations make up the elements that in turn make up all matter, gunas in particular combinations make up our individual psyche, nature, or personality. When tamas is predominant, we are slothful and plagued by inertia, darkness, and lack of motivation. When rajas is predominant, we are driven by determination, ambition, activity (and hyperactivity), anxiety, and restlessness. When sattva is predominant, we experience a quiet mind, clarity, and qualities of sweetness and contentment (see table 1). As we will see in Kindle the Fire, the higher the level of sattva in our psyche, the greater is our ability to know the bliss within.
|
Tamas |
Rajas |
Sattva |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Table 1: The Action of the Gunas in Our Psyche
At this point we might begin to wonder what the gunas or elements have to do with health or disease. Sam’s story may be illustrative. He was 58 when he came to see me. He had recently undergone open-heart surgery for coronary artery disease (see The
Magnificent Machine) with four bypass grafts at another hospital, and was seeking a new cardiologist. At the first visit I noticed that Sam was quiet and withdrawn, talking only when spoken to and answering in monosyllables. It was as if he was so self-absorbed that he had difficulty engaging with anyone else. He would not meet my eyes when he responded to my queries about his health and habits. His wife, who accompanied him, did most of the talking. I adjusted his medications and tried to discuss lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise. I suggested that he walk for about a half hour every day and incorporate more fresh produce in his diet. He nodded his assent, mumbling that he would “try.”
When I saw him again in two months, he was not having heart symptoms and was taking his medications. Nothing else had changed. He continued to avert my eyes, remaining self-absorbed. He missed two appointments and returned a year later. Once again, nothing had changed. I could sense his inertia; his wife was trying to get him to change his habits, but he was simply unable to take the first step.
A month later Sam came to the emergency room with a minor heart attack requiring urgent angioplasty of one of the bypass grafts. He came back to my office a week after the hospitalization. This time he was worried and anxious. For the first time since I’d known him, he engaged with me in conversation, asking what he could do to prevent another heart attack. We talked about diet and exercise again. This time he was listening. He asked pointed questions about what he could eat, what he must avoid, what type of exercise he must engage in and how much. I gave him (and his wife) detailed guidelines and resources for recipes and additional information.
Two months later Sam returned to the office, and I was pleased to see he had lost nearly fifteen pounds. Importantly, he was smiling and showed interest in his surroundings. At this point we talked about his job and his daily habits and stress levels. He revealed that he had chronic stress and anxiety that had weighed him down earlier. Although the changes in diet and taking up an exercise program had helped, now he felt the mental noise more acutely. I taught him a simple mindfulness meditation technique and asked him to practice it twice a day without fail. When I saw him again a few weeks later, Sam seemed like a different man. His gait had changed; he was no longer hunching and staring at the ground as he walked. He greeted the office staff and me with pleasantries. He looked fit, happy, and well on his way to health and bliss.
Sam’s initial condition was that of tamas, characterized by inertia, mental fog, indecisiveness, and a general sense of heaviness. It took a heart attack to jar him out of tamas into rajas, punctuated by motivation, dynamism, and activity that propelled him into making lifestyle changes. The meditation brought out his sattva, marked by contentment, goodwill, lightness, and clarity. He continues to demonstrate progressive contentment and sweetness indicative of increasing sattva.
Even though the gunas dominate our lives from one moment to the next, we remain unaware of their influence. Although Sam’s condition could be treated with medications alone, his spirit needed more for accelerated evolution. The heart attack was the stimulus his spirit needed to catapult him from tamas to rajas. This forced evolution is quite common when catastrophe forces us from inertia into positive action. I’ve seen patients change their behaviors overnight and become magnificent advocates for their own care. We are pushed into evolutionary change by the very intelligence that powers us.
Everything in the cosmos is an interaction between the five great elements; however, this is not the full story. The five elements combine further, in specific combinations, into three main principles or energies that go on to create the structure and functioning of the universe, including our body-mind. These principles are called doshas.
Doshas: The Hidden Puppeteers
The three doshas arising from the five elements make up the unique fingerprint of our body-mind. Vata arises from the combination of ether and air and is the principle of movement that regulates all moving activities in the body, such as breathing and the passage of food through the digestive tract, blood through the heart and arteries, and micronutrients through cellular membranes. It also regulates the movement of thought and emotions and all changes in our lives. Movement is the hallmark of existence, while stillness is that of death. For this reason, vata is called the king dosha.
