OSHO Bhagwan - 5 - This Life - 4 - The Causal Body

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◎The Vertical Path of Youth - 36

◎The Fifth Body and Androgyny

The fifth body, the causal body, is the last individuality. Since there is no distinction between male and female beyond this, the completely unconventional symbol of androgyny appears here.

Androgyny means the absence of distinction between male and female, transcending duality, that is, the difference between life and death or you and I. It would not be wrong to already call this a certain kind of enlightenment. It is a rather decisive scene.

It would be unfortunate if the state beyond the distinction of male and female reached by the swordsman Tesshu Yamaoka at the end of the Edo period is only considered an excuse for stopping his frequent visits to brothels.

According to OSHO Bhagwan, a person who has reached the fifth body remains awake even in sleep. Here lies the answer to the famous question in the Upanishads, "the state of dreamless deep sleep." All unconscious aspects disappear. One is constantly awake 24 hours a day.

OSHO Bhagwan says that there is bliss in this state.

Furthermore, according to him, since there is no thought in the causal body, the thoughtless existential vibration of a person who has reached the fifth body attracts animals such as cats, which also have no thought, to their vicinity. Perhaps upon seeing this, Zen practitioners posed the mischievous riddle of whether a dog has Buddha-nature or not. It may be that someone who understood that a dog is a symbol of the thoughtless causal body posed that koan.

(Reference: The Quest for the Miraculous, Vol. 2 / Osho, pp. 179-189)

 

OSHO Bhagwan - 5 - This Life - 3 - From the Physical Body to the Mental Body

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◎The Vertical Path of Youth - 35

◎The Seven Bodies Exist in Different Dimensions

The seven bodies exist in different worlds, different universes, and different dimensions.

Although we refer to them as seven bodies, from the physical body to the causal body, they are individual and personal. The sixth body, Atman, and the seventh body, Nirvana, are not individual. The sixth body, Atman, is like saying "the world is one," but the seventh body, Nirvana = God = Buddha = Tao, is something that cannot even be expressed in such terms, something beyond words and phenomena.

The first body, the physical body, exists in the material universe.

The second body, the etheric body, exists in the etheric universe. Ectoplasm, which appeared in 19th-century British spiritualism, corresponds to this. It is said that the etheric body usually disintegrates within a few hours after a person's death. The etheric body is semi-material and is "Ki" or "Prana."

OSHO Bhagwan considers the etheric body to be the dimension of emotions, but Dhyanatesh Daji views emotions as belonging to the astral and mental bodies.

The third body, the astral body, exists in the astral universe, which is no longer even semi-material but a non-material universe.

OSHO Bhagwan describes the functions of the astral body as doubt and thought, but doubting to judge what is right and moving towards it is self-expression. This explanation seems more like a description of the Manipura chakra rather than the astral body.

The fourth body, the mental body, exists in a more subtle spiritual universe than the astral body, the mental universe, which is also a non-material universe. It is considered the dimension of thought.

According to OSHO Bhagwan, the distinction between male and female exists up to this point (The Quest for the Miraculous, Vol. 2 / Shimin Shuppansha, p. 180).

A characteristic of this dimension is imagination and dreaming. That is, when the act of imagining reaches completion, things gain the impetus to manifest as reality, not just remaining as visions. When a third person witnesses this, it appears as decisiveness and willpower.

Also, psychic abilities such as remote viewing and visions occur in this body. It is likely that MacMonigle did various things with this ability.

It would certainly be interesting to acquire the ability to materialize imagination in this way, but Dhyanatesh Daji says something profound: "If you remain interested in such things, you will not have been born into this world."

Furthermore, when the mental body is described as dreaming, no one thinks it relates to their daily life. However, OSHO Bhagwan points out that most people's daily lives are in a state of dreaming and they are not awake. According to him, people are truly conscious and awake only when someone puts a knife to their throat and demands money. (In Zen, this practice of "wake up, become aware" is repeated...)

For this reason, OSHO Bhagwan says that this world is a world of completely sleeping people, a world of sleepwalkers. The dreaming of the mental body is our daily life. Dreaming is also frequently mentioned in the novels of Carlos Castaneda, who trained under a Yaqui Indian sorcerer, but it did not simply refer to the dreaming of those solely dedicated to visualization practices.

OSHO Bhagwan - 5 - This Life - 2 - Childhood

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◎The Vertical Path of Youth - 34

OSHO Bhagwan, of course, did not start out as an enlightened great religious figure. He went through a period of about two years resembling mental illness before his first encounter with light, and when another body separated from his physical body for the first time, he was utterly astonished.

