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Picture: Lahiri Mahasaya drawing of chakras that represent the three bodies connecting to the Supreme Consciousness
There are advanced stages of meditation in which consciousness effortlessly synchronizes with any one of the three bodies or beyond. Self-mastery is the freedom to move between body awareness with ease. An intellectual may do this when he or she loses awareness of the physical body, or is only vaguely aware of it, and performs a thought experiment. A healer may be aware of life-energy as it moves through in waves or currents from the healer’s body to the healed. The spiritual man or woman phases from the physical, astral or causal bodies and enters a spiritual state of Being that is beyond all three lower bodies.
These bodies and the spiritual I speak of are not merely theoretical, but practical and very real experiences that are known to the advanced spiritual scientist. Master spoke of the ability to concentrate, and that concentration is required for success in any field of endeavor. One may learn to concentrate on any subject of study, and when concentration is used to focus on God, it is called meditation.
One does not usually need training to focus on the physical plane of consciousness, for this is the ordinary state of most people on the planet. When someone wishes to learn to meditate, he is challenged with memories and projections of the mind from this material plane as daydreams. Suddenly you are thinking of what happened before and what may happen in the future in this world. Imagination, or the ability to create mental images, may also become creative and generate imaginative daydreams.
By continued practice of meditation you may be aware of the life-energy in either a static form, as your astral body, or in kinetic motion. As an astral body, you are filled with a wonderful, vibrating hum of life-energy units, or life-trons, that make up you astral form. Consistent with life-energy creating a form or a body, it also flows directionally or multi-directionally. This life-tron, or prana, is responsive to your will, and also has an intelligence of its own that can dictate what it does and where it goes. Artists, healers and musicians are often aware to some degree of life-trons and are inspired by the astral body and the use of life-energy.
As concentration advances in meditation practice one becomes aware of the idea plane of consciousness. Here deep concentration takes the practitioner beyond the physical preoccupations of this world, and beyond the energy-astral body. There are many theoretical scientists that can perform thought experiments in which various scenarios are thought out. This theoretical thought experiment can then be tested in some form and the accuracy of the experiment can be verified. Builders, engineers, creative types of all walks can be proficient in shifting to the idea realm. Einstein was famous for stopping in the middle of doing something and phasing out of the material realm and into a thought-field wherein he performed a thought experiment—oftentimes to the bewilderment of those around him.
The spiritual scientist’s aim is to go beyond these three bodies or states of consciousness. The physical, astral-energetic and causal-idea bodies are seen as barriers to the entry into a supreme state of Being. The advanced practitioner may instantly phase out of the physical body and phase in to the spiritual. Here the limits of the three bodies no longer pertains, rather there is an expansive freedom in which even an idea is limiting. This freedom is pervaded by a feeling of purity, and while thought is transcended, awareness if very much intact. In this purity is a sublime exaltation—bliss is all-pervasive. So, expansiveness, purity, bliss, and pure awareness are the realities of this spiritual state of being, or God-consciousness.
In this state the constantly restless nature experienced in the lower three bodies finds rest, perfect equilibrium. After being in this high state for some time and enjoying this bliss, a thought may come from that highest consciousness. Only now the thought does not create restlessness, rather the thought is in perfect harmony with highest divinity. From this thought, life-energy may flow as creation, and thought and life-energy may move through the physical body. In all three bodies there is a knowing connection that comes from the highest state of consciousness—a phasing in of the spiritual still-state of the highest consciousness that expresses itself in one, two or three of the lower bodies. The eyes open and the same astral, causal and spiritual states are now all seen as manifesting in the world as all there is; God is known to be all-pervading.
This phasing out of the three bodies in meditation is necessary in order to rise above the three bodies and be established in the highest God-consciousness. Once that is attained, if Divine Will wishes it so, then that highest Source of all that is creates through you by actively manifesting in the three bodies. God creates through you, and as a result you maintain your connection with God even while living in a physical body. In this way the spiritual scientist proves through practical experience that one may be on intimate terms with the Creator and be one with God.