Experiencing Being out of the Body
The silver cord :
My own experience in childhood was in the flooded river of my town.
Nobody used to swim across it when it was flooded. Ordinarily, it was a
small river, but in rainy times it was at least one mile wide. The
current of the water was tremendous; you could not stand in it. And the
water was deep, so you couldn't stand anyway.
I loved it. I
waited for the rainy season and swam the river. There would come a
moment when I would feel that I was dying, because I was tired and I
could not see the other shore, and the waves were high and the current
was strong, and there was no way to go back because the other shore was
as far away. I would feel so completely tired and the water would take
me down with such a force that there would come a time when I would see,
“Now there is no possibility of living any more.” And that was the
moment when I would suddenly see myself above the water and my body in
the water. When it happened the first time, it was a very frightening
experience. I thought I must have died. I had heard that when you die
the soul goes out of the body, so I thought I had gone out of the body
and I had died. But I could see the body was still trying to reach the
other shore, so I followed the body.
That was the first time I
became aware of a connection between your essential being and the body.
It is connected just below the navel – two inches below the navel – by
something like a silver cord, a silver rope. It is not material, but it
shines like silver. Each time I reached the other shore, the moment I
reached the other shore my being would enter into the body. The first
time it was frightening; then it became a great entertainment. I enjoyed
it so much… the freedom, no force of gravitation, and seeing my own
body completely away.
Then I moved to the university and there
it happened once. Just behind the university campus there was a hillock
with three trees. I used to love those trees because it was impossible
to sit silently in the hostel. So I used to go and climb a tree. The
middle tree was very comfortable to sit in – the way its branches were –
and I would sit there for hours in silence.
One day – I don’t
know what happened – when I opened my eyes I saw my body lying down on
the ground. It was the same experience that had happened in the river
many times, so there was no fear.
But in the river, it used to
happen automatically that when the body reached the shore my being would
enter the body. I had no idea how to enter the body; it had always
happened of its own accord. So I was stuck. I had no idea. I could see
the cord joining me to the body, but how to enter the body, from where
to enter? I had never learned any technique from anybody. I simply
waited. There was nothing to do.
A woman who used to sell milk
to the hostel students came by, and she saw my body lying down. She was
puzzled. She just touched my head to see whether I was alive or dead,
and the moment she touched my head I entered into my body with such a
quick force that I still cannot get the idea of how it happens.
But one thing became certain: if a man’s being is out, a woman’s touch
to the body will help him to come into the body. And vice versa: if a
woman’s body is away from her being, then a man’s touch – and
particularly on the forehead where the third eye is. It was just by
accident that she touched me on my head to see whether I was alive or
dead. She had no idea that I was sitting in the tree seeing everything
she was doing. When I opened my eyes she was shocked.
Looking into the mirror :
To watch in the mirror is one of the methods prescribed by tantra – but
to watch long enough so that you become identified with the reflection
in the mirror. Then you step back. Your body will not step back, your
body remains in the old position, but your being will step back. Then
you can see three bodies.
Another technique: if you go on
looking into the mirror every day for a particular period of time, one
hour every day just looking into your own eyes, in a few weeks – the
time depends on each individual – one day you will suddenly see that the
mirror is empty. You are standing before it, but the mirror is empty.
That, too, is a great experience. When it happens you will feel
tremendous silence and a peace you have never known – as if you have
gone beyond all reflections and you have come back to the real.
Witnessing that you are not the body :
For example, you are eating. If you can witness this act, if you can
observe the very process of eating, you will see that the body eats. You
have never eaten – the consciousness inside has never eaten anything.
How can the consciousness eat? That is impossible. Hunger belongs to the
body, the food goes to the body not to the consciousness. Food is a
fuel. Your body is a mechanism, it needs fueling constantly – water and
food – but you are not your mechanical body.
Look at it in this
way: You are driving a car – the petrol goes into the car, not into the
driver. The body is just like a car; the only difference is that your
driver, you, cannot come out of it. That’s why you become identified
with it. If a boy is born in a car as a driver, and is not allowed to
move out, he will become identified with the car. When the car is
hungry, the boy will feel “I am hungry.”
The body is just a
vehicle. You are born in it, and you have never been out of it; that
creates the problem. There are ways to be out of it. And once you are
out of your body, then you will never be identified with it. One
out-of-body experience will make you free of the identification that you
are the body. Then you will know you are the driver.
And witnessing is the process of going out of the body.
First, you have to destroy the identification; only then you can move
out. You have to destroy the inner clinging with the body, and then you
can move out. If you go on clinging with the body you cannot go out of
it – and it is not difficult to go out of it. The out-of-body experience
is easy, and it is beautiful to have it. It is worth experiencing,
because once you can feel yourself a little bit out, the body becomes
different. Then you can never feel yourself as the body. Then you will
feel in the body, but never as the body.
Witnessing is the method. Whatsoever you are doing, remember you are not the doer.
Out-of-body experiences are not necessary :
Out-of-body experiences are good nourishment for your spiritual growth,
but they are not necessary. So if they are happening, or just by
relaxing they come upon you, it is good; otherwise, don’t bother about
them. They don’t have any essential meaning for your growth.
So
just out of curiosity don’t try to get out of your body. It won’t work.
It either works spontaneously for certain reasons of which you are not
aware, or it doesn’t work.
