our 5 bodies (from a talk on kfm 106.9, on the Saturday Slice with dj Shannon) on the 5 bodies, and death:

Yoga considers us to have not just the physical body, but 5 bodies in all. This knowledge has come from countless spiritual aspirants having the same, or similar, experiences of their different bodies, and relaying this knowledge down through the ages.

These bodies appear to slot 1 within the other, starting with the outer body, which we know as the physical body. Often, we mistakenly believe that this body, our thoughts, feeling, etc, are the sum total of us.  This body is our vehicle that we use to travel in through a lifetime. After death, it decays, we shed it, although a few functions continue for a short time after we die.

The next body, (yoga calls them koshas, or sheaths), is the pranic, or life-force body. We need this life-force in order to live a life. This also leaves the body at death.

Now we come to our mind body. Often called the lower mental body. It's not the Higher Mind, but certainly it's the mind aspect that we identify with!!

When we cease to function in the physical body, and the prana has left, sometimes we can 'see' a form of the deceased person, just as when they were alive. If you can see the person surrounded in light, or with a light filled body, then they are visiting you from another realm. They have discarded also the lower mental body, and moved on to their new existence.

 Some years ago, a friend drowned during a King tide. Whilst people were out combing the seashore, surrounding bush and other beaches looking for his body, I could see, for a couple of days, his lower mental form walking through the house. It didn't look good. It had dark ugly blotches and he looked confused and troubled. Not a pleasant sight. These visions of people who have died but not moved on, they cannot hurt you - they don't punch nor terrorize.

It's also the lower mental body which people use to 'astral' travel. Often, someone will believe that it's a highfaluting part of them which is doing this, but, no, it's not. It's just the part which wants, has dubious intent, ego,.... and intuitive people can 'sense', 'see', "hear' these lower mental astral visitations. It's done with a specific mantra and breathing, the ability to do this travel.

This is not to be confused with the spirit, which can and does 'travel', and is something else again.

easy  practices for mooladhara chakra:

You can  add a couple of asanas to your daily practice:

wide-legged standing forward bend. Hold for 10-20 seconds with eyes 1/2 closed and gaze gently at the nose tip. This posture done this way will energise mooladhara. When mooladhara energy is lifted, we are happier. This pose helps with rejuvenation of the physical body, which mooladhara is very much responsible for. ps legs don't have to be so wide that it feels horrid but you do need that opening between the buttocks. Head doesn't have to touch floor, and if you can't reach the ankles, you can just hang the arms. Do yoga poses for the glandular, and nervous system affects, rather than stretch and extend, and you will progress quickly. And you will look and feel great.

Butterfly forward bend: sit with soles of feet touching, knees bent out to sides, fingers around toes. Feet a little bit forwards of the groin. Exhale and bend forwards, aiming elbows to the floor in front of calves.   Hold pose, gazing at the nose tip as above. This is calming and also affects mooladhara this way, with a gentle, blissful energy which we experience in the brain/mind complex.

 


Chakra meditation: visualise a ball of ruby red, held down by 4 crisscrossed black lines, holding the chakra tight and still. Imagine that you cut these ties with a light sabre, causing the ruby red ball to be freed: it spins, fast, clockwise. Then sit and experience the energy from the chakra rising up (it's quite gentle). Watch the inner space after.  

more mooladhara chakra:

In the aura, and also within the Inner Realms, one can come to realise that this is the chakra which dictates, & reveals, how we are 'walking' through life, our physical stance, attitude, what we see/don't see, on our journey. Usually we are really unaware of how these aspects are truly manifesting, as we are dealing here with unconscious behaviour, meaning that we are unconscious of the drives and hidden causes of that behaviour. And, this makes some serious unconscious destructive behaviours and responses, difficult to manage. Mooladhara is houses our instinctive responses and they manifest physically, ie behaviour.

These behaviours are due to deeply ingrained reactions from trauma: from this life, past lives. And, we develop some sort of instinctive behavioural response. This is not something that we can sort out logically, especially if it's buried deep as a result of past life trauma. But.......there are some wonderful happenings, therapies, techniques, these days which can effect great healing for lesser trauma.

And when we talk about trauma, it's not something silly like not getting what you want, or someone being mean to you. No, it's physical abuse, sexual abuse, war, living in terror, awful things happening to oneself or our children. If your previous life was filled with terror and violence, and you are now always depressed, or have something like fear of going out, repeated nightmares...but you have no idea of that previous life, how would psycho-analysis or behavioural therapy, or counselling, nlp,...... the last goes on.......how would these resolve the natural reactions within your psyche??

So, what can we do?? Part of our Dharma, our destiny, is to deal with these deep seated behaviours and responses. But how??

I recommend Yoga Nidra, an ancient tantric technique. Nidra means sleep. Ideally, the consciousness remains alert while the body sleeps. but what really happens is that one is moving freely through and between conscious, subconscious,and unconscious areas of mind.