Fire and water mingle to form pitta, the principle of heat and transformation. Pitta regulates metabolism and digestion. Pitta is the energy of the digestive enzymes that break down food to nutrients and waste, the processing of nutrients at the cellular level, and the transformation of one thing (for example, food) to another (nutrients and waste). It is the force of every one of the billions of chemical reactions that are responsible for maintaining the precise workings of the body. Pitta is the principle that digests and processes thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions (taste, smell, sight, sound, and touch), and life experiences. Without pitta, we would have no ability to learn from our experiences or make sense of our moment-to-moment interactions with the world.
Water and earth combine to form kapha, the principle of structure. Kapha regulates the structure of cells, tissues, and organs and maintains the proportions of water within various bodily structures, being responsible for the lubrication of joints, secretions of all cellular structures, and retention of fluid where it is needed.
Doshas are the animators of life. Consider the difference between a live and dead body. At one point in time, a body is a beloved parent, friend, or family member. At another, it is a dead body that needs to be disposed of within a certain period. Along with grief, we may experience fear, disgust, or unease with the body. If we think deeply, a loved one we couldn’t part with becomes a body we can’t wait to dispose of when it is bereft of the doshas that translate into life. With the loss of vata, the breath, heart, digestion, brain pathways, and mind functioning come to an end. Loss of pitta decreases the body temperature, and metabolism ceases. Withdrawal of kapha dries up tissues with loss of structural integrity. Doshas are the master puppeteers of the body-mind. Through their functions, they animate a body and turn it into a desirable being. When they are withdrawn, the body loses its attractiveness and becomes an inanimate object.
In the default model we separate the workings of the body from that of the mind, and in this linear logic we can see no connection between heartburn and anger. In the bliss model, on the other hand, the trees and the forest are seen as a whole. Thus, we understand that when pitta becomes aggravated, it not only causes an overproduction of stomach acid, causing reflux and heartburn, but its heating action on the mind also causes anger and aggression.
Specific combinations of doshas are determined at conception and dictate our distinctive body frame, facial features, and fingerprints. Specific dosha combinations determine our susceptibility to problems in specific organ systems. Since doshas are made up of elements that have gunas embedded in them, they also drive the peculiar ways in which we think and feel.
As long as the unique proportions of the three doshas that make up your body remain stable, you will remain free of disease. In this model balance isn’t about getting all three doshas in equal proportions (unless, of course, that is your particular constitution), but it is about getting you back to your own unique state of balance. When it comes to the mind, however, the goal of this model is to cultivate sattva, which enables the spilling over of your inner bliss into your body, leading to healing and beauty. Importantly, this type of healing leads to the end of rebirth into suffering.
Rebirth into Suffering
Have you wondered how children turn out to be prodigies? Consider Mozart, who started composing at age five, when most children are yet to learn the basics of music. How did he acquire the depth of knowledge required for musical composition at such a tender age? One theory that explains such phenomena is that of reincarnation.
According to this theory, the causal and subtle layers exit the physical body at the time of death, and depending upon the type of impressions and desires that need to be expressed and fulfilled, they find a host for the next birth. The theory has it that we select the parents, culture, and community who will pass on genetic traits and lifestyle habits that will help us express the desires we have accumulated in the previous birth. Our causal body then starts directing our choices and actions with the determined purpose of fulfilling particular desires. If your strongest desire is to express musical ability picked up in an earlier birth, you will be born in a family of musicians with the resources to fulfill a musical career.
This theory also explains why children born of the same parents and raised in the same family differ in their personalities. Our unique personalities—with idiosyncrasies, preferences, aversions, and talents—are products not only of the impressions of this lifetime, but also of the previous ones. The issue is that even as we fulfill old desires, we keep accumulating new ones because of the neurohormonal superhighways we build through seeking things to make us happy. Thus, we are born again and again in an endless cycle.
However, the theory of reincarnation is of no practical use in daily life. It is not necessary to believe in reincarnation to see how we are reborn into suffering. We simply have to look at the human predicament that leads to desire. When we have what we desire, we become attached to it and fear losing it. When we don’t get what we desire, it consumes us with restlessness. What we desire is based on our past experiences that we project into the future. For instance, if success brought me temporary pleasure in the past, I seek more of it, thinking I will be happy in the future when I am more successful. All of my choices and actions are determined by the emotional impression of desire, where we characterize all experience into good and bad, want and don’t want, like and dislike. As we give in to the impression in our thoughts and actions, we create deep grooves of habit. The impression and the habit start to feel like the I, our identity.
