We Are the Subtle Body even more than the physical body.
We have read that Ramana, Robert Adams, and
Nisargadatta say over and over, “You are not your body.” But for most people, this is just philosophy—a
belief. For most of us, we identify with
the body and don’t have enough direct experience of other aspects of ourselves
to serve as alternative identifications.
Many advanced meditators after years of practice
know both the inner emptiness of the space within, also called the Void, that
many identify with it and call it the substrate, the absolute, or newness and
beingness: that is the container or screen upon which phenomenal objects
appear. However, this inner space,
lighted by itself, is still a phenomenon, and although it does not appear to
change, it comes and goes with the states of consciousness (deep sleep, dream
sleep, waking), and can disappear when the objects grab hold of out attention.
This inner space is an aspect of what Nisargadatta
and his teacher called the Subtle Body, which is the dwelling place of all inner
phenomenon, including the I-sense, and all inner energies, such as prana, Chi,
Kundalini, etc.
One marked step towards Self-Realization of the
manifest Self, the Atman, is to lose primary identification with the physical
body when we experience ourselves as an energy body while in ordinary waking
consciousness.
This usually starts through experiencing “energies”
throughout the body for a long time, which gradually grow both in intensity and
frequency of occurrence, but also grow more “subtle” as time passes.
The initial energies may be experienced as
tingling or heat, sometimes as vibrations, and sometimes as currents that are
felt, and are often associated with flowing colors. Then these energies can grow to be very
powerful, often irritating, burning, shaking, and grow to fearsome intensity
where you feel youi can’t tolerate them any more.
For me it was like this. For many days I felt pretty useless,
unwilling to move though forced to at times by my schedule. But I was fixated on my inner world, the
emptiness within superimposed or underlying my experience of my body.
For days there was a growing inner current that entirely
filled my body, and not very pleasurable.
My hands trembled and inside I felt a slight vibration. My body felt heavy, and intensely vibrating
as a high frequency.
One day I awoke and I felt happier than for some
time because the heaviness and vibration had disappeared. As I drove to my morning coffee, I suddenly
realized I was no longer identifying with my body. Looking within, I saw only white light
inside, and I had a second body, a body of light and sentience, of awareness,
an experiencing presence within and I had the sudden knowledge that this was
more me than was my physical body. My
body was just the material host for this inner being of light and awareness,
which was lighter than a feather and had only a sense of joy.
But there was also the immediate realization that
even this body, though it felt more close an intimate to “me” than my physical
body, was still not “me,” or at least the entirety of me, for I was still
witnessing this lighted Subtle Body, and my sense of me, the I Am, though it
existed here, this was not its home. But
the identification with the body thereafter began to break because the light
body was closer to me, my essence.
I know this is just my experience and most of you
do not have it, therefore feel free to doubt you have this Subtle or Energy
body within “you.”
You know I doubt all science. Science is just a matrix of concepts,
mathematics, experimentation, and imagination.
I have never seen an atom, an electron, curved space, a photon, or even
a virus. All this is second hand
knowledge to me, and mostly I accept it as truth for operational purposes, but
I really don’t believe in it.
But maybe you do believe. In that case, consider this. You know that you do not see the object
in-itself directly, but from light that originates in the object, such as from
the sun, or is reflected off the object, as a chair, tree, or the moon. This light enters the eye, hits the retinae,
which generates an every changing matrix of signals in the forms of electrical
potentials that flow along the optical nerves and are interpreted by the brain
which creates—somehow—an inner picture of the external world. The external world you experience is created
in your brain interpreting electrical signals from nerves in the eyes, ears,
skin, nose, and mouth, as well as from muscles.
Thus what you know is purely the result of inner electricity
which somehow creates our Consciousness, including of our bodies’ and the
world.
From this point of view, the body is really just a
host for the nervous system and brain, that somehow creates our subjective world
as Consciousness.
Since electricity is a form or energy, from this
viewpoint, we are electrical or energy beings according to science.
But many of us know of other inner energies and
have developed awareness of them through inner exploration and can more easily
identify with the energy aspect of our “isness,” as opposed to relying on this
scientific explanation.
Any and all of you who experience these energies
now should be able to experience yourselves more “deeply” than the body and
begin to experience a Self more near and dear to the essence or heart of your
being, than the body. With this comes a great freedom and increasing joy and
happiness that is just the beginning of an ever deepening awareness of all
levels of your Self.
For that inner body, I used the term "energy," but that is only one aspect. I also used the term "light," but by that I mean a concentrated form of the light of Consciousness that all meditators see after a while.
It is really impossible to convey the experience. It is just sentience. the ability to perceive, conceive, love and to know. It is not exactly the Life Force, but she is there within this Subtle Body. It is like a "subtle body" of sentience living within the non-sentient meat of our bodies, which supports the Subtle Body and provides the nervous system that converts the material world into Consciousness for the Subtle Body and deeper.
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