His birth family were devout Jains, and his father was a considerably accomplished meditator who meditated for four to five hours daily, not an ordinary person.

In this life, due to circumstances, he was raised by his maternal grandparents until the age of seven. When he was seven, his grandfather became unable to speak. As they were in a rural village with no doctors or Ayurvedic practitioners, they transported him by bullock cart for 24 hours to a town 32 miles away.

OSHO, riding in the bullock cart, closely witnessed the slow progression of death as his grandfather lost his speech, then his hearing, and finally closed his eyes. He experienced the "process of death" described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead firsthand in his childhood.

When they arrived in the town, his grandfather was only breathing. He lived for three more days and then died.

After this, he lost all attachment to others, and OSHO recalled that being alone became his essence.

Being alone is also an important keyword.

OSHO Bhagwan - 5 - This Life - 1 - The Theory of Seven Bodies

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◎The Vertical Path of Youth - 33

Perhaps the most significant achievement of OSHO Bhagwan in this life lies in his numerous concrete explanations regarding the seven bodies. For practitioners of Kundalini Yoga, the explanations provided by Dhyanatesh Daji alone often leave many areas unclear. OSHO Bhagwan's sporadic yet logical explanations can serve as a beacon of light illuminating the seemingly endless path of meditation practice.

For instance, when studying Kundalini Yoga through Patanjali's Yoga Sutras or the Upanishads, one may encounter perplexing contradictions.

Alternatively, Dhyanatesh Daji recommended learning Kundalini Yoga from Hiroshi Motoyama. However, even after reading Motoyama's works, one finds the concept of six bodies, which differs from OSHO Bhagwan's seven bodies, leading to further bewilderment.

This is not limited to Kundalini Yoga; the same applies to Tibetan Tantra and Western Alchemy. It is common for a single technical term to be used with three different meanings within the same paragraph. While this is generally how esotericists and practitioners of the vertical path read scriptures, understanding remains elusive without grasping the true meaning.

And such true meaning is often imparted by a true master.

Furthermore, regarding the seven bodies on the vertical path, the progression is not necessarily linear from the first body to the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh.

In this regard, Dhyanatesh Daji states:

"Body, consciousness, phenomena, universe...

All these events...

They are all merely things belonging to the physical body.

No matter how lofty metaphysical worries may be,

they exist because of the physical body.

Generally,

Kundalini Yoga is based on the astral body.

Mantra Zen and Tanden Zen are based on the etheric body.

Koan Zen and Shikantaza are based on the mental body."

(Quoted from Amethyst Tablet Prologue / Dantes Daiji / Morikita Publishing, pp. 122-123)

Regarding an individual, it is likely that few people continue with a single meditation method throughout their entire life, or even across several past lives. Most people often follow multiple teachers and engage in various meditation practices within a single lifetime. However, the results that emerge during a certain stage of meditation may not necessarily be from the method currently being practiced but could be the result of a meditation practice from a past life. This is one of the double uncertainties of meditation.

Thus, in the path of meditation practice where definitive conclusions are difficult to reach, and given the extensive categories OSHO Bhagwan touched upon, summarizing his explanations of each of the seven bodies could serve as a clue to understanding his overall perspective.

OSHO Bhagwan - 4 - Previous Life as a High-Ranking Tibetan Monk

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◎The Vertical Path of Youth - 33

OSHO Bhagwan, in his immediate past life, was a high-ranking Tibetan monk who led a monastic community in the mountains. At the age of 106, he entered a 21-day fast with the intention of entering Parinirvana upon its completion. However, three days before the end of his fast, the high-ranking monk was assassinated, and the 21-day fast was not completed.

OSHO Bhagwan explains that for the first three days after his birth in this life, he did not drink milk, which was a continuation of his previous life's fast. Furthermore, his enlightenment at the age of 21 was the completion of the final three days of his practice in Tibet, with each day being accounted for by seven years in this life, totaling 21 years.

Furthermore, OSHO Bhagwan stated that the reason he shared this story was not because his own past life held any particular value, but so that his disciples, by knowing their own past lives, could confirm the level of their meditation practice in their previous lives and build upon it in this life. Without this understanding, he said, they would be lost in an infinite cycle of lives and would never reach anywhere.

(Reference: The Rebel Buddha by Vasant Joshi, Merukumaaru-sha, pp. 41-51)

Both the 16th Karmapa and the 14th Dalai Lama recognized OSHO Bhagwan's divinity, but this was not necessarily the case for the general public.

His discourse was so profound that perhaps only a handful of his close disciples truly understood it.

OSHO Bhagwan also mentioned the third eye, but this is a completely separate matter from the authenticity of Lobsang Rampa's story about surgical opening of the third eye.