The unique predicament of the I is that it craves completion and contentment. In the default model we think the I is our body-mind and innocently believe that our happiness comes from external objects. Thus, we are driven to desperately seek them. For example, if you are the sort that likes cars, you may covet a particular model. As long as you don’t have the car, the desire for it defines who you are by creating the turmoil of wanting. You’re filled with bliss the moment you procure the car. You mistakenly think that acquiring the car made you happy, when in reality your bliss is the result of the temporary end of wanting.
Desire: The Fuel of Suffering
Desire is the fuel of the I, and when a particular desire is fulfilled, the I temporarily loses fuel and dies. For a brief moment you gain access to our inherent bliss, which was previously obscured by the turmoil of desire. However, the dopamine-seeking pathways soon become reactivated. Your eye catches a better-looking car with state-of-the-art features. The nagging of desire is stirred up, and the I is reborn. As long as the I seeks completion from external objects, it is bound to suffer. You may not have the resources to get that new model. Even if you did, you see that there is always something that is better out there. You suffer because the permanent happiness you seek never comes. The I reincarnates again and again into suffering.
Our habitual patterns are so deeply ingrained in the causal and subtle bodies that we seem to be propelled along by their sheer power, being reborn again and again into suffering. Like a hamster on a wheel, we run along the well-worn grooves, helplessly reacting in the same old ways to everything that arises in our experience.
For true healing to occur and to get off the cycle of rebirth into suffering, we must become willing to change our habitual ways at any cost. This is how we return to bliss.
Returning to Bliss
A “dis-ease” is an accurate signal that our current patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are not serving us—we are not at ease. If we change how we view disease, everything about it changes—our relationship with it, our response to treatment, and that elusive thing, healing.
The purport of healing holistically is to find and work on the root cause of an ailment. Thus, working on the body alone does not result in healing—it results in “treatment,” a word with a different connotation, which is the use of agents like drugs or surgery in an attempt to cure or mitigate a disease. Working on the subtle body alone does not work either since it doesn’t get to the root of the issue. For true healing to occur, we need to work on the causal body, which consists of the conglomeration of beliefs that make up the I.
As consciousness descends into matter and forms the body-mind, it becomes obscured by the preoccupations of the mind and obsession with the body. For us to return to the bliss of our true nature, the ideal body-mind state is one of balance. When the body returns to balance and the mind rests in sattva, we remember that our true nature is pure bliss consciousness. Once accessed, this bliss pervades our senses, bodies, and minds, and we discover beauty, love, and harmony in our daily lives. We return to health.
The path to balance and bliss leads to an overhaul of our bodies and minds. In the next chapter we will see how to ignite the power of transformation that takes us from rebirth into suffering to permanent bliss.
Summary
- Each of us is a perfect replica of the cosmos. Within us we carry all the information necessary for healing.
- Bliss consciousness is the substance of every animate and inanimate object in the universe. It is who we really are.
- Bliss consciousness evolves into the five great elements: ether, air, fire, water, and earth, which form the basis of everything in creation.
- According to the bliss model, we have not one but three bodies that determine our particular body-mind traits.
- The physical body is sustained by food; the subtle body is made up of energy, mind, and intellect; and the causal body is made of the impressions of who we think we are—the I that veils the bliss of our true nature.
- Gunas (qualities) in particular combinations make up our individual psyche, nature, or personality. Tamas leads to inertia, laziness, and darkness; rajas to determination, ambition, anxiety, and restlessness; and sattva to a quiet mind, clarity, sweetness, and contentment. The higher the sattva in our psyche, the greater is our ability to see the bliss within.
- The three doshas (principles) arising from the five elements make up the unique fingerprint of our body-mind. Vata is the principle of movement, pitta is the principle of transformation, and kapha is the principle of structure.
- Desire is the fuel of the I. When a particular desire is fulfilled, the I temporarily loses fuel and dies, which reveals the bliss of our true nature—until desires are stirred up again. Since there is no way for all our desires to be fulfilled, the I reincarnates again and again into suffering.
- The ideal condition for us to remember the bliss of our true nature is for the body to return to balance and our mind to rest in sattva.