Breathing in Third Sheath and Beyond

 

We can know the third body if we become conscious of and a witness to the second body, which is breathing as the liking and disliking. The astral body is the third. The astral body has "magnetic forces”, just like the etheric body's "influences".  Its breath is its magnetism. We can be strong for a while and then helpless; optimistic for a while and then pessimistic; confident for a while and then completely lose confidence. It is a magnetism that is drawn to us and drawn away from us. In certain situations, we can overcome even the Supreme, while in other situations, we fear even a small shadow.

We are great when the magnetic force is within us or is entering us; when it leaves us, we are just insignificant. And like day and night, this is alternating back and forth; the wheel revolves, the circle revolves. Thus, even the most coward individual has moments of bravery and even the strongest warrior has his moments of impotence.

Following this phenomenon in our third body, there is a way in Judo to recognize when someone is helpless, that is the right time to hit him. When he is strong, one will inevitably lose, therefore one must sense when his magnetic energy is waning and strike him then. The opponent should also be provoked to attack when one’s own magnetic energy is rising. This can be easily understood by simply watching the movements of breath. The technique is not a magic but just a minute observation of one’s breath.

The third body resides in a magnetic sphere. We are breathing in and out of magnetic forces, which are present everywhere. However, we are neither strong nor weak if we realize this incoming and outgoing magnetic force. We go beyond them. Then there is the fourth body, the mental body, which consists of thought drawing in and thought pulling out. However, there are also similarities between "thought going out" and "thought coming in". Original thought can only arise when it occurs to us while we are inhaling. Exhaling is a sign of impotence because it prevents us from thinking of anything creative. Birth of an original thought can even cease breath for a while, it’s a natural consequence.

Nothing is born in the outgoing thought. It's just dead. However, we can recognize the fifth body if we learn to recognize the thoughts that enter and leave our mind. Things are not too difficult to understand up to the fourth body because we have some experience that can serve as a foundation for understanding them. After the fourth, things get weird, but even then, something makes sense. We will gain a deeper understanding of it once we transcend the fourth body.

Just as thought, breath, magnetic force, love, and hatred are the atmospheres for the lower bodies, life is the atmosphere for the fifth body.

The atmosphere is life itself for the fifth body. Thus, the fifth represents a moment of life entering and leaving, respectively. We can realize that life is something outside of ourselves with the fifth. It enters our body and exits it. Life itself enters and exits our body like breath; it is not in us always. Because of the fifth body, breath and prana have come to be synonymous. In the fifth body, prana has an important meaning. Here prana comes in and go out. Our fear of dying actually comes from our fifth layer. We know the event is waiting for us in some corner of life. But if we realize the fifth layer breathing, we understand that death is a process that happens every moment, it is not an event to happen in future. It is happening right now to us. Knowing this, the fear evaporates.

Life and death are only breaths to the fifth body, coming in and passing out, as we realize this when we reach the fifth body. And once we realize this, we realize that we cannot pass away because neither life nor death are natural occurrences. We experience both life and death as external realities. We are beyond both the living and the dead, yet we have never existed permanently either way.

In sixth body, realization of breathing becomes much more subtle. The very existence of our ego disappears after the fifth. Ego vanishes, and we unite with everything in this cosmos. Now, since the ego is not, it is not ours that enters and exits, the cosmic breathing is realized in this stage. Everything turns cosmic, and as a result, the polarity manifests as creation (Srishti) and destruction (Pralaya). The atmosphere is "the creative force and the destructive force" in the sixth layer.

Picture Courtesy: Photographs used in this blog are paintings by Rudradev Sen.