Our body is a remarkable vehicle for experiences. Each of us is a unique combination that leads to a specific style of experiencing and knowing. Another unique perspective of totality. But even within this broad context, we have a surprising number of ways we can experience our bodily expression.
Our body as a physical thing, of course. But this can range from a form of grace and power to a difficult burden challenged by handicap or illness. (anna)
Our body as sensation, feeling inside and out. (sparsha)
Our body as vibration, humming with the process of creation. (pranava)
Our sensory body, assembled from sights, sounds, touch, smell, and flavour. This may be dominated by a specific sense, maybe a combination. (indriyas)
Our body as energy or life, flowing and surging. Power, action, grace, and throbbing presence. (prana, chi)
Our body that feels and knows intuitively. Speaking in the still small voice or in waves of inspiration or insight. (vijna)
Our body of ancestors, the sum of our blood line. (shadbhava)
Our body of thought and idea, expansive vistas of mathematics, visions, or structure. (manas)
Our body of empty space, akasha. Or perhaps as other elements, like our body of wind (vayu) or fire (agni, tejas).
Our body of light, quiet or flowing. (prana)
Our body of pure, still awareness. Peaceful alertness. (turiya)
Our body of bliss, pure and ever present joy, as much as we can take. (ananda)
Our body of the universe, embodying the world and the structure of it. (aham vishvam)
Our body of creation, embodied. First style of cosmic body (aham shrivir)
Our body of devata, the pure intelligences who are simultaneously managing all bodies in all time. (devo hum)
Our body of divine flow, totality. (shakti)
I’m sure others have not come to mind. Have you experienced other styles of being?
Davidya
The body of never ending unfolding…
The one body of all bodies? Well put.
The totality of totalities…
😉
Well, Davidya, since you concluded this magnificent post by asking…
Ha ha! I think I can think of one.
The body in this current incarnation has gifts for deeper perception. Not ALL gifts. But a distinctive and perfect assortment for this incarnation.
When I teach the particular system of aura reading I favor (Aura Reading Through All Your Senses®), I have found consistently that this is a very important aspect of self-knowledge and self-acceptance, as well as opening the capacity to have deeper perception in ways that really fit.
Good one, Rose. While a couple I mentioned come close, this is quite distinct.
Our body of energetic gifts and gifts of the soul.
So I’m thinking, no matter what you and your peeps are doing for deeper perception, this kind of body knowledge might be very useful to you.
And, knowing you, Davidya, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if you’ve got some really cool Sanskrit term for that, too. Would be fascinating to learn about, nuances and all.
well – I know a few Latin and Sanskrit terms for some of this, but mainly for the gifts themselves rather than the structure that supports them.
We’ve talked about nadis, chakras, their databanks, and related markers. But the terms I know are for the major things. And there are several koshas involved for this too.
One unrelated comment, if I might…
It occurs to me that the more thoroughly one enjoys, appreciates, and accepts the physical vehicle for this lifetime, the better use we can make of it.
And I can see how this would pertain to many of the forms of body you have listed here, like indriyas, sparsha, anna… and then akasha plus all that follow.
What fascinates me, though, is what the human MAKES of the body. Not so much what consciousness permits.
So in that sense, I’m wondering what Davidya concepts and words — or Sanskrit ones — you can find about acceptance. Consciousness can do more than become conscious for a human being, right? Consciousness can become appreciative.
Good point, Rose. It is good to remind that we’re here to live a human life. That life can incorporate many layers, but the main part of it is right here.
If we spend our life in transcendence or trying to stay in the bliss body, then we’re not living a human life. The object of enlightenment is to live it in the world, not escape somewhere.
And yes, I do write regularly about learning to be OK with what is here aka acceptance. We’re not going to live a happy life if we spend most of it trying to avoid or fight it.
Gratitude is a further subject I’ve written about a number of times, although perhaps not as much lately. In fact, it was a key aspect of my own lead-in to awakening.
Okay, one more. ‘Cause I can’t resist.
Here we are, living in The Age of Awakening. A time when, vibrationally, life on earth is very different. (As it seems to me, anyway.)
In that context, I am fascinated by the process of individuation. So important in our time of “God with us” and (what I call) Householder Enlightenment.
So when I read your list of all those bodies, it seemed to me — we’re ready for new list items now. We humans are ready to investigate what makes one particular body unique, and how that ties in with one’s spiritual mission and interests and type of work.
Back in the day, wasn’t human life pretty interchangeable? You were just one human. One generic human. Maybe you would reach Enlightenment before you dropped the body. Otherwise a new body would be provided.
I wonder, do you and others of your fans here, David, think much about human individuality? And what a very different, Western, Age of Awakening concept this is? Dawning for the last hundred years or so, but wholly unlike historic versions of being in a human embodiment.
Well – the list above is a bunch of ways of experiencing the various layers of our existence. My words may remind you of some of your own experiences or not. How we experience and describe them will be unique. In fact, I see our uniqueness as key to why we exist.
One example is Brahman stage. Brahman is a human knowing Brahman. There is no Brahman without a knower of it.
In a curious way, we can see the stages I describe as a universalization at first, but then there is a progression of bringing that back into form, of living it in the world. That may lead to some of the ways of experiencing mentioned above.
Just consider the sages you might be aware of. Were any of them the same as each other? No – their individuality actually became more distinct as the fetter to it fell away. And they retained distinct preferences and tastes.
I also emphasis here that “ego death” and similar may be an experience, but we soon come to realize we don’t loose the ego, just the limitation of it. In fact, the ego (sense of individuation) is required for us to function.