One thing is certain: whenever you
spontaneously get out of the body, the body will give a jerk – because
it is the death of the body, and you are going into a dangerous state.
If something happens that disturbs your coming back, if somebody
suddenly opens the door and your silver cord is broken, the body has its
own wisdom; it allows you a certain rope of freedom, it allows you in a
certain state to go out, but not to go too far. That’s where it will
jerk, and that jerk is enough to bring you back.
The distance between you and the body, the mind and the heart :
The sense of distance with our own body can happen both ways: either by
becoming aware, alert, or by falling deep in unconsciousness. While you
are unconscious the distance will not be recognized, but when you are
becoming conscious, for a slight moment you will be able to see the
distance – that you are one thing and the body is something else. In
alertness it is more clear, but the phenomenon is the same.
There are many memoirs about out-of-body experiences, and it is becoming
more and more a fact that man can move out of the body. It is
dangerous, but if it happens in awareness, on its own, it is harmless;
in fact it is infinitely fulfilling, a tremendous release from a prison.
The feeling that you are beyond the body will help you in disease, in
sickness, in death. Nothing will cause misery to you.
But
sometimes it can happen to a few people waking up in the morning; it all
depends on the speed of waking up. A few people wake up very slowly –
they take time between the sleeping and the waking state – so they will
never feel this. Their pace is such that they will wake very slowly, so
by the time they are waking up the sleep is almost gone. But a few
people wake up abruptly. Nothing is wrong in it, but then you will feel a
sudden change because of the two different states. In sleep you are in
one state, in wakefulness you are in a different state.
Abrupt
awakening will give you the sense for a moment that the body is separate
and you are entering into it. If it happens, enjoy that moment, prolong
that moment, enjoy it in every detail. Watch everything that is
happening, and that will become a kind of meditation. It will help if
you are also trying to witness when you go to sleep. It will be easier
to witness.
If you just try silent awareness while going to
sleep, the same experience will be felt again. But most probably sleep
comes slowly, so you don’t have the time to see the distance. But the
distance is a reality whether you see it or not.
So first you
can make the distance from the body a very solid reality. Then you can
make the distance from the mind… which is possible only through
meditation. In the first experience you are not feeling separate from
the mind, the distance is only from the body. It is a good beginning;
one third of the process is achieved. Then in the same way look at the
mind as separate, and finally look at your feelings and heart as
separate.
Ultimately we have to find one point in ourselves
from which we cannot in any way feel separate because we are it. There
are layers just like an onion; you peel one layer and there is another
layer. You peel that layer and there is another. Go on peeling the
onion. In Zen they have a saying: “Go on peeling the onion till only
nothingness is left in your hands.” And that nothingness is you.
Science says consciousness is illusion, body is the only reality :
You are not your body, you are consciousness inside your body; your
body is only a resting place, a house. One day you enter into it and one
day you will have to leave it: a caravanserai, an overnight stay. You
are not your body… your pilgrimage is eternal. But being in the body one
can become identified, one can start thinking, “I am the body.” And
this is happening more today than ever before.
For centuries
man has been aware that he is not the body, but within these two, three
centuries, a scientific approach about everything has destroyed that
long-cherished understanding. Science is a good method to know about
matter, but it is absolutely impotent as far as the world of
consciousness is concerned. Because science can only know matter it is
bound to deny consciousness; it is beyond its grasp.
If you are
trying to see light through your ears you will not be able to see it,
and the ears will say, “There is no light.” If you try to listen to
music through your eyes you will not be able to listen, because your
very method excludes it. Eyes can’t hear music, ears can’t see light,
your hands cannot smell, your nose cannot taste. Every sense has its own
limitation. It is perfectly valid within its own circumference; beyond
it, it is utterly irrelevant. [...]
Science says: Consciousness
is illusion, body is the only reality. The truth is that the body has
its own reality, and consciousness has its own reality. And the miracle
is, the mystery is, that these two separate realities are together, that
these two separate realities are functioning in deep synchronicity.
You are timelessness :
As you go deeper into innocence you will be able to see that if your
hand is cut off, your consciousness is not reduced that much – it
remains the same. Your leg can be cut off; your body is no longer the
same, but your consciousness remains the same, it is not reduced. If
your mind changes – and mind continuously changes – your consciousness
does not change with your mind; it is an unchanging phenomenon. It is
the only unchanging factor in existence; everything else is a flux. Only
the witness remains permanent, absolutely permanent. It is eternal.
Mind is time and you are timelessness.
Moksha :
Death
does not destroy anything. The five elements of the body fall back into
their original sources and for the consciousness there are two
possibilities: if it has not tasted meditation it will move into another
womb; if it has tasted meditation, if it has known its eternity, its
immortality, it will move into the cosmos and disappear into this vast
existence. And that disappearance is the greatest moment of life. You
have become one with the source from where you had arisen. You have gone
back and disappeared into it.
Death :
A man of
understanding knows there is no death. Death does not happen; it has
never happened. It happens only because you are identified with the body
and you don’t know yourself. Yes, from the body you will be separated.
If you are too identified, that separation looks like death. But if you
are not identified with the body and you know yourself as the witnessing
soul, as the consciousness, as the awareness, then there is no death.
by
k.jagadeesh
+91-9841121780, 9543187772,
Email: jagadeeshkri@gmail.com
Web:https://www.morebooks.de/search/gb?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=jagadeesh+krishnan
No comments:
Post a Comment