 Whilst doing yoga nidra, the aura vibrates exactly the same as when healing is done in the aura, so it is an healing modality. Deep seated tensions and issues seem to leave the psyche. As this happens, one's energy is gently released, the consciousness expands, allowing those 'issues' buried deep within us to gently depart. Usually it doesn't happen in one go!!

Daily tensions, cares and worries disappear. Subconscious influences from this life and others, leave us. When symbols or chakra related experiences emerge, briefly, an indeterminate amount of karma leaves: this is from the unconscious realms.

 This technique is best done regularly, listening to a recording. It can take a long time to train oneself to delve deep into the different areas of mind whilst lying down, so a tape is good. 

more bio....about how I came to enter the realms of the chakras

After my Ashram years I came back into society. I was acutely aware that the Satyananda Yoga system had given me a wealth of experiential knowledge in the field of chakras, kundalini, the pranas, 5 koshas (sheaths eg physical body & others), tattwas (elements), and the differing akashas, or internal spiritual spaces. Up to a very good level.

To my surprise, the internal experiences continued. Even though I'd accepted that maybe they wouldn't. I learnt that it didn't take much for the spiritual life to keep moving.... onto the next chakra, the next level, the next realm. And, that some of these experiences needed help from someone else. That someone else is one's Guru. A couple of very profound jumps in energy/consciousness, to do with chakras, are done internally, by the Guru. It is said that the Guru leads one to the Inner Light, and what a surprise it is when this happens!! There is also a very important chakra which is awakened by Guru.

 All of this is tremendous, and very special. One becomes very grateful. Every single day. How could you not be??

Of course we need to do some of the work ourselves, and it does seem that this is where the yamas (social development) & niyamas (individual development) come in. They are guidelines for conduct, ethical behaviour, & really it helps to incorporate them into your life, as a way of life. They aren't hard to do, & they need to be the way that one always is, not just outwardly going through the motions. When one misrepresents oneself by acting out the yamas and niyamas in public, by word and behaviour, but privately & internally disregard them, the spiritual life doesn't progress.

 One really needs to become the Inner Knowledge, with integrity and gratitude. Internally keeping on the Path, and being true to the finer nature which each of us has inside of us. We can do this anywhere, but, I truly feel that it's easier to live in an Ashram to do it!!

Paramahansa Satyananda

bio....and how I came to enter the realms of the chakras:

In the early 1970s I had a debilitating muscle/organ problem, and in desperation I tried 'keep fit' to help correct it....hated it. My mother, a very intuitive woman, suggested I went to yoga (the condition became corrected within 6 weeks of yoga). Neither of us knew what yoga was, but off I trotted.

Stood in the doorway of a hall, and felt that whatever yoga was, this was 'it' for life. And so it has been. Lucky for me, the teacher, Swami Karmayogi Saraswati was a western swami (whatever that was!!), who taught asanas, pranayamas, yoga nidra, kriyas. It was most fortunate to meet and learn from him. At the end of that 1st year, I had my first chakra experience, but of course didn't know what it all meant, nor did I realise what had actually happened, but, I was acutely aware that I was never the same after. Nor were the people close to me.

 A couple of years later, I went on to study with a wonderful woman, Melissa Jones (nee Carven), who was probably the first Satyananda disciple in New Zealand. I knew without a doubt that I had been lead to the person whom I had waited my whole life to meet, whom I'd had many visions of as a child: Paramahansa Satyananda, through Karmayogi who taught Satyananda's Yoga Nidra, and then through Melissa

Life took it's twists and turns, another massive experience happened: I was still totally ignorant of what was happening to me. Later on, my life fell apart about 7 years after starting yoga, a very bad marriage collapsed, and 5 months later I came across a new Satyananda Centre in Auckland. Seven months later I went to the large Australian Ashram at Mangrove Mountain, and was given, yes, given!! full Sannyasa initiation!!

 I lived in the NZ Centre, taught there and in a residential countryside ashram, for 7 years, where I lived Satyananda's teachings 24/7. Throughout this time, the internal experiences were fast and furious, however it took many years before I completely understood what had been going on: I read Satyananda's Kundalini Yoga book, the most definitive and accurate book of this type, ever.

What I did learn during those ashram years was a wealth of deep inner spiritual experience, what it all meant.....up to the level that I was at, of course. And something very important: what to do to have those same experiences. Because Yoga is a science, and. doing specific techniques produces definite results.

I truly feel that what you need to do, depending where you are at, to progress spiritually, is one of the hidden keys of  spiritual life. Anyone can get hold of the teachings, but it requires experiential knowledge to know how to apply them.

 It is so amazing that there are hundreds of Satyananda disciples around the globe who have lived, breathed, kundalini yoga, and who in turn are able to pass on this knowledge, not as a Guru (which one does need for kundalini) but as a teacher.

(1984 with my son, Ali)