Unknown to the ancients. Irrelevant. And not yet established, perhaps, as important, those 10,000 years ago.
Now? To me, for what it’s worth, co-creating human individuality along with the Divine is THE HAPPENING THING on this planet.
Seems very new and post-postmodern to me, Davidya. But if anybody knows that, perhaps, this is what Vyasa and others noticed, that anybody would be you. So tell me! I would truly be gobsmacked.
I’m thinking, Brighu had a human stink. Not HIS human stink, you know?
Actually, I’ll disagree on this one. During the dark ages, the focus of spiritual teaching came to be on renunciation, of retiring to the forest. Much of recent teaching has been founded on that over-emphasis that I’ve said here is no longer valid.
But I’ll note one of the more famous eastern proponents of this was the sage Shankara – part of a tradition we’ve both studied. But he was a revivalist. The renunciate lifestyle had been mostly lost at the time, and he revived that tradition.
But then the pendulum swung too far that way. Now the householder way is being restored. Even a few decades ago, great progress was made on long, distant retreats. But that is no longer true. Now it’s mostly made in activity, in living in the world.
The vast majority of the core Vedic seers where married householders. Some where women. That’s why there was a family to carry their cognitions forward through the ages, until Vyasa assembled them to save their loss.
Until very recently, many of the more famous spiritual teachers where monks: Yogananda, Ramana, Maharishi. But shows like BATGAP illustrate how thats changed. Many of them now are not.
But still, those ideas have a momentum that is still prominent that needs to be corrected.
And yes, a profoundly happening thing. There are some working now to make the divine more alive in group consciousness than the astral is now.
This is what will bring “heaven on earth”, right here, in our human lives. But meantime, theres all that sludge to be rinsed away… 🙂
We have our work cut out for us….
Hi David!
Some that I have experienced are:
The crackling pure potentiality of the unmanifest Brahman / Atman that knows “I am That, I have always been That; I will always be That.”
The same absolute bliss while aware and awake in the body;
“i Am” the cosmic Blue Being that Muktananda wrote about, and that the Masters were dancing around, laughing…
Thanks for these blogs!
Thanks, Terry
Yes, there is a distinction between simply stepping into bliss in transcendence and having that alive while we’re in activity.
Here’s a quote from Shankara: Chidananda rupah, Shivo’ham, Shivo’ham
I am consciousness and bliss. I am ParaShiva I am ParaShiva!
And here’s a beautiful video and one of Deva Premal’s best:
http://onecommunityranch.org/divine-music-project-chidananda-by-deva-premal-video-and-lyrics/
[Sanskrit and English at the link]
According to Vedic tradition, this mantra is dedicated to Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva is the consciousness facet of the Divine and the ultimate liberator of the attachments and illusions of Maya.
Chitt means the sense or the mind. Ananda means happiness. This phrase can be translated as the conscious mind immersed in total bliss.
Yes, she does some nice work with Sanskrit.
The phrase is interesting though.
The words mean cutting or destroying, bliss, form, Shiva, & I am.
Thus I would translate it more as “Form-destroying bliss, Shiva I am, Shiva I am.” More Shiva-like that way too. 🙂
hmmm… Chid is indeed related to Chitt, unexpectedly. Generally, I’ve heard Chit to mean consciousness (as in sat chit ananda), where chitta means memory or subconscious mind aka impressions in consciousness.
In that sense, the line is more like “Bliss-consciousness form, Shiva I am, Shiva I am.”
Interesting they relate consciousness to cutting, destroying or a hole. 🙂
The last comment speaks to my initial response, which is of the “not this-not that” body. After reading all of the qualities, it was an acknowledgement of the body of none of these qualities, which in it’s stance is Shiva-like.
Hi Laura
Thanks for commenting. There’s a few flavours of that people may notice. I mentioned the body of space for example, an empty openness. The body of awareness – in deep transcendence it can be pure emptiness. The body of bliss can also be experienced as a spacious openness or a fullness of life.
And then of course there is those blends – bliss consciousness with an open space.
But yes, it depends on how you come to this. The experience can certainly be dominated by what it’s not.
I am finding totality in all. So the human body is also been seen and explored as the totality these days.
Eternity, eternal sound, infinite potential and all the forces that create, destroy and maintain the existence can be found in every point in the body.
This may be how immortality of the body is recognized and accepted?
Hi Gayanee
Beautiful.
That’s an aspect of it but it has to be very fully embodied for the actuality.
Here’s a great song on the Body of Bliss:
Anandatse Dohi, sung by Gurumayi of the Siddha Yoga tradition. Written by a Saint called Tukaram Maharaj in the 17th century:
“This is my state – how can I describe this bliss in words? Inner delight absorbs me totally and I can never imagine searching for happiness in the external world through the senses. Just as when a child is still in its mother’s womb, the child’s cravings are reflected in the mother and become her desires. In the same way, says Tukaram, this bliss is reflected throughout my being and whatever comes out of my mouth is an expression of that inner bliss. In the great flood of bliss, waves are surging and they too are nothing but bliss, for bliss is the very nature of every particle of this body of Bliss!”
It’s a very beautiful recording, one of my very favorites. here’s the link if you’re interested: http://siddhayogabookstore.org/anandatsedohi.aspx
Thanks, Terry
I quite like the voice of Yogini Shambhavi of the AIVS.
Later in the process, the bliss is found right in the “external world” as well. And then that the external is also internal, that all is mySelf.